Best card: Radeon 8500 or Geforce 3 non-Ti?

[Krakn3Dfx]

I have 2 cards available to me right now, a Geforce 3 non-Ti from Elsa or an ATI Dual-head Radeon 8500. I'd like a general idea of which part is the best so I can make my decision by Monday on which one to keep. Any opinions? All of the head2head comparisons I've seen don't take the latest drivers into account, and I know ATI has made some serious headway in that area. I'm just wondering if it's enough to warrant getting one instead of a tried and true Geforce 3.

 

[Anubis]

the ATI 8500 by far

 

[AA0]

I'd get the 8500, for performance, and for all the other things it has that GF3s don't. The 8500 is amazing, for me, not one problem with it yet, and I've used virtually every driver revision.

 

[DefRef]

If they're the same price, go for the 8500. It's a bit faster and they might get the drivers right some day. Of course, the GF4 beats it like a red-headed stepchild's rented mule, but that's not the issue here.

 

[bbarnes]

Radeon 8500 by far, have had mine for a while, no problems, great performance.

 

[cmdrdredd]

GF4 doesn't beat the 8500 that badly...sure maybe in a few games but go to 3dmark and search around...in general the Gf4 is a bit slower than the 8500.

My friend has a P4 1.7Ghz with PC800RDRAm and a GF4 Ti4600 getting 8028 in 3dmark where my Athlon 1.55ghz system with an 8500 gets 8861.

 

[MrDudeMan]

i dont know about that....the g4 rapes everything....and pretty much it doesnt vary from that....the clock speeds are a ton faster, how could it not be a lot better?

i think those 3dmark scores are messed up anyways, 8000-8500 is low for those type of systems...ive seen people getting 10,000+

 

[Tates]

<< GF4 doesn't beat the 8500 that badly...sure maybe in a few games but go to 3dmark and search around...in general the Gf4 is a bit slower than the 8500.

My friend has a P4 1.7Ghz with PC800RDRAm and a GF4 Ti4600 getting 8028 in 3dmark where my Athlon 1.55ghz system with an 8500 gets 8861. >>



That's not a fair comparison. Your Athlon is a stronger performer than your buddy's P4. If you put the GF4 card in your Athlon system, it would probably score in the high 9000's in 3DMark.

 

[PointlesS]

<< That's not a fair comparison. Your Athlon is a stronger performer than your buddy's P4. If you put the GF4 card in your Athlon system, it would probably score in the high 9000's in 3DMark. >>


doesn't P4's generally perform better in 3dmark? but anyways....I would definately say radeon 8500...mines giving me problems lately...but I don't think it's due to the card...I think it might be psu related...overall...good iq...performance...compatibility...stability...

 

[Tates]

<< doesn't P4's generally perform better in 3dmark? but anyways....I would definately say radeon 8500...mines giving me problems lately...but I don't think it's due to the card...I think it might be psu related...overall...good iq...performance...compatibility...stability... >>



The comparison is the P4 1.7Ghz (non-Northwood, non-overclocked) vs. the Athlon 1.55Ghz. I'll say it again, the Athlon 1.55Ghz is a stronger performer than the P4 1.7Ghz. If one were to peruse through the miriad of comparison tests out there, the answer is clear.

 

[Leon]

<< ...in general the Gf4 is a bit slower than the 8500. >>



This only happens in ATI fanboy fantasy world. Or if you judge the performance by default (1024 768 32bit), mostly geometry limited 3d Mark test using different cpu's.

Anandtech GeForce 4 article

 

[DaiShan]

the thunderbird has a stronger fpu to back up graphics than the p4. Also higher clock frequencies don't necessarily mean better performance (I will NOT go into an AMD vs Intel debate now)

 

[jiffylube1024]

Ok I think we all know the GF4 easily (and I mean easily) defeats the 8500 and Ti500 in 3dmark and pretty much everything. Just look at SAME SYSTEM comparaisons and you will see; a P4 2.0 GHz or so, or a Athlon XP 1800+ and up get about 10500 marks on default for the GF4 and 8500 for the Radeon 8500.

As for the question, I'd say the Radeon 8500 is faster, and better (than the GF3). It has more features, is marginally faster in 3d, and even slightly better 2d quality. However, it is not night-and-day better, nor is it "significantly better". It's merely a bit better in terms of speed, and clearly superior in terms of features.

Let's not start an ATI-nVidia fanboy flame party, and cmdrdredd please don't make up false claims or come to conclusions based on different test beds.

 

[jiffylube1024]

Oh yeah one more thing, the P4 1.7 GHz is a slow chip, no matter what kind of RAM you mate with it. It's only 2.0 GHz + NORTHWOOD P4's that are very fast by today's standards. The whole P4 series up to 2 GHz (non Northwood) isn't that great, what makes them fast is the 2.1-2.5+ GHz overclocks people are getting from their Northwoods.

Hope this clears up some confusion (and doesn't start a flame-war, which invariably could happen )

 

[railer]

What you said Jiffy.

Where do these "by far" people come from? The 8500 in no way, shape or form is "by far" superior to ANY GF3. Marginally better than the 200 TI and the regular GF3...I'll give it that. I'd get the 8500 over those to if price were close. GF4 kills the 8500. Everybody knows that. Too expensive tho...

 

[tenoc]

Is there possibly some confusion between the "real" GF4 4xxx and
the "fake" GF4 MX 4xx?