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Graphics Which Geeforce 3 should i buy?? help lol

Discussion in 'Hardware' started by Savi, 30 Nov 2001.

  1. Savi

    Savi What's a Dremel?

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    ok olla folks

    ive been looking into a new vid card sence mine is no longer liked by anything :( :( :( (3Dfx Voodoo 4, awesome card i still think but the new games dont think so lol) and so i figure why not get one of the best and most reliable out there today and every one says get a geforce so im gonna get 300 bucks and go get one lol

    but i see there are different companys that make them, which one is the best all round? i heard visontecks is good

    need some advice ppl, ty :)


    oh forgot to ask this, if i get one with a super vhs output does that mean i can hook up computer to a tv via a svhs coverter ? :)

    and if so can i still use my computer monter at same time hehe
     
    Last edited: 30 Nov 2001
  2. Will

    Will Beware the judderman...

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    I would go for the Asus or Hercules Ti500 cards mate, though if u have less to spend the Hercules Ti200 wil overclock to normal Gf3 levels no problem

    :)
     
  3. Evilbob

    Evilbob What's a Dremel?

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    Yah Hecules, Asus or Gainward cards imho are the best quality
     
  4. IsaacSibson

    IsaacSibson Banned

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    I just got a Hercules GF3 Ti200, and overclocked it to 230/490 no probs. Better image quality in 2D than my old GF2MX as well (only noticeable in 1600x1200@85 or similar stupidly high resolutions....with a damn fine monitor too....) :p
     
  5. Guest-16

    Guest-16 Guest

    Does it have to be an overpriced overrated nVidia card??
     
  6. Kevo

    Kevo 426F6C6C6F636B7300

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    Nothing like the overpriced Radon 8500 with its alpha(ish) drivers and substandard performance then ;) (j/k)
     
  7. Savi

    Savi What's a Dremel?

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    well ive never OCed anything lol so wouldnt know what to do, i was thinking og the geeforce 3ti but that raden 8500 i hear is the same but they dont have a good histry of drivers i herd llol

    any other cards out there? my voodoo 4 is having huge probs even with 3rd party drivers lol i can play UT CS and otehr games but crashes :p

    and how good is the Hercules Ti500 ? or the aues one :)
     
  8. IsaacSibson

    IsaacSibson Banned

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    The Ti200 are the best deal in town at the moment.

    Let's have a look:
    Memory spec on the Ti200 is 4ns
    Memory spec on the Ti500 is 3.8ns
    Memory spec on the Radeon 8500 is 3.6ns

    Therefore, maximum memory speeds of each card, in order (1/memory time) are:
    Ti200: 250MHz
    Ti500: 263MHz
    R8500: 277MHz

    All are DDR set-ups, so the effective maximum speeds of the memory are (speed x 2):
    Ti200: 500MHz
    Ti500: 526MHz
    R8500: 555MHz

    Now, this is the maximum possible speed of the memory. Now let's look at what the cards are actually clocked at:
    Ti200: 400MHz
    Ti500: 500MHz
    R8500: 550MHz

    Thus, in the memory subsystem, they have differing amounts of overclocking headroom (max memory speed - clocked memory speed):
    Ti200: 100MHz
    Ti500: 26MHz
    R8500: 5MHz

    Now, let's look at the core speed:
    Ti200: 175MHz
    Ti500: 240MHz
    R8500: 275MHz

    We know, from all the benchmarks, that R8500 and GF3Ti500 are pretty well even for a lot of things, despite the R8500's higher clock speeds.

    However, let's bring overclocking and, more importantly, money into the equation.
    Prices (dabs)
    Hercules Ti200 OEM: £182
    Hercules Ti500 OEM: £270
    R8500: £226 (retail, no OEM available, OEM cards are clocked lower)

    Overclocking is where the game becomes really interesting though. With its high clock speeds, the Radeon can't overclock much at all, especially given its lack of memory cooling. Ti500 has more overclocking headroom, and the best examples of the GF3 core. However, it is at this point that the Ti200 shines, because of the vast overclocking potential it has. My Hercules Ti200 now runs at 240/490, which places it within a couple of percent of Ti500 speed, but for only two thirds of the money.

    To be honest...it's fast enough. And given its (relatively) cheap price, who can argue?
     
