What video card do you want?

[pmistry 0]

I'm in the market for a new video board, I like the Ti4200 so far, even though it isn't out, thought I would post a poll to see what everyone here is after. I am sort of sensitive to the cost, but will save for Ti4400 or Ti4600 if they are better value, but I think the Ti4400 or 4200 is more than enough compared to the 4600.

[Brian Frank 0]

The Ti4200 will be the best bet, and if you want to overclock, the 4400 or 4200 can probably hit the Ti4600 speeds if you choose the right company, such as Gainward.

[al92lt1 0]

ATI Radeon 8500

[BladeRunner 0]

What card do I want?

 

None of the above, I want a DX9 capable card in about six months time

[Palos 0]

Dude, DX9 is not yet out...wait another 2 years for a DX9 compatible game too.

 

Btw, I read that the ATI R300 samples need some serious wattage, they got their own PSU,lol.

 

http://www.theinquirer.net/23040206.htm

[Marktait 0]

Is this a what card are u getting or a what card do u really want because if this is a what do you really want then everyone will click the Ti4600

[pmistry 0]

The one you think is ideal for price/performance or the one that is hits the sweet spot for all things.

[Brian Frank 0]

Ti4200.

[DosFreak 2]

Gonna get the Ti4600 when I get back. Currently own a GF3 Ti500. Ordinary GF3 before that. GF2 GTS before that. Matrox G400. Then TNT1.

[BladeRunner 0]

Oh I'm quite aware DX9 isn't out yet, I shall be beta testing it I'm sure once MS get some builds out to me.

The same argument could very well be thrown at the GF4 cards.

There is nothing out their currently than can seriously tax any GF4 card, so why bother with them at all when a good quality GF3 card is a lot cheaper?

 

In about 6 months time DX9 should be making an appearance and then we'll get the DX9 hardware quickly following.

NVidia, ATI & Matrox have all promised impressive DX9 hardware.

As DX9 is going to include a lot of new features than 8.0 - 8.1 did I think I'll stick with my GF3 Ti200 for the next six months and then upgrade - cutting edge chasing on graphics cards is a mugs game!

[Alien 1]

I dunno what the big deal is about the R300 [allegedly] needing 28watts - an Enermax 431 should be able to handle that, & the 550 definitely ought to. [& of course, other suibtably higher spec PSUs]

[SHS 0]

Gee that this no nVidia GF5 nor 3dfx Voodoo 7 on this poll hehehe.

[Alien 1]

Voodoo 7? LMAO

[sapiens74 0]

Got mine already

[Ant -|- One 0]

ATI RADEON 8500 for me also ! NVidia is not the only choice !!

[Palos 0]

I just talked to a source of mine in a well known German computer store, and he said the Ti4200 will be available in the first weeks of May, at a price between €250-300!

 

That pretty much ends my wait for the Ti4200, since it's still too expensive (at least in Europe). I was looking at the Radeon8500 LE (bit more expensive than a GF3Ti200 from Leadtek), but all those rumours about bad drivers for the Radeon still make me wonder...

[JP- 0]

ti4200 is your best bet yeah ive owned the 8500 and it is good but the ti4200 is faster and at a lower price and it plays colin mcrae rally without having to mess about with any settings!!!!!! The ti4400 that i got (gainward) is pretty impressive but the 1 think i do hate about it is that it still cant manage 4x fsaa at high res in reasonably new games and keep 80+ fps

[JP- 0]

Atis drivers arnt really what you would call bad, the last set, the 6058s were pretty fantastic, i really have 0 complains about the 8500 apart from that it wouldnt play CMR2

[pmistry 0]

No offense to anyone who likes ATI, but they aren't getting my business for a long time if ever.

 

had an ATI SVGA card, never got high color modes to work with this even though it claimed it in the manual, had 1 meg of ram on this.

 

got an ATI 3D Xpression, Rage 1, 2 MB card, poor DirectDraw performance, forget Direct3D with this too since only 2 megs yet the manual claimed Direct3D would work.

