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Gigabyte ati radeon 9200 se drivers. Price. Owners opinion

The driver is essentially a link between the operating system, that is software and hardware, that is, physical devices such as video cards, printers, processors, etc. The operating system may contain basic drivers for the most necessary devices- mouse, keyboard, but everything else will require fresh drivers.

How to install the driver?

1. The easiest way, if there is an installation file, then you just need to run it and follow the instructions of the installer.
2.If there is no installer available, but only files with *.inf, *.dll, *.vxt, *.sys, *.drv. extensions are present, then the algorithm of actions should be something like this:

a) First you need to select the icon on the desktop ( My computer) and click on it with the right mouse button, in the drop-down menu select ( Properties).

b) Now go to the tab ( Equipment) and press the button ( device Manager).

c) Now you need to select the device for which the driver will be installed/updated. On the line with the device, right-click and select in the drop-down menu ( Properties), or you can simply double-click on it to go to the desired settings.


d) Go to the tab ( Driver), select the button ( Refresh).

e) In the dialog box that appears, select the item ( No not this time) and go ( Further).

f) There are two options at this stage. You can try to install the drivers in automatic mode, then the OS itself will try to find drivers suitable for the device and install them, for this we select ( Automatic installation(recommended)), if the attempt fails, then go to the second step ( Installation from a specified location) and choose ( Further).


g) This menu item implies a choice between searching for a driver on removable media and the option to specify the folder with the driver yourself. Therefore, if there is a disk with drivers available, then you need to insert the disk into the CD-rom and select the option ( Search on removable media (floppies, CDs..)) and go ( Further).

If the driver is found and downloaded on the Internet on your own, then you must manually specify the path to the folder in which the installation data for the driver is located as follows. Select item ( Include the following search location:) and go to ( Review), now select the folder with the driver from the list and click on the button ( OK). Now boldly move on Further), if everything is done correctly, the installation of the necessary driver will begin.

Connect3D RADEON 9800 PRO 256MB, Connect3D RADEON 9600 PRO 128MB, Connect3D RADEON 9600 128MB, Connect3D RADEON 9200 128MB

Summer is coming to an end, top 3D accelerators have reached the peak of their sales... But how do you like that already in September-October both ATI and NVIDIA are going to announce something new? One can only sympathize with the unfortunate video card manufacturers... However, users are also not in the best position, especially those who have just bought a super-expensive accelerator at a crazy price. And not only High-End, because new products from the Middle-End class will also be announced.

But this is all in the future, but for now we continue to consider the latest generation video cards. From the ATI sector, the most popular are RADEON 9500 (already a thing of the past), RADEON 9600 (new), RADEON 9800 (top product). And of course, the low-end RADEON 9200, although it doesn't support DirectX 9.0. All the details about what each of these products are like in our reviews:

Theoretical and analytical materials and reviews of video cards, which discuss the functional features of the GPU ATI RADEON 9500/9700/9800

Today we will continue reviewing products from Connect3D, a new company for the Russian market, and in particular, 4 video cards based on RADEON 9200/9600/9600 PRO/9800 PRO. We have already talked about this company before, I will repeat that this is a European company headquartered in the UK. But the production base is located in China (however, like 95% of firms associated with the IT business). However, Connect3D's production control is at the European level, so you can be sure of a decent quality of products.

