nVidia 31 Flavors...

[tcsenter]

I'm going to upgrade me graphics card (3DFx Banshee) and I've no more than $100 to spend (System: MSI KT133A, 900 Duron, 256MB SDRAM). Besides price, what are the important differences between these cards/GPUs (all under $100):

GeForce2 TI
GeForce2 Pro
GeForce2 MX400
GeForce2 MX200
GeForce2 GTS

Specifically, I was wondering if actual rendering/image quality is any different, or is it just a matter of FPS?

 

[Theslowone]

They in proformance its
ti <-- pro with higher core/mem
pro <--64 gts with higher core/mem
gts <-- origninal geforce2 comes in 32mb and 64mb
mx400 <-- a slightly crippled g2

With the mx200(as crippled as it gets) coming in in last place about a mile behind the rest.

I would go with the ti over the pro and probably over the other cards too, the gts-v is probably the best bang for the buck, costing about 50 bucks and just below the gts speeds(and accordingly easy oc to gts speeds).

Other then that it all depends on what you do and what res you plan to run them at.

 

[tcsenter]

<< I would go with the ti over the pro and probably over the other cards too, the gts-v is probably the best bang for the buck, costing about 50 bucks and just below the gts speeds(and accordingly easy oc to gts speeds). >>

Ok, thanks for the summary. Right now, the TI is going for about $15 less than the Pro.

Am I to understand there isn't any difference in image quality (i.e. they're all the same GPUs, just with different core and memory clock speeds)?

 

[tcsenter]

BUMP for me

 

[AA0]

GF2s have poor image quality over all, and all nvidia cards are limited to the 3d quality that the nvidia drivers provide. The MX cards are the worst of them all for IQ.

If you want quality images, go ATI. I believe you can get a 7500 for $100

 

[tcsenter]

<< If you want quality images, go ATI. I believe you can get a 7500 for $100 >>

Thanks for the suggestion.

Its not that I want the highest image quality available, but I would like to know what I'm trading-off between the various GeForce2 models besides the price (image quality, features, performance). If all the GF2 models are essentially the same GPU rendering the same image quality, that makes my choice much simpler because the trade-off is then between two factors: price and performance. If some GF2 models have crippled features that affect image quality, it adds one more factor to consider.

I've seen GF2 image quality and its a definite improvement over my Banshee.

 

[EMAN]

For $100 I would definitely pick radeon 7500.

Dualhead with geforce ultra speeds.

 

[BFG10K]

The GF2 Ti is the fastest (and best) card from the bunch.

GF2s have poor image quality over all,

Uh, no they don't. About the thing you can criticise them for is having a lower maximum tap rating than GF3s in anisotropic filtering. Other than that they look great.

 

[jpprod]

<< GF2s have poor image quality over all, and all nvidia cards are limited to the 3d quality that the nvidia drivers provide. The MX cards are the worst of them all for IQ. >>



Untrue. All GF1 and GF2 chipsets have identical 3D rendering quality (and features too, contrary to what nVidia wants you to believe). 2D image quality, however, greatly varies from manufacturer to other. Being generally assembled from cheapest available components, MX series cards are likely to have worse 2D iq on the average than GTS/pro/TI cards.

Onto the original question, these are based on the "real" GeForce2 chip, and only vary from each other by the default core/mem clock speed:
GeForce2 TI (250MHz core, 400MHz memory)
GeForce2 Pro (200MHz core, 400MHz memory)
GeForce2 GTS (200MHz core, 333MHz memory)

These are based on the value GeForce2 core, which has roughly half the performance of the normal core, assuming there are no memory bandwidth limitations. The MX200 core based cards are considerably slower than MX400 ones, since they have less than half the memory bandwidth at their disposal.
GeForce2 MX400 (200MHz core, 183MHz SDRAM memory on 128bit bus)
GeForce2 MX200 (175MHz core, 166MHz SDRAM memory on 64bit bus)