GeForce FX5200 Go - Any good?

Re: GeForce FX5200 Go - Any good?

Originally posted by LoveliestofMen
Am I going to be obsolete in 2 years?

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yes.

no matter what, you will be obsolete in 2 yrs. don't expect not to be.

I was actually debating the same thing myself(I'm buying a 12"er this week). And basically, the ATi is obviously the better card, but the fx5200 isn't bad either. So you'll have to turn the detail down a bit for certain games.. I find I really dont notice such things while I'm playing. For me, the difference between teh two isn't enough for me to spend the extra money and deal with the extra size/weight.

Actually.. I just found this:
http://www.anandtech.com/mobile/showdoc.html?i=1866

I'm not sure how much that differs from teh one in the 12" pb.. but it definately doesn't bode well...

wow, that's quite the victory for the 9600. Can anyone compare the 5200 to the 5650 used in those tests?

The new GF in the 12" is better than the old GF 4MX in the old 12", but it isn't better than the Radeon 9600. The 9000 might even be better. But that depends on what you do. If you don't do any "hardcore gaming" as you said, you'll be fine with either (just load it full of RAM). But if speed is an issue, the 15" would be better. Panther's supposed to be faster either way.

You should go test them out in person. Go to an Apple Store, or CompUSA, or Best Buy, and try them yourself. See what you think. I think you'll be happy with either one.

Re: AnandTech Article

Originally posted by LoveliestofMen


Does this imply the Go 5200 is better or worse than the Go 5650? It seems to read that it would be better, but then the number is lower. Perhaps the number means nothing...?

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Trust me its worse, a lot worse. The 5600 was supposed to be the replacment for the ti4200 on the desktop and the 5200 a replacement for the geforce4mx. Well niether has faired well against ATI and the 5200 is a very low performance card. Its good for a non gamer, and better than the old 12" has, but still nothing great.

the 5200 is a very low performance card. Its good for a non gamer, and better than the old 12" has, but still nothing great

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I beg to differ. While the 5200 isn't a top-o'-the-line GPU it is leaps and bound higher than both the previous 12" and the previous 15" Ti's 8500. And it is most certianly great for a on-the-go gamer. Look at it this way, the previous 520 MX w/ 32MB of VRAM would run Quake III (a basic testing game everyone uses as you know) at around 75FPS, that pretty good seeing the 520 MX was the equivilant of a GeForce III. With the 5200 we have past the GeForce4 and went directly to the FX series with Hardware T&L and fully DX9 compatible (which isnt "really" important for a Mac User (the DX9 thing not the T&L I mean)) Overall the new 5200 Go should be able to run any game produced previous to say NOW at full graphic settings, as long as the overall machine has enough ram. And I would imagine that the 5200 Go should remain effective, even though at slightly reduced graphics, for at least 2 years. Unless of course some game is released that needs an ungodly vid card. Heck, I had no problems running Alien vs. Predator 2 on my old GeForce2 MX without a problem and its over two years old.

I just got a pb 12" tonight. I loaded up warcraft 3 and played a game of Tides of Blood. Overall the graphics were good, but i lagged a good bit and the map took a while to load.. I only have 256mb of ram from the factory.. Is it reasonable to think that the reason performance was so choppy at 1024 is because I need more ram? This is my first mac and tho I don't want to game on it hardcore, I would like to be able to play the occasional game or WC3 and maybe some WoW when it comes out.. If they are both gonna be this choppy I don't know that I want to keep this machine.

put it this way:

i have benchmarked a lot of video cards on my pc, here are some 3D mark scores for you:

GeForce FX5200: 3843
GeForce 4 MX 420: 4075 (6% greater than the much newer FX!)
GeForce2 Ultra: 5457 (42% greater than the FX, and came out in 1999/2000)
ATI Radeon 7500: 5472 (42% faster)
GeForce4 MX 440: 5633 (47% faster)
ATI Radeon 9000: 7312 (90% faster)
GeForce3 Ti 200: 7516 (96% faster than the new FX!)
Ati Radeon 9500/9700: 12703 (231% faster than the FX, and i got it over a year ago for $150 in a retail store)

imagine what a 9800 pro could do in a G5...

As you can see, the new FX cards are dissappointing, considering that nvidias much older stuff can whip its tail.

I dont know why apple cant just put the ati cards in all the PBs, i mean theyre charging enough already, and the radeons they put in the higher ones arent any kind of powerhouse. Why do they insist on putting 3+ year old technology in a $2000 laptop?

granted this is PC stuff, but you get my drift. nvidia has actually caught a lot of crap about the FX cards because they "optimized" their driver set to benchmark higher on certain tests than they would ever get in real life.

These scores were all benchmarked on my Athlon XP 2400 machine with a Soyo Dragon Kt400 ultra motherboard and 1GB DDR400 memory. I borrowed these cards for a benchmark for one of my computer architecture classes.

i'm in my 4th year of computer science in college. Yes this is a simple comparison, and believe me, i can get as technical as you want.