I've been enjoying my Sapphire Radeon 9250 for some months now and thought it might be time to do a comparison of this card and my previous card.

The cards were tested under the following conditions;

http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k1=8707927
Sapphire Radeon 9250 128MB (240MHz Core - 166MHz DDR)
Intel Pentium 4 2,26GHz (533MHz FSB - 512KB Cache)
Asus P4S533 (SiS 645DX chipset)
2x Samsung 256MB PC2700 (DDR333 - CAS: 2.5T)
MS WindowsXP pro SP2 + DirectX 9.0
ATi Catalyst drivers

http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k1=8709064
Sapphire Radeon 9250 (OC) 128MB (270MHz Core - 185MHz DDR)
Intel Pentium 4 2,26GHz (533MHz FSB - 512KB Cache)
Asus P4S533 (SiS 645DX chipset)
2x Samsung 256MB PC2700 (DDR333 - CAS: 2.5T)
MS WindowsXP pro SP2 + DirectX 9.0
ATi Catalyst drivers

http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k1=8518838
3dfx Voodoo 5 5500 64MB (166MHz Core - 166MHz SDR)
Intel Pentium 4 2,26GHz (533MHz FSB - 512KB Cache)
Asus P4S533 (SiS 645DX chipset)
2x Samsung 256MB PC2700 (DDR333 - CAS: 2.5T)
MS WindowsXP pro SP1 + DirectX 9.0
SFFT Alpha 24

http://service.futuremark.com/compare?2k1=8013620
3dfx Voodoo 5 5500 (OC) 64MB (175MHz Core - 175MHz SDR)
Intel Pentium 4 2,26GHz @ 2,55GHz (600MHz FSB - 512KB Cache)
Asus P4S533 (SiS 645DX chipset)
2x Samsung 256MB PC? (DDR? - CAS: 2.5T)
Windows 98se DirectX 9.0
AmigaMerlin 2.5


Some notes:

- Windows98se does get you more points. I ran my P4 at 2,63GHz but with WindowsXP pro SP1 and used AmigaMerlin 3.0XP. I got a little under 200 points less than the Windows 98se overclock in this test.

- I have no idea at what speed my system memory was running at the time of the overclock, I apologize for that.

- I know there are differences when it comes to the operating software but I'm kinda sick and tired of reinstalling stuff since my last encounter with computer-hijacking malware (had to re-install WinXP like 4 times in 2 days and it took me over 2 months to finally get my system right again )

- I have no idea which Catalyst drivers I am using. The way everything is organized in this software is so messy compared to the 3dfx tools. Even a simple thing like finding out the version number is nearly impossible; you get 3 different ones for three seperate rendering engines ???


Now for the test results:




In the first two games the standard clocked V5 manages to keep up with the Radeon at low detail. The overclocked V5 even takes the lead!
UPDATE : As is clear, the overclocked Radeon outperforms the V5's with ease.

In the third game the V5 is massively ahead of the Radeon but an overclocked V5 doesn't seem to do much more for it; definately a limitation of the V5 seeing as a big overclock only gives 1,4FPS more.
UPDATE : The overclocked Radeon is still the slowest at low detail, but with high detail the cards becomes second in place.

The fill rate tests are astonishingly beautiful. In both tests, both V5's pull ahead of the Radeon with up to 58,84% in single texturing and up to 30,53% in multi texturing.
UPDATE : The fillrates of the overclocked Radeon have improved quite some bit but it's still no match for both V5's.

The only noticable test left is the vertex shader test which shows that the V5 does about half the performance of the Radeon.


I'd like to give a word of advice;
When buying a Radeon 9250, make sure you buy the one with 200MHz memory. I have the 166MHz version and even a simple overclock of the memory by 14MHz gives me around 200 points more.