Best Graphics Card On the Market.....

I'm glad that ATI is vastly improving their drivers support. The thing that I'm pondering over is how fast Nvidia and ATI are coming out with new cards. I've heard that the next series cards will be out in the fall with all new hardware architecture.

While all the drivers coming out is good, I plan on waiting until the next series comes out and see what they have to offer over the present GeForce 4's and ATI 8500 series.

The last thing I have to say, which has been said here before, is that I hope Nvidia uses 3dfx's AA technology very wisely, as it could very well make their next card superior to ATI's in my opinion.

From The Inquirer:

Seems like things are really heating up...I hope Nvidia is up to the challenge.

Best bang for the buck: ATI Radeon 8500 You can find some resellers of the retail version (275/275) of this great performer offering then for $150-170. This card has the hardware and a continued driver development program (albeit a tad slow) that can handle any game currently on the market.

Best overclocker: GeForce 3 TI 200 This budget gamer card can be found for the same price as the Radeon 8500 mentioned above. Many companies' cards can be overclocked to TI 500 levels. nVidia continues to crank out a steady supply of beta drivers that should enable you to run any game you own.

Best overkill performer (currently): nVidia GeForce TI 4600 This $350+ video card while not needed for the current crop of video games, does decimate the competition in being able to display high resolutions at blistering frame rates.

Hey Super, I agree with setscrew...What do ya think about that?
Just giving you a hard time...

The Radeon 8500 for $150 is a sweet deal. Now, if a GF3 Ti500 could be had for a similar cost...there would be quite the dilemma on which one to go with.

Best card? Depends on a lot of things. Games? FPS? Visual quality? Raw power? The eye can only 'see' up to ~65fps, anything over that is ??? :rolleyes:

IMHO (in my humble opinion), the Kyro chips are the best. They don't render what won't be seen. When the new ones come out w/core & memory clock speed = to the ATI & nVidia :grinthumb

For visual quality, the edge goes to ATI. That said, there are Oxygen Labs $$$ nVidia based cards that will rock an 8500.

The Kyro guys are struggling, ATI is making moves & nVidia has the major share of the market. Support/compatibility is the major issue.

Cooling & memory ns are the differences between 'stock' & 'company' built cards. Look for heatsinks on the RAM, big fans on the chip & low (5 or 6) ns on the RAM. Gainward/Ledtek & some others build for overclocking/performance enhancements in mind.

That said, I have a VisionTek GeF2 MX 400 64mb that factory clocks 200/334. I have it up to 212/343 w/an extra fan & it works great for me. It's a PCI (not AGP) because that's what I needed. ~$70 US.

Processor, bus speed & computer memory also matter. If it is slow going from the HD to the video card ... no point in a high end card.

Thanks for listening/reading & nice board here.

Kyro is looking to strike a deal with Via. If the S3 story is anything to go by, Kyro ins't gonna get better ( which is really a shame, I was looking for a successor to my PCX2 ).

Seeing the new reviews that have come out, the best bang for the buck now has to be the GF4 4200 64 mb. The 64mb version has its memory running @ 250 for 179$ whereas the 128mb has 222mhz memory for 199$ ( nVIDIA prices ).

The extra 64 mb really shows at very high resolutions ( 1280*1024 & higher ) so IMO it's not worth the extra 20$.

Wow

This thread has a humungous amount of info and ideas and personal choice.
I had to fast forward, but will put in my 2 cents.
I believe it has a lot to do with what your system consists of.There are a lot of factors for each component and a lot of manufacturers for each of those components.I think that's why google was born--to help--.But when it boils down to it, I imagine there must be some type of formula to use to decide whether you should get card A/B. A lot of us always want that bit extra out of their card (which is our right-I believe-) but as other people have stated, it's no good pairing a GF4 ti/mx with a cyrix233 and hoping to break 20K on 3DMarkse. As people have said, a lot of different factors come into it, such as what you wish to do with the card. So I must say that the best graphics card is the one that you choose.
I'll shut up now.:blackeye:

Re: Wow

Yes, it does. I made this sticky for it is also an extremely popular/common question here.