Let's get back to the products.
Boards

Connect3D RADEON 9600 128MB
Connect3D RADEON 9200 128MB

All cards have an AGP x8/x4/x2 interface, 128 MB DDR SDRAM (except Connect3D RADEON 9800 PRO 256MB) located in 8 chips on the front and back sides of the PCB (Connect3D RADEON 9800 PRO 256MB has 16 chips).
Connect3D RADEON 9800 PRO 256MB
DDR-II memory chips manufactured by Samsung. The access time for memory chips is 2.2 ns, which corresponds to an operating frequency of approximately 454 (908) MHz, while the memory operates at a frequency of 350 (700) MHz. GPU operating frequency 380 MHz. Memory exchange interface 256 bit.
Connect3D RADEON 9600 PRO 128MB
Microcircuits samsung memory. The access time for memory chips is 3.3 ns, which corresponds to an operating frequency of 300 (600) MHz, the memory operates at this frequency. GPU operating frequency 400 MHz.
Connect3D RADEON 9600 128MB, Connect3D RADEON 9200 128MB
Samsung memory chips. The access time for memory chips is 4 ns, which corresponds to an operating frequency of 250 (500) MHz, while the memory operates at a frequency of 200 (400) MHz. The GPU operating frequency is 325 MHz for the RADEON 9600 and 250 MHz for the RADEON 9200.

Reference design comparison, front view
Connect3D RADEON 9800 PRO 256MB
Connect3D RADEON 9600 PRO 128MB
Connect3D RADEON 9600 128MB
Connect3D RADEON 9200 128MB

Reference design comparison, rear view
Connect3D RADEON 9800 PRO 256MBReference card ATI RADEON 9800 PRO
Connect3D RADEON 9600 PRO 128MBReference card ATI RADEON 9600 PRO
Connect3D RADEON 9600 128MBReference card ATI RADEON 9600
Connect3D RADEON 9200 128MBReference card ATI RADEON 9200

As for the RADEON 9800 PRO 256MB, it's not just a copy of the reference design, but a direct reference card, and, judging by the sticker, it's made for ATI itself. So far, all such cards are produced at the same factory, and therefore, when buying them from one or another ATI partner, be sure that these will be the same boards.

The RADEON 9600 PRO from Connect3D is also made according to the reference design. But RADEON 9600/9200 is of its own design by Connect3D.

I believe that it makes no sense to repeatedly consider coolers, which are the same for almost all video cards from ATI partners. Let me just note that the RADEON 9600/9200 uses a passive heatsink, while the RADEON 9800/9600 PRO has coolers with fans.

Let's take a look at the packages:


All video cards are supplied in conditional retail packages (I can't lift my pen to call THIS a normal package).


This concludes our consideration of the features of the cards.

Installation and drivers

Test stand configurations:

  • Computer based on Pentium 4 3200 MHz:
    • Intel processor Pentium 4 3200 MHz;
    • DFI LANParty Pro875 motherboard (i875P);
    • RAM 1024 MB DDR SDRAM;
    • hard drive Seagate Barracuda IV 40GB;
    • operating room Windows system XPSP1; DirectX 9.0a
    • monitors ViewSonic P810 (21") and ViewSonic P817 (21").
    • ATI drivers version 6.368.

vsync is disabled S3TC technology DISABLED in applications.

For comparative analysis the results of the video cards are given:

  • Leadtek WinFast A310 Ultra (GeForce FX 5600 Ultra, 350/350 (700) MHz, 128 MB, driver 45.20);
  • MSI FX5600-VTD128 (GeForce FX 5600, 325/275 (550) MHz, 128 MB, driver 45.20);
  • ASUS V9950 Ultra (GeForce FX 5900 Ultra, frequencies 450/425 (850) MHz, 256 MB, driver 45.20).

I'll explain why we took the FX 5600 Ultra at 350 and not 400 MHz for comparison. The fact is that there are almost no 400 MHz cards on sale, and where they are, their price is much higher than that of the RADEON 9600 PRO.

Test results

Before briefly assessing the quality in 2D, I will once again explain that at the moment there is NO complete methodology for objective assessment of this parameter the following reasons:

  1. For almost all modern 3D accelerators, the 2D quality can greatly depend on a particular instance, and it is physically impossible to track all the cards;
  2. 2D quality depends not only on the video card, but also on the monitor, connecting cable;
  3. Recently, bundles have begun to have a huge influence on this parameter: monitor-card, that is, there are monitors that are “not friendly” with certain video cards.

