Best video card on the market?

[dpk777]

just curious...

 

[oldfart]

I guess that would depend on ones definition of "best".

 

[richleader]

Wildcat 4210 256MB Retail

 

[amb#cog]

Best at what? Like fastest in high res gaming? Price no object I assume?

I'm a fan of best bang for the buck myself, but vid cards can easily make you go over the top for sure.

It would be cool if they made some crazy Rolls Royce of vid cards, and just charge $10,000 for one, but really this is a very hard question to answer IMHO.


Still a good question though.

 

[richleader]

Well, the Wildcat goes for a nice $4K.

 

[Rand]

The best at what?
I can name about 12 different cards that I think are the 'best' in certains aspects. There most definitely is no card that is the absolute best in everything.

 

[scrubman]

best for 3D gaming and available today - NVIDIA GeForce3 Ti500 (many mfg make this product) (GeForce4 expected out in 30 days)

best all around seems like it might be the RADEON 8500 by ATI

 

[spanky]

<< Well, the Wildcat goes for a nice $4K. >>




god d@mn! why is that card so expensive?

 

[richleader]

http://www.gamepc.com/shop/full_item_specs.asp?item=1584&mscssid=&tp=

Well, if you want one...

 

[spanky]

<< http://www.gamepc.com/shop/full_item_specs.asp?item=1584&mscssid=&tp=

Well, if you want one... >>




got a link to Counter-Strike benchmarks on this bad boy?

 

[cmdrdredd]

Who benchmarks counter strike as a guide to performance? even a Gf2MX can run that game no problem.

here's a clip from the Wildcat specs "Integrated 250 MHz RAMDAC" can you say UGLY 2D!?

 

[spanky]

<< Who benchmarks counter strike as a guide to performance? even a Gf2MX can run that game no problem. >>




gf2mx cannot run CS at full resolution with AA.

 

[Rand]

<<

here's a clip from the Wildcat specs "Integrated 250 MHz RAMDAC" can you say UGLY 2D!? >>



Since when has the RAMDAC ever had much to do with 2D visual quality?
The RAMDAC has it's largest influence in attainable resolution and refresh rates, and a rather minimal impact on actualy 2D visual quality.
The old Matrox G200 had a 250MHz RAMDAC in most of it's variants, and it still manages to match (not beat) any ATI/nVidia board in terms of 2D visual quality. Indeed, it's only beaten by a couple 3dfx models, and Matrox's newer cards... all with it's meager 250MHz RAMDAC.



<< got a link to Counter-Strike benchmarks on this bad boy? >>



It's a relatively slow gaming card, in terms of gaming performance it is typically 10-15% below that of the nVidia GeForce2 MX.... though much of that is due to the fact that the drivers are most definitely not at all tuned towards gaming performance as in terms of theoretical capabilities it should be able to outperform the GF2 MX400 by a small amount.
That's in the case of OpenGL applications, as it's incompatible with the overwhelming majority of DirectX based games.
Remember the Wildcat II 4210 was never designed with gaming in mind, and indeed, it's a relatively poor gaming card as it's hardware capabilities are vastly inferior to that of even a meager GF2 GTS in the aspects that games typically stress the most.

FWIW, the WildCat II 4210 has recently been superseded by the WildCat III line which has been released though it's yet to actually hit the market.
In some ways the WildCat II 5XXX is superior to the 4210 at least in terms of complex shading and lighting performance, though the 4210 still proves faster in wireframe performance and most CAD apps.

The only areas wherein I would classify the WildCat II 4210 as being 'the best' is in light structural design, light texture shading, and wire-frame performance. It's debatabley 'the best' in terms of internal precision rendering, though personally I'd tend to give the FireGL4 the edge there.