Ti 200 or 8500 OEM/LE ? that is the question.

dkvamme

Member
Jul 15, 2001
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Getting ready to build 3 systems. 2 will be built on Gigabyte GA-7VTXE KT266A or Shuttle AK31A boards and the 3rd will be on a Soyo Dragon+. The Soyo will be an XP1700 Athlon and the other two, one will be a XP1900, other a XP1700. Usage will be primarily internet surfing and gaming.

I keep hemming and hawing over which video cards to use. Cant afford 300 Plus for ti 500 or retail 8500 so its down to ti 200 or 8500 OEM.

Let me here some opinions.
 

moocat

Platinum Member
Oct 25, 1999
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I have not used the ti200 but I love my oem 8500. I've had a few minor issues with the official released drivers but have not exercised all the functions yet, like DVD playback or dual display. I run primarily driving sims, specifically N4, N2002(demo), Grand Prix Legends.

The lastest leaked drivers apparently fix some smoothvision issues and
give a marginal performance boost. I've also heard rumors of rumors that the next set of drivers will give significant performance gains. Gotta take that with a grain of salt though...it hasn't been substantiated.

From my personal experience with mine and from the what I read before purchasing it and the advances since...I would go Radeon. I feel that ATI is taking driver support much more seriously this time around and an already great card still has room to grow as drivers mature.



 
Dec 31, 2001
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Good luck with ATI; they always claim to have gotten their act together with drivers and never do. I say go with the Ti200 and overclock it to Ti500 speeds. If you recall the article a few weeks ago about SMOOTHVISIONª, our friends here at anandtech discovered that if you run the Ti500 with anisoptric filtering engaged against the Radeon 8500, you get an exactly equal or even slightly better (due to the GF3's superior anti-aliasing) picture and the Gf3 still holds the lead in fps. Best bang for your buck, no doubt about it.

-Forsaken
 

Spike

Diamond Member
Aug 27, 2001
6,770
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Best bang for your buck, no doubt about it.

yes, that is true, however, when you consider that a Ti500 is $300-360 and a Radeon8500LE is $185 and can be clocked to retail.... you are talking about a MUCH higher price/preformance ratio then with the Ti500. He is more correct in comparing the Ti200 to the 8500 in terms of price, and then it is a toss up. the 8500 is faster and has better DVD playback, but the Ti200 has much better drivers and can be clocked to Ti500 speeds (most of the time) Either way, it is a personal choice. I went with the 8500LE and have not looked back since :)
 

Rand

Lifer
Oct 11, 1999
11,071
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I'd definitely go with the OEM R8500. Even in the slower OEM the R8500 still manages to outperform a GF3 Ti200.
This paired with it's superior DVD, a guarantee of excellent 2D quality, and superior FSAA visual quality under most conditions... though anisotropic filtering on the GF3 can negate this but at a hefty performance hit, a slightly better feature set, all combine to make it a much better option IMHO.

nVidia offers better driver support, but ATi's drivers have been improving considerably and in the last few driver revisions they've been providing small performance boosts each time. While problems still remain their not too major in most cases, and the current ATi driver sare IMHO reasonably reliable. Also, as I said it seems like ATi is finally starting to get their driver support on-track and I believe it's reasonable to expect continued improvements.

The GF3 Ti200 can often overclock to Ti500 speeds, the OEM R8500 has shown itself to be capable of overclocking to retail speeds in most cases which would push it to slightly below Ti500 speeds.
But I'd never recommend purchasing a card based solely on the possibility of overclocking. Overclocking is never a guarantee.
 

GreenLantern

Senior member
Jun 21, 2000
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I am in the exact same hem haw situation. Only to build one machine though so I'm going to have to make it count. The difference between the retail Radeon 8500 on the oem version - I thought - was just the game bundle. (Which is just a bundle of HL and Counterstrike releases).

What is this said difference in speed?? Where can I read about that? That is not good news:confused:
 

LuDaCriS66

Platinum Member
Nov 21, 2001
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The retail version is at 275/275
Some OEM versions are at 250/250
The 8500LE is at 230/230

Personally, I'd pay the extra money and just get the retail version if you don't want the trouble.

I have the Gainward GF3 Ti200. It's nice and fast but the 8500 is the better card overall.
 

BFG20K

Member
Jan 8, 2002
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I don't understand why everyone has so much praise for the 8500. On a number of games, such as Giants and Unreal, the 8500 performs much worse than even the Ti200.
 

GreenLantern

Senior member
Jun 21, 2000
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<< I don't understand why everyone has so much praise for the 8500. On a number of games, such as Giants and Unreal, the 8500 performs much worse than even the Ti200. >>

Those are the only 2 games I'm aware of that Radeon has a problem with and its only a temporary driver issue. Max Payne, Ser Sam, RTCW, and slew of others all work fine.