[Palos]

[sapiens74]

GF4

[BladeRunner]

Stick with the GF3 Ti200.
It's a full card with everything in place rather than a cut-down card which you will get with an MX.
It's $60 more expenisve for a reason, it'a far better card

I've got a Hercules Ti200 and it's an excellent piece of kit, wont be trading this card in until the next generation DX9 cards start to appear.
Do not be fooled by the NVidia naming convention on that MX!

[Palos]

DX9 chips? Hmm, could that be the ATI R300?

[pmistry]

Ti200 all the way. The GF4 MX is cheaper for a reason and is basically a souped up GF2.

[Rashman]

for me it depends on what rig you have, if you have a good processor id go for the mx440 and wait for the next gen of cards, yer the ti200 is better but you cant notice with todays games really, unless you play games at very high resolution. it runs everything well on my system,not sure what UT2 is gonna be like though.....

[Rashman]

Taken me a while to get a pc im happy with!.....

Windows XP Professional
AMD Athlon 1333mhz on 266 FSB
MSI K7T Turbo Limited Edition Motherboard
768 Kingston PC133mhz Ram
40 Gig Western Digital 7200 rpm ATA 100 Hard Drive
Soundblaster Live 5.1 Platinum Soundcard
Sony 12x CDRW\DDRW Writer
Ricoh Combi DVD/CDRW Writer
MSI Gerforce 4 MX440T Graphics
Voodoo TV/FM Tv Tuner Card Nicam Stereo
HP Scanjet 6200c
HP Laserjet 5
Creative Webcam go
Samsung digimax 800k Camera
Cambridge soundworks DTT 2200 5.1 Speaker system
Sony Graphic equalizer
Cordless Headphones
Cordless Black & Silver Trust rechargable mouse
BTC Black and silver keyboard
Optiquest V115 22" (20" Viewable) Monitor Customized in Silver with Black buttons
Logitech cordless Gamepad
Sony Minidisc player hooked up to optical leads on live drive
4 port usb hub
ir receiver so i can control pc with a remote control
Silver server tower case with black buttons
hayes v92 modem pci
on board usb network
Im chuffed!!!!

[Palos]

Thing is I want to wait for the GF4 Ti4200, it seems to take forever to show up. I need a gfx card fast, cos Im selling my old PC, well parts of it, this week.

Can u handle having a P4 1.6 Northwood and a MSI 845 Ultra ARU and NO graphics card? LOL

I might ask some friends if they can lend me a cheap card until the Ti4200 comes out...should be couple of weeks at the most.

[BladeRunner]

Quote:

DX9 chips? Hmm, could that be the ATI R300?

Personally I'm really hoping to see Matrox re-enter the gamers market with their DX9 solution.
As always with Matrox there are plenty of rumours floating around about their next card and if only half of them are true it will be an amazing piece of kit.
I hated the day I replaced my Matrox G400Max with an NVidia solution - that day saw my image quality drop and me entering the terrible, terrible world of NVidia drivers!

If Matrox fail to deliver then it will be ATI I'll be looking at, I want to get away from NVidia as quickly as I can.

[DosFreak]

And on the flip side of the coin....

Going from a TNT1 to a Matrox G400 I was happy. So so drivers (Opengl sucked at the time). www.matroxusers.com is a good forum. Unfortunately the G400 ran out of steam for me late '99. SO I upgraded to a GF2 GTS. Nvidia drivers MUCH better than Matrox's and have been so ever since. (Much easier for Matrox since their drivers only cover a limited range of cards, you could say the same with Nvidia but Nvidia has done well considering all the cards they have.)

Went to a GF3. Then GF3 T500. Went I get home soon to be a GF4 TI4600. I don't expect much from Matrox in the gamer market and I recommend no one else do either. In that way lies disappointment. Just forgetaboudit.

Oh, and I don't even want to talk about ATI.

Go with the GF3. That GF4 is worse than the GF3. Unless your short on $$.

[Palos]

The Ti4200 is supposed to be around the $199 mark, right? Right now I don't really want to pay $189 for a Ti200 when I can wait a week or 2 (or 3,4,5) and with $10 more I get a Ti4200...

I don't think the Ti4200 is worse than a Ti500, esp.if u can overclock it to Ti4400 levels and above

[Palos]

Lol, how about the Radeon8500LE w/128MB DDR...only difference between the LE and the 8500 Retail is the clock speed (250/250 opposed to 275/275). It has 3.3ns RAM so it can make it allright to 8500 speeds.
The prices is also unter $200. Plus is a full DX8 solution, better on paper than the GF3 Ti200.


Read some of the reviews for the Hercules 3D Prophet FDX 8500 LE, for example...this model has only 64MB, with 3.8ns RAM.

[pimpin_228]

I got a gf3 ti 200 for 129 it has no s vidieo or dvi out but i don't use them anyways. my card lets me play everyone of my games @ 1024x768 with everything on max from dynamic lighting to whatever i need or want , but hey it's up to you i am happy with my card i don't want another card till another set like the GF5 [LOL] outs

[Palos]

Okay, here is a pretty clear review, backed up with figures (colour pictures too)

http://www.hardwaremania.com/reviews_eng/avsn/avsn1.shtml

Considering the 8500LE is way cheaper than the Ti500, I would only like to know how is the driver support. Do any of you have this card (or the original 8500), or have buddies that own one? Suggestions, experiences?

[BladeRunner]

At the risk of being attacked from a few directions:

Currently I will not let an ATI card anywhere near any PC I own or build.
I have been stung too many times with sub-standard & buggy driver releases from them or, even worse, no new drivers for months on end even though there are known issues with the current set.

On a few forum's I see that the Radeon is no exception to these rules, people complaining about poor driver releases and as a new release comes out, within hours people asking when the next ones are likely to surface.
One ATI driver set release was totally optimised for 3DMark2001 for gods sake, they purposely dropped image quality just so that the cards would perform better under a benchmark program!

I just live in hope that once the DX9 cards eventually make it to market we have releases from many chipset manufacturers all offering good drivers.

[DosFreak]

Unless you have money to burn I wouldn't base your purchases on how overclockable a part is. Not unless you know for SURE that the part will last. Some times you're lucky, sometimes your not. I've picked my parts carefully when I bought a part for overclocking and so far haven't been burned yet. Ahhh, those 700mhz P3's @ 933mhz have been going strong for a year and a half!

[Palos]

Uhh, damn...so much for the ATI idea
Hmm I need to reconsider...the longer it takes, the better Anyone seen a Ti4200 lying around, anywhere?? On the other hand, those LEECHES tax everything like a mofo over here in Europe, so Im curious how far from the US price tag of $179/199 it will get...

[BladeRunner]