Putting together a new system and was thinking that it may be stupid to go out and spend the bucks on a geForce2 Pro considering that the geForce 3 will be out shortly. Would it make more sense just to get a crappy MX card to tie me over till the price drop? Everything else I plan to put in this system will be top notch. Any comments are appreciated, thanks.
get GeForce 2 or Wait for Geforce 3
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Within a month get a GeForce2 Ultra....Like a Hercules or ELSAC.....they'll be dropped in price..and geforce 3 won't be able to use all it's nifty features for a while..in fact 2 Ulra isn't even fully optimized in todays games.
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I assume that you don't want to buy anything right now, cos you are thinking about the MX thing, so just wait...
"akuna mutata" braza...
"akuna mutata" braza...
Why is everyone thinking ultras will immediately drop in price when the G3 comes out? Maybe a little bit but even now they're still close to a couple hundred $$$ less than the $525+ the G3 seems to be priced at.
Think cars. The G3 is not so much faster than the ultra, right? Rather, the G3 has different/better 'capabilities'. That makes it their 'premium' card and the Ultra is now just 'high end':
MX - low end - $100
GTS - low mid range - $200
Pro - Hi mid range - $300
Ultra - high end - $350-400
G3 - Pro version - $500+
Of course the prices are 'approx' but you get the idea. From a marketing point of view that looks like good product positioning/pricing to me.
Initially the G3 will not sell in great quantities... only the 'early adoptors' will buy it. Why? because there are no games that take advantage of it's capabilities (The DX 8.0 SDK only shipped to developers a little over a month ago). Only once G3 games start showing up then the G3 will start selling in any quantities. Only then can/will the price start dropping for the cards G3 sales are cannibalizing.
Think cars. The G3 is not so much faster than the ultra, right? Rather, the G3 has different/better 'capabilities'. That makes it their 'premium' card and the Ultra is now just 'high end':
MX - low end - $100
GTS - low mid range - $200
Pro - Hi mid range - $300
Ultra - high end - $350-400
G3 - Pro version - $500+
Of course the prices are 'approx' but you get the idea. From a marketing point of view that looks like good product positioning/pricing to me.
Initially the G3 will not sell in great quantities... only the 'early adoptors' will buy it. Why? because there are no games that take advantage of it's capabilities (The DX 8.0 SDK only shipped to developers a little over a month ago). Only once G3 games start showing up then the G3 will start selling in any quantities. Only then can/will the price start dropping for the cards G3 sales are cannibalizing.
If anything, wait for the GF3. Because when the GF3 comes out to the mainstream, the GF2 will just get cheaper. Then you can make a decision on which one is best for you. It also depends on how badly you need to upgrade and it you can hold off another month.
Well try the Radeon its has directx 8 support like the geforce 3. the Geforce is a directx 7 card. The Radeon LE is only $90. Edit the radeon LE in RegEdit Bamm!! you have a $150 Radeon 32mb DDR.
P3 500e@1ghz/i815ep/386mb/36gb/sb mp3+/radeon32mb k6-2 300/430tx/64mb/13gb/sb512/Sav4 32mb
P3 500e@1ghz/i815ep/386mb/36gb/sb mp3+/radeon32mb
k6-2 300/430tx/64mb/13gb/sb512/Sav4 32mbThe Radeon does support DX8, but NOT like the GeForce 3. We will have to wait for ATI's next gen card before they provide full hardware support for all of the features of DX8.
*Gets on soapbox*
As for the comment about technology prices droping except for video cards... This is a complaint that I read a lot and it kind of irritates me after a while. Graphics chips have spent the last 5 years catching up to the importance and complexity of the rest of the system. The GeForce 3 is now more complex (read: more transistors) than even the very latest CPU's, yet the GeForce 3 GPU still sells for less, at narrower margins and in lower quantities than any of the high-perofrmance CPU's. (Notice that I am speaking strictly of the GPU, the only part that NVIDIA makes money on, NOT the whole graphics card.) 5 years ago, the graphics card was a minor part of the whole system. If they had then represented 25% of your system cost you would have had a right to be mad. But now the graphics card is the most important part in your 3D system. How much did you spend on your CPU/memory/motherboard combination? Why then are you griping about how much you spend on your GPU/graphics memory/graphics card combination? It is just as important if you are a lover of fast 3D. The price of whole systems has still gone down over the years, although less so for cutting edge systems. The difference is that the graphics card is now representing a much bigger percentage of that system cost. Why? Because it's doing a much bigger percentage of the work. Compare the prices and profits of graphics cards with the rest of your system components, and then compare that to the amount of performance boost you get from each, and you will find that good graphics cards are the best deal in town.
Also, this upward price trend won't continue forever. So far each generation of graphics card has taken more and more load (from graphics processing) off the CPU and moved it into hardware on the GPU. Once everythig is moved over, so to speak, I think the prices will stabalize a lot, and will start to follow the price trends of the other system components.
*Gets back off soapbox*
Regards,
Warden
*Gets on soapbox*
As for the comment about technology prices droping except for video cards... This is a complaint that I read a lot and it kind of irritates me after a while. Graphics chips have spent the last 5 years catching up to the importance and complexity of the rest of the system. The GeForce 3 is now more complex (read: more transistors) than even the very latest CPU's, yet the GeForce 3 GPU still sells for less, at narrower margins and in lower quantities than any of the high-perofrmance CPU's. (Notice that I am speaking strictly of the GPU, the only part that NVIDIA makes money on, NOT the whole graphics card.) 5 years ago, the graphics card was a minor part of the whole system. If they had then represented 25% of your system cost you would have had a right to be mad. But now the graphics card is the most important part in your 3D system. How much did you spend on your CPU/memory/motherboard combination? Why then are you griping about how much you spend on your GPU/graphics memory/graphics card combination? It is just as important if you are a lover of fast 3D. The price of whole systems has still gone down over the years, although less so for cutting edge systems. The difference is that the graphics card is now representing a much bigger percentage of that system cost. Why? Because it's doing a much bigger percentage of the work. Compare the prices and profits of graphics cards with the rest of your system components, and then compare that to the amount of performance boost you get from each, and you will find that good graphics cards are the best deal in town.
Also, this upward price trend won't continue forever. So far each generation of graphics card has taken more and more load (from graphics processing) off the CPU and moved it into hardware on the GPU. Once everythig is moved over, so to speak, I think the prices will stabalize a lot, and will start to follow the price trends of the other system components.
*Gets back off soapbox*
Regards,
Warden
As for what to buy... I think it depends on how often you upgrade your system. If you get a new system every year, then for now go with the GeForce 2. You can get a GeForce 3 with your system next year when it will be supported by a lot of games. If you want your system to get you buy for the next 3 years, however, definately go with the GeForce 3. Remember, the GeForce 3 represents a huge jump in technology over the GeForce 2, and while that may not mean a lot in todays games, it will give the GeForce 3 a LOT more staying power over the next few years. For example, the original GeForce is still a viable graphics card today. But the TnT2 Ultra, released around 4 months before the GeForce, is not.
Regards,
Warden
Regards,
Warden
I'm like you, I'm planing to get a new system with an athlon 1200mhz a 512mb of sdram and for the graphic card i will be waiting for geforce3 because the price betweene the g3 and the g2ultra is not that big and the g3 is 3 times faster than the ultra due to it's light speed memory and the new 3d enhencments that changed the entire graphics, it's awsum, a 90 fp/s with full anti_alising, so wait for it.
I take your point but then I would also say a current top CPU (e.g 1.2Ghz Athlon) has a massive increase in performance over what was the top CPU 3 years ago and has dropped in price. When the PII 450 came out it was about £700, a 1.2 G Athlon will cost £227. The architecture may not have improved as much as GPU's but the price trend is definately more to my liking.
BTW I'm not having a dig at Nvidia because I think their GPUs are excellent, just the cards are overpriced. Nvidia's margins may be down but the retailers margin on cards has increased (or at least in the uk it has). 3 years ago there was alteration in price due to the exchange rate between Uk and US ie $300 = £200 approx price for a card, now a $300 card will often cost £300 in the uk, guess we must just have greedy retailers.
Look at the size of that thing!
BTW I'm not having a dig at Nvidia because I think their GPUs are excellent, just the cards are overpriced. Nvidia's margins may be down but the retailers margin on cards has increased (or at least in the uk it has). 3 years ago there was alteration in price due to the exchange rate between Uk and US ie $300 = £200 approx price for a card, now a $300 card will often cost £300 in the uk, guess we must just have greedy retailers.
Look at the size of that thing!
HolyGrenade
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"high-end ones can make your CPU go bottleneck!"
Wrong.
With the combination of a 500 mhz p3 and the GF3, current games will run sweetly. Except for badly designed games such as Deus Ex. Or non-conventional engine games such as Delta force I, II & III where cpu does count for more.
Delta force series I can accept, because it uses voxel mapped graphics, which the graphics cards cannot handle and so is left to the cpu, but deus ex is just badly designed.
Any way, I run all the new games on an athlon 650 with a GF256 DDR. They run fine at 1024x768x32bpp. And with the gf3 the same games should run even faster with all the new features such as fsaa and embm.
And its better to have a slower cpu (not too slow) and an excellent graphics card rather than the fastest cpu with a slower graphics card.
"Efficiency is intelligent laziness"
Wrong.
With the combination of a 500 mhz p3 and the GF3, current games will run sweetly. Except for badly designed games such as Deus Ex. Or non-conventional engine games such as Delta force I, II & III where cpu does count for more.
