My Ti4600 is fried - what's equivalent these days?

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Cruise51

Senior member
Mar 2, 2005
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I'd forget about the "equivelent" part and just get a 6600. It's 2.5/3 times faster but very reasonably priced.
 

alent1234

Diamond Member
Dec 15, 2002
3,915
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my 4600 fried almost a year ago and I'm now running a 5500. It's around the same performance and I got it for $80 a while ago.
 

John2583

Member
Dec 17, 2002
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Originally posted by: alent1234
my 4600 fried almost a year ago and I'm now running a 5500. It's around the same performance and I got it for $80 a while ago.

Thanks for the experience report that makes me want to get the NEW FX5500 over a used Ti4600.

Anyone care to elaborate on the technical pros and cons of teh ti4600 over a FX5500? ie Directx8 vs 9 hardware support, clock speeds, and the fact that the Ti4600 only has 128 MB memory vs the 256 MB in the FX5500, or what about AGP 4x vs 8x, a lot of the Ti4600s are only 4x while the FX5500's are all 8x I think. Maybe if someone could just point me to an article on all these issues, a general video card primer or something at least?
 

imported_Kiwi

Golden Member
Jul 17, 2004
1,375
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Originally posted by: alent1234
my 4600 fried almost a year ago and I'm now running a 5500. It's around the same performance and I got it for $80 a while ago.
IMO, you didn't compare the two back to back. Even a Ti-4200 is/was faster than the 5500. The lowest numbered FX that was more or less usable was the FX-5600 Ultra (which is a big jump faster than a 5500), and in a direct comparison to a Ti-4200, I think that the GF4 card still may have had the edge. One thing I have seen, though, is that my Ti-4200 generated more heat at idle than any adapter I've seen before it or after it. It doesn't seem much cooler at all when idling than at full tilt.


:frown:
 

PrayForDeath

Diamond Member
Apr 12, 2004
3,478
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Originally posted by: John2583
Originally posted by: alent1234
my 4600 fried almost a year ago and I'm now running a 5500. It's around the same performance and I got it for $80 a while ago.

Thanks for the experience report that makes me want to get the NEW FX5500 over a used Ti4600.

Anyone care to elaborate on the technical pros and cons of teh ti4600 over a FX5500? ie Directx8 vs 9 hardware support, clock speeds, and the fact that the Ti4600 only has 128 MB memory vs the 256 MB in the FX5500, or what about AGP 4x vs 8x, a lot of the Ti4600s are only 4x while the FX5500's are all 8x I think. Maybe if someone could just point me to an article on all these issues, a general video card primer or something at least?

I'd say you should stay away from the FX5500. Get a 9600Pro/XT instead. Or even better a 9800Pro. The FX5500 is not worth the money; it is slower than the 4600. And the 256Mb and 8xAGP don't offer ANY performance increase. If you desperately need an nVidia card then get either a 5700Ultra (they are rare these days) or a Geforce 6600.
 

John2583

Member
Dec 17, 2002
41
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I do need an NVIDIA card because I'm going to use it in Linux a lot and ATI drivers are crap in linux. Thanks for the comments guys I think you've made it clear that the Ti4600 is a better deal than the FX5500 as far as performance goes. I'll be on ebay now ;-)
 

Piuc2020

Golden Member
Nov 4, 2005
1,716
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If you must go nvidia go with a 6200 and unlock to 6600 or something but do not get an FX card, their DX9 implementation is poor and their image quality is far from ideal, not to mentio ntheir lackluster performance.
 

SolMiester

Diamond Member
Dec 19, 2004
5,330
17
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Originally posted by: munky
If you can get a 9800pro or a 6600 for the same price, the 9800p is definitely faster. I wouldnt get a 6600 unless I could find one for $100 or less, it's not worth more than that. But either one should be a good replacement card for a 4600.


What a load of B__llocks!, ATI fanboys, There are not many, if any cards now available that are the equal to your Ti4600, however the 9800pro or xt model would be a great buy, for something a little more powerful at the same price would be the 6600 though not sure of american pricing if you could get gt model for same price as the 9800pro/xt
 

PrayForDeath

Diamond Member
Apr 12, 2004
3,478
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Originally posted by: SolMiester
Originally posted by: munky
If you can get a 9800pro or a 6600 for the same price, the 9800p is definitely faster. I wouldnt get a 6600 unless I could find one for $100 or less, it's not worth more than that. But either one should be a good replacement card for a 4600.


