geforce 2 gts vs. voodoo 5 5500

[malaki]

I'm planning to ditch my v3 3000 for something better and would like your opinion as to which to choose? I got an athlon 650 on the ancient k7m w/256 M of generic pc-100.
also is there anything better around the same price point?

[Szech]

Well, the Geforce 2 is going for less than the Voodoo5, and it is in most respects a better card, so it would be the obvious choice of the two. However, that's a pretty penny... $225!!! If I were in the market, I would buy the Geforce MX. Its performance is somewhere between the SDR Geforce and the DDR Geforce, but its features are full on Geforce 2! Plus it costs about $120.

Question 2: Are you only going to be gaming with this machine?

[Warthog]

Yeah, if you are a heavy gamer and/or likes-to-have-the-best-everything person (me), you should get the Geforce2.

If not, the Geforce2 MX.

Warthog

[mad hampster]

Definitely go with the Geforce2, its faster then the v5 and it has very important features like hardware T&L. THe only advantage of the v5 is its FSAA, but to me it dosent look much better then a geforce2 and newer games really dont need it unless you run at really low resolutions. From the reviews I read, the reviewers strongly reccomended staying away from the MX. They said it is crippled by its SDR memory and is not much better then a Geforce SDR.

[Dputiger]

Hmmm, I'm going to come out as a Voodoo 5 fan, though a cautious one. The V-5 DOES anti-alias much better than the GeForce 2, and unlike the GeForce, it's anti-aliasing works in any game, any time.

So, is it worth it? I'd say if you're playing low-res games like Diablo II on a big monitor, it's worth it. From what I've heard, FSAA makes D2 look much better.

On the other hand, if you don't care about anti-aliasing, I'd get either the GeForce 2 or the Radeon. The Radeon actually has gotten some very positive reviews and its the first card from ATI I've ever seriously considered.

[mad hampster]

In all honesty, the v5's FSAA dosent look much better until 4x, but the v5 cannot handle 4x very well. THere are some compatibility problems with certain via mobos but it is not as serious as it may sound. Installing the via 4-in-1 drivers always fixes the problem, there are some issues with the K7M but this can be fixed as well. I have never found anyone who truely could not get it to work properly aftering installing the correct stuff.

There are certain games both old and new that give better preformance in Glide but Glide is being used less and less in games, I heard Geforce had horrible preformance on Deus Ex, but I run it at 1024*768 with all the details on with excellent preformance.

I have kind of mixed feelings about the Radeon, it DOES surpass the GTS at 1600*1200*32 by 10 fps however: it has fairly poor 16 bit preformance, eeven with the extra 10 fps ultra high res 32-bit is still slow, and ATI has notoriously bad driver support.

They are all good cards, but I got the GTS because it will last me longer thanks to its excellent preformance and speed.

[malaki]

Thanks for all the advice guys, I'm gonna go with the GF2GTS, fsaa is a good idea but from what I've heard here and elsewhere 3dfx hasn't quite got it perfected yet. Plus nVidia claims to have fixed all the compatibility issues with Athlon boards with the new GeForce. If not I'll have fun making it work, gotta have something to tweak with after all.

[Dputiger]

Oh, I forgot:

There's one other reason to buy a Voodoo5--compatibility. GeForce's and Athlon's were known to have problems (and without knowing which mobo you have I don't know if you'd have one or not).

In addition, some games still just plain run better using Glide and a 3dfx-based card.

Basically, I'd say if your looking for good performance with a neat feature (FSAA) and just want to plug the card in and go, go with the Voodoo.

If you want uncompromising speed and performance overall, with the slight risk of some games not liking their alternate video modes, go GeForce. Both are great.

Oh yeah--and if you want to play in ultra-high resolution, the only card that's even pumping out a playable framerate is the Radeon.

[neo_otyugh]

for pure speed and power, i would go with the geforce cards any day...plus it is interesting that www.madonion.com (http://www.madonion.com,) , the distributor of 3dmark2000 rates the geforce sdr as being faster than a voodoo5...

the fasted vidoe cards according to madonion
1. NVIDIA GeForce2 GTS
2. NVIDIA GeForce DDR
3. NVIDIA GeForce SDR
4. 3dfx Voodoo5 5500
5. ATI RAGE FURY MAXX
6. S3 Savage2000
7. NVIDIA RIVA TNT2 Ultra
8. NVIDIA RIVA TNT2
9. 3dfx Voodoo3 3500
10. Matrox G400 MAX



[This message has been edited by neo_otyugh (edited 08-13-2000).]