Radeon 8500 retail or Ti4200??

[Nong23]

I was just wondering, I wanted to get a new radeon 8500 retail card, but since the release of the TI4200 im sort of leaning towards that. The Radeon though is clocked at 275/275, and is around US$160. I have an ECS K7s5a (sis735) mobo, but i have a Duron 1200 only with 256 crucial ddr. I'm not too fussy about speed really, but I only play games on 1024X768X32, and i only really wanna run em at 60-75fps but not below the 50fps mark. Id prefer not overclocking it though... but i can. I may also get my brothers Athlon 1400 whenever he gets his new cpu. Will the Radeon have any driver issues with my mobo and cpu? Stability is also real important for me. I'll also have a choice of my brothere old 64mb mx400 when he gets his Gf4ti. Any suggestions? Should i just stick

System:
AMD Duron 1200
ECS K7s5a Mainboard
256mb Crucial DDR
Seagate 40gig 5400rpm hdd
scsi burner, 48x cd
Hercules fortissimo II soundcard

 

[Nong23]

The 128mb ATI8500 LE (Built by ATI) looks pretty damn impressive for its price as well. It comes with 128mb memory too and nearly does what the R8500 retail does...
According to Toms VGA charts that is, it has the games that I play on the res that i play em Any info on this?

 

[chuck232]

<A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.html?i=1608&p=1" target="_new">This</A> is quite a comprehensive test. It contains the R8500, Ti4200, and the R8500LE 128MB. As you can see the Ti4200 beats everything by quite a bit. (except in games that are CPU bottlenecked, like Commanche4 and JK2) And that was the 128MB version which is clocked down from 250/250 of the 64MB version to 250/222, core/mem. If you get your brother's 1.4gig Athlon, you'd be rocking. The Ti4200 scales very well so you should probably get that if you can find it for ~$160 in a few weeks. I'd suggest putting off buying for at least a week or two to let the price for the Ti4200 settle down a bit. They usually start off the most expensive, then after a week they start to slide. If you get the Ti4200 you'll be able to play on 1280x1024x32. I think that that is the optimal resolution if you can run it smoothly.

Also some AA is good. One thing I have to admit that the Radeon cards do AA a lot faster than the NVidia ones do. They usually take a smaller performance hit with AA enabled. When getting OEM cards be sure that they are clocked at full speed. Many R8500LE OEM cards are clocked at 250/230 core/mem, which is lower than the 250/250 of the retail ones. If you want to be sure, then go for the retail one. A retail R8500LE 128MB and R8500 64MB cost about the same ~$160US. THis is a bit cheaper than the Ti4200 right now, but I'm sure both the prices will drop as more Ti4200s enter the pipeline.

As for the MX400, it will not be playable for many games at 1024x768x32. It will get around 30FPS which is not really playable. Also maybe you should get anothe 256MB of PC2100 RAM. They go for around $65. Other than that, you look fine. If you get your brother's 1.4gig Athlon, your card will scale quite nicely.

So in the end, look at the prices in a week or two and see which one is more worth it. Right now at these prices, I'd lean towards the Ti4200 128MB version since they have the extra 64MB of RAM which will help in future games and also in AA. THey will also cost a bit more, but if you'r not going to be upgrading again for a while, then what the heck. They'll be clocked at 250/222, but you can easily get it to the 64MB's 250/250, but more than likely you'll be able to get it close to the Ti4400's speed. a nice preview.

So I'm sure which ever one you get, you'll be able to run the games fine, but you have to think into the future and see when you'll be next upgrading. Also look at the price. Good Luck!

My firewall tastes like burning.

 

[chuck232]

<A HREF="http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.html?i=1608&p=1" target="_new">This</A> is quite a comprehensive test. It contains the R8500, Ti4200, and the R8500LE 128MB. As you can see the Ti4200 beats everything by quite a bit. (except in games that are CPU bottlenecked, like Commanche4 and JK2) And that was the 128MB version which is clocked down from 250/250 of the 64MB version to 250/222, core/mem. If you get your brother's 1.4gig Athlon, you'd be rocking. The Ti4200 scales very well so you should probably get that if you can find it for ~$160 in a few weeks. I'd suggest putting off buying for at least a week or two to let the price for the Ti4200 settle down a bit. They usually start off the most expensive, then after a week they start to slide. If you get the Ti4200 you'll be able to play on 1280x1024x32. I think that that is the optimal resolution if you can run it smoothly.

Also some AA is good. One thing I have to admit that the Radeon cards do AA a lot faster than the NVidia ones do. They usually take a smaller performance hit with AA enabled. When getting OEM cards be sure that they are clocked at full speed. Many R8500LE OEM cards are clocked at 250/230 core/mem, which is lower than the 250/250 of the retail ones. If you want to be sure, then go for the retail one. A retail R8500LE 128MB and R8500 64MB cost about the same ~$160US. THis is a bit cheaper than the Ti4200 right now, but I'm sure both the prices will drop as more Ti4200s enter the pipeline.

As for the MX400, it will not be playable for many games at 1024x768x32. It will get around 30FPS which is not really playable. Also maybe you should get anothe 256MB of PC2100 RAM. They go for around $65. Other than that, you look fine. If you get your brother's 1.4gig Athlon, your card will scale quite nicely.