What a load of B__llocks!, ATI fanboys, There are not many, if any cards now available that are the equal to your Ti4600, however the 9800pro or xt model would be a great buy, for something a little more powerful at the same price would be the 6600 though not sure of american pricing if you could get gt model for same price as the 9800pro/xt

What do you disagree with exactly? If you're saying a 6600 is faster than a 9800Pro/XT then you're completely wrong, I am too lazy to look up the benchmark. Check THG's VGA charts to see what I mean.
 

videoclone

Golden Member
Jun 5, 2003
1,465
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Most new $100 9800Pro cards these days are 128bit the $140 cards are 256bit but your better off getting a 6600gt if your spending that amount. Probably best to get a 6600 non GT for $90-100 nice jump in performance and its more then enough for a replacement.
 

jevans64

Senior member
Feb 10, 2004
208
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The nVidia 6600gt has a slight edge over the ATi 9800 XT in benchmarks and beats the 9800 pro by about 15 to 20%. The 6600gt would be faster with OpenGL games and slower with DirectX games compared to the 9800 XT. The 6600GT can be found new at a lower price ( around $140 ) so this would be the best choice between the two.

If you are willing to do some shopping in the $200-250 range, there are still some ATi x800 XT PE cards to be found for that price. A new nVidia 6800GT would be around $250-300. Both of these cards would simply smash that Ti4600.

It would also help to have some system specs as putting anything faster than a 6600GT/9800XT in a Pentium 3 @ 1 GHz or Athlon 1.2 GHz would be overkill. :)
 

SolMiester

Diamond Member
Dec 19, 2004
5,330
17
76
Originally posted by: PrayForDeath
Originally posted by: SolMiester
Originally posted by: munky
If you can get a 9800pro or a 6600 for the same price, the 9800p is definitely faster. I wouldnt get a 6600 unless I could find one for $100 or less, it's not worth more than that. But either one should be a good replacement card for a 4600.


What a load of B__llocks!, ATI fanboys, There are not many, if any cards now available that are the equal to your Ti4600, however the 9800pro or xt model would be a great buy, for something a little more powerful at the same price would be the 6600 though not sure of american pricing if you could get gt model for same price as the 9800pro/xt

What do you disagree with exactly? If you're saying a 6600 is faster than a 9800Pro/XT then you're completely wrong, I am too lazy to look up the benchmark. Check THG's VGA charts to see what I mean.


GT is faster than 9800pro or XT thank-you, YOU check the benchies!
 

John2583

Member
Dec 17, 2002
41
0
0
I think in the future I will just create a new thread for a question like this. I laid out everything in my first post yet people responded to the original post and still some people asked for information I already gave.. so they read some of my posts. I don't know, on most forums people always say to search first and post in the relevant thread, but anandtech is so big.. I don't know. My first post was about the middle of this page, I put system specs, and everything... Anyway thanks all I just won a bid for this:
http://cgi.ebay.com/nVidia-Geforce-4600...35QQcategoryZ40161QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
 

imported_Kiwi

Golden Member
Jul 17, 2004
1,375
0
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Originally posted by: John2583

Anyone care to elaborate on the technical pros and cons of teh ti4600 over a FX5500? ie Directx8 vs 9 hardware support, clock speeds, and the fact that the Ti4600 only has 128 MB memory vs the 256 MB in the FX5500, or what about AGP 4x vs 8x, a lot of the Ti4600s are only 4x while the FX5500's are all 8x I think. Maybe if someone could just point me to an article on all these issues, a general video card primer or something at least?
You found a GF4 card to buy, in spite of everyone missing your follow-up here. I have never run Linux, but I have had more than a fair share of driver trouble with older ATI GPU's. Today I have one Radeon 9700 Pro that I've only had for a few months, and an FX 5900 I've have for about a year. The FX is in a faster PC, and seems faster overall.

The other two PC's here have older nVidia GPU's -- a GF3 Ti-500 and the GF4 Ti-4200 that I mentioned in this thread previously. I like to refer the disagreements about which VGA is comparable to what other one to either the gpureview site, where you can set up pairs of cards to compare, or to Tom's Hardware, at which the reviewers typically drag in older cards for a test series so you have comparisons across generational lines.

I can't recall whether I already reminded everyone that it's a WASTE of RAM to go past 128 MB's on older GPU's like most of the FX's and most of the Radeon 9xxx's. Sticking 256 MB's onto an FX 5500 is a bad joke, and a manufacturer's ploy, useful for advertising purposes only. AFAIK, there never had been any GPU that fully saturated the AGP 8X bus, so the difference in 4x vs. 8x might have been a moot point.

In the future, however, you might want to run a comparison like this one:

http://www.gpureview.com/show_cards.php?card1=241&card2=75


;)
 

mrkun

Platinum Member
Jul 17, 2005
2,177
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You can get a X800GTO^2 or 6800GS for ~$200. 7800GTs are available for $290 (best bang for the buck).
 

abs0lut3

Member
Jun 5, 2005
198
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Originally posted by: mrkun
You can get a X800GTO^2 or 6800GS for ~$200. 7800GTs are available for $290 (best bang for the buck).

but sir...he was looking for AGP not PCI-X lolz.