Delta force series I can accept, because it uses voxel mapped graphics, which the graphics cards cannot handle and so is left to the cpu, but deus ex is just badly designed.
Any way, I run all the new games on an athlon 650 with a GF256 DDR. They run fine at 1024x768x32bpp. And with the gf3 the same games should run even faster with all the new features such as fsaa and embm.
And its better to have a slower cpu (not too slow) and an excellent graphics card rather than the fastest cpu with a slower graphics card.
"Efficiency is intelligent laziness"
HolyGrenade
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What the F**k is wrong is you man?
Do some research b4 u reply to these boards, cos you just end up sounding like a total moron.
Neither the TNT2 nor the G400 is based on a GPU, i.e. no Transorm & lighting engine.
So, guess what... ...the cpu does all the work. that is why it becomes a bottleneck in complex scenes. with a gpu however, the cpu need not be a bottleneck with the gpu calculating the vertex positions and handling the lighting.
The cpu, does however have to calculate the physics of the game.
That is why with any game in current release with gpu support (e.g. almost all of them) a p3-500 should suffice. Unless, you want 70-80fps extremely high resolutions.
Sp0T:
Don't listen to Wusy, he doesn't know whether he's talking or farting!
Do some research b4 u reply to these boards, cos you just end up sounding like a total moron.
Neither the TNT2 nor the G400 is based on a GPU, i.e. no Transorm & lighting engine.
So, guess what... ...the cpu does all the work. that is why it becomes a bottleneck in complex scenes. with a gpu however, the cpu need not be a bottleneck with the gpu calculating the vertex positions and handling the lighting.
The cpu, does however have to calculate the physics of the game.
That is why with any game in current release with gpu support (e.g. almost all of them) a p3-500 should suffice. Unless, you want 70-80fps extremely high resolutions.
Sp0T:
Don't listen to Wusy, he doesn't know whether he's talking or farting!
Dude, not all games us T&L. With games that don't the p3 500 won't do. Granted most games coming out from this point on will use it you can't dismiss games right now and ones that are a bit older.
look, i have a tnt2 and a pII 450mhz and a 128mb of ram.
The real bottleneck is my cpu.
Your wright that the transforme and lightning don't use the cpu, but there is a lot of graphics power in the geforce3
that needs a fast cpu.
At least, the cpu for the geforce3 must be a 800mhz+.
If you want you can see the rests made by tomshardware and
the bottlnecks of the cards and the cpus.
And now there is a very small number of games that use the transforme and lightning option, so the need of a fast cpu is necessary...
The real bottleneck is my cpu.
Your wright that the transforme and lightning don't use the cpu, but there is a lot of graphics power in the geforce3
that needs a fast cpu.
At least, the cpu for the geforce3 must be a 800mhz+.
If you want you can see the rests made by tomshardware and
the bottlnecks of the cards and the cpus.
And now there is a very small number of games that use the transforme and lightning option, so the need of a fast cpu is necessary...
"The Radeon LE is only $90. Edit the radeon LE in RegEdit Bamm!! you have a $150 Radeon 32mb DDR."
yea but doesnt the LE utilize 64 bit ddr while the regular 128 bit? the LE is like the geforce2mx
yea but doesnt the LE utilize 64 bit ddr while the regular 128 bit? the LE is like the geforce2mx
wusy and others,
If you read Holygrenade's post, he clearly says CURRENT games. Now you are partly right in saying that older games can be bottlenecked by a slow CPU. You must remember however that when those older games came out, what we now consider the be a medium-speed CPU was then cutting edge. This means that anything but the slowest modern CPUs will run these older games at good frame rates.
As for the current and future games Holygrenade was speaking of, he is correct: the graphics card is the most important piece of the system. I have said in other posts as well that this is perfectly illustrated by the Xbox. The Xbox has a 733 MHz Pentium III processor, which is far from cutting edge these days. When put together with the GeForce 3 core, however, it produces graphics far better than anything seen before in real time. FAR better. Is the CPU bottlenecking the Xbox system? Apparently not. And like Holygrenade pointed out, making current game comparisons with cards that don't to transform and lighting isn't valid, as the CPU has to do much more work when paired with these cards.
Now wusy, I don't mean to start a flame war here, but your answers to Holygrenade have been nothing more than substance-less flamefests. If you want to make a point, then first of all learn how to write. Second, do some research. Third, come back and write a reasonable sounding post that gives some arguments in a logical manner. Flaming somebody that you disagree with only makes you sound like you don't know what you are talking about.
Regards,
Warden
If you read Holygrenade's post, he clearly says CURRENT games. Now you are partly right in saying that older games can be bottlenecked by a slow CPU. You must remember however that when those older games came out, what we now consider the be a medium-speed CPU was then cutting edge. This means that anything but the slowest modern CPUs will run these older games at good frame rates.
