Review: Nvidia GeForce 5200

Hardware vs. Software

True innovation in computing today is rare. Given enough RAM, even a five-year old computer—one of the first Pentium 4’s or Athlon CPUs—can run Windows XP (itself released late 2001) and any productivity software, like Microsoft Office or Dreamweaver MX 2004. The rule of thumb is that software rarely challenges your computer’s hardware.

The exception to that rule is gaming software—like Half-Life or the upcoming DOOM III. These games create entire worlds in which to wander (and, OK, kill zombies) in hyperrealistic 3D color and 5.1 multi-channel sound. These games need more: more RAM, more processing power and, in many cases, video cards that cost as much as $500 USD.

The Big Players in Video Cards

ATi and NVIDIA, the two graphics card industry leaders, release new cards just about every six months; once a year or so, they up the ante, unleashing their latest developments in graphics card architecture, usually involving the addition (and its always an addition) of faster clock-rates (keyword here: faster), millions of transistors, graphical processing unit (GPU)—like a CPU, but dedicated solely to rendering graphics on your monitor—and lots and lots more video RAM.

Every time they release a new product, the older cards drop in price often precipitously.

What is the NVIDIA GeForce 5200?

The NVIDIA GeForce 5200 technology is, at this writing, several years old—one of NVIDIA’s more recent releases is the GeForce 6800. When new, the 5200 probably cost somewhere north of $200 USD, perhaps as much as $300 USD. We picked ours up in February 2004 for $89 USD, which fits quite snuggly into our principle of getting the most bang for our buck.

Here some selected specs for the 5200:

  • Engine Core: 256-bit
  • Bus Type: AGP 8X
  • Video Memory: 128MB DDR
  • Output: VGA, DVI

Why We Needed the GeForce 5200

We have always challenged our PC’s hardware and software; we used to crash our old Windows 98 box a dozen times a day. As we write this, we have the following programs open:

  • Dreamweaver MX 2004
  • Paint Shop Pro 6.1
  • Word 2000 (4 different documents)
  • MusicMatch Jukebox
  • Internet Explorer (7 windows)
  • Outlook Express
  • Firefox (testing new browsers for future review)

The reason we needed this video card is simple; our old card, ATi’s truly marvelous All-in-Wonder Radeon, with 32MB DDR RAM, was slowing to a crawl every time we tried to open a new window or even change the focus to one waiting in the background. And according to another of our principles, Transparent Computing, anything that takes you out of the moment, as it were, is bad—plus, we hate waiting for our PC to catch up with us.

The GeForce 5200, however, takes all of this in stride, with nary a hiccup.

Should I Get a GeForce 5200?

But, it’s not necessarily for everyone. Most of the non-geeks we know use their computers for three primary purposes:

  • Accessing the Internet
  • Reading their e-mail
  • Writing with their word processors

If this describes you, then no, you don’t need this card.

If you work like we do, with tons of programs open simultaneously, then, yes, you’ll like this card.

If you’re a hard-core gamer, getting ready for DOOM III, then, no, you’re gonna want a super card—as we understand it, this soon-to-be released game can use hardware technology that’s not even on the market yet.

In our view, we did need the GeForce 5200—it was available at a great price (even at retail) and it’s graphical processing power has restored our PC to a blissful state of Transparent Computing.

Updated: November 18, 2005