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GeForce 3 Or Radeon 8500 LE?

S

Superman9534

Senior member
I can't decide which of these cards to get. I can't afford the GeForce4 Ti 4200, but I can afford both of these. Which one is better?
 
well I would get a normal GeForce3. Not the Ti 200 or the Ti 500, the in between model with 64MB DDR (probably made by PNY). The Radeon 8500 LE would be from newegg.
 
I'll take the GF3 for $100, Alex.

But I'm biased. I have a bunch of worthless ATI Xpert cards on the shelf behind me. Only card I've ever installed that actually broke the computer when upgrading the drivers through Windows Update. I like Nvidia's driver support. Unless something changed drastically with the newer cards, ATI doesn't even come close.
 
Since it's nearly impossible to find a Gainward GeForce3 Golden Sample now, I'd go with the Radeon 8500LE. You can get it cheap and easily OC it to Radeon 8500 specifications (if not higher).
 
Originally posted by: pillage2001
I dumped my ti200 for a 8500 and never looked back. 🙂
Click to expand...

now u r an ati hoe! hehe...

anyway, i would take the 8500 too. i have both a gf3 and 8500... speed is about the same. i notice the 8500 has superior 2d tho.
 
Man there are a lot of ATI fans here. As someone who has owned a number of ATI and nVidia boards, I will try to be unbiased about this.

Are you talking about the GeForce 3 (I assume used as it is not sold new anymore?), GeForce 3 Ti 200, GeForce 3 Ti 200 128MB, or GeForce 3 Ti 500?
Are you talking the ATI Radeon 8500 LE or 8500 LE 128MB?

If you are talking about either of the GeForce 3 Ti 200's I would go with the ATI Radeon 8500 LE. The Catalyst drivers are decent on the 8500 unless you care about FSAA. If you care about FSAA, don't get the 8500. See the Rage3d boards "Radeon 8500 and 9000 Technical Support" for all the issues it has with FSAA.

If you are talking the original GeForce 3, or GeForce 3 Ti 500 I would definitely go that route. You get nVidia's better drivers and a faster card, that seems like a no brainer to me.

The 8500 LE 128MB beats the GeForce 3 and GeForce 3 Ti 200 in some newer games that require more textures.

The 8500's beat the GeForce3's in some OpenGL game benchmarks, but from what I've read the reason is that the 8500 in those situations is not doing as full of OpenGL rendering and the quality isn't as good (I remember seeing some screen shots somewhere and it was quite noticeable). One can set the quality in the Catalyst drivers, but cranking up the quality to match the GeForce3 will then perform worse and I'm not sure it solves all the OpenGL quality issues. The OpenGL quality on my Radeon 9700 even is noticeably worse than the OpenGL quality of my GeForce3, IMO.

If you care about 2D quality go Built by ATI. A number of the Powered by ATI (unless the card is a remarked ATI as some are) cards 2D is on par with the GeForce3. However, I notice a huge 2D improvement with the Built by ATI. There is a vast difference between various manufacturers of GeForce 3 cards and the Powered by ATI in terms of 2D quality. IMO, the Asus nVidia cards I have owned have had noticeably better 2D than a VisionTek, for example. To the point of booting up the first time on the VisionTek and immediately saying, "this 2D sucks."

I hope that I have given some advantages and disadvantages with each so that you can make the choice based on what is important to you.
 
Originally posted by: Stark
I'll take the GF3 for $100, Alex.

But I'm biased. I have a bunch of worthless ATI Xpert cards on the shelf behind me. Only card I've ever installed that actually broke the computer when upgrading the drivers through Windows Update. I like Nvidia's driver support. Unless something changed drastically with the newer cards, ATI doesn't even come close.
Click to expand...


believe it or not, Ati has changed drastically since the introduction of the radeon 8500's. 🙂 better hardware, better software support- completely different company since the Xpert/rage days...
 
Originally posted by: Stark
I'll take the GF3 for $100, Alex.

But I'm biased. I have a bunch of worthless ATI Xpert cards on the shelf behind me. Only card I've ever installed that actually broke the computer when upgrading the drivers through Windows Update. I like Nvidia's driver support. Unless something changed drastically with the newer cards, ATI doesn't even come close.
Click to expand...

I'm sorry, but how you can have over 3,000 posts and still be a newb is beyond me. 8500 owns the GeForce3, and ATI Driver problems are a thing of the past. The fact that you update your video card drivers through Windows Update and base ATi's reputation on ancient Xpert cards pretty much sums up your knowledge of computers.
 
Originally posted by: ed21x


believe it or not, Ati has changed drastically since the introduction of the radeon 8500's. 🙂 better hardware, better software support- completely different company since the Xpert/rage days...
Click to expand...

I will agree that they have changed drastically. However, at their current rate of improvement they still have a year or two to go before they match nVidia (as far as overall quality, not performance), IMO. I sincerely hope that they do get to that point.

I cannot recommend the Rage3d forums highly enough to ATI users. ATI seems to be taking things fairly seriously there. I have not found the equivalent for nVidia, but I haven't had the problems that I've needed to go to Rage3d for on my nVidia cards. I most likely would have returned or traded my Radeon 9700 had it not been for the Rage3d forums. (I believe I am being fair here as almost every nVidia card I have purchased has been within the first month of the card being released) The 8500 is more mature at this point so it should have less problems.
 
ok im getting the 128MB ATI Radeon 8500 LE for $104 at newegg. Will this be a good card? Im going to overclock it most likely to get the most performance outa it. This will be going w/ this system: ECS K7S5A w/ 1700+, 20GB and 45GB 7200 RPM HD, 256MB RAM. Its a pretty good system, upgrading from a GeForce 2 MX which i just sold for $30 and a TNT 2.
 
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