Why You Can Trust CNET eVGA e-GeForce 6200 TC review: eVGA e-GeForce 6200 TC
We don't like the idea that Nvidia and its partners are suggesting that you use this card for 3D gaming. Because it relies partly on your PC's RAM for its graphics memory, it doesn't score well at all. Still, for $70, a discrete graphics card that gives you dual monitor support and an output for TV isn't a bad deal.
The budget 32MB eVGA e-GeForce 6200 TC graphics card is surprisingly full-featured for its $70 price, but its use of Nvidia's TurboCache technology sacrifices 3D performance in the bargain. Gamers looking for a cheap way to run today's (or even yesterday's) games will need to keep shopping and spend more dough. For mainstream users looking to give their PC with integrated graphics a bit of a performance boost, however, or those who want to add a second monitor, the e-GeForce 6200 TC is worth a look.
This eVGA card is based on Nvidia's budget GeForce 6200 graphics chip. In previous generations, low-end Nvidia chips lacked some of the rendering features of their high-end cousins. Not so with eVGA's e-GeForce 6200 TC. This PCI Express (PCIe) card has all the graphics bells and whistles you'll find on high-end GeForce 6600- and 6800-based cards, including support for DirectX 9.0 with Pixel Shader 3.0.
The Good
The Bad
The Bottom Line
What the eVGA e-GeForce 6200 TC lacks, however, is 3D performance. It obviously can't hold its own against more expensive GeForce cards, and we found its frame rates lacking even among budget-class cards. Nvidia's GeForce 6200 chip has only 4 pixel-rendering pipelines (vs. 8, 12, or 16 on higher-end cards), which means it takes longer to render complicated 3D scenes. Having fewer pipes puts a lid on the e-GeForce 6200 TC's performance, but we suspect the real performance hit comes from the card's use of Nvidia's TurboCache technology.
With TurboCache, eVGA can offer the e-GeForce 6200 TC at a cheaper price by including just 32MB of RAM on the card (eVGA also offers 16MB and 64MB versions). To your computer, the card looks like a 128MB graphics card, but that's only because it bites off a chunk of your PC's main system memory for video processing and transfers the data at a relatively high speed over the PCIe bus. The 32MB of memory on the card itself works as a cache for graphics data. Despite the turbo in its name, TurboCache won't have you racing through games. You'll spend more for a budget card with 128MB of actual video memory, but you should also see better results. The eVGA e-GeForce 6200 TC was a slow performer on CNET Labs' tests.
How slow? Unplayably slow for most modern 3D games. In our testing, trying to run games at 1,024x768 resolution with 4X antialiasing and 8X anisotropic filtering turned on resulted in slide-show-like frame rates: from a high of 10.4 frames per second (fps) in Half-Life 2 to an abysmal 3.0fps in Doom 3.
Even when we lowered the resolution to 800x600, the e-GeForce 6200 TC's scores were still slow. Half-Life 2 was mostly playable at 46.9fps (60fps is considered a desirable frame rate for 3D action games), but Doom 3 resulted in a poky 17.6fps. ATI's competing 128MB Radeon X300 SE card with so-called HyperMemory (basically the same thing as TurboCache) turned in far from stellar results on these same tests, but it's worth nothing that it beat the e-GeForce 6200 TC across the board, including a 62.3fps score on Half-Life 2 at 800x600 and a 23.0fps score on Doom 3 at 800x600, a game on whose tests Nvidia-based cards traditionally win. Full analysis of ATI's card will have to wait until our forthcoming review.
If you don't play games or use other 3D applications, though, the 6200 TC offers a compelling suite of basic features for the low price. It supports dual displays using its VGA, DVI, and S-Video outputs, and it can handle resolutions of up to 2,048x1,536 (at 85Hz) using the VGA port or 1,600x1,200 via the DVI connector. Video output is sharper than you'd expect given the card's inexpensive construction, and the Nvidia PureVideo technology makes for superb-looking DVD playback. The card lacks a fan, offering silent operation for home-theater PC use. It handled DVD playback just fine, but you'll want a faster card if you plan to use it with an HDTV tuner.
It should be noted that you can find higher-specced cards with the GeForce 6200 TC (with faster 64-bit memory and 350MHz memory clock speeds, compared to the eVGA model's 32-bit memory and 275MHz clock). Nvidia also makes TurboCache-free GeForce 6200 cards that improve 3D frame rates due to the increased amount of dedicated graphics memory. Further, ATI offers a competing Radeon X300 SE card with its own HyperMemory technology, which is similar in theory to Nvidia's TurboCache strategy. Check back soon for our review of ATI's Radeon X300 SE with HyperMemory to see whose bare-bones graphics card is the best.
(Longer bars indicate better performance)
 | 1,280x1,024 with 4X antialiasing and 8X anisotropic filtering | | 1,024x768 with 4X antialiasing and 8X anisotropic filtering | | 800x600 with no antialiasing and no anisotropic filtering * |
(Longer bars indicate better performance)
| 1,024x768 with 4X antialiasing and 8X anisotropic filtering | | 800x600 with no antialiasing and no anisotropic filtering * |
(Longer bars indicate better performance)
| 1,024x768 with 4X antialiasing and 8X anisotropic filtering | | 800x600 with no antialiasing and no anisotropic filtering * |
ATI driver used: Catalyst 5.2 (WHQL)
Nvidia driver used: ForceWare 71.84 (WHQL)
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Graphics card test bed
Intel 3.46GHz P4 Extreme Edition CPU; 1,024MB Kingston Technology HyperX DDR2 memory running at 533MHz; Intel D925XCV motherboard; Intel 925X chipset; Maxtor 250GB 7B250S0 SATA hard drive; Microsoft Windows XP Professional SP2