 

then got an ATI Rage Pro with 8 MB RAM, you would think I learned my lesson by now but no, I bought and finally the Direct3D was good, but now OpenGL was crap, back then Quake 2 was all the rage [no pun intended] and this card just couldn't cut it, and the card had issues with anything that was transparent.

 

so I swore never to buy ATI again, but alas I got an ATI Xpert 2000 Pro, this really sucks, the Xpert Pro model for some reason was clocked slower than the normal Rage 128 Pro models. Poor frame rates all around. Also this card used slow sdram and not sgram [might be the other way around, whichever was slower was on the Xpert line] and this card had a reduced bitpath 64-bit as opposed to 128-bit. Yet all of this information was nowhere to be found. The clincher was the lack of AGP 4X, the manual says AGP4x compatible, which in ATI terms means according to ATI "the card will work in an AGP 4x slot" which means you get a card that is still only 2X, just operating in a 4x slot.

[Palos 0]

Ok pmistry, u cannot really compare the K6 generation of AMD CPUs with the Athlons, can you?

Sometimes 2 or 3 generations of products really bring improvements, I don't think the Radeon is anything close to the old Rage 128 chips.

[BladeRunner 0]

Nope, but once you get stung by a company you tend not to go back.

There are numerous manufacturers of certain PC hardware components that I will never purchase again, even if they were the best in the world, simply because I have been stung once or twice before.

What a company does to me in the past reflects on if I shall send any money their way now or in the future.

 

I still see postings on forum's about the poor driver support for the Radeon's.

I could have owned one, went GF3 Ti200 instead, because although I'm not keen on NVidia as a company, their drivers are pretty mature now and updates are never months apart.

[pmistry 0]

Back when the Rage Pro and Rage 128 line were around, ATI's support was really poor, driver releases were like 6 months or even longer apart, they didn't consider the gaming/enthusiast market one to support, ATI was huge in the OEM market and it still is and in Canada, ATI boards are everywhere. It was with the Radeon they changed and focused on gaming/enthusiast markets due to Nvidia biting into their market share. But I've had nothing but trouble with them so I am reluctant to try them again.......for now anyways.

 

I remember this one guy who posted something like this, ATI drivers suck because they create a whole new card all the time, for example the Rage 128 is completely different from the Rage Pro, and the Radeon is different from Rage 128, thus new drivers need to be created everytime. Meanwhile Nvidia just bolts new features on to the existing design TNT2 was a souped up TNT, GeForce4 = overclocked GeForce 3 with a couple of things, GeForce4 MX is like a GeForce2 MX on steroids and thus creating new drivers from scratch is not necessary. Interesting thought process there.

[Alien 1]

Pmistry - I can see where you're coming from dude - there's a couple of companies that I will avoid in the future, ALi [mobos with their chipsets] & Videologic [soundcards]. I've had 2 of each & had grief from all.

 

On the subject of Radeon drivers - I can't comment on those for the 8500 range cos I only have a 64MB DDR ViVo, but the drivers for that are definitely getting better.

 

Another point is that you know how when you have 1 of those really annoying probs for which the cause/culprit is hard to pin down, but then you think you've figured out what the prob is, only to realise it's actually something else? Well I think this has been the case for me - I was blaming my Radeon, or more specfically the drivers, for a prob I was having, but now it seems more likely that my soundcard [Videologic Sonic Vortex 2] is to blame. I had a Videologic Sonic Storm Pro before the SV2 & that was even more hassle.

[Hammer91 0]

an ATI 8500 is going for around $299 from what i see in my area. Why on earth would you buy that card ,at that price, ATI has had sooooooo many driver issues it aint funny.It probably is a good card ,but ATI cant write drivers,so whats the use? at $299 Y bother with the headaches? Buy a high-end Nvidia card,and save the money u would have spent on Tylenol. =)

 

Hammer

[JP- 0]

Have you just read that they cant write drivers or have you actually had an 8500 and used the drivers ?