Video card choice

[Kalisperas]

I'm in the process of building a system, and right now I'm trying to choose my video card. I'm torn between a 128 MB Apollo ATI Radeon 8500, and an AOpen 128 MB GeForce Ti4200. Which of these would be better to go with, assuming I'm using them mostly for gaming and possibly some light 3D modelling? I'm interested in features as well as speed.

Thanks!

 

[Tbarney]

If you are a big gamer spend the extra $$ and go for an ATI 9700 card. If not I'd get the ATI 8500. I really like the way ATI's drivers have come along... Its a great card for the price.

 

[DBSSP]

I really like ATI but I try to remain unbiased.

As the above post said, go for the ATI 9700 if you have the money. If not, go for the GeForce. It's the middle card of the three I'm listing. It outperforms the ATI 8500, but it is also more expensive. If you want good graphics and a good price, then the ATI 8500 is perfect. I use the 8500 64MB and I do alot of gaming. It does a very good job, especially with the new drivers. The 128 would be even better. Jay
"If the words up and down were reversed, would you trip and fall or trip and fly?"

 

[paparazi]

It's rather funny how people recommend a card TWICE the price of the one your looking at!!
The Gforce 4 4200Ti is better by some margin than the 8500
(don't take my word for it visit mad onions site)
And although ATI has made some inroads into good driver support anything it does, Nvidia goes one better (new drivers probably three to one in Nvidia's favour)
The 4200Ti also has all the latest features alla big brother 4600Ti.
No contest!! GF4 4200Ti wins on all counts.
Sure the 9700 Radeon is top dog but thats not the question that was asked. Martin Please let members know if there advice has helped any.

 

[cdogg]

I agree with paparazi on this one. ATI's 8500 card initally had severe driver problems. ATI was able to post some much needed driver updates to the 8500, but I've heard that some benchmarks still show some minor flaws here and there. The ATI 9700, on the other hand, is completely revolutionary for ATI and will keep them on top of their game for years to come. I highly recommend this card over the Geforce4 if it's within your price range.

Otherwise, the Geforce4 Ti 4200 is considered the middle ground between top-of-the-line and satisfactory at an excellent price. If you do decide to go with the 8500, make sure you buy the retail packaged version that says Built by ATI and not the OEM versions that say Powered by ATI. The OEM versions are slower...
~cdogg

"The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources."
- A. Einstein

 

[Kalisperas]

Thanks for the responses! The Radeon 9700 is, indeed, out of my price range, which is why I was looking at the 8500. In fact, I'm having to go with a cheaper CDRW to fit the ti4200 or 8500 into my budget (I just felt an MX board wouldn't be worth it). I was leaning more toward the GeForce, but the ATI had the Smartshader and TruForm that looked pretty cool, and I didn't see anything similar in the 4200, unless that's what the nFinate FX is. I think I'm still going to go with the GeForce, since that's what everyone seems to like.

 

[cdogg]

If I had to rank them by performance only, it would be as follows:

[ol][li]Geforce4 Ti4200[/li]
[li]Radeon 8500[/li]
[li]Geforce3 Ti500[/li][/ol]

Smartshader and Truform are two very unique features from ATI that Nvidia has yet to match. Smartshader is actually a step up from the Geforce's Vertex and Pixel shaders. It can process shaders that are 22 instructions long with 6 texture-sampling operations. The Geforce can only do 12 instructions long on 4 textures. Clearly an advantage in preserving memory bandwidth, although the 8500 doesn't quite have enough speed to take advantage of this. Truform has yet to be proven useful (since it hasn't really been adopted by developers yet). It allows triangles (which are flat) to be turned into curved surfaces, which is targeted for older games that didn't have complex structures to begin with.

The term "Nfinite FX" just refers to the name Nvidia gave it's Geforce3 architecture. It includes the programmable shaders and improved FSAA engines.

Here are a couple articles you might want to read before making your final decision:

http://www17.tomshardware.com/graphic/01q4/011123/index.html

http://www17.tomshardware.com/graphic/02q2/020409/

If the difference in price is more than $40, then the 8500 might be the better choice in your situation...
~cdogg

"The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources."
- A. Einstein