  9. Guest-16

    Guest-16 Guest

    That is so completely untrue i think you lot have been asleep for nvidia have whiped your brains or something!?!

    Let me remind you that Geforce 3 drivers took until august to full *appear* (detonator 4 drivers) and support all the geforce 3s components. They had had them MONTHS before hand but waited until the release of the Radeon to release them.

    Ati have now said (over on rage 3d, where the actual Ati driver design team visit the forums!) that they are spending more time and concentrating on drivers now the hardware is out.
    The new 3286 drivers are 110% stable and ALREADY support ALL of the Atis hardware like trueform, hyrdavision, hyper Z technology etc.

    Already on Madonion (where 3Dmark was *designed* for nvidia chipsets) the 8500 outdoes the Ti500 on average. :)

    To say you dont get as much Ocing is complete cods wallop. Ive bought an Le 8500 and flashed it with a retail BIOS to get 275/275 no sweat. More people then i can count have theirs over 300/300 and they are still going, most still without ramsinks and with the original cooler on the chipset. Which leads me to another point - even though its got 3.6ns ram it doesnt need ram sinks or a huge cooler cause the layout is far superior to the nvidia range as they have designed it so you dont need them and move all the hot components strategically around the PCB. My ram chips dont even get warm! thus they can be OCed further, if anything - more then a ti500 cause i have the potential of sticking sinks on them to keep them cool over 600mhz DDR:p hehe

    Also it may have a higher clock speed, but you pay less for more too, and the fact you're gurenteed to have the best ati card out for at LEAST another year, whereas if you bought nvidia it would last 5/6 months until another one comes out to suck the cash out your pocket :D You also get far far superior image quality (which is universally noted), do you really need 300fps from an nvidia card that is generally worse quality??

    Anyway, enough from my ranting :D dont take it to heart - im an ati pimp like most of u are nvidias ;)
     
  10. IsaacSibson

    IsaacSibson Banned

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    As you say, you're an ATi pimp...which is why you don't appear to know that the Geforce 3 driver was 12.41. The more recent 21.xx drivers have shown improvements with GF2 hardware also. Ati's reputation for drivers isn't exactly exemplary now is it?

    And I'm not an NVidia pimp...I'm actually fairly new to NVidia, having come from Diamond (ahhh, the good old days of the Fire GL1000 Pro (which I still use for my second monitor, and its image quality puts anything else I've seen to shame, including Matrox)). Don't think that I think NVidia are perfect, because they're not, but the strategy that they've used to put themselves on top has been a lot cleaner than, say, M$ (not to say it's completely clean, eg the 3dfx buy out), but at least NVidia's product is good quality, with good support. Sure, there's no reason why ATi couldn't make as good a product, and maybe they have with the Radeon 8500....but as you're well aware, there's no real difference between GF3 Ti500 and GF3 (most GF3s will clock easily beyond Ti500 spec), so ATi have only just matched an 8-9 month old NVidia solution. However, ATi's support is legendarily bad.

    Back to the image quality debate, sure, I'll grant that ATi may be better than NVidia, but GF3 is a step up from GF2 in that department. Maybe one of these days they'll get close to Matrox, or even my Diamond Fire. The Fire is (was) a professional CAD card, so the quality is superb...I suspect if one was to buy an NVidia Quadro (not as silly as it sounds....the go for about £120 on ebay, same speed/spec as a GF2Pro) series card then the image quality would be right up there.

    Before anyone starts debating the AA quality issue....when you can run in 1280x1024 or 1600x1200, there really is no need for AA, because the aliasing is not noticeable at these resolutions (and I use a 21" monitor, so it would be more noticeable to me...) to begin with.

    If you're happy with ATi, good for you. I'm happy with my GF3 Ti200.
     
  11. Guest-16

    Guest-16 Guest

    K issac - ic your point :):):)
     
  12. Savi

    Savi What's a Dremel?