Concerning tested units, then together with ViewSonic P817 and BNC cable Bargo boards demonstrated excellent quality at the following resolutions and frequencies:


Test results: comparison of the performance of the studied cards

As a tool we used:

  • Return to Castle Wolfenstein (MultiPlayer) (id Software/Activision) OpenGL, multitexturing, ixbt0703-demo, testing settings all at the highest possible level, S3TC OFF, configurations can be
  • Serious Sam: The Second Encounter v.1.05 (Croteam/GodGames) OpenGL, multitexturing, ixbt0703-demo, testing settings: quality, S3TC OFF
  • Quake3 Arena v.1.17 (id Software/Activision) OpenGL, multitexturing, ixbt0703-demo, testing settings are all at the maximum level: LOD High, Texture LOD #4, S3TC OFF, the smoothness of curved surfaces is sharply increased by using variables r_subdivisions "1" and r_lodCurveError "30000" (I emphasize that the default r_lodCurveError "250"!), configurations can be
  • Unreal Tournament 2003 v.2225 (Digital Extreme/Epic Games) Direct3D, Vertex Shaders, Hardware T&L, Dot3, cube texturing, default quality
  • Code Creatures Benchmark Pro (CodeCult) game test, demonstrating board operation in DirectX 8.1, Shaders, HW T&L.
  • Unreal II: The Awakening (Legend Ent./Epic Games) Direct3D, Vertex Shaders, Hardware T&L, Dot3, cube texturing, default quality
  • RightMark 3D v.0.4 (one of the game scenes) DirectX 8.1, Dot3, cube texturing, shadow buffers, vertex and pixel shaders (1.1, 1.4).

If anyone wants to get demo-benchmarks that we use, then write to my e-mail.

Quake3 Arena

The RADEON 9800 PRO 256MB lost to the GeForce FX 5900 Ultra in almost all difficult tests, except for anisotropy comparisons in the Quality mode. Without AA and anisotropy, the maps are equal. Approximately the same picture on the ring RADEON 9600 PRO and GeForce FX 5600 Ultra.

As for the RADEON 9600/9200, we see a complete loss of these cards.

Serious Sam: The Second Encounter

And here the picture is a little different. In the High-End sector, the parity is approximate, with the RADEON 9800 PRO 256MB slightly behind in heavy modes. In the Midde-End sector, the RADEON 9600 PRO does better, although heavy modes make this card lose as well. The RADEON 9600 outperforms the opponent in heavy modes more strongly.

In the Low-End, RADEON 9200 wins!

Return to Castle Wolfenstein (Multiplayer)

In this test, we see the RADEON 9800 PRO almost win in the High-End sector (except for two modes), the RADEON 9600 PRO is the winner in its sector, as is the RADEON 9600 (except for one mode).

And again a big victory for the RADEON 9200 over the FX 5200.

Code Creatures

Don't forget that in this test NVIDIA drivers may have "sharpenings", so I won't comment. Look at the percentages for yourself and draw your own conclusions.

At the time of the sale in 2004, the Radeon 9200 graphics accelerators from a Canadian company at that timeATIbelonged to the entry-level development segment. Their performance was quite enough to solve the most common tasks at that time,and even most of the toys on this adapter were launched. Now this video card loses in performance to integrated graphics solutions. It is its characteristics and capabilities that will be discussed in this material.

What segment of the graphics market is the adapter aimed at?

In 2004, only two manufacturers dominated the graphics accelerator market: Nvidia and ATI. And if before the release of the products of the Radeon 9XXX series, the leading positions were occupied by solutions from the first manufacturer, then after that the situation changed dramatically, and adapters from the second developer came out on top in terms of performance and speed. The discrete graphics market itself was conditionally divided into 3 large segments:

    Video cards entry level. Minimum performance and very, very democratic cost. In most system units personal computers of that time, you can find just such adapters. NVidia positioned products of the GeForce 4 MX 4 XX and GeForce FX-5200 series for this part of the market. In turn, ATI opposed them with only one product - the Radeon 9200. If we compare these accelerators in terms of productivity, then the hero of this review was faster than MX 4XX, but worse than FX-5200. But there was no cardinal advantage in anyone's favor in terms of performance and speed in this part of the graphics solutions market. For the most part, the choice was formed based on the price of the accelerator and personal preferences.

    Mid-range graphics adapters in 2004 were from NVidia FX-5600 and FX-5700, and from ATI - Radeon 9500 and Radeon 9600. In this case, the total advantage was already entirely on the side of the Canadian manufacturer. The computing power of its 9600 adapter was selected almost close to the then flagship from NVidia - the GeForce FX-5900 video card.

    The niche of the most productive discrete graphics accelerators was occupied by the previously mentioned FX-5900 and Radeon 9800 from ATI. Moreover, the latter demonstrated outstanding performance at that time and allowed solving almost any tasks for quite a long time.

This is how the graphics card market was divided in 2004.

Technical specifications

The parameters of the video processor considered in this material were as follows:

    Code designation RV - 25.

    Semiconductor crystal production technology - 150 nm.

    The frequency of the video chip is 250 MHz.

    There were only 4 pixel pipelines, and each of them had 1 TMU.

    The slot type for installation is AGP version 8X.

There was also a more advanced modification of this graphics product - Radeon 9200 Pro. The difference between them was that in the second case, the frequencies of the graphics chip were increased to 275 MHz, and its RAM worked at 500 MHz versus 400 for a conventional accelerator.Also releasedand his characteristics were identical.

video memory

was equipped with a 128-bit RAM bus. The type of video buffer used in this case isDDRwith an operating frequency of 400 MHz.The amount of RAM in this accelerator could be 64, 128 or even 256 MB. In the latter case, the level of performance increased significantly, but the cost of such accelerators was much higher. As a result, they were not so often to be found.

Cooling system

This graphic solution, as noted earlier, is a budget-class product and certainly cannot boast of an impressive thermal package. As a result, often such accelerators were equipped with a passive cooling system from only one compact radiator. But active cooling systems with small-sized coolers were also often encountered. In the first case, the accelerator was recommended to be used only in the nominal mode, and in the second case, it was even possible to carry out a slight overclocking. There was also a similar video chip for a laptop, which was equipped only active system cooling.

Analogues at the time of release

Radeon 9200 graphics card, as noted earlier, competed immediately with two product families from NVidia - MX 4XX and GeForce FX-5200. The first of them was released much earlier than the hero of this article, and was significantly inferior in terms of speed to its direct competitor from the ATI camp. But in the case of using the GeForce FX-5200, you could get a slight increase in performance in some applications, while parity was observed in most software.

Features of driver settings for this video card

At the software level, this graphic solution complied with Direct specifications. X 8.1. But the later version 9.0 of this software package did not support Radeon 9200 Windows 7 can fully reveal its capabilities on the latest versiondirectX.And the 9200 did not have a full set of drivers for this operating system. But in practice, it was possible to install the latest drivers for XP and make this accelerator work with a newer operating system. The algorithm for installing them is as follows:

    Install drivers forWindows 7for XP under rights system administrator and in XP/2000 compatibility mode.

    We launch the drivers in the same mode and with the same rights.

    We do not allow the computer system to be rebooted.

    Moving from a directoryWindows\Systemati2dvag.dll file to any convenient place, for example, on the "Desktop".

    Log out and log in.

    We return the ati2dvag.dll file to its original location.

    We reboot the PC. After that, the driver should already function normally and fully.

