Cheap ATI 100430266 Radeon 7200 AGP Video Card (Electronics) Price

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Customer Reviews of ATI 100430266 Radeon 7200 AGP Video Card

A pleasant surprise for a cheaper card
I bought the Radeon 7200 back in September when it was initially released, and have had absolutely no complaints ever since. Although I was disturbed at the rather cheap packaging (no foam, no insulation, and a generalized instruction manual that is used for every version of their cards), the video performance is close to flawless.

The ATI CD-ROM includes a very stable Windows 95/98 and Win2k drivers, which I have confirmed work without fault. The sheer amazing thing about this card is that I'm able to reach refresh rates of up to 200Hz at 640 by 480, which is absolutely ridiculous (85Hz is the suggested minimum). At the current setting of 1024 by 768, I'm able to get 100Hz refresh rate, still better than I've ever achieved with any other card.

Although I don't play that many games, the DVD playback is completely crystal clear, and I believe I'm getting more than 30 frames per second during playback, although I haven't confirmed the actual number yet. In any case, those of you who wish to rely on the hardware decoding of this card will not be disappointed, either.

If there are any cons, I'd have to say it's the included software. The ATI CD comes with a downright pathetic DVD playback software, so I strongly encourage getting Intervideo WinDVD or PowerDVD. Don't bother with the default player because it's just horrendous. Also, for those of you who are serious gamers or need the most powerful card, note that this has 64MB SDR (single data rate) memory. You Quake3 and Half-Life players should probably look into getting the DDR version for better performance.

All in all, consumers who are just looking for a reliable and solid graphics card for [a reasonable price] will truly appreciate the 7200. It provides flawless DVD playback (given you have the right software player), and has incredible refresh rates. True 3-D gamers, however, should probably consider the DDR version instead.

Good but not great
As with any computer accessory, your experience may be very different, but this card has never been quite right for me. The updated drivers from the website need to be re-installed before I play any graphics intensive games. I have to turn features off on every game, but different ones for different games. I've never gotten The Sims to play correctly unless I window it, which means I'm not using the graphics card to it's full extent.

The reson I bought this card over other choices is it's built in support for multi-head display, and every day I think about taking my old graphics card back from my wife's computer and finding that old cheapie second graphics card I was using and doing dual head the clumsy way that worked better.

All that being said, it does dual head display and only takes up the agp slot. When it's working well it does look pretty good. I don't know about frame rates so I can't tell you anythign there. I'll probably leave it in until the GeForce4 comes out, and then replace it, but it won't go in the hand-me down pipeline, it'll go in the "free to a good home" box.