Rating: Summary: Found better for the $ Review: My Sys Specs: P4-2.6mhz / 1gig RAM / PNY GeForce 5200 FX 128MB.
Video Games of choice: FPS war games in single-player.
I've played all the better ones since Ghost Recon.
I noticed my computer/game setting the "video" defaults down. I was able to play on full resolution(1024 x 768)and high settings only a few times ? Yet, my Sys Specs were 2x-4x the Rec Specs the games called for. So I did some reaerch and asked around. It appears it was/is my video card.
Several manufacturers made the 5200 FX card - more about that later. First off, I went looking for the best PCI card I could find. Review rated cards according to chipset(... test done on Unreal tournament 2003 / P4-3.2 1024x768 / 32 bit / 60 hz). I looked for those offered in PCI. Cards that interested me and their scores: GeForce 5600 FX - 46.5 ... Radeoon 9100(was 8500) - 40.0 ... Geforce 5200 FX - 33.0(? - will explain a bit later) ... Radeon 9200 - 30.0 ... I found another review of PCI cards and their Memory Clock Speed; along with a brief review ... 3 manufacturerd(PNY , Inno 3D, Mad Dog Multimedia) made the 5200 FX. The PNY card was the worst performer 150-300mhz; Inno 3D at 200-400mhz; Mad Dog at 250-500mhz. So, I'm chucking the PNY 5200FX card. I chose the GeForce 5600 FX. This review is for those interested in "gameplay".
Rating: Summary: Excellent if you are lacking an AGP Review: No AGP? No problem. This card delivers excellent performance and is probably the best PCI Card yet. Playing Unreal Tournament 2003 with this card brings out it's quality visual effects and smooth animation.
Rating: Summary: Lifetime Warranty, Not! Review: The outside of the box on PNY products says "PNY Tachnologies offers a lifetime warranty." Based on past experience, that means to me, my lifetime. Like Sears Craftsman tools. They offer a REAL lifetime warranty on their good tools. But that's not what PNY means. Once PNY has your money and you open the box, the first thing you get is a bright orange "STOP READ THIS..." note saying: "...Lifetime is defined as the lifetime of the product on the market." Meaning once the product is no longer manufactured, you're out of luck. And we all know how short the lifetime of computer products is.Why don't they just print the truth on the box. I would know up front that the warranty is limited to the self life of the product. I wouldn't have any problem with that. It's the fact that they are blatently misleading about it. Maybe it's just me, but I'm sick and tired of all the rip offs, half truths, and dishonesty hurled at consumers. Now even supposedly reputable companies like PNY are lying too.
Rating: Summary: Lifetime Warranty, Not! Review: The outside of the box on PNY products says "PNY Tachnologies offers a lifetime warranty." Based on past experience, that means to me, my lifetime. Like Sears Craftsman tools. They offer a REAL lifetime warranty on their good tools. But that's not what PNY means. Once PNY has your money and you open the box, the first thing you get is a bright orange "STOP READ THIS..." note saying: "...Lifetime is defined as the lifetime of the product on the market." Meaning once the product is no longer manufactured, you're out of luck. And we all know how short the lifetime of computer products is. Why don't they just print the truth on the box. I would know up front that the warranty is limited to the self life of the product. I wouldn't have any problem with that. It's the fact that they are blatently misleading about it. Maybe it's just me, but I'm sick and tired of all the rip offs, half truths, and dishonesty hurled at consumers. Now even supposedly reputable companies like PNY are lying too.
Rating: Summary: Great card once you get it installed Review: The worst part of this card is the installation process. The documentation isn't the best and doesn't really properly explain that you have to go turn off or uninstall your old graphics drivers before installing this card otherwise you get a blank screen. However, once you get the card installed and working properly, this card is awesome for anybody who's got PCI ports on their machine and not AGP. It runs all of my favorite games like Call of Duty great on the highest graphics settings and with usually very little graphic slowdown. I just ran the demo version of Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow and the graphics for moonlight coming through windows was incredible. I never thought I'd get graphics that look this great with a card that didn't cost several hundred dollars. For anybody on a budget that likes to play games but doesn't have AGP ports on their machine, this card is definitely the one to get. You'll be amazed at how well your games run and how great the graphics are.
Rating: Summary: amazing Review: This card is amazing. I think its the best thing on the market for a pci. Installing was kind of tricky but the look of it makes up for it. First make sure you have your integrated graphics disabled. Otherwise a black screen comes up. I went to add/remove programs to disable mine. The drivers were easy to install. My games move much faster now. All in all its great.
Rating: Summary: it's ok Review: This card is ok, nothing special if u play old games from 2000 to 2002 you be ok with this card, if u want faster and better look for ATI PCI Radeon 9200 or Visiontek PCI Radeon 9200 256Mb for same price. ATI makes better graffic cards period!
Rating: Summary: Not suitable for TV Review: This card was factory installed on my HP media center m370n. The purpose of a media center PC is to provide the functionality of a TiVO combined with a high end graphics PC. This card is quite unsuited in accomplishing that functionality for the following reasons: 1. It does not have an RCA video output. It has an S-Video output besides the regular monitor output. So you would need an S-Video to RCA converter for viewing the video output on your TV. 2. There seems to be a bug in its driver that seems to reset its mode to "monitor-only" every few days (which is its default mode). The implication of this is that you cannot watch the output on TV. To be able to do so, you have to reconfigure its mode to "clone". Essentially, you are forced to buy a monitor although you may be planning to use your computer directly only with a TV. It just defies logic and common sense how the designers of this card could have overlooked the bare essentials of a card that would be used to hook up to TVs.
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