Price. Owners opinion

Well, quite a lot of time has passed since the release of the video chip As a result, even its stock is sold out, and it is no longer possible to buy it in a new condition. But used ones can still be foundon various trading platforms on the global web. Their price is quite affordable and ranges from 240 to 500 rubles, depending on the condition of the adapter. Consider such an accelerator as the basis for assembling a new system block, even from obsolete components, is not worth it. In this regard, it is more correct to pay attention to the graphics adapters of the series, which are aimed at installing in a more recent slotPCI-Yes, this will allow in the future, if necessary, to upgrade such a system. The only case when buying a hero is really justified this review is the need to restore the performance of an old PC with minimal cost in the event of a video card failure. This is what the reviews on most sites on this subject indicate.

Results

From both a price and performance standpoint, the ideal entry-level graphics product in 2004 was the Radeon 9200. . And such video subsystems were relevant for a long time. It can also be noted that on the basis of video cards of the 9XXX series, later products were developed, which were called

Yeah... Where are those good old days when everything was simple and clear with respect to video cards: GeForce 3 was better than GeForce 2 - more number means more performance. Or, for example, 7000 and 8500. Today, due to marketing ploys, it is very difficult for a less informed consumer to find the right video card. Perhaps the most famous video card naming fiasco was the GeForce4 MX variant. This product, despite the number 4, was at the level of the High-End variant of GeForce 2 in terms of performance, perhaps. However, the name "GeForce4" sounded much more promising, even despite the letters MX (budget series). Naturally, this had a negative impact both on sales of more powerful and expensive GeForce4 Ti (when people did not understand why they should pay twice as much), and on consumer opinion about the brand in general.

Actually, what am I for. And besides, since the appearance of the RADEON 9000, ATI has behaved no better. Suffice it to recall the biggest blunder we described in our RADEON 8500 vs. RADEON 9100, where it was said that ATI urgently had to rename the 8500 to 9100 because the new RADEON 9000 was inferior in performance to its predecessor RADEON 8500. NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200, 5600 and 5800 respectively. These new RADEON cards should replace the existing RADEON 9000, 9500 and 9700.

In this review, we examine the new RADEON 9200 for changes compared to previous models and test the performance. The test subject will be: Gigabyte MAYA II RADEON 9200 VIVO 128MB.

Comparative parameters of video cards

GPU RADEON 9200 PRO RADEON 9200 RADEON 9000 PRO RADEON 9000 RADEON 9100 RADEON 8500
Core RV280 RV250 R200
Those. process 0.15 micron 0.15 micron 0.15 micron
Core frequency 275MHz 250MHz 275MHz 250MHz 250MHz 275MHz
Render pipelines 4 4 4 4 4 4
1,100 1,000 1,100 1,000 1,000 1,100
Texturing blocks 1 1 1 1 2 2
Max Fill Rate (MTexels/sec) 1,100 1,000 1,100 1,000 2,000 2,200
Memory frequency 275MHz (550MHz DDR) 200MHz (400MHz DDR) 275MHz (550MHz DDR) 200MHz (400MHz DDR) 200MHz (400MHz DDR) 275MHz (550MHz DDR)
DDR memory bus 128-bit 128-bit 128-bit 128-bit 128-bit 128-bit
Memory Bandwidth 8.8GB/s 6.4GB/s 8.8GB/s 6.4GB/s 6.4GB/s 8.8GB/s
Possibilities
  • SMARTSHADER 1.0
  • SMOOTHVISION 1.0
  • HYPER Z II
  • TRUFORM 1.0
  • FULLSTREAM
  • VIDEO IMMERSION II
  • HYDRAVISION
  • SMARTSHADER 1.0
  • SMOOTHVISION 1.0
  • HYPER Z II
  • TRUFORM 1.0
  • FULLSTREAM
  • VIDEO IMMERSION II
  • HYDRAVISION
  • SMARTSHADER 1.0
  • SMOOTHVISION 1.0
  • HYPER Z II
  • TRUFORM 1.0
  • VIDEO IMMERSION II
  • HYDRAVISION
  • FULLSTREAM (R9100 only)
Pixel shaders 1.4 1.4 1.4
Vertex shaders 1.1 1.1 1.1
DirectX support DirectX 8.1 DirectX 8.1 DirectX 8.1
FSAA mode Super Sampling Super Sampling Super Sampling
Other features
  • Dual integrated 400 MHz DAC at 10-bit per channel
  • Integrated 165MHz TMDS (DVI 1.0 compliant)
  • Integrated TV output supporting resolutions up to 1024x768
  • Integrated 400 MHz DAC (possibility to use external RAMDAC)
  • DVI optional (via ATI Rage Theater)
  • TV-out optional (via ATI Rage Theater)
AGP 8x 4x 4x
AGP bus version AGP 3.0, 2.0 and 1.0 AGP 2.0 and 1.0 AGP 2.0 and 1.0

