Customer Reviews

EVGA 256-P1-N399-LX e-GeForce 6200 256MB DDR2 PCI Graphics Card

5 star:		(32)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

This card totally rejuvenated a 3 year old Dell Dimension 2400 running XP. It enables the computer to play mid level, graphic intensive games like Guild Wars with very good speed. Graphically intense websites also run noticeably faster. The built in Intel graphics card is just awful.

But you need to do the following modifications:

1. Disable the Intel built in graphics card through the control panel. Go to Control Panel > System > Hardware > Device Manager > Display adapters. Right click on Intel graphics card and disable. Turn off. Install graphics card. Turn on computer. Insert installaton CD. Computer will automatically install the drivers and away you go.

2. A small mod is necessary if you want to use the #1 monitor. Before installing the graphics card, use a needle nose pliers and widen the chassis opening at the edge where the PCI screw down tab is. The video plug on the Dell monitor is wider than most and there is very little room where they place the video plug for monitor #1. This takes 3 minutes.

Great card at a great price.

I bought this card because I wanted to add a third monitor to my computer (a Dell Vostro 400), and my PCIe slot was already taken by my first dual video card.

I was having trouble deciding between this and the GeForce FX 5200 by PNY. I couldn't find anywhere (product page or reviews) something that would assure me the video card would work fine with Vista (and Aero). I finally decided on this card, because I saw that it worked with Vista and the AGP version was Vista certified.

When I installed I had a little problem (a blue screen), but after two restarts, it booted. I installed the drivers (Vista 32-bit and 64-bit come in the included CD) and everything was fine from that point on. I even recalculated the Vista Customer Experience Index, and I kept my previous values for video (5.9 and 5.6), which probably means this card is at least equal if not better than the one I already had.

I have a dell dimension 2400. The intel intergrated graphics sucked horribly.. I would get 11-13 fps on a game called flight gear. I got this card, and was suprised with the results. I got 75-80 fps in the same game! I can also run dual monitors, which helps a lot. This is a good card for games made before 2006, and is good if you use it for basic browsing also.

I'll make this short & sweet.

If you're looking for an upgrade/replacement/expansion for an older machine, this is an excellent value. The GPU & memory won't bottleneck at the interface, so you're not paying for a hot-rod card that will be held back by the (relatively slow) PCI connection.

Note that this is NOT a PCI-E card. From the photo alone you should figure this out, but if you didn't notice, this is your warning. Buying this card for a PCI-E interface will not work. Period. This is a legacy PCI card--for older systems with motherboards that pre-date PCI-Express.

Anyway, the card handles multiple-monitors just fine--I ran two 19" LCDs, each with a resolution of 1440 x 900 @ 75Hz, and could run full-frame video without a hitch. The card holds up well with gaming, though you shouldn't expect it to handle any FPS games or intensive 3D graphics--this is NOT a gaming card. My most recent game is NWN, and this card supported high frame rates (30+ fps) at highest settings. I wouldn't try WoW with this card, though.

Two things you should know about buying this card, though: 1) do NOT jump to the latest drivers. Anything more recent than the 175.16 drivers (circa February 2008) is very dicey--apparently nVidia doesn't subscribe to the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" policy, and releases new drivers that push the hardware beyond stability. Consult the nVidia forums for more details; 2) if you're buying this (or ANY nVidia) card as a second GPU to push multiple monitors, STAY IN THE SAME FAMILY WITH BOTH CARDS--that is, don't pair this card with a 5500, or a 7400, etc. Your computer will want to use only one set of drivers for both cards, and any incompatibilities between different driver sets and cards will cause you many headaches.

Bottom line: as long as you know what you're doing, and have realistic expectations, this is a great value card. If you want blazing-fast gaming, or you're adding this as a secondary GPU for a system that has a very different card as its primary, you should look at a different card. But if an nVidia 6xxx series is compatible with your system, you're going to get your money's worth and more.

I switched my old ATI Radeon card for this nVidia and overall, I like it. It has a few lags here and there, but overall I think it performs better than my old ATI which was roughly the same spec. The only reason I got this card, in fact, was because it supported Pixel Shader 2.0 where my ATI fell short.

As far as gaming goes, it plays movies very well. No complaints. The real-time rendering though (gameplay) can feel a bit sluggish at times. Low frame rates tend to cause a bit of chopping in the video. not a serious issue, but can be a nuissance when there is a lot going on.

