Usual dilemma

[Guest]

OK, I bought an Athlon XP 1600+, on a nice Gigabyte with a via kt266A chip + all the usual stuff: now I need a good video card and I have to decide between a cheap Radeon 7500 OEM (about 154 euro, 1 euro = 1 dollar roughly), a Creative GF3 Ti 200 Ret. (266 euro) or a Radeon 8500 OEM (295 euro). Since the Radeons will come without the driver cd I'll have to get it from the web, I've gone to ATI's web site and surprise surprise If I want anything beyond the basic driver I have to ask for the "replacement CD", this and no support for Linux (hey, I like Linux, it's fun) that pissed me off: hence the dilemma. Because with Nvidia I can download the latest drivers for Windows 9x, Me, 2000 or whatever flavor they come up with next and Linux drivers too. ATI instead is a bet. I believe Nvidia is the Intel of graphics (overpriced), but they know their job and do it well. Therefore which graphics card?

 

[Guest]

ati 7500's are made to compete with geforce2 cards, not gf3.
the ati 8500 oem is on par with a geforce3 ti200, as is the radeon 8500dv aiw.
the radeon 8500 retail is more between the geforce3 standard and the geforce3 ti500.
so it kinda shows where each card fits in, and then you can compare prices.
whatever you pick, you have an equal chance of having problems, as you do of having a kickass card.