And this is what we have: RADEON 9200 is nothing but RADEON 9000 with AGP 8x support. The 9200 PRO is also equivalent to the RADEON 9000 PRO, but it also has AGP 8x support. Operating frequencies, capabilities, etc. identical to the parameters of the RADEON 9000 series cards. However, the increased bandwidth of the AGP bus may be needed only in those moments when you need to transfer a huge amount of data. Therefore, the performance in currently existing applications depends more on the capabilities of the graphics core, and not on the bandwidth of the AGP bus.

If you think about how the RADEON 9000 was born, it's easy to understand that the essence of the RADEON 9000 and 9200 is mostly borrowed from the classic RADEON 8500. The above table proves their close relationship. In fact, the RADEON 9000 PRO was supposed to be a cheap replacement for the RADEON 8500.

To make the RADEON 9000 a bargain, we had to use the 4x1 variant (one texturing unit per four pipelines) instead of the 4x2 architecture used in the RADEON 8500. The geometry engine for the 9000 series was taken from the RADEON 9700 (R300), which the aforementioned architecture. Not all games require a second block of texturing in each of the 4 pipelines, thus making them a negligible performance impact in most cases. In general, it seems that this is a well-thought-out and correct step on the part of ATI.

As for the R200, this core is returning to us in the form of the RADEON 9100. ATI decided to bring it back for a number of reasons. If we consider, for example, the Sapphire RADEON 9100, we can see that its clock frequencies are lower than those of the full-fledged RADEON 8500 and amount to 250 MHz, like the RADEON 8500LE, but the memory bandwidth has been cut down to 400 MHz. The core and memory frequencies correspond to those of the RADEON 9000 and RADEON 9200, so it was also included in the review, presumably as a video card of an even higher class than the 9200.

Now we can compare the RADEON 9200 with other GPUs of the same class:

