Graphics cards

Here\'s the deal.  My graphics card sucks.  I need a new one.

Here\'s what I got in my system now, a geforce2MX 64MB (Hercules 3D Prophet II 64MB).  From what I can tell, it\'s one of the original MXs.  It\'s pretty horrible in some of the newer 3D games.

I\'m interested in the new ATI Raedon 9700, I\'d like to pick that up when it comes out, but I need something cheap and powerful to hold me over until it\'s released and the price goes down some.  I can\'t afford to buy a $400 video card. :eek:

Right now I\'m looking at the low end geforce4 ti4200\'s and the Raedon 8500.  I\'m gonna be ordering some parts off newegg.com to help cool my PC down, a new HSF and maybe some other things, fans I can stick on my case to help get better airflow through it, so I thought I could just throw a videocard in the order too.

I\'m just wondering everyone\'s opinion on what cards are good, things like what good card makers are, if I should go for 64MB or 128MB version, difference between the 8500 and 8500LE, and any other advice you can give.  This is the card I was planning to purchase, it\'s OEM, but /shrug, maybe I\'ll spend a few more bucks and get different one.

Keep in mind this is just something to replace my crappy geforce2mx right now, I plan to upgrade to a Raedon 9700 when the price is dropped a little bit, probably early next year sometime.

My system specs, if it\'ll help at all.
AMD Athlon Thunderbird 1.2GHz
/me plans to overclock his Tbird to at least 1300 when I can get my system cooled down
Asus MB
640MB SDRAM
40GB HDD
64MB geforce2mx
SBLive Xgamer

I would recommend a Ti 4200. It\'s plenty fast and you can always overclock it if you want Ti 4600 speeds.

Be sure to get a 128 meg version. According to John Carmack, Doom III will use some 80+ megs for textures.

The difference between Radeon 8500 and LE is that LE is a cheaper version, which is also clocked lower than the normal 8500 (i.e. it\'s slower).

Good luck.

I disagree.

Opt for a 64MB version of a GeForce Ti4200. It has faster ram, and it can overclock higher. From tests, the 64MB version of the Ti4200 outperforms the 128MB counterpart in most benchmarks.

When Doom 3 releases next year, you\'ll also buy the Radeon 9700, which will be an ideal card for the game. Don\'t worry about getting a 128MB video card right now, when only a handfull of titles take advantage over it.

Next year will be the time to invest in a video card with 128MB of ram.

I guess that depends on where he gets it from. Some of the cheapest Ti 4200\'s I\'ve seen have been 128 meg versions. And in other cases it doesn\'t cost many bucks extra. And the performance advantage for 64 meg cards isn\'t very big AFAIK.

I\'ve got the original Radeon LE and I bought it from newegg also.  It\'s been cool and by cool I mean totally sweet.  Lots of ppl overclock their Radeons but each one has a different potential and I don\'t oc.

They are good for the money.  The only issue, as always with ATI, is driver support.  It\'s been decent in Win2k.

Hey EmperorRob... I was looking at the Raedon 8500 and the LE version, I\'d get an LE, but I was wondering if they had any missing features that the 8500 has.  I know that it\'s clocked at a lower speed, but is that it?  It doesn\'t have half the bandwidth or something like that, does it?

The 8500LE at newegg seems almost too good to be true.  Hard to pass up the card at the prices they have.

Originally posted by jm
I disagree.

Opt for a 64MB version of a GeForce Ti4200. It has faster ram, and it can overclock higher. From tests, the 64MB version of the Ti4200 outperforms the 128MB counterpart in most benchmarks.

When Doom 3 releases next year, you\'ll also buy the Radeon 9700, which will be an ideal card for the game. Don\'t worry about getting a 128MB video card right now, when only a handfull of titles take advantage over it.

Next year will be the time to invest in a video card with 128MB of ram.

You know what really sux? I bought my Ti4200 because its memory was faster then the 128MB version by 800MB/s. I see a little article in Anandtech that says 64MB won\'t cut it with DoomIII. AND THEN I see 128MB iterations of the board running at the same speed as my 64MB and costing $100 LESSS!!!!!!!!!!! It stings.

Moral of the story? Don\'t set your sights on a single card until you\'ve done 3 times more research than you thought was neccessary. The Radeon 9700 might look good today, but nVidia\'s NV30 is just arround the corner. Wait for it....it\'ll prolly end up being faster than R300 and you\'ll end up buying that instead. Either way, the extra wait will give you some extra time to save up and reduce the amount of money you\'ll be putting away each week.

Originally posted by nataku
Hey EmperorRob... I was looking at the Raedon 8500 and the LE version, I\'d get an LE, but I was wondering if they had any missing features that the 8500 has.  I know that it\'s clocked at a lower speed, but is that it?  It doesn\'t have half the bandwidth or something like that, does it?

The 8500LE at newegg seems almost too good to be true.  Hard to pass up the card at the prices they have.

Honestly I never got the chance to check my card against a stock Radeon retail to see what the diffs right out of the box were.  For the $67  I gave for it I\'m very happy.  It runs everything on 1024x760 at max color smoothly.

The LE\'s have HyperZ disabled on them.  But it\'s only limited in its drivers; the hardware for it is still on the card.  I downloaded lots of tweakers for it and experimented with a little boost but I never used cooling either.

Here\'s a good place to find out pretty much anything on ATI:

http://www.rage3d.com

[nO-One]

Originally posted by EmperorRob
The only issue, as always with ATI, is driver support.  It\'s been decent in Win2k.

Have you tried the Catalyst drivers yet? They are supposed to be ATi\'s answer to the Detonators.

And to answer the original question, if you\'re looking for the best bang for the buck try the Radeon8500, still a very good performer and very cheap. (somewhere around a 160$ on newegg.com iirc)

When I first plugged this LE of mine in I was building my machine from scratch and I  couldn\'t get their (ATI\'s) DVD player to work with their latest/greatest drivers so I stuck with the ones that came on the CD w/the card.

Are the Catalyst supposed to offer something cool?  And by cool I mean totally sweet.

I dont\' think so.. I think its one of ATI\'s attempts to catch up with nVidia. Its supposed to be their implementation of unified driver architechture or whatever.

[nO-One]

not quite unified, I think there are some differences between the Radeon and the 8500 but I\'m not sure.

They are supposed to be more stable and offer some performace increase.

See if you can get the Ti4200 for under $200 and OC that bish.  It\'s undoubtedly the best bang per buck card available today.

Originally posted by THX
See if you can get the Ti4200 for under $200 and OC that bish.  It\'s undoubtedly the best bang per buck card available today.

You = teh suck.

This thread HAS to be centuries old :nerd: