Which is better? Ti4600 or FX5200?

[Deptmaster]

My room mate recently upgraded his video card to a 6600GT. He asked me if I wanted to buy his Ti4600 to use for my media center pc. I talked him down to $50 but I'm not sure if I'm better off with a FX5200 that I can get new for the same price. Which has better 3D performance?

I'm going to use it with my 2400+ mobile athlon XP, m-atx Nforce2 Ultra 400 motherboard, and 512MB Ram. Not the greatest gaming pc but it's enough for what I use it for.

Thanks for any help?

[Quailane]

This is easy, ti4600. If people start talking about certain situations where one might be better over the other, don't listen to them, the ti4600 is far superior. It was a top of the line card just before the bottom feeder fx5200 came out.

[blurry]

That would be comparing a performance card to an entry-level card. A quick search would reveal tons of these kinds of threads.

[Deptmaster]

I had an idea that was the case. I'm going to get the 4600.

[Overclocker550]

LOL comparing a fx5200 vs. ti4600 would be like trying to decide ti4600 vs. 6800gt or something. ti4600 is like 3 times faster vs. fx5200

[stuperhero]

i have both cards and the ti4600 is a beast the 5200 is a piece of crap.

[redface]

5200 supports Directx9 features. 4600 supports up to Directx8.1
But 5200 performance is turtle-ish.

[Droban]

Ti4600...what a great card. Just outstanding. the 5200 was equally as amazing, but in terms of horribleness and utter disgust.

[Buhammot]

Nice droban! Quite a dissappointment when I was goin from my GF3 ti200 to the 5200. Scary stuff! The part I liked best when it was on par with a gf4 mx card, which was still slower than my ti200 at the time...

[sevendevilhell]

yeah. the Ti isn't architected for dx9 like the FX5200 is, but its processing power is so far superior that it doesn't matter at all. take the Ti over the low-end FX. but now with the geforce 6 cards out, i say you can probably go for a high-end geforce FX card like a 5800 ultra or a 5900XT. those are very nice cards and now with the price drop that they're recieving, it's hard not to get one.

[David]

The FX5200 is the MX of the FX range.

The Ti4600 is a far superior overall card, the only slight advantage the FX5200 has is that it is DX9 vs DX8.1 on the Ti4600. However the fact the Ti4600 is a much more powerful card makes this, imho, irrelevant.

[doublejack]

Is there a good use for an FX 5200? It's too scratchy to be used as TP (although the stuff at work is pretty rough), not flat enough to be used as a coaster, too light to be used as a paper weight, not flamable enough to be used as fire wood... Sarcasm aside, they are certainly too slow for any serious gaming. Definitely go with the Ti4600.

[jtc_hunter]

Right now I believe the 3 best cards are :

Ti4600 for budget minded, is the very best bang for your buck

6600gt AGP if you have a medium budget and really play alot of DX9 games

6800gt top of the heap

these are the only 3 cards I would consider

[doublejack]

I agree with what jtc_hunter posted.

Anything between the Ti4600 and 6600GT is either inferior to the Ti so not worth the money, or substantially inferior to the 6600GT while being only a little cheaper (like say a 5900XT) - so it's better to spend a few extra and step up to the 6600GT.

At the top of the heap I would also go with a 6800GT over an Ultra. There's not much of a performance gap considering the price difference.

[Pineabs]

i agree with all of them ti4600 was the top of the line, and fx5200 is bottom of next gen. its like comparing a 9700 with a 9600.