GeForce FX5500 or Radeon 9550

[Bogie]

Trying to find a somewhat inexpensive upgrade solution for this game. I've narrowed my decision down to the below two chipsets. Which one will perform better?

GeForce FX5500
270MHz Core Clock Rate
256Mb DDR Memory
128bit Memory I/F
DirectX 9
OpenGL 1.3
$50USD

Radeon 9550
250MHz Core Clock Rate
256Mb DDR Memory
128bit Memory I/F
DirectX 9
OpenGL 1.5
$60USD

According to this website, the specs (as noted above) are comparable. However, the Radeon has a theoretical peak performance of the vertex throughput of double that of the GeForce. Unfortunately, I do not know if that is significant or not; as their performance numbers are not meaningful to me. Not sure how to translate these numbers into an estimated FPS framerate.

My other concern is that many folks seem to be having trouble with the ATI 92xx/95xx and FX5xxx series cards. Is that because they are really too low end for this game? I'm already looking at spending $100+ for this game and if a more powerful card is actually required, then I will have to rethink whether Civ IV is worth the cash.

[Bogie]

I'm guessing those two aren't real popular chipsets, judging from the lack of reviews that I can find. Tom's Hardware only mentions them in passing.

What about the 9600/9600Pro? I can get a 256Mb 9600Pro for $82. It has a 400MHz core and seems to fare at the lower half of middle of the road in the performance charts. Only problem is that it is a Saphire brand, which I have never heard of. It seems to me that folks here, after some tweaking, have gotten the game to run with this (96xx) chipset.

All thoughts/comments/suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

[alms66]

I have a Radeon 9550. Civ 4 wouldn't run (render error), until I updated the drivers (5.10), then it wouldn't launch until I ran the unpak utility that was released a few days ago. Since then, it's been smooth sailing. The card was slightly outdated when I bought it though, so if you can afford to get a newer one, go for it.

[Tony Novello]

I have the GeForce FX 5500 OC and have not been very happy with it. I have problems with Civ4, but also games like HL2, DOOM3 and Far Cry don't run as well on this machine as they do on my older rig that has only a GeForce 4/64Meg card.

If you have they extra 20 or 30 bucks I would reccomend getting something newer.

[Bogie]

First off, Thanks for the replies!!!!!!! I need all the help I can get.

Now, when you two say to go with a "newer" card, are you referring to the 9600Pro in my earlier post? Are do you mean one of those $300 new cards?

I can't see myself ever playing "games like HL2, DOOM3 and Far Cry". I'm a Civ kind of guy. I might like to try the Madden NFL, but the '07 version will probably be out before I ever get around to it. Not much of a gamer, really. However, I would prefer to play Civ on, preferably, medium level graphics with a, at least, halfway decent framerate. What kind of framerate should I expect with the cards that I am looking at?

Thanks! Your comments are most helpful!