Albatron GeForceFX 5200 Ultra Videocard Review

Buying a new videocard has never been more difficult and confusing than it is today. There are only two major players in the video graphics chipset manufacturing game (nVIDIA and ATi), but the market is flooded with various GPU's that have huge price differences, and very similar names. Manufacturers know that most computer users are not gamers, and of those who game, only a small fraction are "hardcore" enough to keep buying those $500 videocards every six months. That's why most manufacturers wisely focus on the low-to-mid end videocard markets. With the new GeForceFX class videocards even those on a tight budget can enjoy the benefits of DX 9, albeit at lower resolutions. Now that the arena has been set, Albatron has sent their GeForceFX 5200 Ultra to do battle with the other budget based videocards on the market.

Ever since ATi released their Radeon 9700 Pro VPU in the summer of 2002 they've taken control of the graphics card markets. Even now ATI are still firmly in the drivers seat, despite the recent release of nVidia's GeForceFX lineup. ATi knows though that no matter how fast your high end part is, it's in the budget and mainstream markets where the war is must be won. Gigabyte (a tier one manufacturer) has been on the ATi bandwagon since the release of the Radeon 8500 line of GPU's, and today we're going to be looking at Gigabyte's mainstream Radeon 9600 Pro which is obviously based on an ATi VPU. The tiny Radeon 9600 Pro VPU is built on 0.13 micron technology instead of larger more expensive 0.15 micron like the Radeon 9500/9700/9800's. This was a smart move for ATi as it's better to experiment on the lower cost chipsets and have all the quirks worked out by the time you migrate your high end VPU's to the smaller manufacturing process. nVIDIA learned this the hard way with their GeForceFX 5800 GPU's!

'Ballistic Nylon' just rolls off the tongue so nicely, and makes even the simplest of objects appear exotic. Take for example the bags we use to carry around cables, power adapters, and things of this nature. Sure, they could be packed away in a Ziplock bag, but what fun would that be? To be realistic, most people don't pay all that much attention to the bags we use to lug around a adapter cables, ac/adaptors or for that matter even a digital camera or notebook. Most of the time we simply use whichever carry case was thrown in with the equipment when we bought it - typically made from vinyl, nylon or pleather, and without much credence towards appearance, comfort or long term durability and protection of the gear inside. There are of course cases which are built like a tank, and do a great job, but in my experience they are few and far between. Now, say hello to Ballistic Nylon, Neoprene and engineered textiles like Indium. Waterfield Designs, a company based in San Francisco originally caught my attention three years ago after reading a short article on them in ID, and today we are going to examine a few more articles of interest from this company. Each the three bags below are meant to compliment the small things they carry - whether it be a bundle of adaptor wires, a notebook or even a digital camera.