As for the current and future games Holygrenade was speaking of, he is correct: the graphics card is the most important piece of the system. I have said in other posts as well that this is perfectly illustrated by the Xbox. The Xbox has a 733 MHz Pentium III processor, which is far from cutting edge these days. When put together with the GeForce 3 core, however, it produces graphics far better than anything seen before in real time. FAR better. Is the CPU bottlenecking the Xbox system? Apparently not. And like Holygrenade pointed out, making current game comparisons with cards that don't to transform and lighting isn't valid, as the CPU has to do much more work when paired with these cards.
Now wusy, I don't mean to start a flame war here, but your answers to Holygrenade have been nothing more than substance-less flamefests. If you want to make a point, then first of all learn how to write. Second, do some research. Third, come back and write a reasonable sounding post that gives some arguments in a logical manner. Flaming somebody that you disagree with only makes you sound like you don't know what you are talking about.
Regards,
Warden
Gog,
3 years ago the top CPU was the Pentium II 333 or 350 if it was out yet. I agree that certainly today's Athlon 1.2 GHz is SUBSTANTIALLY faster (hehe) and probably costs less. 3 years ago the top graphic accelerator was the original TNT. Now picture a modern engine like Unreal 2 or that Villagemark demo running on a TNT. What would you get? .5 fps? .25 fps? I would be willing to bet that if you put both cards on a PIII 500, that the GeForce 3 would be many tens if not a hundred times faster, which is a lot more improvement even than an Athlon over a PII. But, yeah, I wish they didn't cost so much either. I guess here is my main point: I think that graphics cards, even $500 ones, give you more bang-for-your-buck in 3D games than anything else in your system, so I am tired of people complaining about them being overpriced. I get especially tired of people saying that NVIDIA is getting rich off the fat profit margins they must be making (though I realize you weren't saying this at all.) Fact: the latest GPUs are more complicated yet sell for less than the latest CPUs. On top of that, the graphics accelerator market is way to competitive for anyone to be making fat margins.
As for the board manufacturers, it seems like there are too many of them competing with each other for them to be marking up TOO much. I do know that the high-speed RAM used in top cards is supposed to be extremely expensive. This makes sense as it is being built on new technology, meaning low yields, and is sold into a low volume market. But like you I would be curious to know what they make on the cards, and how much they have contributed to the price climb.
Of course, I don't know how being ion the UK affects all this. For all I know it changes everything.
Regards,
Warden
3 years ago the top CPU was the Pentium II 333 or 350 if it was out yet. I agree that certainly today's Athlon 1.2 GHz is SUBSTANTIALLY faster (hehe) and probably costs less. 3 years ago the top graphic accelerator was the original TNT. Now picture a modern engine like Unreal 2 or that Villagemark demo running on a TNT. What would you get? .5 fps? .25 fps? I would be willing to bet that if you put both cards on a PIII 500, that the GeForce 3 would be many tens if not a hundred times faster, which is a lot more improvement even than an Athlon over a PII. But, yeah, I wish they didn't cost so much either. I guess here is my main point: I think that graphics cards, even $500 ones, give you more bang-for-your-buck in 3D games than anything else in your system, so I am tired of people complaining about them being overpriced. I get especially tired of people saying that NVIDIA is getting rich off the fat profit margins they must be making (though I realize you weren't saying this at all.) Fact: the latest GPUs are more complicated yet sell for less than the latest CPUs. On top of that, the graphics accelerator market is way to competitive for anyone to be making fat margins.
As for the board manufacturers, it seems like there are too many of them competing with each other for them to be marking up TOO much. I do know that the high-speed RAM used in top cards is supposed to be extremely expensive. This makes sense as it is being built on new technology, meaning low yields, and is sold into a low volume market. But like you I would be curious to know what they make on the cards, and how much they have contributed to the price climb.
Of course, I don't know how being ion the UK affects all this. For all I know it changes everything.
Regards,
Warden
HolyGrenade
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Thanx!
Minute knowledge can be nothing short of dangerous.
<i><b><font color=red>"2 is not equal to 3, not even for large values of 2"</font color=red></b></i>
Minute knowledge can be nothing short of dangerous.
<i><b><font color=red>"2 is not equal to 3, not even for large values of 2"</font color=red></b></i>
noko
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The memory in the Radeon LE is configured 128bit DDR and not 64bit. The performance after overclocking and configuring hyperZ is equivalent to a 32meg DDR Retail Radeon. Now supposenly the Radeon chip failed the quality control for the hyperZ hardware onboard the LE but many report no problems activating hyperZ. For the most part this is an outstanding buy.
<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by noko on 03/10/01 11:39 AM.</EM></FONT></P>
<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by noko on 03/10/01 11:39 AM.</EM></FONT></P>
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