9600 SE hands down in both DX8 and DX9.

9600se is by far better. both are cut down models, but the gf5200 is a cut down model of an epic fail design.

9600 SE smashes the FX 5200, and 5500 (same core as 5200) as well. Even moreso in DX9 games.

The 5200 does have two things going for it though: good 9x compatibility and availability. It’s also better than the crap integrated graphics around during that time.

Found a review for budget gpus from 2003... It's all over the place!!
https://web.archive.org/web/20240908182511/ht … com/show/1207/2

I run the exact same Asus 9600SE they tested and it's an overclocking beast @ 435 Mhz instead of 325 MHz on core.

emu34b wrote on 2025-03-20, 19:12:

9600 SE smashes the FX 5200, and 5500 (same core as 5200) as well. Even moreso in DX9 games.

The 5200 does have two things going for it though: good 9x compatibility and availability. It’s also better than the crap integrated graphics around during that time.

yes good point on 5200. i have a few, put one in an athlon 1400 and played soldier of fortune 2 at high details and res (on a 4:3 19inch tft) without any gameplay problems. It's fine as an all rounder, just don't expect too much. It really wasn't good with far cry for instance 😀

9600 SE is a 64-bit memory bus card, while normal GeForce FX 5200 is a 128-bit memory bus card. So it's not all that clear.

EDIT: AGP GPU benchmarks from ixbt.com - 101 cards tested

I suppose it all depends on which FX 5200 we are talking about.
If it's the 64-bit version of the FX 5200, then the 9600SE is faster in just about every scenario.
On the other hand, if we are talking about the 128-bit FX 5200, that appears to be faster in non-shader games than the 9600 SE, but then the 9600SE beats it in DX8/9 games.

And then there's another consideration: IIRC, FX 5200 has support for table fob, whereas ATI cards from the 9x00 series don't (not without a registry mod/hack? was it?) So for older games, the FX5200 might be better. For newer / shader-based DX8/9 titles, the 9600SE.

9600SE is mostly useless for true DX8 games due to 64-bit bus and overall low clock speed.

momaka wrote on 2025-03-23, 17:41:

I suppose it all depends on which FX 5200 we are talking about. If it's the 64-bit version of the FX 5200, then the 9600SE is fa […]
Show full quote

I suppose it all depends on which FX 5200 we are talking about.
If it's the 64-bit version of the FX 5200, then the 9600SE is faster in just about every scenario.
On the other hand, if we are talking about the 128-bit FX 5200, that appears to be faster in non-shader games than the 9600 SE, but then the 9600SE beats it in DX8/9 games.

And then there's another consideration: IIRC, FX 5200 has support for table fob, whereas ATI cards from the 9x00 series don't (not without a registry mod/hack? was it?) So for older games, the FX5200 might be better. For newer / shader-based DX8/9 titles, the 9600SE.

I Honestly feel bad for all the poor kids that has an 64-bit geforce fx 5200 on their dell pc why did dell chosen an 64-bit versions instead of 128-bit versions?

Memory/bandwidth isn't everything but more about features and drivers to me (something FX5200 fails at to 9600 to me because of all the series-wide chronic driver issues with the "compatible" nvidia). Otherwise #9 Ticket To Ride IV would be extremely recommended by certain logic here for 98-99 period builds

Early Radeons did not gain any performance advantage when dropping to 16-bit color. Dropping to 16-bit was a great way of stretching the lifespan of your build and still being able to play at higher resolutions. Not sure if ATI ever did fix that (they called it a 'feature' when the Radeon 7200 came out), but for that reason alone, nVidia cards if the same era are always a better bet.

mockingbird wrote on 2025-03-24, 02:16:

Early Radeons did not gain any performance advantage when dropping to 16-bit color. Dropping to 16-bit was a great way of stretching the lifespan of your build and still being able to play at higher resolutions.

Good point!
I had a Radeon 9200 SE (64-bit mem bus) back in the early 2000's when it came out, and I remember it made absolutely no difference when I switched between 16-bit and 32-bit color rendering. Even worse, it also didn't seem to matter much whether I maxed out the visual details (like AA, shadows, etc.) or not - that 9200 SE just spat out low FPS at everything. The only thing that could make the FPS go up is reduce the resolution as much as possible (or as low as I could tolerate anyways.) Older games ran "OK"...ish (high 20's / low 30's FPS) at 800x600. Anything newer and current gen (at the time) I had to drop to 640x480 to get acceptable FPS (mostly above 20, if lucky). Only really much older games (from the late 90's at most) I could get to run at ~60-ish FPS... but again, in 800x600. 1024x768 was mostly a "fobidden" resolution for games.

In contrast, a buddy of mine had a FX5200 in the same period. I don't know if it was the 64-bit or 128-bit version... but we often made jokes about our own systems and tried to make arguments of the sort: "no, mine is DEFINITELY worse than yours" 🤣. In reality, I think our systems were about on par (his was a mid P4 Willamate Dell with 512 MB of RAM, whereas mine was a Duron 1.4 GHz with 640 MB of RAM 🤣 🤣 ). In any case, I do remember him running some of the games, like CS Source, in 16-bit color mode and with many details reduced, thus getting much much higher FPS than I could get with my 9200 SE. On the other hand, when it came to picture quality, I think my Radeon 9200SE was a clear winner. This was even more evident in NFS Underground and Underground 2, where his FX 5200 could not render crowds or certain visual effects, whereas my 9200 SE could. But then, I had the always-lower FPS compared to his, so I suppose that was the tradeoff there.

That being said, the 9600SE should be quite a bit better than my 9200SE... so I can still see it coming on top and beating even the 128-bit FX5200. But in older games that aren't feature-rich and rely more on pure memory bandwidth "horsepower", then the FX5200 might be better.

So in the end, I think it might come down to what games one wants to play too.
Also, I've read that nGlide can run on DX9+ cards as low as the FX5200, simulating Glide in older games... so that might be another point to consider.