Ti500 for $35 more.. worth it?

[Zarich]

If I was gonna spend 290 on a Elsa 920 Geforce 3.. would it be worth it to just spend $325 on a Leadtek Ti 500?

 

[Killrose]

So you gave up on the 8500? I saw one in for sale trade for $265 shipped. Retail, new in box.

 

[Zarich]

I havent given up on it yet.
Just trying to hammer out my options
plus Im bored.
where did you find it for 265 shipped.. is it in stock?

 

[Killrose]

Actually, one of the members has it. He usually shows up with some good Video card deals for Anand tech members. Do a search in the For Sale Trade forum, he still had it as of yesterday.

 

[Killrose]

Actually, there are a lot of people dumping their Dell deal 8500's for $245 shipped.

 

[Jhill]

I started playing that "it's only 30-40 more" for a better video card game also. I started out looking at some ATI cards at 100 dollars and now i am looking at gainward gf3 for 240 dollars. It seems like there is always something better for 30-40 more dollars. Sorry this doesn't help you. just a ramble.

 

[bunnyfubbles]

For $35 you won't have to tweek a GF3 in order to obtain the same performance of a Ti 500. For not spending $35 more you can get a board that can be tweeked to match or exceed the default clocks of a Ti 500. And because both GPUs come standard on video boards with 3.8 ns DDR ram, either card (in theory) has the same memory overclocking potential. A higher core clock does little for performance gain if it does not have the bandwidth to back it up, the GF2 Pro vs the GF2 Ti has proven this...

 

[Zarich]

So whats your recommendation bunny.. elsa 920 for 290 or leadtek ti 500 for 325

 

[Rage187]

Man, spend the $35...


Its $35, its worth it just to have the top of the line GF3..


IMHO

 

[Smbu]

<< And because both GPUs come standard on video boards with 3.8 ns DDR ram, either card (in theory) has the same memory overclocking potential. A higher core clock does little for performance gain if it does not have the bandwidth to back it up, the GF2 Pro vs the GF2 Ti has proven this... >>



That may be true for GF2 cards, but GF3 cards are more balanced. If you increase the core clock speed it will also improve the effects of the crossbar memory architechture, so it will allow you more memory bandwidth even if the RAM speed is still the same.

I must say that these GF3 Ti500 cards are awesome though. I'm currently running my Visiontek Xtasy 6964 GF3 Ti500 card at 260/590 (core/mem) from the standard 240/500 speed. Here is my current 3dmark2k1 score of 8246 on a 1.54ghz Tbird.

You should definately pay the extra $35 for the Ti500 over the GF3.

 

[Zarich]

Yeah, but is the leadtek worth it? I really cant go above 325... I have heard nothing but good about the elsa cards. so is the leadtek a good card..