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    lmao

    lmao ty for all of that info, so i guss i have to see which one would best suit my system, lmao i notice alot of nivida guys, and i hear the ati 8500 is very good even better than the gf3 (i read many articles Maximum PC gave the 8500 a 10 in the nov. 2001 issue, but they woried bout the driver histry of the company)

    well iv narrowd my searh to 3 cards

    the gf3 ti 200

    ati 8500

    or i could just get a gf2 for 100 or 150 bucks ant stick with that for bout a year and just get the next genration of vid cards hehehe

    one last question bout the gf cards which is better the Vison techs or Xtasty ones? dont think i spelt them right hehe

    right now at this moment im leaning to get a gf2, but i see in the upcoming month heeh :)


    oh one last question forgot to post , what is a hercules ti200? that a gf card to, I'm new to graphics card you can say lol

    if some one knows a article explaing all of the vid cards that be nice hehe
     
    Last edited: 1 Dec 2001
  13. Guest-16

    Guest-16 Guest

    Dunno about Vision tek or Xtasy (sp?) cause they dont sell em in the uk, or i havent seen them for sale.

    The Hercules cards are generally quoted as being certainly one of the best (and you pay more for that too).
    The 8500 is better then the Ti200 if you want more fps, and Ati have said they will work harder on drivers (which im hoping is true). But you know what you're getting more with an nvidia i have to say.

    You could get a gts2 ti then wait until next april when they bring out the GF 4 range or whatever that is!?! but its up to you :)
    I got my 8500 cause i know ati arent gonna release another vid card for at least another yr, so it gives me some breathing space, cause its hard to keep up with nvidias 6 month product cycle (i had a geforce 1 sdr up until last week :D, in geforce eyes its a grandad at 2 yrs old.) But it was still down to the wire whether i was gonna get an Asus ti 200 though.
     
  14. Savi

    Savi What's a Dremel?

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    yea thats true to man this hard choice hehehe

    i go to some stores and i just do ine mene mini mo lmao

    ty for all help guys :)
     
  15. Kevo

    Kevo 426F6C6C6F636B7300

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    This is just good planning on Nivida's part as I can seem to remeber these new nivida drivers over shadowing the Radon 8500 launch ;) As a matter of fact Nivida are probably holding back of some extra performance driver wise to blow the Radon 8500 and Kyro 3 (yes 3) out the water.

    Im not a Nvidia "FanBoy" as a matter of fact im thinking of buying a Radon 8500 All in Wonder but several things stop me like as stated above ATI driver support is pants and will probebly remain the same it dosnt matter how many times they say there going to do it better now as I can seem to remeber them saying the same things about the origional Radon, the fact that they can change core and memory speeds on there OEM and RETAIL boards at any time they want means you really dont know what card you are getting even though its not wide spread as some people make out it still could happen.

    But after saying that ATI has some things I want/need. I for one need a good DVI port something Nivida still cant do right, and a good visual quality.
     
    Last edited: 1 Dec 2001
  16. squishedhog

    squishedhog What's a Dremel?

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    When I got my GF3 it was a case of ... I have £300 burning a hole in my pocket and my TNT2 Ultra won't play max payne in 1600x1200 happily.

    I have a favourite retailler (falcon computers in Sunderland) and I get pretty much all my kit from them, so when I saw they had GF3's for around the £300 mark I decided to get one.

    I ended up with a choice of the Asus GF3 Pure (crap), the Asus GF3 Deluxe (with the lil vr-goggles) or the Gainward Golden Sample. I'd heard good things about the gainward so I went with that and I've never looked back.

    I've had it clocked to 230/525 (from 200/460) and it was rock solid, no artifacting or anything and it happly ran through 3dmark2001 after 3dmark2001! I ended up pulling something like 7000-odd, that was with a 1.4gig athlon - standard, only overclocked the GF3.

    It's got the feature set too, Vivo (video in/video out) for DV editing, a DVI connector for a flat panel monitor and it's fully sinked-up for cooling, it's even got a lil red 0rb on the GPU for cooling which I think is a nice touch... and it looks the biz too - blood red pcb and associated sinks, sets the inside of the case off no end - except I haven't window modded my dragon yet (it's too new!)

    My only experience of ATi was with the hunk-o-junk in the other computer, can't remember what it is - just that it's good for dvd playback and that's about it. In pure graphics testing, my TNT2 used to whip it's ass and that was in a K6-3/450 (over a P3 600)

    Hell, I'm a NVidiot - go for nvidia, you won't look back :)
     
  17. WilHarris

    WilHarris Just another nobody Moderator

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    Guys...if you can wait a week or so, theres gonna be a spanking gorgeous Gainward article up :D
     
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