Graphics Radeon 8500 cant be dead can it?

Discussion in 'Hardware' started by Liquid K9, 1 Sep 2002.

  1. Liquid K9

    Liquid K9 Human programmer.. heh

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    I'm about to start building me' own PC and am starting to compile a list of what to get and the time has come to get a GFX card sorted. I would ask which is the best value for money, but that would be like asking which is the 'true religion' (everyone has their own opinion). So instead I'm asking is the ATI Radeon ALL-IN-WONDER too old? should I forego the 'extras' and get a Radeon 9000 instead? I need a GFX card better than my current (Geforce2 Ti-something or other, who cares its a GF2 for gods sake!). (the PC I'm building will be using WinXP PRO, so if either dont work or work badly on XP please tell). Put simply I need a GFX card that can Play the usual games (Deus Ex, Tribes2, MOH:AA, GTA3, GTA:VC etc.) and also be able to handle things like rendering in truespace, basically I want a card I can beat the S**t out of, and it to come out smelling of roses.
     
  2. yodasarmpit

    yodasarmpit Modder

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    Best bang for buck has to be the ti4200 - overclock to ti4600 speeds.
     
  3. Liquid K9

    Liquid K9 Human programmer.. heh

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    [no need for this message, look below]
     
  4. Liquid K9

    Liquid K9 Human programmer.. heh

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    hmm, ok.. If I *was* to convert from Radeon. how does the Gainward Geforce4 Ti4600/750XP (Golden Sample) compare? it has equal features to the Radeon ALL-IN-WONDER (IMO) but can it really be worth so much money (the stupid thing will cost more than my motherboard and CPU combined!)
     
  5. Liquid K9

    Liquid K9 Human programmer.. heh

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    my bad, I just noticed the review on the main-site. god I'm thick somtimes.
     
  6. Liquid K9

    Liquid K9 Human programmer.. heh

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    Sorry 56kbps readers...

    Ok, so heres the final question.
    does a "All In Wonder Radeon 8500DV AGP 64MB DDR" compete with a "Gainward Geforce4" card?

    the reason why I ask this is I have seen reviews saying that, ok the Geforce card almost always comes up on top BUT the radeon 8500 is holding a close position beghind it. In fact I looked at two comparison pictures of Quake III, one being a Radeon 8500 the other being a Gainward Geforce4 4600 Ultra Gold Sample (or whatever its called - the top o' the line one. these people have got to give their cards shorter names!) and to tell the truth I cant tell the difference. can you?

    un-named image one:
    [​IMG]

    un-named image two:
    [​IMG]

    anyone want a guess at which is the $150 Radeon 8500 and which is the $330+ Gainward Geforce4 Ti? :eyebrow:
     
  7. Guest-16

    Guest-16 Guest

    YAY my guess was right :D top one gf4, bottom rad (i guessed before i right clicked and saw the filenames ;))

    They are exactly the same though. You could tell easily if you had the fps showing.
     
  8. Will

    Will Beware the judderman...

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    The Geforce 4 Ti4200 offers best value for money at the moment.....

    The Radeon 9000 is a cut down version of the Radeon 8500, despite the name, and is therefore (IMHO) not worth bothering with....

    The Gainward geforce 4 is a very good card, but unless you need dual DVI output then there are cheaper Ti4600 cards that have just as many features. A Leadtek ti4600 (A250 Ultra TD) MyVIVO edition can be had for as little as £244, which compares well with the Gainward 750/XP, from http://www.theoverclockingstore.co.uk and offers pretty much what the gainward does, bar having dual DVI (the leadtek has a DVI and VGA output) and a bundled firewire card (which costs nothing tbh if you need that). T

    he Radeon AIW will have better quality DVD playback than the Gf4 and I believe has a TV tuner built in so you can watch TV using it, but if speed is more important than that then the GeForce 4 ti4600 will win by a significant margin.

    :)
     
  9. yodasarmpit

    yodasarmpit Modder

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    Top one is GF 4
    Better detail in the darker areas
     
  10. Kevo

    Kevo 426F6C6C6F636B7300

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    If you dont need any of the features of a All in Wonder then just get a Geforce 4.

    If you do decide to get a 8500 they are not quite passed it yet. For example I can run Hitman 2 1280x1024 with AS enabled and still run it smoothly.

    On to GTA3 this game is very bugged it takes a lot of luck to get this game working right on a radeon card.
     
  11. Liquid K9

    Liquid K9 Human programmer.. heh

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    hmm, GTA3 being the game I'm currently tearing my hair out to finish, that isnt exactly good news.

    anyway, I personally think I'll splurge for the Gainward Geforce4 ultr.. (the overly long named, overly high-priced card). It has a lot of features, it seems extremely well built (as in a quality PCB) and the sheer amount of extras you get, they all out wiegh getting a Radeon 8500 all-in-wonder, which I might add, at its cheapest is only $30 cheaper. So even for the pure game-compatabilty (we all know game-developers like to 'swing' with the nVidia crowed) I' think G4 will be my domain for the next year/two.

    FYI:
    specs on the Radeon card
    specs on the Gainward card (click here to see what I mean by how much you get in the gainward 'pack', if you look carefully you can see you get some serious 'stuff' in there..)
     
  12. djgizmo

    djgizmo 1337 pimp

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    here's the bottom line: i have a duron 800 w 256mbsdr and a powermagic radeon 8500le64mb. aaight. reasonable graphics card in a crap system. so anyways i get some 5000 3dmarks, and q3 runs at 1600'1200 with max everything(except AA) anyways i get about 90 fps... so basically it runs just fine and considering that the card only costs like $100 i'd say that it's better value for the monneh than a ti4200 which costs like 70% more. if you don't intend to use AA, you'll do fine even with an 8500le. SOF runs fine at 1200'1024 res and everything at max, if i had a better processor it'd run at 1600 too. unless you have a 21inch screen or are a really picky ******************* who insists on running everything with AA, you won't see that much difference.
    9000 is no better than 8500.
     
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