GeForce 1 DDR ---> Radeon 8500 retail. Worthy upgrade?

[XMan]

I have an 1.2 GHz T-bird on an AK31 with 256MB of PC2100.

I especially like the DVI connector, cause I'm going to get an LCD soon. Your thoughts? How far do they tend to overclock from the 275/275 setting, and is there a noticeable performance increase?

 

[vss1980]

I have tested a Geforce1 DDR card and Radeon 8500 on a 1.4GHz Athlon.

Yes the performance increase is noticeable, but you wont really see much difference at lower resolutions. The big advantage to the better card is that it opens up higher resolutions. Also, the Radeon mip-mapping/anisotropic filtering is much better than the original Geforce so things will look less blurry.

As with all cards, overclocking is a bit hit and miss. Some people complain that they cant get the cards over 300MHz core or memory while others can go higher.

 

[BFG10K]

The Radeon 8500 will be a massive upgrade over your GF DDR especially with your decent CPU. Go for it.

 

[EdipisReks]

a friend of mine just upgraded to a retail 8500 (thanks to best buy's big sale) from a geforce2 GTS, and THAT was a huge upgrade. my friend runs a 1.33 gHz t-bird on a kt133a mobo with 512 MB of cas2 pc133, by the way. FSAA speeds on the radeon kinda suck, though, so if you want FSAA i would go somewhere else. at high rez and anisotropic, though, it's great.


[edit: nice rig, BFG. i just ordered a 1.6a and a gigabyte 8srx, and i can't wait until they arrive on monday! did you notice a big increase over the athlon?]

--jacob

 

[Deeko]

Definitely a good upgrade. Go for it.

 

[sash1]

<< and is there a noticeable performance increase? >>

Yes! You'll get much higher framerates and be able to enable and utilize a lot more features.

 

[DefRef]

It'll be a MASSIVE upgrade, but ignore the comment about better aniso filtering cuz ATI cheats on their mip-mapping to improve scores. A GF3 or GF4 will look better than the 8500, but the big speed boost over the GF1 will even the hit out.

 

[EdipisReks]

no, ignore the comment about the radeon "cheating" on mip-mapping. there hasn't been any "cheating" with the radeon in MONTHS. the driver set that was released after the cheating scandal broke completely fixed the problem (and gave a nice speed boost even with correct mip-mapping). get a clue. the radeon's max anisotropic looks better than it does on my geforce3, and the radeon has less of a speed hit, as it only applies the anisotropic filtering to areas that can be seen the radeon mip-map levels were only considered cheating because they lowered visual quality while increasing speed. the anisotropic routines that ATi uses look equal to or better than those on the nVidia cards, while being faster. that is just smart. that ATi anisotropic routins are not cheating anymore than the kyro's tile based rendering is cheating by not redering things that can't be seen.

--jacob

 

[Leon]

<< there hasn't been any "cheating" with the radeon in MONTHS >>



You mean, Radeon 8500 finally does anisotropic w/trilinear properly?



<< the anisotropic routines that ATi uses look equal to or better than those on the nVidia cards, >>



Not true. ATI anisotropic causes texture shimmering, and mipmap bands are visible. It was proven by multiple reviews. Here is a couple of animated gifs

Radeon 8500
GF3

Though, it's not relevent to this discussion

 

[EdipisReks]

that's a hardware limitation, not cheating.

--jacob

 

[BD231]

I like the 8500 gif better than the GF3 gif, looks deaper, I'm quite color blind though so that could be the reason

 

[nRollo]

I had a GF3 and a Radeon 8500. I sold the GF3.
The performance of the R8500 is on par with the GF3, but I prefer the ATI colors.
As far as trilinear goes, who knows, I don't use it. I do use anisotropic, and don't see any difference there except that the Radeon needs it much less than
GF3 at stock settings.
How do I know this?
Fire up UT>CTF>Coret Facility and run down the halls by the 100 pt armor.
With a Gf3, no aniso, about halfway down the hall you'll see this half inch thick fuzzy zone that will shock you into enabling aniso 4x, and then all will be
well.
Do it with the R8500, and there's a thin line, much less fuzzy, that is hardly noticeable.

BTW- all reviewers really do the R8500 a disservice on UT reviews. If they ran in OpenGL, I think the R8500 would SPANK the GF3 at UT. I'm seeing fps I never thought possible at UT.
My .02.

BTW- I give the nod to GF3 for drivers, ease of use, and compatibility. (but the 8500 isn't bad)

 

[BFG10K]

did you notice a big increase over the athlon?

Yes, there was a significant difference after I upgraded.

I could probably go higher with the overclock but I prefer to run at stock voltages.

that's a hardware limitation

And an unfortunate one at that.

Do it with the R8500, and there's a thin line, much less fuzzy, that is hardly noticeable.

Because ATi is likely using negative LOD values at stock settings.

 

[nRollo]

"Because ATi is likely using negative LOD values at stock settings. "

Well, therein lies the problem BFG10K. It's hard to guage what card has better IQ because of the different settings "out of box".
I would say that the GF3 and R8500 have very close image quality once the aniso is turned on. The GF3 is definitely a big leap forward for nVidia in IQ.
Wish I could try a GF4 , but I have a Epox 8KHA+. :*-(