GPU/VPU RADEON 9200 SiS Xabre 400 GeForceFX 5200 GeForce4 MX440-8x
Core RV280 Xabre 400 NV34 NV18
Those. process 0.15 0.15 0.15 0.15
Core frequency 250MHz 250MHz 250MHz 275MHz
Conveyors
rendering 		4 4 4 or (2) 2
Pixel Fill Rate (MPix/sec) 1,000 1,000 1,000
(500) 		550
Blocks
texturing 		1 2 1 or 2) 2
MAX fill rate (MTex./sec.) 1,000 2,000 1,000 1,100
Vertex
shaders 		2 emul. drive. 2 N.A.
Frequency
memory 		200MHz
(400MHz DDR)		 250MHz
(500MHz DDR)		 200MHz
(400MHz DDR)		 260MHz
(520MHz DDR)
DDR memory bus 128-bit 128-bit 128-bit 128-bit
Checkpoint
ability 		6.4GB/s 8.0GB/s 6.4GB/s 8.32GB/s
Possibilities
  • SMARTSHADER 1.0
  • SMOOTHVISION 1.0
  • HYPER Z II
  • TRUFORM 1.0
  • FULLSTREAM
  • VIDEO IMMERSION II
  • HYDRAVISION
  • MotionFixing™ VPU
  • Double Scene Technology
  • MPEG 2/1 video decoder
  • Memory error control
  • LMA II
  • CineFX Engine
  • nView
  • DVC3.0
  • LMA II
  • Accuview AA
  • nView
Pixelated
shaders 		1.4 1.3 2.0+ None
Vertex
shaders 		1.1 1.1 (emulated drive) 2.0+ None
Support
DirectX 		DirectX 8.1 DirectX 8.1 DirectX 9.0 DirectX 7.1
FSAA mode Super Sampling Super Sampling Multi Sampling Multi Sampling
Other
possibilities
  • Double integr. 400 MHz DAC at 10-bit per channel
  • Integr. 165 MHz TMDS (DVI 1.0 compatible)
  • Integr. TV output supporting resolutions up to 1024x768
  • Integr. 375 MHz DAC
  • TV-out and DVI connector require SIS301 chip.
  • Double integr. 350MHz DAC
  • Integr. TV output supports resolution up to 1024x768 & TMDS signal source
  • Improved programmable. cg
  • Double integr. 350 MHz DAC 8 bits per channel
  • Double integr. TMDS
  • Integr. TV out.
AGP 8x 8x 8x 8x
AGP bus AGP 3.0, 2.0 and 1.0 AGP 3.0, 2.0 and 1.0 AGP 3.0, 2.0 and 1.0 AGP 3.0, 2.0 and 1.0

Design and specifications


Specifications Gigabyte MAYA II RADEON 9200 VIVO

Graphics engine
  • ATI RADEON 9200 GPU
  • 128-bit DDR memory
  • AGP 2x / 4x / 8x
  • CHARISMA ENGINE II
    • 4 parallel rendering pipelines processing up to 1.1 billion pixels per second
    • Transform, Clip and Light
  • SMARTSHADER™
    • Programmable pixel and vertex shaders
    • Pixel shaders version 1.4 provides support for up to 6 textures in a single pass
    • Vertex shaders version 1.1 support up to 128 instructions
    • DirectX 8.1 support and a full set of OpenGL features
  • SMOOTHVISION™
  • HYPER Z II
    • Lossless Z-compression
    • Fast clearing of the Z-buffer reduces the load on throughput memory value up to 25%
  • TRUFORM™
  • VIDEO IMMERSION™ II
  • Dual monitor support
  • Dual Cache Architecture
  • Superscalar rendering
  • Single pass multitexturing
  • full color rendering
  • Advanced geometry engine
  • Texture cache
  • Bilinear/Trilinear Filtering
  • Smooth lines and corners
  • Full Screen Anti-Aliasing (FSAA)
  • Texture compositing
  • Texture decompression
  • Reflected light display support
  • Axonometric texture mapping correction
  • mip-mapping
  • Z-buffering and double buffering
  • Bump display systems, Dot Product 3 and environment changes
  • Display of spherical, double parabolic and cubic environments
  • Fog effect, texture lighting, video textures, reflections, shadows, lights, motion and texture morphing
video memory
  • 128MB DDR SDRAM (Hynix 4.0ns)
RAMDAC
  • Dual integrated 400 MHz DAC 10 bits per channel
  • Integrated 165MHz TMDS signal source (DVI 1.0 compliant)
  • Integrated TV output supporting resolutions up to 1024x768
Connectors
  • 15-pin D-sub VGA(supports up to 2048x1536 @ 85Hz)
  • 1x DVI-I
  • 1x S-Video for TV out / Video in
Drivers & Software
  • Drivers for Windows 98SE / Me / 2000 / XP
  • CyberLink PowerDVD XP 4.0
  • CyberLink PowerDirector 2.5ME
  • Cyber ​​Link [email protected] SE
  • Serious Sam: The First Encounter
  • Need for Speed: High Stakes
Other information
  • AGP 2.0/3.0 slot required
  • need 1 IRQ for PCI

The GV-R9200VIVO card is equipped with a large memory capacity of 128 MB, despite the fact that the RADEON 9200 belongs to the category of entry-level video cards. And rightly so, because some latest games, for example, C&C: Generals is very demanding on memory and a large amount allows you to avoid problems with texturing, since the AGP bus and video memory will be used directly, and not system memory.

