Strengths: Quiet, no fan needed, cheap, 256 MB!
Weakness: None that I've found!
I bought this card at the same time I upgraded my motherboard. I am running a 3.06 Pentium 4 HT CPU with 1024 MB of RAM. I must say, for the price, I am VERY impressed with this card. It runs smoothly on ANY game I've tested it on. Here is a list of games that ran flawlessly:
-Doom 3: 1024x768; high detail
-Half Life 2: 1024x768; everything maxed
-Splinter Cell 3: 1024x768; everything maxed
-Halo: 1024x768; everything maxed
They ran with no framerate problems and I couldn't say any more about it. I am experiementing with it still but I have to say, "WOW!"
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TopStrengths: quiet, cheap, no fan needed, well worth the money
Weakness: gets heated fast
A nice card - well worth the price. Works quietly and is clockable. Gets heated fast - but that has not been a big issue so far. Overall a high memory product which is not very expensive.
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TopStrengths: Good quality, good price.
Weakness: Damn that's hot. :\
I must say that for the price ($130 at the time) this card has been through 2 systems. Once running behind an AMD32 3200, and now an AMD64 3200. For solo games it is WELL worth it. Online however, I have been having trouble getting my FPS high. My goal is always to try and stay around a 50FPS minimum. The fan on it is... very weak. The ram chips get so hot I could fry a teeny tiny egg on each one. And that's with no overclocking or anything. It hits 59*C tops, however I am only running a case with 2 fans, one of which has a fan blower attached going right at the top of the ram, and will soon be running a 7 fan system. I would strongly suggest getting ramsinks in addition to it. Mind you - this is of course hitting FPS of 25-60 online with maxed detail for a $130 card. If you are still using AGP I would invest in this as your last AGP card until the need to go PCI-E becomes necessary. Don't give me that look - AGP is getting to be as dead as socket 754. Which of course is a shame to all the avid AGP users... but the PCI-E will be nice until another alternative rears its beautiful head.
IN SHORT.
Playing 1-player games : This card is a must have - Incredible graphics, 3 months running strong so far.
Playing online : Get some ramsinks and a PCI fan, or invest in a mini frying pan for mini eggs.
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TopStrengths: ATI 9550 8x AGP DVI, superior image quality
Weakness: none
I recently upgraded my NVidia Geforce FX 5200, and I simply love it. This ATi graphic card delivers smooth graphics and excellent quality makes me happy with its reasonable price of 129.99. This card is good enough for mid and entry level gamers.
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Reply by member: ToXic-Computer
yes this cards okay for your APG O/s Systems to play games and offices work at home easy to install on ATI to your computer
Strengths: DVI port, No fan, runs very quietly, 256M memory, high performance/price ratio
Weakness: not yet.
I am very happy with this card. I don't play fancy 3D games, but I did not get problem with my 3D C&C and car racing. Some of the OEM versions have fan installed, but this ATI card does not have fan. It runs very quietly.
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TopStrengths: 256MB? NONE FOR ME JUST GOOD FOR EVERYONE ELSE
Weakness: Can't keep up with new games and some old....Keeps crashing games to the desktop....Many Error reports to send to Microsoft...EA Games Support told me this card is having trouble runnig Battlefield 2!
I hate to be the only negative feedback here but have any of the other users tried to play B2, Rainbow Six, desert combat or even Medal of Honor? I wonder. I keep having the games crash to the desktop. Most of the companies have said it is the graphics card and nothing else. Even with the most recent drivers it does this. I have a P4 2.6, 1024RAM, 60G HD (Half used), Sound Blaster, 56x CD ROM so I got the system it's just the card that sucks. I might sell it on Ebay and pay the extra for the new "X" series. X800 maybe?
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TopTwo extra comments! *cheer*
#1. This card DESPISES the new ATi drivers, stick with the ones on the CD.
#2. bogy33, its a shame that happens, but try rolling back the drivers to CD, and do something about that halfused harddisk. Harddisk is quite often times the problem for crashing like that. Run a defrag an you'll see what I mean.
Related to the sorry to give a bad feedback.
