Stealth 9550 - Any good vs the Radeon 9200SE?

[Leythos]

I see that MicroCenter has a sale on the 256MB Stealth 9550 AGP card and
I would like to get better game play for FarCry, Counter-Strike, and
Doom3. My current P4/1.8 is running a retail Radeon 9200SE VIVO.

While I would love to have the VIVO, if the card performs significantly
better I might buy it - they want $99 for it.

Anyone know the performance differences between the 9200SE VIVO and the
Stealth 9550?

 

[Guest]

I see that MicroCenter has a sale on the 256MB Stealth 9550 AGP card and
I would like to get better game play for FarCry, Counter-Strike, and
Doom3. My current P4/1.8 is running a retail Radeon 9200SE VIVO.

While I would love to have the VIVO, if the card performs significantly
better I might buy it - they want $99 for it.

Anyone know the performance differences between the 9200SE VIVO and the
Stealth 9550?

Dunno about the stealth but the 9200 series were crap. Clock locked to
underperform.

I had a 256Mb 9200 and I "upgraded' to a 128Mb 8500Pro. Performance was
noticeaby better.
The 9500 has 4 pipelines, 275Mhz Clock, and 540Mhz Memory speed. Very
similar to my 8500 in fact, and that played Far Cry quite well in low res.
It struggles a bit on Medium, and won't do High.

Maybe save and get a 9600 instead. I would if I were you.

 

[ofn01]

I see that MicroCenter has a sale on the 256MB Stealth 9550 AGP card and
I would like to get better game play for FarCry, Counter-Strike, and
Doom3. My current P4/1.8 is running a retail Radeon 9200SE VIVO.

While I would love to have the VIVO, if the card performs significantly
better I might buy it - they want $99 for it.

Anyone know the performance differences between the 9200SE VIVO and the
Stealth 9550?

On my old 9600XT I was able to play Doom 3 at 800x600 on high, Far cry
at 1024x768 on medium and HL2 at 1024x768 on high. The 9550 has half the
core clock speed and 1/3 less memory speed so you would be taking a bit
of a hit. Personally I suggest saving up for a 9600 Pro unless the 9550
stealth card is a potentially good overclocker and you're willing to
gamble on this.

Having said that, prior to the 9600XT I had a 9550SE (SE being about 60%
slower than a standard 9550 due to a 64bit vs 128bit memory bus), and I
was able to play Call of Duty at 1024x768 on medium fine. I tried the
doom demo, but I was trying it at 1024x768 on medium and it was no good.

One other thing, I found that upgrading from 512mb of ram to 1gb of RAM
gave Far Cry and Doom 3 a major boost, smoothing everything out...

 

[D-Lito]

Hi

I bought a Sapphire 9550 128 Mb for the AGP and later I
flashed the bios of it to turn it into a 9600 Pro.
That is RV350 to RV360, w/ 128-bit mem bus.

I´ve got it running 400MHz Gpu & 230MHz Mem. The 9600 has a
wide range of performance values, but you have to probe your
card with ATITool and later flash it with a suitable bios from
the 9600 series.


D-Lito

 

[ofn01]

On my old 9600XT I was able to play Doom 3 at 800x600 on high, Far cry
at 1024x768 on medium and HL2 at 1024x768 on high. The 9550 has half the
core clock speed and 1/3 less memory speed so you would be taking a bit
of a hit. Personally I suggest saving up for a 9600 Pro unless the 9550
stealth card is a potentially good overclocker and you're willing to
gamble on this.

Having said that, prior to the 9600XT I had a 9550SE (SE being about 60%
slower than a standard 9550 due to a 64bit vs 128bit memory bus), and I
was able to play Call of Duty at 1024x768 on medium fine. I tried the
doom demo, but I was trying it at 1024x768 on medium and it was no good.

One other thing, I found that upgrading from 512mb of ram to 1gb of RAM
gave Far Cry and Doom 3 a major boost, smoothing everything out...

Sorry above I meant to say that a 9550SE is about 30% slower than a
standard 9550.

 

[Sleepy]

I see that MicroCenter has a sale on the 256MB Stealth 9550 AGP card and
I would like to get better game play for FarCry, Counter-Strike, and
Doom3. My current P4/1.8 is running a retail Radeon 9200SE VIVO.

While I would love to have the VIVO, if the card performs significantly
better I might buy it - they want $99 for it.

Anyone know the performance differences between the 9200SE VIVO and the
Stealth 9550?

If this is the card you're looking at
http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0181725
it has 2 programmable vertex shader pipelines whereas your 9200 has 1 I
think
it has 400mhz DDR memory whereas a 9200 will be 200-250mhz DDR
and its 128-bit whereas a SE will be 64-bit.
it also does directx 9 shaders whereas a 9200 is directx8 only.
its a much better card than a 9200SE

 

[Leythos]

If this is the card you're looking at
http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0181725
it has 2 programmable vertex shader pipelines whereas your 9200 has 1 I
think
it has 400mhz DDR memory whereas a 9200 will be 200-250mhz DDR and its
128-bit whereas a SE will be 64-bit. it also does directx 9 shaders
whereas a 9200 is directx8 only. its a much better card than a 9200SE

That's the one, thanks for the direct review. I was thinking it would be
better than the 9200SE VIVO.