ati radeon@149 vs nvidia mx @ 89

[wga22]

Which is a better card for my situation?

I have read EVERYTHING on this site and others, but still cant get accurate enough decision on a video card.

I am looking at 2 video cards on buy.com with 20 off. The creative annahilator MX card and the radeon for my p2-400 win2k 256mb ram system. I am not a heavy gamer, but I like to play when I have time. I do use my system alot so if the radeon is worth the extra $$ then I will do it. Will the radeon drivers catch up to the MX? Charisma a better chip? Both cards have 32mb ddr memory.

[wga22]

radeon: http://www.us.buy.com/retail/product.asp?sku=10255334&loc=101

mx: http://www.us.buy.com/retail/product.asp?sku=10261991&loc=101

Of course better prices are cool, but the decision remains.

[phlick]

I'm in the SAME boat.... I need both cards to see what the difference is... of course it could be weeks and weeks b4 the buy.com card is in stock too, by then the Radeon could be much cheaper.


What to do what to do?

[MaStAYoDA1]

If you want to see the Annihilator 2 MX from buy.com, you'll have to wait a few weeks... I ordered one a week or two ago, emailed about when their getting it, and they told me that Creative delayed the release of the card, and their expecting it sometime in mid to late November. Retails for 139, I'd say it is a great deal (too bad it doesn't have TV out)

[sbp]

People already have Annihilator 2 MX.

Buycomp has a notourious reputation with backordered products.

Creative's Annihilator MX card is using DDR ram but its memory bus is a 64bit one. This means its slower than 128bit memory bus SDRAM GeForce 2 MX's.

http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.cfm?catid=40&threadid=263510#35

Radeon on slow computers thread:
http://www.gotapex.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=12513

I don't believe ATI will have good win2000 readeon drivers unlike GeForces.



[Edited by sbp on 11-03-2000 at 12:08 PM]

[Aristo]

I was in the same dilemma between ATI Radeon 64MB and GeForce2 GTS. However, ATI has really bad reputation of their driver support plus Radeon wins over GeForce2 only with high end CPU and high res. Plus GeForce2 is cheaper. Anyway, I'd suggest GeForce2 MX over Radeon. just my 2 cents.

[phlick]

And now there is the $159 mystery geforce2 (unknown manuf)... I got so burned the last time I went with a generic vid card (i/o magic tnt2 m64.. what a piece of garbage!!!! - the only reason I bought it was the rebate from compusa, which I just got this week, only 6 months later!!! BASTARDS!! I should have known better....) But here I am again, looking at this generic GF2...

Would have to agree about the win2k drivers and ATI, but supposedly they got there 5hit in 1 bag with the Radeon...

I think I'm going to wait it out a couple of more weeks, these vid cards are getting really hot lately.. lots of deals on these. I think the bottom is going to fall out here as the ultras start to get out there and bring prices down somewhat.... how many of these $400 cards can they be selling?? I wouldn't think that many!!

Let me know what you do WGA...

BTW.. I'm running a Celery 533 (not overclocked/able) and Win2k, w/the POS I/O TNT2M64, w/W2k server... I can't get a good enuf frame rate on 2 year old racing software (If I can get it to jive w/w2k at that) to make it worthwhile. -6fps!!! I'm going to buy a T-Bird rig as soon as I can unload this mobo/cpu on some lucky individual.

[BADFlSH]

I am in the same boat. I am still running an old ATI rage pro so it is definitly time to update it. I am willing to spend up to 200 (preferably less) and I want to upgrade between now and x-mas. Any suggestions would be helpful.

System specs
Celeron366 overclocked to 600
Abit BP6
128MB PC 133 ram (May upgrade to 128 soon since prices are so low)

Cant think of anything else relevant but if I forgot something I am sure you guys will let
me know :) Thanks.



[Edited by BADFlSH on 11-03-2000 at 06:27 PM]

[sbp]

TNT2 M64's uses a 64bit memory bus compared to a Tnt2's 128 bit memory bus. A TNT2 M64 literally had half the memory bandwidth of a TNT2. This was the reason for the M64's crappy performance.

I haven't heard of any non-DDR GeForce2 GTS's or any underclocked GeForce2 GTS's.

That compugeeks GeForce2 GTS is a hell of a deal. http://www.compgeeks.com/details.asp?invtid=NV897.0 Other GeForce2 GTS like Creative Labs GeForce2 GTS are going for over $200. This looks like some generic whitebox GeForce2 GTS.

All the GeForce2 manufacturers like Creative Labs and Guillemot use the reference GeForce2 design for their GeForce2 cards. After you get the card just use reference drivers with it like I do.

[Edited by sbp on 11-03-2000 at 07:28 PM]

[MaStAYoDA1]

Looking on the price watch on cnet.com, looks like all the merchants that are selling the Creative Annihilator 2 MX do not have them in stock, soft4u.com says that they are expecting it by 11/9.

[wga22]

I am looking hard at the Radeon performance on a "middle aged" machine, 400mhz, and the driver issue and thinking that my back ordered MX is the way to go. I am upset to read that the DDR memory is operating on a 64bit bus, not 128 (sbp). Will have to read more. Thanks for all the good advice! Hope this helps others as well.

[Aristo]

Yeah, the new ATI Radeon deal is very sweet. Almost make me want to upgrade my brother's TNT2 M64 video card.

[phlick]

Went with the mystery geforce2 gts from compugeeks. I think it should be ok, the more I read about these gf2 cards, it seems they are all about the same!!

Radeon's got the poop on the dvd support, but I don't do dvd's.

MX card, just so charred on the whole M64 thing, I couldn't get myself to go for a crippled card again, but the price sure was tempting... I might get one still and put it in another box to see how it works... if I ever get out of the doghouse with the accountant for throwing down a bucksixty five on a card.