So in the end, look at the prices in a week or two and see which one is more worth it. Right now at these prices, I'd lean towards the Ti4200 128MB version since they have the extra 64MB of RAM which will help in future games and also in AA. THey will also cost a bit more, but if you'r not going to be upgrading again for a while, then what the heck. They'll be clocked at 250/222, but you can easily get it to the 64MB's 250/250, but more than likely you'll be able to get it close to the Ti4400's speed. <A HREF="http://www.hardocp.com/reviews/vidcards/nvidia/gf4ti4200/index.html" target="_new">Here's</A> a nice preview.

So I'm sure which ever one you get, you'll be able to run the games fine, but you have to think into the future and see when you'll be next upgrading. Also look at the price. Good Luck!

My firewall tastes like burning.

 

[AMD_Man]

Chuck232, as a little side note, I'd like to add that the R8500LE 128MB comes with 3.3ns BGA which I've heard can overclock to ~325MHz (650MHz DDR). This should put the R8500LE's performance up to Ti4400 performance, if not faster.

<b><i>"A penny saved is a penny earned!"</i></b>

 

[chuck232]

That's true. In the Anandtech review, it shows the R8500LE 128MB with 3.3ns RAM. That means they're rated about 600MHz though, but I'm sure you could overclock to 650MHz, yeah. It's kinda weird huh? I think that R8500 have RAM rated at 3.6ns? This and the Ti4200 should be just about neck and neck.. looks to be a good race.

My firewall tastes like burning.

 

[AMD_Man]

The 64MB R8500 came before the R8500LE 128MB, which is why it only comes with 3.6ns RAM.

<b><i>"A penny saved is a penny earned!"</i></b>

 

[chuck232]

Yeah, but the LE is rated to run at 250MHz DDR, and the R8500 is supposed to run at 275MHz DDR. All I'm saying is that it doesn't really make any sense for them to equip them with RAM that's rated that much faster, just like the Ti4600 with 2.8ns RAM.

My firewall tastes like burning.

 

[Guest]

Basically Geforce4 ti4200 has very good performance and cost value. As the original Gainward Geforce4 Ti4200 128MB(not overclock yet, from www.ATACOM.com) I just got, it has much better evaluation than ATI 8500. You may find it on (http://www6.tomshardware.com/graphic/02q2/020418/vgacharts-01.html). How do you feel now?

 

[lisabob2]

Okay sounds like the geforce4 4200 might be a little faster,
BUT, which card has the best display? And which one looks best when watching a dvd on your computer?
If these cards are close in game benchmarks, then other factors might be important to some people.
Anyway I am interested in both the radeon and the geforce4 4200.
Hope to get more info from this post
Bob

 

[pr497]

last time i heard...the radeon is one of the best at dvd playback...not sure about geforce...
there's my 2 cents...

<b><font color=red>ATI</font color=red>'s drivers are like a broken faucet, they both keep on leaking...</b>

 

[ATi]

There is more to picking a video card than raw speed. Image quality is a concern, as are certain image enhancing abilities that todays' cards posess. Now, if all you wanna do is game with DEFAULT settings then by all means, the 4200 is where its at. However, if you like a combination of speed AND image quality (as well as those aformentioned graphic enhancing abilities) then you'll want to go with the radeon8500.

Let me touch on the enhancing abilities a bit... First up is anti-aliasing, which to keep it simple clears up "jaggies" along angled lines. Next up is anisotropic filtering which cleans up texture blurriness (A pet peeve of mine, especially when it only starts a few "feet" out). Personally I LOVE anisotropic filtering, and don't notice too much of a difference with AA, so my choice was clear. The aniso even at max takes a NEGLIGABLE performace hit on ATI cards (say around 5 fps) whereas its antialiasing (smooth vision) takes a bigger hit. On Nvidia cards the AA is faster, but the aniso takes a HUGE hit...

So again, my recomendation is for ATI but you should also do some research on your own to find out what fits your needs... And to the guy who was asking about DVD playback etc ATI can't be touched in that department... Anyways enough of my long-windedness, enjoy whatever card you choose .


EDIT: Just to clarify if you want AA (anti-aliasing only) then go with Nvidia. If you want everything else go with ATI, it'll be just as fast, if not faster, and look alot better.
<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by ATi on 05/10/02 07:11 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[labdog]

ATI R8500, best choice than the TI4200.

performances a little under in 3D but always over 50FPS & up to 100FPS.
besides best gpu, capture & video DVD viewer.

have a look at <A HREF="http://www.tomshardware.com/graphic/02q2/020418/vgacharts-01.html" target="_new">link</A> for the 3D comparison.


<i>if <b>you know</b> <font color=white>you don't know<font color=black>, the way could be more easy ...

 

[lagger]

Some of the later R 8500 retails also have the 3.3 bga memory .. mine does.. have seen it at shows etc for as low as 140.00 usd

lagger

<b><font color=blue>Checking under my North<font color=red> AND</font color=red> South bridges for <font color=green>Trolls</font color=green></font color=blue>

 

[Guest]

Same boat Radeon Retail or 4200..

leaning towards ati for quality picture and more 3d features. 4200 has slightly faster and does AA. Time to get off the Nvidia bandwagon i think.

Nvidia is turning into an Intel. Fooling people with ther G4 420 and 440 witch run like g2MX. Since g3 all there high-end cards tend to be overpriced.