Radeon....GF4....Radeon....GF4.....need answers!!

[Attackboll]

Hi,

Thinking about upgrading my vid.card (as I am indeed stuck on a GF2Ti).

I have had good experiences with Nvidia. All good experiences. However, I realize that ATi now has a strong offering with the Radeon 9500 Pro (which is in the price range I'm looking at).

Specifically, I'm choosing between a GF4 Ti4200 128Mb 8x AGP (US$170) and a Radeon 9500 Pro 128Mb (US$215). These reflect Swedish prices, and they're what I'm faced with (want card now, no online ordering from the US this time).

Now, my first question is:

Is there ANYONE here that has ever had ANY game (new or old) NOT work with his/her Radeon 9500/9700/Pro? I do play a good deal of old games as well, and would not be too happy with a card that won't be able to run them well. And on new games, is it true that they to a greater extent need be patched for the Radeons? Is the 9500 Pro, from this perspective, still the right choice for me? Please try and be honest, as I know that we all have a tendence to love the card we own

Also, the Radeon 9500 Pro is $45 more expensive (Swedish prices). Price is also a factor that I take into consideration, as I usually upgrade every 1-2yrs with a card in this specific price range. Hence, $45 is indeed about 25% of a future upgrade cost, when that time comes. Is the Radeon, from this perspective, worth the extra 45 bucks?

On the other hand, the Radeon has some going for it. It's more future proof (DX9), and a tad better than the GF4 in the benchmarks I've seen. Do these facts in light of the above still make it a better buy?

Sooooo...what should I choose?! In practice, do you guys think that the Gf4 will offer me decent fps for at least another year (I play games in 1280x1024, don't care about color depth, don't care much about anti-aliasing, and around medium settings)? Will the Radeon last me considerably longer you think?

I guess my many questions really stem down to this lil' formula:

[(Radeon) Better performance + more future proof ] > [(GF4) Better drivers (old games and new?) + lower price] ?

Thanks so much for answering yet another Radeon vs. GF4 Q. Maybe we will discover the ultimate truth this time around!?


/Attackboll

 

[Unit01]

Hm
I live in sweden to and so far after reading your post. Having fun living 1 year in the past?
Quote"
[(Radeon) Better performance + more future proof ] > [(GF4) Better drivers (old games and new?) + lower price] ?
"
Better drivers. Typical nvidiot. But i'll make the answer short. Both the ti4200 and the r9500pro has overclocking potential. I'd say the r9500pro since it is "more futureproof". It does have better performance than the ti4200. And since you said the "better drivers" crap. It's up to you what to get. Most would recommend a 9500pro though. Maybe not vacs(the one that said that the fx would kick 9700pro all around. And also claimed the 48GB/sec ram bandwith for the FX).
If you don't know crap about computers. get the ti4200 by the way. Cause some via boards have problems with r300 generation cards

 

[vegandago]

I have no problems with my radeon 9700pro. i couldn't be happier... was just playing CC Generals this morning at 1024x768x32 with 4xAA and 8xAF.. smooth as hell

"There is no dark or light side, only power and those too weak to seek it."

 

[LtBlue14]

dunno if it will have problems with the older games
but for new dx9 ones, the 9500pro will run all of their goodies much better than the ti4200 (for obvious reasons..)
also, if you're going ti4200, go 64mb with no agp8x, they won't help these days, and probably not for a while is what the word on the streets is

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<A HREF="http://forumz.tomshardware.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=faq&notfound=1&code=1" target="_new">mubla otohp eht ni ecaf ruoy teg</A>

 

[DCB_AU]

The Radeon 9500Pro has better graphics and will run almost all games.
There's heaps of drivers available.
Some older games might require you to revert to a previous driver.

DCB_AU

 

[Spitfire_x86]

My vote goes for R9500 Pro

<b> "You can put lipstick on a pig, but hey, it's still a pig!" - RobD </b>

 

[phial]

ive made posts detailing the difference between these 2 cards not more than a couple days ago.


read back thru a couple pages. youll see many reasons to go with the radeon =_=!