Image Quality - 2D
Scores are subjective, but having worked with many video cards the last few years, I got a pretty firm grasp on what card renders 2D better than the others. The scores will be out of 10, with 10 being excellent.
We loaded up a 1600x1200 image normarlly used in our video card reviews. I also pulled up several word documents with various sized fonts to judge the text rendering. The documents used white text on a black background, and vice versa. The screen resolution for all tests was 1600x1200 @ 85Hz on a Dell rebranded 21" Trinitron.
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FX5200-TDR128
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AiW VE
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ATi Radeon 9700
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MSI MX440-T8x
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Black Text (12Pt)
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8
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8
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9
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8
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Black Text (6Pt)
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7
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8
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8
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6
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White Text (12Pt)
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7
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9
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9
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7
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White Text (6Pt)
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5
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8
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8
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4
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Bitmap Quality
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8
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9
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9
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7
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There is a slight improvement over MSI's last nVidia budget offering, especially when it comes to rendering text. It still isn't up to ATi's quality, and I still found it difficult to work for extended periods of time at 1600x1200. It was a little better at 1280x1024, which is, in my opinion, the ideal resolution with the FX 5200.
Image Quality - 3D
Considering some of the improvements made with the FX5200, I was hoping to see some improved image quality over the MX440. For the most part, image quality was the same, so this was a bit of a disappointment. There are a few improvements though, notably with texture sharpening.
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No Sharpening (left), Sharpening (right)
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As you can see above, the grass textures are a bit more detailed when you turn on the texture sharpening. There isn't too much of a framerate hit, so turning it on would be my suggestion.
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