Geforce 3ti500

[REDmosquito]

Its about time i upgraded my machine, I am currently running an asus a7v133 512meg pc133 visiontek geforce3ti500. My question, Is the video card still usuable or will it be a real drawback, it was 350 bucks when i bought it and that doesnt seem like too long ago. I have recently been looking into new cards but with all the bullshit marketing terms its hard to tell what is a good card for a reasonable amount of money. I am not gonna spend 500 dollars this time i spent nearly 400 on the g3 and now thats kind of outdated. I see radeon9600 pros are reasonably priced but then i see benchmarks for older 9500's that are better? the lower priced fx cards are being outdone by some older g4ti4200's. I am confused and need answers what do you guys think is a good card in the 150 to 200 dollar range? And is that range gonna get me a lot better card than the g3ti500 i already have?

 

[Greff]

From my experience.....

the gf3 is still a strong card to use, but if you are keen on upgrading a gf4 ti4200 is a great card and at a lower price.

As far as ATI, i jumped from a gf2mx to a radeon 9700pro, so i can't really give much of an opinion on other ATI cards since it was just one HUGE jump for me

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bloops!

 

[REDmosquito]

What kind of mobo and cpu were you running when you made the leap to the 9700? I was just thinking about buying a new card and seeing if it makes a difference on the same cpu/mobo.

 

[cleeve]

First off, your GF3 is a decent gard, about on par with a Radeon 8500/9000/9200 or GeforceFX 5200.

If you have a bit of cash, you'll see a difference with a Geforce4Ti 4200... you can get 'em for under 100 bucks.

If you can find a 9500 PRO/9600 PRO or 5600 ULTRA (rev 2)for 150ish and you can afford the extra dough, go for it. (The 9500 PRO is marginally better than the 9600 PRO, but all those cards are in the same class). Although they're only really better than the Ti4200 when AA and ansio are enabled.

The definitive kick-ass card for around $200 is the Radeon 9700 non-pro. Nvidia doesn't have anything that can touch it at the $200 price point.

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Radeon 9500 w/256 bit memory bus @ 367/310
AMD AthlonXP 2000+
3dMark03: 3439

 

[shadow_of_colors]

RED,
the G3ti500 is still a good card if you don't want to pay the money now for a new card with all the mess that the market is in right now. of course, as any of the more reasonable forum members will tell you, it all depends on what you want to play. i have an asus g3ti200 64 MB edition running on the same mobo as you have (the a7v133) with 512 of pc-133 with a t-bird athalon 850 and it ran everything i could throw at it pretty well. i had it running MOHAA:Spearhead at max details and 1280x1024 res. (no AA or AF because i couldn't find them in my settings for the longest time) i put the setup through enter the matrix and unreal 2, and it ran it, but i had to crank things down some.
anyway, just my two cents.
Cheers

 

[REDmosquito]

I play a mostly online fps like tribes2, day of defeat, battlefield. It handles those very well, even battlefield runs at a pretty decent rate. And MOH also ran very well on my machine. I am just thinking that tribes3 half life2 and doom3 are gonna need some serious horsepower. I can deal with 30 to 40fps but anything less than that and i am at a serious disadvantage to all the UbErdeWds online. What i may do is get a barebones and keep my g3 until the new games comes out. I am Looking at an abit mobo with nforce2, an althlonxp 2800+ and ill start with 512 meg of ddr i guess. If i need a new card i may even go with ati they seem to be coming along very well. Its funny i started out with voodoos and then nvidia put the kaibosh on that, and now it looks like ati has become the leader. At least i have ruled out matrox at this point lol!

 

[daddywags214]

Don't be too sure Matrox could come swooping from nowhere! Or maybe SiS!!!!!!

These days, no matter what company you like, be it <b>nVidia, ATi, or whatever,</b> no matter how logical your reasons, you're labeled an <b>idiot</b> or a <b>fanboy</b>, or <b>both.</b>

 

[shadow_of_colors]

RED,
the barebones idea is probably you're best bet at this point. wait for the next gen games to come out and see how they actually perform on the current high end cards (r9800, fx5900, etc) then you can make the best decision on which card to upgrade to and you won't be caught having to upgrade twice if you make the wrong choice now. i've got the 9800 256MB edition in my main gaming set-up right now. i know, probably jumped the gun, so that's why i'd strongly recommend you wait. either way, as everyone else has been saying the G3ti500 is still a strong card (as you yourself know from playing your games now.) so instead of beating this to death like i usually end up doing i'll just sign off now.
good luck on whatever option you choose.
Cheers

 

[REDmosquito]

Yep, i am gonna upgrade the mobo and cpu first and then check out cards when the games start arriving. Thanks for the info guys.

