Product Reviews

Graphics cards

Abit R9550 Guru [Computer Shopper]
COMPANY: Abit	PRICE: Ł54 inc VAT
RATING:	ISSUE: 210 DATE: Aug 05

A graphics card based on ATI's Radeon 9550 may not sound like the most exciting thing in the world, and with a Doom 3 score of 13.3fps with full-scene anti-aliasing (FSAA) turned off, Abit's AGP R9550 vGuru would seem to live up to expectations. But this is no ordinary R9550, as it comes with turbo jumper. Switch this over, reinstall the ATI display driver and the card appears as an R9600Xturbo, the next model up in the range. While this offers a small performance increase, it also enables overclocking.

Using



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the vGuru software provided you can change the core and memory speeds. The default core speed is 284MHz, but it can be pushed to a maximum of 480MHz. Memory can be taken from 196MHz to 320MHz. However, you'll need a well-ventilated case to stop the card overheating. In our test setup we pushed the card to its maximum settings and, with FSAA turned off, recorded 25.5fps in Doom 3, which is a playable result. The 3DMark03 score went up accordingly, from 2,182 to 3,463. This really is the limit of the card, though, as it has only 128MB of DDR memory and four pixel pipelines.

This is an impressive performance increase - so much so, in fact, that we wish Abit would provide the card in its overclocked state.

While these results are a far cry from the high end of the market, so is the price. At Ł54 it's one of the cheapest cards around and although it can only just cope with the latest 3D shooters, other games will run much more smoothly.

It's a great card for the undemanding user who wants to play the odd game, provided they're not scared by the thought of overclocking.

By David Ludlow

SPECIFICATIONS:
ATI Radeon 9550, 128MB DDR RAM, AGP interface, DVI-I, D-sub and S-video outputs.