NVIDIA or ATI?

[Nevada]

i'm building a new system and i'm kind of stuck on what kind of video card to get. i'm gonna be running an amd xp2000+ with 512mb memory. i'm thinking of getting either a 64mb nvidia geforce3 ti200 or a 64mb ati radeon 8500. i want something that will give me a good video quality and have good quality with games. my friend said go for nvidia because they always update their drivers and another friend said go for ati because the overall video quality is better. i'm looking to spend somewhere in the low to mid $100 range. any opinions or advice would be appreciated. thanks.

 

[CurtCold]

Here is something you might wanna look at when choosing your card.
I just went from a GF2mx400 to a Radeon 8500. I'm taking the plunge back into ATI, hope it turns out good. ATI seems to be doing alot better with there drivers. Also the 8500 will offer better perfomance than the GF3ti200. Just really up to what you want, and how much your willing to pay.
VGA Charts

 

[Mem]

Another option would be the 128mb GF4 Ti4200,it`s performance for the price is excellent value for money.

 

[Ranger8P]

Go for the ATI Radeon 8500LE 128 meg. I'll list some of it's highpoints...

1) Better 2d/video quality.
2) 128 meg performs better than the 64 meg. Also, the extra memory will give you a lot extra mileage for newer games.
3) ATI is finally getting on the ball with their drivers...
4) Good overclocker, but I think that's a toss up when compared to a TI4200.
5) Generally better than a 9000
6) Generally performs between a G3 TI500 and a G4 TI4200, leaning more towards the latter...
7) Superior Ansiotropic filtering at the expense of lesser AA when compared to Ti4200. However, I think the former is more important, not to mention Nvidia still has bugs in their drivers with AF. I hear they just got it working for D3D games and it's still buggy, where ATI always supported it for Open GL and D3D.
8) No DVI, but does have video out.
9) The price is $115 at New Egg for the OEM version. But you can probably find a better deal if you look hard enough. I paid that much for it at Buy.com several months ago and got the retail version with free Gamepad.

 

[AnAndAustin]

Yep the Rad8500 are better than the GF3 cards so long as you don't mind compromising AA and high quality Aniso for the hugely better image quality, TVout, dual display and hw DVD playback. With a fast CPU you really shouldn't skimp out as the GF3 and Rad8500 cards tend to gain very little after Athlon1.4ghz, GF4TI cards continue to boost perf with every mhz your CPU can throw at them! Another benefit is that GF4TI cards are much better all-rounders than GF3 or Rad8500 as they offer great 3D perf, image quality, AA, Aniso, dual display, make better use of faster CPUs and have better TVout than GF3s. If you go Radeon be sure to double check as features and clock speeds vary from manu to manu as well as oem vs retail, still generally preferable to a GF3 though.

Whatever card you get I'd strongly advise 128MB, Rad8500LE-128MB is better than Rad8500-64MB and the same for GF3TI200-128 vs GF3TI500-64 (unless you are terrified of o/c'ing). On a fast CPU it would be worth considering a GF4TI4200-64MB over a 128MB GF3 or Rad8500, these tend to reach GF4TI4600 speeds, the 64MB will be hit hard but on a fast CPU like yours you'll still be a fair bit faster. See what the prices are like and weigh up your reqs but I'd strongly urge you to consider paying a little more for a 4200, esp the 128MB version otherwise Rad8500 is generally the better choice than GF3.

 

[pitupepito2000]

Another vote for Radeon 8500LE 128MB. I have one and it is just great and ATI is doing a great job with their drivers. I will go with this card for the reasons stated above.

I hope this helps!