Bought this videocard for my wife's emachine so that I could play Counter Stike: Source. I also bought PCI slot fan to go with it, due to the fact that this card only uses a heat sink for cooling.

I knew going into this, that it's a PCI slot video card, so I didn't expect to get a whole lot. I just wanted to play CS:S at a decent rate. While the onboard Intel Extreme Graphics were ok for playing CS 1.6, it was horrible for CS:S.

This card does a really good job of letting me play CS:S. On maps such as Office and Dust2, I will normally see from rates of 25-35fps, unless a lot is going on, then it will drop down to 14-25fps. On larger maps that are custom made, the game play does have significant slowdown, lag and lower frame rates. This is especially true for some of the CS:S Zombie games that I like to play.

I decided to try and take it a bit further by installing F.E.A.R. on the PC to see how far I can push the graphics card. Unfortunately, you have to run F.E.A.R. at a pretty low rate in order to get it to run smoothly. Anything higher than the lowest configuration and you will see a significantly lower frame rate.

The card comes with no instructions so installing it may take the n00b a bit of time to get it going (Disable the onboard graphics!). Also, the card has two outputs a DVI and a VGA. I cannot get the VGA output to work but luckily the card came with a DVI to VGA adaptor.

The eVGA e-GeForce 6200 made my computer noticeable faster. Web pages load faster. 3D Home draws quicker. Simple games run faster. YouTube videos run quicker. I am very happy with the improvement.

Getting rid of onboard graphics was a little tricky for me with my motherboard. The phone number on the box quickly got me to first class tech help. After the Intel MB graphics were disabled XP worked without problem. The driver downloaded off the web site helped speed things up a lot.

I have put my finger on the heat sink several times and it is only slightly warm. This board saved me from buying a new computer and a bunch of programs.

I received my GeForce 6200 today and was eager to install it as I just recently signed up with Netflix and wanted to stream movies through my PC (Dell Dimension 3000, upgraded to P4 3.0 with 2GB ram). Prior to the 6200, I had the FX-5200 128mb PCI card. Boy am I so disappointed. With the FX-5200, the Netflix streaming videos was choppy at full screen and tolerable while viewing in a browser. After installing the 6200, the video isn't much better at all, only slightly smoother at regular size, but still choppy at full screen. (By the way, viewing Netflix on Xbox360 is the way to go. So much better than this old PC).

I also ran Novabench benchmark software to get an idea of how the 6200 faired against the FX-5200, and it was marginal at best. I saved several tests months ago when I configured my system with the FX-5200 and compared those with the 6200 installed and with the 6200, overall benchmark score was lower, and in most cases the overall video marks were lower, too.

Example:

Today, 6200 installed:
Graphics Tests (Score: 16)

- Random Lines Drawn/Second: 8444
- Random Shapes Drawn/Second: 2048

07.13.08, FX-5200 installed:
Graphics Tests (Score: 19)

- Random Lines Drawn/Second: 7503
- Random Shapes Drawn/Second: 2151



Pros: none

Cons: Difficult to install. I had to reboot a couple times and log off my profile twice in order for the desktop to appear. I never had this much difficulty with a video card install. The overall performance isn't much better than a 128mb card at half the price. The GeForce 6200 doesn't even come with a fan, while the FX-5200 does!

Good thing I bought this through Wal-Mart online, because this card is going back. I have a old system, yes, and this "upgrade" is not significant enough to say that it made a difference. The FX-5200 was a vast improvement over the on-board video card and was less than $30 eight months ago. Again, I'm very disappointed with this card.

A word to the wise, if you already have a decent 128mb video card in your "old" PC, do not buy this card. Save your money and put that towards your next PC purchase, preferably a Duo-core or Core-2-Duo system. Forget trying to squeeze out more speed from a P4. From what I've read, you won't be doing any good upgrading the motherboard (socket 478) with a PCI-E slot. You'll still be hampered by the P4 processor.

Since I have an older computer I had a problem finding a PCI card. The E-geforce fit all my needs, Dual monitor connection, PCI interface, and especially the price. Easy install, I had the dual monitors up and running that day. Very satisfied.

I purchased this video card to upgrade my Dell 2400 from XP to Vista. It has worked flawlessly. I haven't had any issue's from the video card. It works great! Vista installed with no problems. It detected the card and I didn't even need to install any drivers for it. I would recommend this video card.