Any Recommendations For New Grapics Card

[The5Levels]

Hi Everyone,

Im going to be purchasing a new graphics card tommorow and need some
input as to which would be the best for my system and the programs I
run.Currently Ive been using Adobe PhotoShop 6.0,Vue'd Espirit and
World Builder with a Nvidia Riva TnT2 M64.I currently am not experiencing any obvious problems,but I think it could be better.
Here are some specs. on my system. ASUS A7V133 KT133A,Anthlon T-Bird
1.33GHz and Windows XP.Thank you and see ya laters.................

[Jimstep]

If you want to stick with nVidia and get a more advanced card, check out the Geforce 3 series. If you wait till March, rumor has it that there will be a Geforce 4 on the market which will drive the Geforce 3 prices down.

I have the VisionTek Xtasy 6564 - Geforce 3 Ti 200. You can get this card for around $150.

If you want to try a different vendor, ATI has the Radeon 7500 and 8500 that are suppose to be really good. I have heard the 7500 can be overclocked to run like an 8500 for 60% of the cost. You can get a 7500 for about $90.

Good Luck with your purchase!

[WyreTheWolf]

The ATi RADEON 7500 uses a revised version of the R100 chip design. It uses the same memory I/O functions as the R200 (RADEON 8500) but, it does not fully support DirectX 8.

It can be highly clocked but really the only 7500 that can be heavily overclocked is the retail 7500 from ATi. Now that ATi is using third party manufacturers like Power Color, Power Magic, Herculies, and such ... it is going to be harder to get the ATi product.

The 7500 even when overclocked is not able to do what the 8500 can do ... due to the fact that the 7500 only has two texture pipelines w/ 3 textures being rendered each ... and the 8500 has 4 pipelines w/ 3 textures each.

I would suggest:

*Geforce3 Ti 200 (cheaper and can be overclocked to match the 500)

*Radeon 7500 retail (Overclock it for some serious performance for little money)

*Radeon 8500 retail (overclock it to 310/620 and have the best of the best)

*Herculies 3D Prophet 7500 Ultra (out in a month or so.)

[JeffD]

Hi The5Levels,

IMHO the apps you're using taxes 2D more than 3D. Are you a gamer as well? If so then what kind?

Also, what budget do you have? Based on what you gave us this would be my top three suggestions:

1. Matrox G400/550. Outright best 2D quality and speed. OK gaming but definitely not a card to get if you're a benchmarking fanatic or a RTCW, Unreal, Quake III type gamer.

2. ATI 8500. For the person who wants it all. Great 2D, great 3D gaming. Although some may argue the GF3 Ti500 is the better card I would say not for the price (8500 around $200).

3. Nvidia GF3 Ti200. Good 2D (but not up to Matrox quality). Excellent gaming with nvidia's solid reputation. Cheapest of the nvidia cards that I would suggest for your purpose and cheaper than a 8500.

Finally my suggestion for the best budget card:

ATI 32MB DDR (new name is the 7000). Newegg has them for $45. I've also had one of these for over 1 year. Great 2D, solid 3D gaming although won't keep up with a 8500 or Ti200.......but for $45 you get something that looks great and can run virtually any app/game out there.

Regards,

JeffD

[WyreTheWolf]

Originally posted by JeffD
Finally my suggestion for the best budget card:

ATI 32MB DDR (new name is the 7000). Newegg has them for $45. I've also had one of these for over 1 year. Great 2D, solid 3D gaming although won't keep up with a 8500 or Ti200.......but for $45 you get something that looks great and can run virtually any app/game out there.

Regards,

JeffD

I will have to agree here... for the money NOTHING can touch a Radeon LE 32DDR. I have one with altered BIOS ... it runs at 201/201 stable.

[InnovaZero]

You have a 1.33Ghz right?

I would then say the Kyro II ($60) is the best budget card.
It stomps any GF2 MX/RadeonLE and even some DDR versions out there. The Card is on par with a GTS most times and even plays tail end to a Pro/Ti.

[BobyJo]

To all you guys that are stating the Radeon 7500 can be overclocked to run like the 8500????

The 7500 has the same GPU that has been on Radeon cards from the word go. It has been refined and enhanced to perform better than most regular Radeon cards.

The 8500 has a totally new GPU, much farther advanced than the regular Radeon cards. So even if you OC'ed the 7500 to 275/275 does not mean it will play the same as the 8500. The 8500 has a different design and has double the pipelines that the 7500 has. So before making a statement as this, you should have said the 7500 may be OC'ed to the 8500 clock speed. But even at that speed does not mean it will perform the same.

[bunkskunk]

Don't buy a geforce3 ti200 believing it will overclock to a ti500 speeds...I paid extra for the big bad hercules ti200 because it was supposed to overclock well...it doesn't...I have ample cooling and it will only do 210/460 before it's artifact city...beware of reviews or posts saying how great things overclock...it doesn't always pan out.

If I had it to do over again I think I would I'd get the raedon8500.

