Thoughts
ThoughtsIt's abundantly clear that £50 - £60 isn't going to buy you the kind of performance that will run, say, Doom III with ease. That's an obvious point which is worth making. ASUS hasn't done anything intrinsically wrong with its interpretation of a GeForce FX 5200 video card. The bundle is solid for a budget card and construction is excellent. The problem, if you can call it that, lies with the NV34 GPU. Comparative (and that's the key word) performance looks poor with other GPUs that hover around the £100 mark, so much so that running at 1024x768, with no image enhancement, can be problematic with new titles that make full use of DX9's feature set. This point is exemplified by the v9520/TD's performance in AquaMark3.
If, however, you're content with running at lower resolutions and using in-game settings at, say, medium levels, the FX 5200 isn't a bad choice. We'd still opt for either a GeForce FX 5200 Ultra (325/650 clocks) or, with a little larger budget, a cheaper FX 5700 / Radeon 9600 XT derivative.
You have to ask yourself what you want out of a graphics card. If it's just the occasional dabble in gaming, decent 2D quality, reasonable connectivity options, and a low price, ASUS' card may just be right for you. Just be sure to know where its limitation lie and you won't be disappointed.
