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GeForce 4 at 1600x1200? Or Radeon 8500?

B

Bink

Member
Hi,

I plan on running a 21" monitor at 1600x1200 and using it for both text (MS Office, IE) and games (Medal of Honor, IL 2 Sturmovik, etc). Processor will most likely be the Athlon XP 2000+ (although it may end up being the Intel 2200)

I was planning on getting the GeForce 4 4400, but the following review has given me pause:

http://gotapex.com/reviews.php?rev=gf4-comp/index.html

"Truth be told, the flaws that we found with some of these cards are, in fact, inherent with the GeForce4 Ti4600 chipset. The most notable flaw has got to be the unimpressive 2D image quality at higher resolutions. What is it going to take to get NVIDIA to take a proactive position against this problem."

Any users at this resolution? Can you please comment on your experience?

Would I be dissatisfied with the Radeon 8500?

Thanks,

Bink
 
The PNY TI4600 has the best 2D of any NVidia card I have used to date, but is still beaten hands down by the Radeon 8500 at higher resolutions. Anything above 1152 on the TI4600 is pretty unuseable on a 19" monitor, it may be different on a 21", I don't know.
 
heh heh
I had never used my GF4 4600 at 1600x1200 so I had to look 🙂
I have a 21" G810 from Viewsonic although the refresh is only 70Hz ( monitors limit ) the 2d picture quality is outstanding.
I don't think you have to worry about that .
 
I have a GF4 Ti4400 (PNY) on a Viewsonic P810 (21") and it's fantastic. Runs 1600x1200 on the desktop (2 monitors at that) and in games. No problems in the display quality here, and have no problems running games at their highest settings. It r0x!
 
Anything above 1152 on the TI4600 is pretty unuseable on a 19" monitor, it may be different on a 21", I don't know.

Then it sounds like you picked up a very bad board. Most GF3 or GF4 cards have no problems running at 1600 x 1200; indeed, my Leadtek Ti500 looks just as good as my Radeon at that setting.

took a screen cap of it at 1600x1200

That's not going to show anything other than possible driver errors in 2D mode. What you want to see is the image after it has come out of the RAMDAC and is on its' way to the monitor. A screen shot does not show this.
 
"Then it sounds like you picked up a very bad board."

I might believe that if it wasn't better than the other 5 Nvidia cards I've used. Maybe I need to start staring at sun more to ruin my eyes enough to not notice the difference between brands.

As for Leadtek, take a look at the review linked above:

"We would be remiss if we did not inform our knowledge hungry readers of the fact that we were very disappointed with the A250 ULTRA TD's text representation at resolution of 1600x1200x32 and above. Even though the icons were clear and the colors vibrant, the text appeared blurred. Unfortunately, we see, yet another, instance of the dreaded 2D image quality flaw that has plagued NVIDIA's chipsets for years and appears to have gone un-rectified."

That's not a sterling recommendation.
 
I have a 20" monitor (Nokia) running at 16x12 and its pretty clear and crisp to me on a Geforce 4 Ti 4400 from EVGA.com. I just bought a Sony 15" LCD so gonna try out dual monitors 🙂
 
I might believe that if it wasn't better than the other 5 Nvidia cards I've used.

What brands, may I ask?

Maybe I need to start staring at sun more to ruin my eyes enough to not notice the difference between brands.

<rolleyes>

As for Leadtek, take a look at the review linked above:

That's not a sterling recommendation.

Yet Firingsquad said that their Leadtek looked better than a Matrox G400. That is a sterling recommendation.
 
"What brands, may I ask?"

Creative Labs, PNY, Hercules/Guillemot, Gainward, and an OEM card from someone I knew who worked at a place that produced cards.

"Yet Firingsquad said that their Leadtek looked better than a Matrox G400."

They reviewed different cards. With a site that large there is always the chance they got a handpicked card that doesn't represent what you find on a retail shelf. I find it extremely unlikely that the card is actually comparable to a G400 or more people/everyone would be using them. There are way too many people complaining about the highres capabilities of NVidia cards for it to be a coincidence. It's like the IBM 75GXP issues, no one knows what's wrong or what's causing the problems, but the vast majority of people realize that something is wrong. The only NVidia card I think has a chance of having good 2D and I would purchase for myself are the Canopus cards which vary greatly from the reference design, unfortunately they aren't sold here, and it would cost a fortune to import one.
 
Creative Labs, PNY, Hercules/Guillemot, Gainward, and an OEM card from someone I knew who worked at a place that produced cards.

I know for a fact that Gainward cards have excellent 2D image quality; the one I had was great and [ H ] thought that theirs was excellent at 1600 x 1200 x 32 too. The rest of the brands you mentioned are known to be crap and/or are at least a bit sketchy.

Also I noticed that you don't have a Leadtek or a Visiontek in that list, both brands which are known to have excellent 2D image quality as well. Your small sample of cards really doesn't prove that all nVidia cards are bad and that nobody can run higher than 1152 x 864 without having problems.

With a site that large there is always the chance they got a handpicked card that doesn't represent what you find on a retail shelf.

And with a retail base so large there is always the chance that you got dud cards, espeicially since there's only one in there that I can say definitely has excellent 2D image quality.
 
Im using a Leadtek GF3 Ti200 with an Eizo F931, running at 1600x1200x32@85 Hz(would run at 100 Hz if only Windows would allow this without using 3'd party programs🙁).

The 2D ain't too shabby, but it's not great either, and definately leaves something to be desired, especially when compared to Matrox's 2D.

As for the Firingsquad review, either they got a funny card, they used a really crappy monitor where there was no difference, or they were just smoking something, Leadtek's 2D is not comparable to Matrox, no way.
 
The 2D debate goes on,this quote from a review of a Leadtek GFTI 4400

<< Image quality under 2D is also excellent. I'm currently running WinXP at 1600x1200 on a 19" monitor and there is no fuzziness at all in the text. >>





link to the review above. ,so you see some sites say excellent while others say the opposite,confusing to the buyer so your own eyes are the best judge.
 
I have a Sony E540 21" monitor and a PNY 4600. I run everything at 1600x1200. My XP Desktop looks great. There are other cards out there that will put out a better 2d display like Matrox. But if you play games, NVIDIA is the way to go.
 
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