Which video card would you pick

[gwilks98]

Geforce 4 Ti series: 4200, 4400 or 4600?

I'd rather not spend 200 on a video card, so I guess the real question is, am I going to notice the 50 dollar difference?

[Cantacuzene]

Get the best one you are willing to spend.

[bachviet]

If I have the $$$, of course I go with Ti4600!

[sbp]

GeForce 4 Ti 4600 is getting close to the $200 mark.

As Canta said get the one you can afford.

Don't forget about the recently released Radeon 9500 Pro {$219 with a $20 mail in rebate}. It generally performs behind the GF4 Ti4600. Yet its a more advanced card, is DirectX 9 compliant and takes a lesser performance hit when anisotropic filtering and anti-aliasing are enabled.

Nvidia needs to get the GeForce FX out asap and drop the prices of its current cards.

[DREDD]

Radeon 9700 Pro

oops that's $300+ haha

I'd go with the 9500Pro

[gwilks98]

Radeon 9500 Pro, huh? I'm a little gunshy of ATI since I bought a 9000 Pro. I just wasn't impressed with it's performance on Outcast and it didn't seem to have the excellent 2D quality I'd heard about ATI cards.

Anisotropic filtering and Anti-aliasing are foreign terms to me.
Is the difference solely found in frame rates or can you see an image quality difference with these enabled?

One last question: Why do the 128MB cards usually take a performance hit on the more strenuous tests when compared to their 64MB counterparts?

[Cantacuzene]

Originally posted by gwilks98
One last question: Why do the 128MB cards usually take a performance hit on the more strenuous tests when compared to their 64MB counterparts?

The companies tend to put faster ram in the 64 meg versions. I'd still get a 128, because when Doom 3 comes out, you'll want that extra 64 megs.

[bachviet]

Originally posted by gwilks98
Radeon 9500 Pro, huh? I'm a little gunshy of ATI since I bought a 9000 Pro. I just wasn't impressed with it's performance on Outcast and it didn't seem to have the excellent 2D quality I'd heard about ATI cards.

Anisotropic filtering and Anti-aliasing are foreign terms to me.
Is the difference solely found in frame rates or can you see an image quality difference with these enabled?

One last question: Why do the 128MB cards usually take a performance hit on the more strenuous tests when compared to their 64MB counterparts?
You get the wrong version of Radeon card! The R9000Pro is slower than the old R8500. The R9500Pro comes out to compete directly with GF4 Ti4600.

[Hiro]

I got my GeForce4 Ti4600 when it first came out and I still don't regret it. It was $400 at the time. :D

[gwilks98]

after a week of searching, I finally found what looks like a good review of all the cards in question:

http://firingsquad.gamers.com/hardware/9500pro/default.asp

So I guess the final decision breaker is.....everyone makes these comments about compatibility/driver issues with the ATI Radeon's. Anyone with a Radeon or Geforce wanna comment on this? After all, what good is a nice video card if it has problems with half the games out there?

[ribitch]

http://www.holidaydeals.citymax.com/catalog/item/260576/47211.htm

radeon 8500 for under $125

[sbp]

Originally posted by gwilks98
Radeon 9500 Pro, huh? I'm a little gunshy of ATI since I bought a 9000 Pro. I just wasn't impressed with it's performance on Outcast and it didn't seem to have the excellent 2D quality I'd heard about ATI cards.Jedi Knight II:Outcast likes cards with 128MB when running in 32-bit color high resolution.

The Radeon 9000 {Pro} is a budget videocard that brings DirectX 8 to that masses.

The Radeon 8500 comes with 4 pipelines with 2 texturing units per pipeline. The Radeon 9000 {Pro} comes with 4 pipelines with 1 texturing unit per pipeline.

http://www.tomshardware.com/graphic/02q3/0207181/index.html
"What these confusing numbers mean in practice is that the R9000 is considerably slower than the R8500 in games with multitexturing."

http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.html?i=1655&p=2
"The benefit of the RV250’s architecture is that ATI can reduce die size significantly, while still maintaining competitive performance in games that make extensive use of only one or two textures. The obvious downside to this is that in future games where more textures are used (for example, Unreal Tournament 2003 makes use of four textures in some areas) the RV250 will be slower than the R200."


Anisotropic filtering and Anti-aliasing are foreign terms to me. Is the difference solely found in frame rates or can you see an image quality difference with these enabled?Image quality gets better by enabling anisotropic filtering and anti-aliasing. Jaggies are reduced and textures more detailed. http://www.tweak3d.net/3ddictionary/index.shtml
http://www.xbitlabs.com/video/antialiasing/
http://www.xbitlabs.com/video/gf3-anis-filtering/

http://www.nvnews.net/reviews/sapphire_radeon_9700/ut2003_default_image.jpg
http://www.nvnews.net/reviews/sapphire_radeon_9700/ut2003_hq_image.jpg


One last question: Why do the 128MB cards usually take a performance hit on the more strenuous tests when compared to their 64MB counterparts?As Canta has said sometimes companies use fast ram on 64MB cards and slower ram on 128MB card as a cost $aving measure in the mass or budget market videocards. Basically this type of situation was seen with the Radeon 8500 LE and GeForce 4 Ti4200. With the new 128MB AGP8X version of the GeForce 4 Ti4200 {aka the NV28}, the ram is now the same speed as the 64 MB version or even faster.
http://www.tomshardware.com/graphic/02q4/0210041/index.html
http://www.digit-life.com/articles2/gf4/nv28-nv18.html

If the ram speed is the same, 128MB cards will not take a greater performance hit on more strenuous tests. Also, since games are increasingly using more textures, it will be better to have a 128MB videocard. 128MB videocards are now mainstream.

ATI drivers have gotten better over the years and are fine.

[p3rsian]

i would go for the 4400 better bang for the buck