[Jimstep]

My VisionTek G3Ti200 will oc to 220/500 with no problems. Only cost me $99.

[Slapshot]

Hey bunkskunk my PNY GF3 Ti200 is oc'd to 225/525 no artifacts at all i think you may have gotten a bad card. Ive seen people go as high as 235/550 without artifacts..


FYI
Slapshot

[SpaceBz]

Shoot... I would probably go with a GeForce 3 Ti 200... NVidia's drivers are much more developed than those of ATi and they usually overclock well... Not to mention they're cheap! Be careful not to get any no-name brands though. There's a difference between a good value and a bargain card, and usually you can tell which ones are which. my next choice would be a Radeon 7500. Gives powerful performance and benchmarks for a reasonable price.... But, Nvidia still is a better overall card. But remember, if you buy a card that was good a few years ago, it may not be able to play the lastest games up to par! The industry jumped enormously since then, and you might get left behind. Besides, $150 aint much anyways.

[WyreTheWolf]

Originally posted by SpaceBz
Shoot... I would probably go with a GeForce 3 Ti 200... NVidia's drivers are much more developed than those of ATi and they usually overclock well...

SpaceBz, Have you ever even owned a RADEON? I will agree that the first few sets of drivers for the RADEON were not up to par. But, since the 4.12.7115 drivers, I have found no errors. The first set of drivers for the 8500 were not that great... HydraVision was not implemented in those drivers. But, the next set had them implemented.

I seem to recall the Geforce3 getting its **** handed to it by the Geforce2 Ultra when the Geforce3 first came out... the very next driver set didn't help much... EVERY manufacturer has there driver problems.

I have seen RADEON LEs clock to 220/235 and pull over 4000 marks. I have seen some LEs not even clock to 200/200. I have even seen the RADEON LE clock to 166/166 and have artifacts. I have seen the RADEON 8500 clock to 310/600! and pull nearly 10,000 3DMarks! insane... but, the very next card that we overclocked wouldn't even hit 285/560! I am not too sure why ... but I have had some graphics cards overclock very well, and then the very next card not clock worth a darn.

At the shop I ordered four AMD AthlonXP 1800+ CPUs... One was very easy to overclock ... the other three didn't overclock worth a darn... Why is that... because not every chip is created equal!

There is a voltage mod for the KyroII... I remember reading about it.... very interesting results. Has anyone seen the voltage mods for the RADEON 8500? Also some very interesting results.

Just a reminder to everyone that every manufacturer has there pluses and there minuses... Or do I need to bring up image quality between the ATi, and nVidia products?

[JeffD]

Hi SpaceBz,

Listen to WyreTheWolf's advice.........

Some random comments:

--Both ATI AND nvidia have had issues in the past with their products that are now not such an issue.

--Case in point, ATI's drivers were once terrible. many people trash ATI for this reason alone....even without owning a ATI product for the past few years (if burned once or twice then I can't blame them). While one could argue ATI's driver support is not up to nvidia's support, ATI still has put out some very good drivers with only minor flaws....just like nvidia does not have perfect drivers and people still have some issues. Consequently, ATI has changed and is much better than they once were.

--Case in point 2D quality of nvidia products used to be terrible. With the GF3 line they FINALLY fixed the problem. Sure, they are no Matrox and the quality does vary from manufacturer to manufacturer but 2D quality is finally acceptable for general use and they've closed the gap on Matrox and ATI(.....and I have a Matrox G400, Radeon, GF3 Ti200 for side by side comparison on computers running at the same time).

So the moral of the story is both the GF3 Ti200 and the 7500 are solid cards that will give you great 2D, play every game at an acceptable framerate and should give you only minor hiccups in the driver department (depending on the games you play and your system configuration/software). It really boils down to:

--Price (cheapest is then7500)
--Absolute speed (goes to the GF3 Ti200 but you'll be paying a few bucks more than a 7500)

A few other comments on the other posters.........

Slapshot, I also have a PNY GF3 Ti200 that I've now gotten up to 260/585 stable......although I'm a bit scared to keep it at these speeds.....I mean how much speed does one need today. I benchmark at these speeds then drop it down a few notches for default. I figure a year from now when it's getting long in the tooth I'll max it out knowing I may be getting a new card soon so who cares if I burn it up at that time :-)

Finally, InnovaZero suggested a Kryo II. While a good card (both in 2D and 3D) the quoted price seems a bit low. Checking pricewatch I see a few vendors selling the card for that price, which, I wouldn't buy a stick of gum from....case in point......

Comp-U-Plus
Micro-Pro
OCIE

Just beware, some of these vendors may charge you $20 to ship a 1Lb. box!!!

For a fair comparison, Newegg (one of the best online vendors....just check http://www.resellerratings.com ) has a Kryo II for $76...nearly 70% higher in price than a Radeon 32MB DDR...so my best card for the buck (and it's heavily weighted for price) is still stands IMHO.

Regards,

JeffD