Radeon LE Vs. Geforce2 Ti - Bang for Buck?

[JBChance]

Looking for a cheapie and need some guidance from the gurus.............

I've been out of the game for a while (had a kid, bought a house, wife driving me to drink, etc., etc....)
and I'm trying to catch up and upgrade my video.

I have a Voodoo 3 3000 (I know, Iknow..) and want to start running some newer games/ apps. The voodoo
was OK for Unreal Tourney, but never great and downright crappy on Quake / open GL stuff at better
resolution.

I have a Athlon T-bird 1.2 Ghz on a Gigabyte GA-7DX DDR w/128 mb ram (soon to be 256 mb).
The price range I need to hit is no greater than $80.00 (Christmas went BLAM! on the checkbook).

So, I've done some fishin' around and here are my contenders:

GF2 MX400 64 MB - variety of vendors
Ati Radeon LE DDR 32 MB - I've heard a good buzz about that one
GF2 Ti DDR 32/64 MB - Chaintech, Inno3D, or Aopen ( a little over the $ limit, but maybe)

My issue is this: Is the GF2 Ti that much better in real-gametime performance or should I save
a few bucks and buy the Ati? I am a little scared about the vendors in the GF2 Ti catagory. I don't know
if they are dependable. I know that the boards should be based on a reference design from nVidia, but,
I'm just not too confident. Anyone know about those vendors? Is the 64 mb worth it compared to 32 mb
on those?

I' m (until someone suggests otherwise) focusing on the Ati vs GF2 Ti. Maybe I should save a few $$ now
with the Ati and wait until GeForce4 comes out and drives down prices on GF3.

Any expertise or suggestion would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

 

[rogue1979]

I strongly urge you to get the Inno3D Geforce 2 Ti 32MB for about $89 shipped on pricewatch. For the $9 over budget you will get over double the speed of the Radeon LE or Geforce MX-400. It should overclock nicely to 275/460 or so. Of course a Geforce 3 Ti 200 would be faster and the Geforce 4 will drive the price down further, but if you play the waiting game in video cards it is a Catch 22. Get something good now and enjoy, the Geforce 2 Ti is worlds ahead of a V3 with plenty of power to play all current games as well as upcoming ones.

 

[xero940]

Real gametime difference: In FPS, the Radeon LE is owned by the Geforce 2 Ti...if you can get a massive Radeon LE overclock going like I have (My Radeon LE clocks in at 210/210 DDR core/memory, up from stock 148/148 :Q), the difference is *kinda* negligible...with your rig (provided you get that RAM), it's the difference between playing Quake 3 at 100 FPS at 1024*768, and 120 FPS at the same...ask yourself: Will you really SEE the difference?

2D difference: The Radeon, or ANY ATi product for that matter, will absolutely destroy all comers in 2D. The quality is very, very crisp...almost V5 like...Yo CAN see the difference here, esp. at higher resolutions...

AS for the MX400...it SUCKS. If you have to get one of those, get the Ti if you are a passionate PC gamer and need the most FPS, or the Radeon if you need pretty good all around quality, but not the most FPS...and the MX400...put it in your dog's PC

 

[Rand]

As said you can get some cheapy brand GF2 Ti's for around $80-85, if you don't need good 2D quality then that would be my choice.
If you do need good 2D then your better off sticking with the Radeon LE, it's clearly slower then the GF2 Ti but it'll offer better 2D, DVD, and a marginally better feature set.
If you need decent to good 2D, and GF2 Ti level performance it might be worth saving till' you can spend about $95 and get an OEM Radeon 7500 or a higher quality GF2 Ti.

Definitely pass on the MX400 as it's clearly inferior to the Radeon LE.
The VisionTek GTS-V is also available for about the same price as the Radeon LE, but it will only offer very slightly better performance and is worse in most other respects so I'd personally rater an LE over it.
Another possibility is the Kyro 2, it runs for about $65-75, and offers somewhat better performance then the Radeon LE/GTS-V... but to be honest I'm not terribly fond of the Kyro2's drivers and I'm slightly dubious regarding how it'll perform in future games.

 

[rogue1979]

I have used two Inno3d Geforces, the 2D image is superb. I have also owned a Radeon LE and the 64MB Retail. Out of the 7 or 8 Geforce 2 cards I have owned, the Inno3d and Gainward have equal 2D to either of the older Radeons. Yes, I have had other brands of Geforces where the 2D wasn't up to par, but that doesn't mean that the Radeon has superior 2D over the Geforce, it depends on the brand.

 

[JBChance]

Thanks for the info.....

Going to go for the Geforce2 Ti. A little $$ than I wanted to, but the wifey won't see the bill for a month.

Plenty of gaming in a month

<exits (credit card in hand)>