Another interesting fact is that the entry-level video card provides the possibility of video capture. Be that as it may, but this possibility increased the price of the product, since it was necessary to add an ATI Rage Theater chip. This chip provides the ability to use a TV-out, play MPEG-2 using a video card, and has a DVI signal source. However, all these features remain unclaimed, since the GPU already provides these capabilities.

It's time to move on to the tests...

Performance Testing

A little about test configuration and testing process: to test the Gigabyte MAYA II RADEON 9200 VIVO 128MB, we collected other similar video cards such as RADEON 9100 128MB, RADEON 9000 Pro 64MB, NVIDIA GeForce4 MX 440-8x 64MB and SiS Xabre 400 64MB.

IN test system entered: Pentium 4 2.53 GHz on motherboard with SiS 648 chipset with 512 MB Kingston DDR400 memory. Operating system was Windows XP Professional.

3DMark 2001SE

Note that the RADEON 9100 uses the R200 core, which has a more advanced 4x2 architecture, while the RADEON 9200 and 9000 use 4x1. That's why the RADEON 9100 outperforms the RADEON 9200 by 10% on average. But there are cases when the RADEON 9200 (and 9100), thanks to its advanced geometry engine, overtakes the RADEON 9100. In general, the leadership in this competition depends very much on the specific situation, which you will see further on.

SiS Xabre 400 has different performance values ​​depending on whether Full Screen Anti-Aliasing (FSAA) is enabled and running in 2x or 4x mode. The slightly outdated architecture of the GeForce 4 MX440 caused a loss in the mode with FSAA disabled, but it moved as far as the RADEON 9200 (if not further) in the test with FSAA, since its Multi-Sampling FSAA algorithm is more efficient than Super Sampling , used in RADEON's.

OpenGL game benchmarks

RADEON graphics cards have similar results in all tests, except, perhaps, Serious Sam at 1600x1200 - here the GV-R9200VIVO outperforms the RADEON 9100.

The Codecreatures test shows that the tested video cards not capable cope with several dozen frames when using advanced pixel and vertex shaders. This is especially true, given that new games will actively use such technologies.

Overclocking

Gigabyte's V-Tuner utility has not been updated for these video cards and the old version was included, so it was not possible to adjust the operating frequencies using it. With the use of Powerstrip, more than 260 MHz and 420 MHz could not be obtained. If you increase the frequency just a little more, the system immediately reboots at the moment of switching to 3D mode. Of course, I would like more: that V-Tuner would allow overclocking the video card, and the card would "chase" faster. Wait and see...

Outcome

RADEON 9200 is a replacement for the existing RADEON 9000, the only difference of which is AGP 8x support. As a result, there was no significant performance gain during testing. Perhaps some new applications will work a little more efficiently with AGP 8x, but that's in the future. 128 MB of memory allow any complex game to safely load all the textures into the video card's memory, avoiding problems that may appear when accessing system memory ("brakes", if you ask) :).

I would also like to note that the RADEON 9200 fully supports DirectX 8.1, while the GeForce FX 5200 is already compatible with DirectX 9. But there is no need to worry about this, because due to its "budget" nature, the FX 5200 will not have enough power to run DirectX 9 what is called, "to the fullest".

Don't forget that when you buy a VIVO card, you pay more just for the possibility of video digitization. So, if you do not need such a function, then look for the usual option. Since the card is already starting to go beyond the budget sector of the market. The performance of this video card is sufficient for old / current games and is still acceptable for new ones, though at initial resolutions, i.e. no higher than 1024x768. Full-screen anti-aliasing is a big NO, although modern games look decent enough anyway.



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