Mate this one is sweet. try buying a sata drive instead of the hdd of course if your motherboard allows it and also check your system... It may be some major problems out there . Also download the memory test from microsoft and check your sticks one by one. Also see the positioning of the mem sticks, b c'ause sometimes they have an unknown error related to 1-2 positioning for the double sided mem sticks, or if all the dimms use identical mem's.
Cheers m8. Alex UK.
I have been having the same problems with my ATI Radeon 9550 crashing back to windows while trying to play BF2 and BF2 Special Forces. This card was actually recommended for the Game, so.........?? Leaves me at a loss, may just try your idea and ditch the card and upgrade. Just does not seem worth the headache trying to "make" this one work.
As a side note to anyone wishing to buy this card, the BF2 Game requires ALOT of a computer system. Minimum eg.
Operating system : Windows XP
System Memory : 512.0mb of RAM [double for BF2 Special Forces, 1.0G RAM)
Processor Speed : 1700 Mhz (1.7Ghz)
Display Memory : 128.0mb
Then of course the upgraded video card.
As a "light upgrade" I believe that this card will satisfy most users.
Thanks all, and good luck!
ran medal of honor games flawlessly, not so sure it will run bf2 well
Strengths: easy to install, it supports dual monitors, works fine
Weakness: price, doesn't have a GPU fan
It's a low cost down-cut version of the 9600. You can overclock it. There are modded drivers out there but some people prefer to use ATI's original drivers. This video card can handle most of the new games without overclocking but the settings have to be on low. Drivers needed to be updated to run new games.
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TopStrengths: It really improved my pc's performance.
Weakness: Color is all washed out at the default settings...It's hard to find an adjustment that is easy on my eyes.
Hate to write this review after reading all of the positive comments here, but this card is worse than my onboard video, in terms of color and eye strain!
I tried a few demo games and things looked pretty good, but as for web surfing & such, I find no joy at all. Thought it was a bad card, so I returned it to a different store to exchange it for another one, but still no change in the eye strain, or color problem.
ATI has great support, in that they tried to help me resolve this issue. FWIW, I am running a MSI MS-6738 board with all updates for the board and video card. BIOS is set correctly too.
It can't be a monitor problem...My onboard S3 graphics looks outstanding with my Samtron 77v.
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TopStrengths: great graphic detail, even better price. for the money, this is the best card you can get, hands down. Not ready to say goodbye to the affordable AGP cards ? This is the one to get !
Weakness: NONE, this card is damn near perfect
i haven't had problems with this card as of yet, and take my word for it, this card takes heavy, daily abuse. still no problems with overheating either, looking forward to overclocking it see if can go even further
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TopStrengths: has pretty good performance in regular non-gaming daily use. has dvi interface, cheap and worth the money
Weakness: not for gaming, does not run fast enough
I purchased the card purely because I need a card to hook up my dvi-equipped lcd. The card serves well, it's cheap (I got it for less than $80) and performs well in non-gaming enviornment. Would buy again if I can get the same bargain price.
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TopStrengths: haven't found any
Weakness: weaker than my 5200 GeForce
Like the above user said, don't try to run Medal of Honor- crash city all the time, even Unreal 2004 isn't smooth when I max the values. Choppy performance compared to my Geforce FX 5200 with 128 memory. Upgrading to a better Nvidia card...
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The ATI Radeon 9550 is a legacy video card by ATI. It has 256MB of built-in DDR memory and is HDCP certified. It offers DVI, VGA, and S-Video outputs, but lacks the HDMI out commonly found on newer computers. The Radeon 9550 uses the now virtually extinct AGPx4/x8 interface, rather than the more common PCI-E interface now often used by non-integrated graphics cards. It supports all features of...
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ATI Radeon 9550 Graphics Card
Strengths: Great video, Great for any gamer
Weakness: NONE yet
For the money this is a great product and plays back dvd's with great quality. I myself do nto game much but the games i have palyed aftering installing the card are GREAT. I would say this is one of my best investments I have made.
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Jun 19, 2006
hi bro
plz tale who is the agp is it good or bad any have u found any problems if you have then plz tell me about them becaus i am a son of a middle class family and my my family can give me only one agp for 3years and they will give me only $75.00 SO i have to make a good decission so please tell me the deatils about the agp