King of the cards

[Dewill]

Hi All
Which video card do you think is the best all round ?
May treat meself to a new one soon.
Thanks
Regards
Jed;)

[Gibbon]

Uh oh, this topic again :rolleyes:

*runs and hides*

:D

Gibbon

[Berkswolf]

You will get a mixed bag of answers here Dewill. Clever guys get the Radeon 8500, those blinded by former glory will say Ti500.

Guess which camp I am firmly in. :D:D:D

[Feiticeira]

seconded berks
heys hows u doin nowadays, havent seen u on icq for ages berks!!!
Dave

[mdzcpa]

Using my white cane, I have managed to have stumble onto some fantastic performance with my Ti 500. The up shot to the Nvidia solutions are better all around driver support and tweak programs as well as the best in compatability with most games. A truly PNP solution.

If your feeling more adventurous, and clever ;) , you may wish to take on the Radeon 8500. Admittedly driver support appears to have improved lately over ATI's previously poor track record. But I'm still not completely convinced the card is as compatible with all applications (games) as the Nvidia cards. There are still a few users in gaming forums with compatability issues. But overall, a very good card with performance that rivals or beats the Ti 500.

I had purchased an 8500 a few months ago. I ended up taking it back to the store immediately after it failed to complete 3DMark2001 (something I confirmed was happening to a lot of users at the time) and learned that a few key features of the card were not even enabled as advertised. I was not pleased. the card was clearly released too early. I exchanged it for the Ti 500 and have had no troubles since.

Since that time, though, ATI have released much better drivers and "turned on" all of the cards features. Good things are now happening with this card and ATI. Although that first 8500 has left a bad taste in my mouth, if I were to buy today, I would be hard pressed not to try the 8500 given it's price advantage and performance compared to the Ti 500.

[4.6POWER]

NVIDIA ti500

[AMD Man]

Which ever one you can afford:D

[Feiticeira]

which ever u can afford sounds like if u have the money buy a ti500
but as clearly stated if u live in the past get the ti500, its easy buy the 8500, it works with almost all setups (ive heard as many stores with people havin to send back gf3s as have 8500s rescently) so just try it out
Dave

[Dewill]

Thanks for your input guys, see no war.
Looks like a two horse race then.
Have been with nvidia a long time now,
and no complaints.
I'll have a look at a couple of review's and
then go for it:p
Regards
Jed;)

[Feiticeira]

be carefull, most comparison reviews are done with very old drivers not properly written for the radeon 8500 so you will prolly get the wrong idea
however im sure theres a few done with later drivers (one on the 6011 or 6018 set of drivers would be good)
Dave

[The Therion]

No easy way to find out which one 's the best.
Sometimes even video cards are a matter of perspective.

Its something like this (about htese 2 cards) :

With the Radeon 8500,if you are lucky and have no problems with it,or they release great drivers in the near future....you'll get a better card than the Ti500.

With the Ti500,you KNOW what performance and quality you're going to have.There are no surprizes.No "if"s ;)

[KMS]

Hi Jed,

i've been asking the same question all over for the last couple of months and have unintentionally started quite a few ATI/NVIDIA flame wars :D

Before i go any further i'm in the NVIDIA camp but will try not to be biased.

The 8500 is ahead in the madonion 3dmark2001 leagues
The ti500 generally yields better real world fps scores
The 8500 is better value for money
The 8500's have more compatability / stability issues

The old argument of fps isnt everything ATI has better image quality doesnt hold anymore IMO, ive now seen both cards in action on like rigs side by side and could honestly not see any difference in picture quality unlike in the gef2 / 7500 days.

Hope this helps

[Terminator]

Radeon 8500 all the way !

I've had mine about 6 weeks now, and will admit at the start the drivers were poor and I did have problems in a couple of games - FS2002 Pro and Half-Life - but since the last offical driver released downloaded via Windows Update this things absolutely rocks and I wouldn't change it for anything.

I'm not a maniac overclocker and the card is running at stock speeds and I get a 3D Mark 2001 of just over 8,000 which is more than enough for me !

I can run UT at 1600x1200, 32-bit colour with everything turned on and get >70 FPS.

Plus it's cheaper than an Nvidia ;)

As you can gather I'm rather happy with mine :D

[BigBen]

Ti500 for me ....but there are new cards due out very soon it seems, so it may be worth waiting for the GForce4 or the ATI equivalent, just my 2 pence worth


Regards

[Feiticeira]

ermm ti500 better fps??
yeh and who won the ut2 shoot out thing again sorry?? what was the result??? o right yeh point taken
Dave

[Berkswolf]

Very good point made by BigBen. The GeForce4 release is imminent and will likely blow both cards away. Bet your boots that ATI will respond fairly quickly. Also the release of new cards is likely to mean a drop in price of the older ones! May well be best waitng a couple or three weeks. :)

[The Therion]

Carefull though : the GF4 will be a GF3 with more muscle while the ATI will be a new chip ;)

Very probable that in a few months the situation will be like this :

ATI R300 : best performance,highest price
GF4 : good performance ,high price
KYRO 3 : best performance/value ratio
GF3/GF2 : cheap :D

[The Asgard]

Hi
I have a Gainward Ti200, G3, Morph Ti500,8500 and have just ordered a Ti4600. I will be swapping out one of the above cards for it.

8500:
1. The desktop image quality is amazing very sharp. My G3 cards are fuzzy in comparison.

2. 3D Marks 2001 rocks.

3. Cheap

4. Driver issues with some games.

G3.
1. Plays ALL games without problem. Smoother & Faster than the radeon. great FSAA. IQ isn't really an issue you cant really tell any difference.

Bottom Line.
If you spend all your time running 3D mark 2001 and don't play games buy a 8500. If you mostly play games buy the G3 it doesn't really matter which one, they all clock really well.

I haven't got any axe to grind I just want the best.