Video Card Upgrade..Which one?

[Trevor Schell]

Hi!,

I currently have a Radeaon 8500 video card.
I just sold it and am now in the market for a new one.

I realize there are some good cards out there.
What would be the most suitable to be installed into
my Athlon XP1700+ system.

I was thinking the Ge-force 4,,but not sure.

Thanks for any help.




Trevor
My HomeTheater S.E.
Sonically Enhanced
C5

[Bing Fung]

Hey Trev, why did you sell your Radeon, where you not happy with it?

The Geforce 4 is king right now, thats a fact. However not a lot of apps can use it's power as it only slightly faster than the GF3Ti 500. It's when you enable Antialising that the GF4 walks away from everything. Do note that AA does not really need to be enabled at the higher resolutions as there are less jaggies at 1600x1200. Regardless the GF4 is the must have right now.

ATI will be releasing a RV250 (next month?) that is said to be based on a 0.13 um core. It will basically be a higher clocked 8500. Will it be enough to unset the GF4, I highly doubt it, but it will be competitive.

In the later Qrt's ATI will be releasing it's 300 core which is said to be a GF4 killer, supporting DirectX 9, however we have always heard the same thing with each ATI release.

If it was me, it would be the GF4 as I think Nvidia makes an excellent product and the driver support is the best in the industry.

But I do need to know, why did you sell your 8500?




Bing

[Andrew Pratt]

But I do need to know, why did you sell your 8500?

I'd guess it got dusty :LOL:

[Trevor Schell]

Just wanted to get something different.
My score on 3d mark 2001 was dropping so it was time to unload.
Also was experiencing video tearing,,hate that! :x
Sold it to a co-worker. He is giving me a PII 233 , which we will set up at work for my managment team to work spreadsheets and other important reports.
So I was actually able to kill two birds with one stone.

Any recommendations on which brand manufacturer.?




Trevor
My HomeTheater S.E.
Sonically Enhanced
C5

[Trevor Schell]

Found a couple.

Here is the version from Leadtek.
Geforce 4 250 Ultra








Trevor
My HomeTheater S.E.
Sonically Enhanced
C5

[Trevor Schell]

Here is the version from VisionTek.






Trevor
My HomeTheater S.E.
Sonically Enhanced
C5

[Bing Fung]

Ha, ha Andrew!

Trev, the VisionTek is a nice card. They make Nvidia's reference boards. Leadteks are nice as well, though they seem higher priced.

What ever you do, do not buy a Geforce 4 MX. That is a miss named product that really is the equivelent of a GF2 GTS. It does not have the Pixel and vertex shader that make the GF3 and up look so glorious in graphics. The Xbox would have it's lunch

The reason I'm so interested in your selling of the 8500 is I build and recommend a lot of systems, most time I use Nvidia products, however I do also recommend the ATI's. It's good to know what experiences people have with their products. Tearing can be reduced by disabling V-snyc on the card. 3Dmarks are really not that critical, more just bragging rights. Dust on the card is not a good enough excuse for me to not recommend ATI's.




Bing

[Trevor Schell]

Here's a good reveiw of the LeadTek 250 Ultra g-4

http://firingsquad.gamers.com/hardware/winfasta250ultratd/default.asp

I can see why it is priced higher. Faster performance and an awesome cooling system.
No wonder they want $700 for it. 8O




Trevor
My HomeTheater S.E.
Sonically Enhanced
C5

[Lex]

Well, in US dollars Trev, that card can be found here for much less:

http://www.atacom.com/program/atacom_new.cgi?PAGE_LIST=VIDEO_CARD

However, I know nothing about these folks, as to their reliability.

I was quite miffed at Asus,not even having a picture of their best G4 card. strange.

Good 7 way shootout here: No asus in the mix though:

http://www.gamepc.com/reviews/hardware_review.asp?review=gf4ti&page=1&mscssid=&tp=

Just shopping,thinking.

Lex

[Trevor Schell]

Excellent Shoot out Lex.

I only knew of two brands available.
Good to see that there are more to choose from.

So which one you getting..?

Lex,,
Dude, Your gettinga G-4!!:T




Trevor
My HomeTheater S.E.
Sonically Enhanced
C5

[Bing Fung]

I have my name of a Gainward Power Pack.




Bing

[Lex]

As for monitor connections, the Gainward card is the only board in our shootout to utilize the Dual DVI functionality of the GeForce4 core. Gainward makes sure all of us normal analog monitors aren't left out in the dark by including two DVI-D to HD-15 adapters with the card. This allows you to use every possible nView multimonitor configuration available through the GeForce4. Unfortunately, as we've noted in our previous review of this card, the primary DVI output is limited to resolutions of 1280x1024 and below, while the secondary DVI-I port can go above 1600x1200.

sort of strange on the gainward above Bing, wonder why the primary has a limitation? Of course, with a secondary, does it even matter?
Bing's:


Trev's


Lex:

?

[Lex]

Here ya go Bing, looks like a GREAT deal.

http://www.monarchcomputer.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=M&Product_Code=190940&Category_Code=VC

oops, that's the 4400, back to the drawing board.

Lex

[Lex]

Trev's out of stock-

http://www.monarchcomputer.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=M&Product_Code=190924&Category_Code=VC