Help me out guys, which is the better vid card and why?(8500 vs ti4200) look inside

[Savage26]

Hello all,
Rather than spend any more hours sifting through tech info on websites i thought i would just ask the experts. Which card is better: I have an ATI Radeon 8500 128mb(not LE) and a PNY Geforce 4 ti4200 128mb which one is a better choice for my main pc?
Thanks in advance for your thoughts.

 

[nutxo]

If ya want drop in and forget it ease of use Id say ti4200, If ya like trying many drivers to do different things I would say ati.

 

[Corporate Thug]

the 4200 will church out way more fps

 

[The_Lurker]

The GeForce 4 Ti 4200 would perform better although the 8500 would have nicer 2d (if that's important to you). If you're going for straight FPS, i'd get the GF 4 Ti 4200 (oc'ing it would give it a nice boost too ) but since i like ATI (lol) i'd go for ATI for the cleaner 2D although at a cost of slightly slower FPS.

 

[railer]

I have both. The GF4 slays the 8500 in raw FPS. Image quality is the same, IMO. The 8500 is a great card if you can pick one up cheap.

 

[Savage26]

Wow, Thx everybody. You've really helped me sort this out. If image quality is the same then i will use the ti4200 for speed. I do very 2d. Thx again to everyone who contributed. Jon

 

[nemesismk2]

The Ti4200 is a great video card, it'll serve you well.

 

[10k]

GET THE GF4ti4200 Over the radeon 8500!!!!!!!! People complaining about NVIDIA image quality are all Geforce MX users(250 or 300 mhz ramdac) Remember the RAMDAC is what turns all those zeros and ones into an analogue signal to your "MONITOR" THATS WHAT MAKES THE IMAGE.So saying ATI has better image than NVIDIA is completely WRONG what you should be saying is that for Eg: This ramdac on my ATI GPU card is better than the ones That I have compared to on NVIDIA based products. ITS LIKE when athlons first came out everyone was like aaw man AMD is kewl but theyre not as stable as intel Missing the point that 90% were running on via chipsets and Putting the blame on AMD ,SAME goes here COMPARE MANUFACTURERS of the COMPLETE units anyone that says ATI GPU has Better IQ than NVIDIA Or vice versa has missed the point NEITHER OF THEM PRODUCE AN IMAGE they are computers that crunch numbers REMEMBER that You DO NOT blame the gpu FOR PEOPLE WRITING DRIVERS that tell the gpu to be less accurate in its calculations or whatever I THINK IQ is primarily a software issue (when you have virtually identical ramdac monitor etc) My point again the GPU/ VPU does not CREATE an image

 

[Schadenfroh]

Originally posted by: 10k
GET THE GF4ti4200 Over the radeon 8500!!!!!!!! People complaining about NVIDIA image quality are all Geforce MX users(250 or 300 mhz ramdac) Remember the RAMDAC is what turns all those zeros and ones into an analogue signal to your "MONITOR" THATS WHAT MAKES THE IMAGE.So saying ATI has better image than NVIDIA is completely WRONG what you should be saying is that for Eg: This ramdac on my ATI GPU card is better than the ones That I have compared to on NVIDIA based products. ITS LIKE when athlons first came out everyone was like aaw man AMD is kewl but theyre not as stable as intel Missing the point that 90% were running on via chipsets and Putting the blame on AMD ,SAME goes here COMPARE MANUFACTURERS of the COMPLETE units anyone that says ATI GPU has Better IQ than NVIDIA Or vice versa has missed the point NEITHER OF THEM PRODUCE AN IMAGE they are computers that crunch numbers REMEMBER that You DO NOT blame the gpu FOR PEOPLE WRITING DRIVERS that tell the gpu to be less accurate in its calculations or whatever I THINK IQ is primarily a software issue (when you have virtually identical ramdac monitor etc) My point again the GPU/ VPU does not CREATE an image

this is the reason one of my relatives is in the hospital now with bipass surgery.

 

[Savage26]

Wow, again i appreciate the help. But, while your level of obsession is helpful to in addressing my question you may want to consider a 12-step program to release some of that pent up rage. If towers and sniper rifles make a sudden jump in appeal to you.......use caution!

