Radeon 7500 64DDR or Nvidia Geforce 4 MX440 64 DDR

[AnAndAustin]

Now does seem one of the best times to buy rApiDShoT. If you try playing the waiting game you'll always be waiting for the next big release. The last 'best time to buy' was the Radeon8500LE, excellent features and perf for a great price, and that has aged very well. The same can be said for the GF3TI200, still a great card now and still a good deal. Now with the GF4TI4200 (esp how well it o/c), you're getting 128MB (if you're wise), excellent '2D' image quality, excellent AA, and great perf for a great price. $150 or so and it o/c to 4400 levels but comes in at half the price (dep where you live). The Matrox Parhelia is out, and not in the same league (nor price bracket), the Radeon8500 enhanced is due out, but that will simply be a die shrunk 8500, nice, but will be hard pressed to give the 4200 competition, esp for the price point.

The new ATI and nVidia cards will be aimed at the top end of the price segment ($400), don't expect any budget versions of these cards. As for features, the big bonuses they bring are AGP8x which is more marketing than perf, DX9 enhanced funcs which is unlikely to be used by any significant number of games for at least a year (by then they'll be bigger and better cards) and finally pure perf, what will that be, 50% faster than a GF4TI4600? The 4400 and 4600 will most likely drop with the new cards, but I doubt the 4200 will devalue much, I don't think any company could produce such a great card at the moment at a much lower price.

In short, I am more informed than most although NOTHING is ever certain, but now seems like a great time to buy a GF4TI4200. The Radeon8500LE is still a great buy and excellent value, as is the GF3TI200. I believe SiS Xabre 400 is a better choice than Rad7500 or GF4MX440 although it is a very new and immature card, it is a small gamble, but having DX8 enhanced funcs will certainly help it! IMHO, if you have anything less than any GF3 or Rad8500 cards, upgrade. If already have one of those cards you still cut the mustard and have nothing to lose by waiting. If you try to play the waiting game you'll end up sitting there playing Solitaire and DoomII on your dusty old Pentium 133 and praying the thing can last out just 1 more year.

 

[nemesismk2]

Originally posted by: rApiDShoT
Isn't the Radeon 9700 coming out soon? Also know as the R300 or something? I guess the price for the 8500 will drop also

Just found out, it's in August

The Xabre seem to be quite a decent video card. Just wondering how the support is going to be like...

I still think Nvidia's driver support is excellent but if the Xabre can beat the Geforce 4 MX in most cases, that means nothing really.

Still confused on what I should get...I guess it's the best to wait....

Maybe the Xabre can beat the GF4 MX when it's using it's turbo setting which reduces image quality but what about the setting which gives the same image quality as a GF4 MX. If you use that setting with the Xabre then the GF4 MX WINS every time so let's be fair here.

Anyway it's not even been confirmed that the Xabre's trilinear filtering is even working correctly, what about anisotropic filtering?. Both of these work 100% with the GF4 MX and at a small performance hit too.

 

[AnAndAustin]

Well all cards have plenty of options for reducing quality to gain more speed, I still stand behind the Xabre400 being easily a match for GF4MX440 and Rad7500. The biggest bonus is it should be cheaper AND supports the DX8 enhanced funcs. Things should only improve with updated drivers etc, although it is still a slight gamble, do you really want those badly named GF4MX cards to saturate the market, it's about time DX8 became a standard feature of gfx cards.