buying decision: GF4 MX vs GF3?

[jabongga]

Hi im looking to get a new vidcard since my gf256 sdr conked out on me. here are the best prices i can find in Canada:

Aopen GeForce4 MX440 CA$135
Abit GeForce3 Ti200 CA$189

Which should i go for? ive got a limited budget (initially i was only considering up to CA$150), and im not really a hardcore gamer. however id like this vidcard to last me a couple years. Im worried the lack of pixel/vertex shaders in the gf4MX will come back and bite me in the ass. Is this a critical feature?

Specs:
Duron 700
256mb PC133
Matrox G200 (*sob*)
WinXP Pro

 

[klmico]

i really recommend going with a geforce 3 ti200 because geforce 4 mx will lead you to a dead end before you know it. the pixel shading ability will become a heavily used feature in many future games so it's always good to be able to have that on your side.

 

[Lord Gwynz]

Have you considered an ATI Radeon 8500LE, its peformance is about par with a Geforce4MX, has full pixel shader support and can usually be had for less cost. Performance of my AIW Radeon was starting to lag behind and I wanted to see Morrowind in all its glory (ie pixel shader support) but I didn't want to invest too heavily in a major video card upgrade right now since the really big guns, ATI's R300 & Nvidia's NV30, seem to be just around the corner. Anyway I opted for a Geforce3 Ti200, it's cheap, gave a good performance boost and provides nice water effects with pixel shader support but I'm considering exchanging it for a Radeon 8500LE since I'll get a bit more longetivity out of it.

 

[harbinger52]

I second the G3

 

[Athlon4all]

GF3 Ti 200, however, I would suggest trying to get a R8500LE. Its a better overall card than the GF3 Ti 200, with great 2D quality, Dual Monitor support, and it'll provide better 3D performance. Forget the MX440. In the latest games, the Ti 200 is as much as 25% faster, and in games like RTCW. the MX440 is slightly faster, but the Ti200 will still get 100+ fps most of the time.

 

[jabongga]

thanks for the replies. however i have to emphasize that these are the best prices IN CANADA. Whats cheap in the US is not necessarily cheap here. Ive looked at the ATI cards as well, but theyre not so competitive from a price/performance standpoint (IN CANADA).

Taking this into consideration, do u still think i should get a gf3? i am aware that its better that the gf4MX in any benchmark, but it's $54 more!

 

[Lord Gwynz]

If you're really in for the long term, the GF3 would be worth the extra $50. The GF4MX line of cards sound like overclocked Geforce2 Ultra cards, it doesn't even support all the DX8 features in hardware like the GF3.

 

[harbinger52]

Wouldn't a GF4 MX be almost considered a downgrade from a G3?

 

[rimshaker]

Originally posted by: harbinger52
Wouldn't a GF4 MX be almost considered a downgrade from a G3?

Absolutely! The GF3 Ti series kicks the gf4 mx to the curbs. I personally benchmarked my Ti200 against a mx440 and it was not even close. Reread some of the reviews out there, the gf4 mx series are literally just improved gf2 cards.

 

[tenoc]

ncix has a "made by ATI" R8500 oem for CDN184 (link) which is less than the GF3 you found and faster to boot.



This shows relative performance.

 

[hans007]

check the fs/ft forum, i saw a few gf3 ti200s for $70 to 90 american, dont know how much that is in canadian , but that was cheap to me.

 

[TheCorm]

Compared to the GF2 Line of Cards, The GF4 MX-440 is not a bad card, it does actually match the Ultra in benchmarks more or less.

But compared to the GF3's and the proper GF4's....nope, not the same league. I see from your system spec that value is a key point (I'm not dissing you system in any way ) Do you play loads of graphics intensive games? Do you really need a GF3 Ti200? After all, the GF4 MX400 would still whoop the GF1 256!

Corm

 

[Necrolezbeast]

can't you buy from an american website? from what I've seen there is no additional charge to send to Canada

 

[Lord Gwynz]

I think Canadians have that Customs thing to deal with where they gotta pay extra on top of postage for their goods, sorta like legal extortion or some weird thing they got going.

 

[nemesismk2]

I've used a GF3 Ti200 and it's performance isn't much better than a GF4 MX 440 with current games, also the image quality on the GF3 was inferior to the MX. IMO I think you should get a 8500le because it will be more future proof than the two video cards mentioned.


If your going to upgrade your cpu:-

GF4 MX440 - not future proof but ok for light gaming and it's really cheap
GF3 ti200 - don't bother get something better, too slow for future games
8500le - get this one because it's the best out of these 3

If your keeping your Duron 700:-

You might as well just get a GF4 MX440 because you'll be cpu limited anyway so anything more powerful would be a waste of money unless you plan on upgrading your cpu ofcourse.

 

[hans007]

Originally posted by: nemesismk2
I've used a GF3 Ti200 and it's performance isn't much better than a GF4 MX 440 with current games, also the image quality on the GF3 was inferior to the MX. IMO I think you should get a 8500le because it will be more future proof than the two video cards mentioned.


If your going to upgrade your cpu:-

GF4 MX440 - not future proof but ok for light gaming and it's really cheap
GF3 ti200 - don't bother get something better, too slow for future games
8500le - get this one because it's the best out of these 3

If your keeping your Duron 700:-

You might as well just get a GF4 MX440 because you'll be cpu limited anyway so anything more powerful would be a waste of money unless you plan on upgrading your cpu ofcourse.

yeah he's right. the gf4 has better ramdacs and board design than the 3's i had a pny gf4mx440 for a while and it was pretty good, most benchmarks on most games have it just as fast as a ti200, but in certain games it gets beat by geforce 2 ti200s. so thats kinda gay. its definitely faster than a radeon 7500. i upgraded to a 8500LE, because well the image 2d quality on the gf4 mx440 was still worse, there were some blurs, and signal issues with my high end monitor but not with the radeon ,