8500 equivelency

[RussianSensation]

I'd get this Geforce 4 4200 @ $62

If you have a bit more cash, definately 9600 Pro is somewhat better but it is fairly slow at DX9 games so its DX9 advantage over 4200 might seem insignificant. For around $100 9600Pro is a decent card I suppose.

Try to find 5700 card. Those should overclock to 5700ultra speeds and be slightly faster than 4200 if I remember from reviews...not sure though.

 

[PrayForDeath]

Originally posted by: RussianSensation
Try to find 5700 card. Those should overclock to 5700ultra speeds and be slightly faster than 4200 if I remember from reviews...not sure though.

They're not "slightly" faster, they're Significatly faster, but in DX9 games they are tied since the TI runs DX8.1 path which is fatser (less quality) such as in FarCry, here are some references:
http://graphics.tomshardware.c...004/vga_charts-07.html
http://graphics.tomshardware.c...004/vga_charts-06.html
http://graphics.tomshardware.c...004/vga_charts-08.html

 

[stelleg151]

http://www.mypcgoodies.com/details.asp?item=SA109600P-1

 

[dguy6789]

Originally posted by: Goi
Before you making such absolute statements, check out some reviews and benchmarks. Such as here, here, here, here and here.

You'll see that in many cases the GF4MX series is at least as fast, if not slightly faster, than the GF2Ti/Ultra series.

Also, if you can point out just ONE source that says I'm wrong about the 9000Pro not having DX9 support, or that the 9000 doesn't use the same core as the 8500, that'd be great.

The Radeon 9000 Pro and the 8500 have different cores. The RV250 is a very heavily modifed r200 core. The RV250 has 4 pipes and 1 tmu per pipe, while the r200 has 4 pipes and 2 tmus per pipe. That is the only bad thing done to the rv250. The rest of the enhancements(faster geometry calculations per clock, more efficient pixel and vertex shaders to name a few)

Read this article, it will help you out here.

http://www.anandtech.com/showdoc.aspx?i=1655