 

[lhgpoobaa]

The ti3 500 isnt a bad card. Keep it for as long as you can.

If you do decide to switch brands from nvidia to ATI a clean install is often the best medicine, which you will probably have to do anyway when you upgrade your motherboard.


<b>Regards,
Mr no integrity coward.</b>

 

[Greff]

heyyyyyyyyyyy T2 is what i play almost exclusivly

Holy crap you are almost running exactly the same rig i did at the time

a7v133
256 megs pc-133 ram
gf2mx 32 meg

that was my rig about 6 months ago. IF YOU ARE GOING TO PLAY T2 WITH THAT USE THE GF3!!!! T2 is cpu intensive and moving to the radeon for T2 WILL make you get even worse FPS, since T2 was designed almost exclusivly for nvidia cards. To use a radeon good with T2 you will need a mobo/cpu upgrade. As for the other games i don't know because i'm a tribes wh0re

If you do decide to go the radeon route and need help configuring T2, look in irc.dynamix.com and pm me (^Dragon), usually on during the evenings.

Edit: Saw that you are planning a mobo/cpu upgrade, with that you can easily run T2 with a radeon. i got a amd 2800+ XP Barton on an asus a7n8x mobo right now with my radeon 9700 pro and i can get upward of 200 fps in it.

Just my .02 x 5 ;X(hey a dime!)

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bloops!<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Greff on 08/12/03 10:28 AM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[REDmosquito]

T2 runs very smooth with my current set up, I havent had the fps display turned on in a while but i think it was between 80 and 100 the last i checked. But have you seen the screen shots for tribes3? Looks great but i doubt itll run half as well on my machine as T2 does. It doesnt come out until april 04' so i have plenty time to see how the card market shakes out, if it does. I still think i am gonna get a mobo and cpu in the meantime though.

I am REDmosquito on tribes2 so come check me out sometime. I dont play as much as i used to i have moved on to battlefield, true combat, and day of defeat, as well as others( no wonder my wife doesnt seem as friendly as she used to lol ) Anyway I also wrote a mod called triumph it runs on a couple different servers filter it sometime and give it a try.

 

[phial]

TI4200's visual quality is crap without AF or AA. just not good at all. so i dont recommend not using AF. therefore, i personally dont htink the TI4200 is a good upgrade.

sure he would get more raw power, a bit. but with a next generatoin video card , the whole point is turning on eye candy and if you cant that takes away the justification of buying it

i say dont go any lower than a 9600pro. anything else and it wont justify the money spend. the GF3 was the previous top of the line card and still performs good today

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[barnettgs]

Forget about upgrading to Geforce4 Ti4200 as it is abt 12,000 in 3D mark 2001 while Geforce3 Ti500 10,200 so you will see a little difference in the terms of performance.

Funny thing is, it is still better performer than Geforce's FX5200 (so-called) Ultra!

Geforce4 Ti4200 is a bit behind Geforce FX5600 standard (non-ultra) on the performance terms.

If you have doubt on what i'm saying, then check out the the graphic cards performance rating on older and newer graphic cards on tomshardware site.

So what I'm saying is that you can see the performance difference if you upgraded to Geforce Fx5600 Ultra or 5900 so I guess you should wait for a while or so, for a price drop on Geforce FX series.

 

[phial]

DONT use 3dmark scores


my Ti4200 got 4000 more points than my 8500le. but it means nothing because when i turn on AF (ansiotropic filtering. makes distances much, much clearer) on , the TI4200 is suddenely slower than the 8500LE. i NEED AF because without it, snipering in BF1942 for example is alot harder and creates a disadvantage for me


3dmark is hacked up scores. they mean nothing in the real world.

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[Greff]

I was at UVALAN5, the big tribes lan party, a few weeks ago and got to see alot of movies for Tribes:Vengence. Overkill on showing off the ragdoll effects but looks not too shabby right now. Last i heard its not coming out till Q4 2004, so you got a bit longer of a wait.. Its only about 35-40% completed right now.

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bloops!