128 MB Radeon 8500le vs 64 MB Ti4200

[EdipisReks]

the 128 MB 8500le and the 64 MB ti4200 are within about $25 of each other. i know that the ti4200 is faster in general than the 128 MB 8500, but i was wondering if there are situations that might occur where the extra 64 MB of the radeon might be an advantage. i generally play games at 1024x768x32 with anisotropic filtering. i'm well aware of anisotropic being faster than the geforce cards, but i'm more than willing to turn anisotropic off in order to maintain good frame rates. i'm really aiming this at Unreal 2, as i will have money for a faster card by the time Doom III comes out. i really just need to get rid of my Xabre. i will only be buying a brand like gainward of leadtek, so the 2d quality between both chipsets is not an issue for me, and neither is the DVD performance. i'm just looking at games.

 

[unclebud]

i saw this thread about gainward gf4ti4200 in hot deals thread about same (?)
jic
oh yeah, i played ut2003 demo on four computers so far...
xp 1600 512mb ddr evga(i think) gfmx4 440 chugged quite a few times
xp 1700 256mb ddr pny gf4ti4200 smooth
cel 1.3 192mb sdr gigab 64mb8500lepro smooth
cel 800 512mb v33000pci stutters quite a bit, but can tell what is going on
these are "instant action" and default settings
hth...

 

[AnAndAustin]

With a NW P4 2.4ghz I'd def go for the 4200, they scale (ie take much better advantage of) the faster CPUs. 8500 often fail to give much extra perf beyond Athlon 1.4ghz, XP1600+ or P4 1.6ghz while the 4200 continually improves. The 8500 are very fine cards, I doubt the extra 64MB will help for a good while yet, prob biggest bonus is added longevity for the card and a better selling price (trying to sell a 64MB card in 12 months will be like trying to sell a 32MB card now). The 8500 takes half the hit of the GF4TI when it comes to AF, but the 8500 will already be maxed out on a fast P4 meaning it should be more even, the GF4TI AF is marginally higher quality AF and when it comes to AA the GF4TI is hugely ahead. Even the cheapest 4200 64MB tend to o/c VERY well, 4400 speed is almost a certainty so that's what I'd suggest. Brands to avoid for 4200 are Evga, AOpen and non-GS Gainward as they've been known to skimp on clocks and RAM on some of their cards. Both 8500-128MB and 4200-64MB are very fine choices but I'd personally rec the 4200.

 

[EdipisReks]

thanks, both of you. i'm not interested in selling the geforce4, as it will be going in another box as soon as i upgrade again. i think i'll go for the geforce4. unless of course i can justify the extra money for the 9500 pro . thanks!

 

[railer]

I have both cards. The 4200 64 meg kills the 8500 128 megger. I'm sure that there are 'some' applications where the 128 meg card 'might' pay off....but I haven't seen them. Even if you check anand's review of 64 vs 128 meg GF4's, where he's specifically looking for differences between the two, there's not a tremendous amount of difference.

 

[rogue1979]

I have both a retail Radeon 8500 128MB @ 312/301 and a Geforce4 Ti4200 128MB @300/540. Catalyst 2.5 vs Detonator 41.xx. If I turn down the quality settings on both, the Radeon gets 160fps and the GF4 gets 210fps in Unreal Tournament at 1600 x 1200 x 32 bit. Turn on the anisotropic and put all the sliders to quality and what not, the Radeon runs 110fps and the Geforce4 drops down to 100fps! It's a close call, but generally the 3D image quality is slightly superior on the Radeon, while 2D text is definately better. I prefer the Radeon hands down, though until now I had a slight preference for Geforce.

Another thing is the 128MB issue, it really isn't needed now and I think buying it for future proofing is silly. By the time there are enough games out there that really need that much video memory, the current crop of video card will be obsolete anyway. I only picked up both of these 128MB cards because I bought them refurbished at newegg for $99 (Radeon 8500) and $117 (Geforce4 ti4200.) For someone with an adventureous spirit I would suggest finding a Radeon 8500 LE 64MB for dirt cheap, under $70. Just make sure the RAM is rated at 3.6ns or better. Go here voltage mod and learn how to replace two resistors on the card. Just make sure that you 8500 LE follows the reference board, I would get a built by ATI to make sure. Flash the bios to revision to 1009, in my testing it allowed me to overclock my memory (Infineon 3.6ns) to 315(630MHz) when it was hitting 299 before. This bios also allowed me to get the retail 8500 128MB to run 315 also, but the card was only recognized as a 64MB so I flashed back to version 7006. Now for $70 my son is fragging bots at the same fps as me whether or not I am using the retail 8500 128MB or the Geforce4 Ti4200, absolutely amazing. Unlike most of us (including me) he doesn't need bragging rights for a nice piece of hardware, just results and this cheapo solution delivers! I'm gonna mod two more, upgrading my wife and daugher from their Radeon 9000's.