In a message dated 6/4/2006 11:21:42 PM US Mountain Standard Time, 
lists@pcl-consulting.com writes:

>And now I'm confused again. Amazon has both cards for the same price so
>that's not a factor

Is there a particular reason you're going with Amazon (have a gift 
certificate, for example?)  This is definitely a shoppable-around product.

>The 6200 seems to have Dual 400Mz
>of RAMDAC vs. the 5500's 350Mz (don't really know but I'm assuming 400
>is better).

A fast RAMDAC is supposed to improve image quality at high resolutions; 
probably not relevant unless you're a fan of 2048x1536.  The Radeon 7000 I'm using 
now is only 350MHz RAMDAC, but looks fine at 1600x1200 at 75Hz.


> The 5500 has 6.4GB/sec of Memory Bandwidth vs. the 6200's
>3.2GB/sec so it sounds to me that the 5500 can move information twice as
>fast. This also seems to be supported in that the 550 has 128 bit Memory
>while the 6200 only has 64 Bit DDR Memory

Sounds logical.  But that's a peak rate.  It may not even be ever reached 
depending on your apps.

>. Again I know
>next to nothing about video cards so I'm open to learning, but could you
>give me more information as to why the 6200 is better?

-The test results I've seen (based on Windows 3D games, what the hardware 
sites review) indicate the 6200 performs like a 5700 series card.

-It's a generation newer.  It's still a somewhat current part.  The 5500 is 
very much end-of-lifetime-selloff now.

-The hardware is capable of 'Shader Model 3.0' support under Windows DirectX, 
this may or may not be exploitable under Linux.

-Most 6200s are fanless (a positive IMO), while I don't know if 5500s are.

I see you've decided to go 6600... not a bad card at all.  I started out 
expecting to buy a 6200, and ended up talking myself into a 6800LE (all but 
impossible to find now) at twice the price. :/
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