Whether flashed (little risky) or simply o/c'ed a Rad8500LE should hit Rad8500 speeds quite easily. 128MB is already important in some games with max details but will be VERY important in games due out very soon. 4200-64 tend to use 3.6ns RAM and hit 300/600 which put them above 4400 perf ... until the 64MB becomes a limit then expect to fall to standard 4200-128 250/444 perf levels. Rad8500LE is a very nice card, it sucks at AA but can do decent (though not great) Aniso at very little perf hit. TVout and DVD playback are other areas where Rad8500 cards are stronger, in pure 3D perf Rad8500 isn't all that far behind 4200. One final and quite important factor is your lovely XP2000+ CPU. 4200 gain very well with every mhz of CPU power but Rad8500 tend to gain VERY little once the CPU speed reaches Athlon 1.4ghz. As such you may find 4200 really pulls ahead, esp as said considering it should hit 300/600 type speeds once o/c'ed. I have never really owned a GeForce anything as my main video card That is kinda amazing isn't it? I guess I'll use that PNY until next year when I get my new Hammer / Prescott </FONT> Well not really hans007. Rad8500 tends to perf better in almost everything (excl AA) than a GF3TI500, and the Rad8500LE is only 10% slower meaning it easily kicks a GF3TI200's ass. Of course a TI200 o/c's to about TI500 speeds and that's why they've been so popular but Rad8500 cards are still hugely better for image quality, dual display, TVout, fast Aniso (though lower quality) and DVD playback. This is something nVidia addressed with the GF4TI cards and they have much better image quality, dual display, TVout, QxAA as well as boosting 3D perf AND taking better advantage of faster CPUs than both GF3 or Rad8500. How much 128MB helps over 64MB obviously varies by card and by game, Radeons really get a nice boost by simply having the extra RAM making a Rad8500LE @ 250/500 easily as fast as a Rad8500 @ 275/550. GF3 only seem to get a boost when the extra RAM is actually needed. GF4TI4200 also get a nice boost from the extra RAM on the 128MB version, despite a 13% faster RAM clock the actual perf diff comes down to 2-3%, if the clocks are equal the 4200-128 is about 10% faster! When 64MB is limiting (some current games and many of the games due out) the perf hit is huge and a 4200-64 o/c'ed to 300/600 only perfs on par with a 4200-128 at it's def 250/444! Again this means Rad8500-128MB actually catches up with a 4200-64MB, to what degree depends largely upon the CPU in use. Now when you consider the price diff between Rad8500-128 and GF4TI4200-64 it makes sense to go for the Radeon (at least in the US & Canada), similarly when you look at the price diff between the 128MB and 64MB 4200 cards it makes sense to pay the extra. These are all very good cards but when push comes to shove any 64MB card is a bad idea when compared to the 128MB cards. Originally posted by: AnAndAustin
EDIT: As for 64MB vs 128MB current games like Commanche4 and JK2 (IIRC) are ones which really benefit from the extra RAM, you often find you have to compromise detail settings and when you come to sell your card on in 6-12 months time any 64MB card will be hard to sell much like selling a 32MB card now. Here check this out:
AnAndTech 4200 roundup illustrating 64 vs 128
So in UT2003 with all cards at default clocks, high detail and no 'eye candy' the GF3TI200 is the same speed as Rad8500LE, the Rad8500 with 64MB is 5% faster, the Rad8500 with 128MB is 10% faster and top of the heap the GF3TI500 is 30% faster than the GF3TI200/Rad8500LE. Rad8500LE should easily reach Rad8500 speeds, GF3TI200 tend to get within about 10% the perf of GF3TI500 (although some exceed TI500) and neither Rad8500 nor GF3TI500 tend to o/c much at all. So for UT2003 at defaults the GF3TI500 is the clear winner with Rad8500 cards in the middle and the GF3TI200 tied with the Rad8500LE at the bottom. When o/c's are accounted for the GF3 cards are 10-20% faster but as mentioned previously you are giving up a lot of image quality, dual display, TVout, fast Aniso (though lower quality) and DVD playback. But then if you want AA you do need the GF3 cards ... so it is certainly clear that these cards are all very evenly matched as is also shown by other benchmarks and other games. But now lets see how the GF4TI4200-64 perfs compared to GF3TI500: That's more than 20% faster at default than the TI500 and 60% faster than TI200, and the 4200 cards o/c incredibly well. Based on these benchmarks and the UT2003 engine it seems 4200-64 is much wiser than GF3-128 or Rad8500-128 but personally I'd still pay the extra for 4200-128.
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