IF you've been keeping up with video cards lately, surely you've heard the buzzwords-- 6800 Ultra, X800 XT, PS 3.0, DirectX 9, Doom 3-- but obviously the most disappointing buzzword you've heard is the $500-600 pricetag that goes with some of these top-end cards.
While I recommend spending at least $150 or $200 on a video card if you want to really get into games, what about those of us who aren't into the gaming scene as much, and whose gaming endeavors may be limited to playing the occasional round of UT or Quake 3? What if you don't even care about games, and just want a video card with a few nice features for a cheap price? Why should those people spend $150-200 on a video card?
That's why today we're looking at ATi's Radeon 9250, on a board made by our friends at PowerColor. The 9250 sports a pricetag under $60, and gives you 128MB of video memory, TV out, DVI/CRT, and the image quality and drivers we've come to expect from ATI; not to mention the familiar AGP interface, so the user need not shell out the big bucks on a board for PCI-Express. We're not going to zero in too much on framerates today, since the 9250 isn't made to take any records, but we will be showing you this AGP card that fits any budget, inside and out, starting with the outside:
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The included box is very small, just enough to fit the card and accessories. It shows off the main features of the card on the box-- to brief you a bit more on those, the card features the Radeon 9250 chipset (obviously), which is a 4-pipeline, DirectX 8.1 compatible chipset, the same as the RV280 core found on the Radeon 9200. The 9250 actually is virtually identical to the 9200, but cheaper. The 240Mhz core clock speed and the 128MB of 200Mhz (400Mhz effective DDR) 64-bit DDR memory seem sluggish, but again, this card is not built for high framerates.
The card also includes CRT and DVI support, and an S-video connector.
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A picture of the card itself-- included are the following:
- Radeon 9250 graphics card
- PowerColor "ProPack"
--- driver software
--- CyberLink PowerDirector SE+
--- CyberLink MediaShow SE
--- CyberLink PowerDVD
--- CyberLink Power Producer DVD
--- CyberLink Power2Go
- Instruction manual
- S-video to composite adapter
- low-profile AGP adapter
- composite video cable
Some of you may be curious what the low profile AGP adapter is for...since the card itself is very small, you can actually remove the standard AGP backplate for it and attach the low-profile plate. Obviously this will result in losing your CRT output, but sometimes this is necessary if you want to fit the card into very small cases. A card this inexpensive might have a use in a server or home theater application, where something like that may be handy.
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A close-up on the card itself. Since the 9250 is only 240Mhz and 4-pipeline, naturally it runs very cool, so only a passive heatsink is required, making this card the friend of silent PC enthusiasts everywhere. The TSOP RAM (running at 64-bit and 400Mhz effective DDR) does not require or warrant Ramsinks, so none are included to keep costs down.
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Flipping the card over shows a predictable picture-- no Ramsinks on the back, pretty much nothing noteworthy on the back of this card at all.
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Finally, a close-up on the ports-- the DVI port, the S-video out port, and the CRT port (which does not work if you have the low-profile adapter on).
Moving on to the next page to check out drivers...
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