Best Graphics Card On the Market.....

What I think I know...

ATI Radeon 8500 is better than:
GeForce 3 Ti 500 (I think)

GeForce 4 Ti 4600 is better than:
Whatever cards you can think of

Though in the market, I've only seen up to GeForce 4 MX 440, guess I need to do some travelling and searching

I think it all really comes down to your budget and your requirements.

For example, are you planning on doing some serious 3D rendering???

Or do you not have that much money to spend on your machine, and just want to play Quake III and Unreal Tournament?????

Be aware that even a budget Geforce 2 MX will play a lot of these games, and some newer ones, if paired with appropriate processing power.

Re: What I think I know...

Originally posted by eddy05
ATI Radeon 8500 is better than:
GeForce 3 Ti 500 (I think)

Click to expand...

When ATi releases good drivers, you won't think... you'll know.
The R8500 is better in terms of specs, but it's almost a tie performance-wise: R8500 beats Ti500 in some areas while Ti500 beats R8500 in others.

Check out this comparison between the two cards from Tom's Hardware. It's dated 11/07/01.... not sure if that's old to you or not...

Radeon 8500 beats all GF3

GF4Ti4600 Beats all cards but too expensive IMHO

GF4MX Suck big style

Best manufacturer for cards IMO Hercules

I've also heard that Hercules makes great cards. What's they're advantages over others? Also, I know that ATI has tons of extras like hydravision, where you can use 2 monitors at the same time. AHHH, don't know what to do!!!

Cruise 3DMark's website, the first 5 best scores achieved were by people running ATI Radeon 8500's. The 6th was a GeForce4 Ti4600. IMHO, if ATI releases a 128 MB DDR version, like a 9500 soon, it will dominate.
This battle is completely similar to Rambus vs. DDR. Rambus works better on paper (if the software you're using is tailored to it) ATI's support of DirectX 8.1 sets it ahead of the GeForce3 with FUTURE DirectX 8.1 supportive games. But NVIDIA's chips are better NOW with their raw processing power.

Next ATi Card will be a Radeon 8800 128Mb

Also 8500 128Mb - should be cheap & good

Re: Best Graphics Cards on the market!?!

Originally posted by SuperCheetah
I just have a Gainward GeForce 2 Pro, but am considering upgrading if the prices will come down some.

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GeForce2 Pro isn't good enough? Prices for GF3 & the like will come down as new cards are being released.
If the graphics card isn't the bottleneck, I would leave it alone.

WHuZ Ta BeZT ViD CaRD d00d?

Originally posted by SuperCheetah
best graphics card is now as far as benchmarks

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WHuZ Ta BeZT ViD CaRD d00d?

Benchmarks are only relative to same/like/similar machines. It also depends on what games you're playing. The Unreal engine is cpu dependent, whereas the Quake engine is vid-card dependent.

Phantasm66 is correct; it depends on your budget & tastes. I prefer my Voodoo, color rather than speed. But I also have an old PIII platform w/ a TnT2 that's adequet for gaming.

He is also correct; a budget GeF2-MX (-$50) is a fine gamer. Understand that vid-cards are a High Profit item. Your paying an absolute premium for performance you may not utilize, only to be overshadowed by the next new card release in 6 months.
Games (other than the newly released aquanox) have yet to be written to utilize the potenial of thes $400 cards. Personally, money wise, I think they are a waste.

The Good and the Questionable

I heard that the ATI 8500 is strong enough for most games and "too powerful" for others, which could lead to paying for tech that you may not be able to use before the next great thing comes out

However, I have a quandry as well.

I am about to get a Athlon XP1800 with 512 MB of DDRAM, but I was told that a GeForce2 MX400 would be okay enough for the system. Is this true? (Daytona MX400 by Pilat.)

thanks

triom

I have to stand by my GF3. It was a great investment last year that I am still using with no issues. All my games run perfectly. A good video card allows me to get the most out of my games. I like to run my games with 4X AA at high resolutions. Only a high end video card such as the GF3 will allow me to do that.

My video card is fine for everything I do with it. I was just wondering about the differences between companies such as ATI and Nvidia. Now it seems I have them with the Direct X 8.1 compantability and whatnot. Thanks guys for filling me in on this. I think I'll probably stick with my GeForce 2 Pro for right now, and see what big breakthoughs come along in the near future.

GEFORCE 3 Ti 200

if u want performance and high quality, at low price i suggest the geforce 3 ti 200, i have one and it work perfect.
Price $180
not bad for the graphics and performance u are going to have running on ur computer

ANY videocard will do fine as long as its base on GF3, GF4, or Radeon 8500 and it's produced by a fine manufacturer. Even a GF4 MX440 will do significantly better than your old card (in my case I get a constant 20% boost over the GF2 Ti).

I would personally not waste the money on a Geforce 4 ti 4600. I would rather buy a Ti 4400 or 4200 and overclock it (assuming they have decent cooling if not mod it). The Ti 4200's should be great value for money =) :grinthumb

I have...

A creaky GeForce 2 MX-200. Though I believe that a lot goes to CPU. I would think of probably a GeForce 4 MX 440, but Ti 4400 also seems tempting to me

If you want that your computer should have a great ability in grafix 1st see for ram you should have more then 512 RAM.Then look for a very good VRAM like gf4.

For people in Europe ( like me ), we really haven't got much choice. Creative is the only nVIDIA board maker left since Hercules shifted completely to ATI ( I'm not sure about upcoming Kyro products ).

Apparently certain american manufacturors are trying to penetrate the European market ( mainly Leadtek ) which should bring more competition.:grinthumb

Creative isn't very expensive ( I'm talking about Graphic cards here ) but they don't really put much in their cooling systems.

I managed to snatch one of the last nVIDIA Hercules card ( the 3D Prophet 3 TI200 ). It's a very good card, pretty cheap & works at Vanilla GF3 speeds without a single propblem but I don't think you can find it anymore.

Another nice bargain is Elsa GF3 selling for almost a GF2TI price :eek

Problem is, Elsa is going bankrupt so technical support will be a no-no

whoa.. seems like i'm the only one to support voodoo... believe me, a voodoo outperforms a g2 gts on a athlon 2100+
and the fsaa is the best ever

Originally posted by Federelli
whoa.. seems like i'm the only one to support voodoo... believe me, a voodoo outperforms a g2 gts on a athlon 2100+
and the fsaa is the best ever

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Nope, you're not the only one supporting voodoo here.. Take Unc or me.. We're both very satisfied with our V5's...
I won't change it until either ATI get's it act together and produces good drivers, or Matrox finally produces the G850 (or whatever it's called now...)

And no, I'm not an nvidia fan (but I won't discuss that here... Visit the IRC channel if you have to....)

Obviously all depends on your budget and your needs. If you want the best value... nothing can beat a Radeon 8500 right now, IMO. In the other hand if you want the fastest thing you can get for gaming no matter the price, look no further than the new GeForce4 Ti4600 based cards...

Last but not least, if you are doing fine with your current card, don't waste your time and money, if you can wait a few months without doing a sacrifice, you will see prices going down and new products coming out... so there you go.

THERE!

I am in the third category, I don't have any cash to buy a new 3D accelerator card, which is why I am STILL sticking to my old and creaky 3D card :dead: