a few questions about vid card

[Teal]

just a few simple questions

1> What is benchmark? i hear it a lot but i dont know what it is

2>What is the diffents between RADEON 9200 and the GeForce FX 5200?

these are the 2 im looking at they are both REALY cheap and thats what scares me
Radeon 9200 256MB

GeForce FX 5200 256MB

are they both bad cards?

also could you explane any techincal terms im realy not the most hardware savy person :sweat:

thanks

[Daede]

Benchmark is kind of like taking a sports car to the race track, expect that the race track is totally unaffected by weather (temperature is different). Car A is a say a Dodge Viper, Car B is say a Chevy Camero. Think of the cars as computers now. Car A gets around the track in 48 seconds, while Car B can only do it in 62. Thus, they have established an initial "benchmark". Do it again, and agian, and again, and you'll eventually come up with an average benchmark (by dividing the totals by the total number of attempts). Benchmark will show you how well your computer will perform against a set chart of values which you can find by clicking the "Benchmark" icon/link in the left side (mid-way down) on the home page of this web site.

Run the program, record the number, compare that number to the chart, and it will tell you something about your "benchmark".

(yeah yeah... long winded I am)

I can't tell you the exact different between Raedon/Nvidia grahpics cards, but I can tell you that they are competing companies. They are always one-up'ing each other to the the "top dog". Honestly, neither is "top dog" because they compete evenly. It doesn't matter which one you pick because they'll always come out with something better 5 days later. Just pick something your friends know, it'll be easier to guage your processing power that way.

The cards you show here are fine, but I think the Raedon might be more powerful. If it were a GeForce FX 5600, I'd say they are even (but I don't know Raedon cards very well), plus the world "Ultra" means a lot when it comes to Nvidia cards. It also means it'll cost you twice as much.

Get a GeForce Ti 4800 or a card of higher rating than a Raedon 9200 to play FFXI. Trust me (FX doesn't necessarily mean it is better than a GeForce 4 Ti).