 

[classy]

Originally posted by: Schadenfroh

Originally posted by: 10k
GET THE GF4ti4200 Over the radeon 8500!!!!!!!! People complaining about NVIDIA image quality are all Geforce MX users(250 or 300 mhz ramdac) Remember the RAMDAC is what turns all those zeros and ones into an analogue signal to your "MONITOR" THATS WHAT MAKES THE IMAGE.So saying ATI has better image than NVIDIA is completely WRONG what you should be saying is that for Eg: This ramdac on my ATI GPU card is better than the ones That I have compared to on NVIDIA based products. ITS LIKE when athlons first came out everyone was like aaw man AMD is kewl but theyre not as stable as intel Missing the point that 90% were running on via chipsets and Putting the blame on AMD ,SAME goes here COMPARE MANUFACTURERS of the COMPLETE units anyone that says ATI GPU has Better IQ than NVIDIA Or vice versa has missed the point NEITHER OF THEM PRODUCE AN IMAGE they are computers that crunch numbers REMEMBER that You DO NOT blame the gpu FOR PEOPLE WRITING DRIVERS that tell the gpu to be less accurate in its calculations or whatever I THINK IQ is primarily a software issue (when you have virtually identical ramdac monitor etc) My point again the GPU/ VPU does not CREATE an image

this is the reason one of my relatives is in the hospital now with bipass surgery.

LOL!!!!

 

[Rogozhin]

I bought a 64mb 8500 when they were available and then purchased two geforce 4 tis to find out which one i would keep.

Cards I tested

oem radeon 8500 LE
gainward g4ti4200 64mb
msi g4 ti4400 128mb

I had two almost identical systems I was working on at the time so in one box I had 8500 and in the other I had the nvidia cards (two hard drives each on had it's own card so I just changed the ide and rebooted with the different card). this was on windows 98SE.

Just remember that the 8500 doesn't do trilinear filtering with af only bilinear (since the g4s could not use af without a huge performance hit and form of af was better at that time.)


Impression (past tense)
I watch alot of dvds
I like the ati control panel much better
I ran settings 2x performance aa and 8x af (with these settings the g4s were on the same or lower end of fps when compared to the 8500)
I played at resolutions of 1024x768
I didn't like the blurriness of quincunx and the af hit was so terrible that you couldn't really use it cancel out the blurriness.
Even ocing the g4s didn't help that much regarding aa and af peformance
I ran the LE 300/300 stable
Driver problems were about equal (not very much on either side)
Had to rma the ti4400, played very slow and the 4200 stomped it.
Didn't like the size of the 4400.
Never used digital vibrance-just too bright or too washed out for my tastes.

IN conclusion

I kept the 8500 and sold the g4s.

Rogo

 

[gtd2000]

Originally posted by: Rogozhin
I bought a 64mb 8500 when they were available and then purchased two geforce 4 tis to find out which one i would keep.

IN conclusion

I kept the 8500 and sold the g4s.

Rogo

Funny you should say that - because you have the exact same conclusion that I have!
I had a Sapphire Radeon 8500LE in my system which had excellent quality 2D and very impressive 3D while playing Soldier of Fortune 2. I was very impressed with this card moving up from a GF2 Pro (at Ultra Speeds).

I got in on the Circuit City PNY Ti4200 deal for $70 a few months ago. After reading about how good these cards were I swapped out the 8500 for the 4200 which would OC to 300/600 without sweat.

Guess what?

It seemed slower than the 8500LE!

I formatted and re-installed my system and I still have the same feeling - the gameplay in Soldier of Fortune 2 is NOWHERE near as silky smooth (read faster fps perceived) as the 8500 was.

I've not actually benchmarked the cards - but the smoothness was much better in the 8500 for sure. It is gathering dust in the box for a new PC at some point in the future right now

I'm not unhappy overall with the GF4, just not as impressed as I was with the Radeon 8500 performance

 

[Rogozhin]

Gavin

The 8500 is and was one hell of a card.

I played alot of games with that card!

I had mine running 300/300 with only a bios flash and volt mod and even a oc'd g4ti4400 couldn't run 2x aa and 8x af nearly as well as that 8500!

I'm glad that you can back me up, most people i run into on these forums don't understand the iq dilema.

rogo

 

[RobsTV]

I have both the Sapphire 8500LE (64meg) and a GF3 Ti500 (64meg).
That is the comparison you should be making.

While fairly close performance, the Ti500 still is slightly faster at both stock and both at max overclocked speeds.
ATI still has some issues with drivers that the GF does not have. (AOE2AOK, + others).
Just take a look at what was fixed with latest ATI cat drivers, and you will see what we have to put up with as far as ATI goes.
Most driver problems are minor, and you get used to them.


EDIT:
just re-read some of the above posts, and if any of you with a working 4200 would
like to trade it for my Sapphire 8500LE (64meg), I'll pay the shipping for both, so it
will cost you nothing. It's only about 3 months old. This way, we all end up with the
better card.