WhAtZ tHe BeZ ViDeO CarD DoodZ?

The recently released GF4 Ti4200 which can be overclocked to at least Ti4400 speeds seems to be the latest Best bang for buck card...

Tomshardware GF4 Ti4200 article (this page shows the overclocked 4200 performing at 4400 levels or above!)

I have to agree with you there Arris. If your looking for speed and performance this card is definitely the way to go. I've even seen reports of the 4200 series getting up to 4600 speeds!!! Now that's bang for your buck without spending the extra 200 dollars for the 4600.

ATI still has the software advantage by far, but if your looking for raw speed and as many FPS as possible then the GeForce 4 is undoubtedly the way to go.

Thought I'd add: Those that have Intel chips on their mb's can go to Intels website & download their "Application Accelerator" to speed up HD to processor speed. There is also a "Chip ID utility" there you can run to get the info on which chipset you have. Don't forget the 'software installation utility' so your version of Win will recognize the applications related to the 'Accelerator'.

Another program that will help the i/o data is "CPUFSB". You'll need to know the chipset/mb to use it too. With it you can increase the cpu speed & the bus speed. If you 'overclock' too far, simply shutdown, unplug the power & then reboot to original specs.

Sorry I can't link to Intel (each system takes a different dl) & CPUFSB can be dl'd by a search from various places. "Si Sandra" is also a nice program for info on your system & benchmarking, as is "Fresh Diagnose".

Optimizing your system will improve the video, sound & everything else so you (we/me) can get the most out of it. :grinthumb

SCheetah: GF2 Ultra? That can be clocked to 275/440, IIRC & is a great card. I don't think the $$$ of going to a GF4 or Radeon 8500 will really give you that much improvement. Run the 23.11 driver & the "GeForce Tweak Utility" & I think you'll find great fps & graphic quality too, IMHO.

HTH (hope this helps),

The new technology in the GeForce 3 and 4 series cards will soon be implemented in the newer games. When this is done you will see the substantial improvements that everyone talks about. Still, you will achieve much better FPS and a little better quality (maybe) with the newer cards for not much more money than you would be spending for a GeForce 2 Ultra.

If your looking for a cheaper card then just go with a GeForce 3 TI200 for right now. As mentioned earlier in this post, the newer generation cards from ATI and Nvidia will be coming out soon with all new architexture so those might be worth waiting for IMO.

Personally I prefer the ATI Radeon8500 although at times I prefer to use the Nvidia cards because of their frequent drivers updates (which ATI is mimicking now). I guess all of this boils down to personal oppinion and branding Lots of people would prefer Nvidia because of their fast speed and less problems with their drivers (I guess when people talk about ATI drivers many of them would think of the Quake 3 Arena "driver efficiency" issue highlighted). Anyway my previous card used to be Geforce 3 Ti200 and in my oppinion it would outperform the Geforce 3 Ti 500 in certain cases only.

System Specs:
Athlon XP 1.4ghz
Abit KG7 Raid
512 MB DDR RAM
Power Color Evil Master 2 Radeon 8500 Pro
80GB HDD
Creative DVD-ROM
ASUS CD-ROM
HP CD-Writer (4x 4x 24x, I guess this must be the oldest component in my system)

My 3D Mark 2001 score is 9800 (This could be attributed to the fact that 3D Mark has another option for the ATI cards called Pure Hardware T&L)

Nice system specs infocom!!! I also have the KG7-RAID board with a 1.4GHZ Thunderbird and 512 of Crucial CAS 2 DDR memory. I only have a GeForce 2 Pro, but I plan on upgrading soon. I want to get the ATI 8500DV All-In-Wonder card, but I think I'm going to wait until the next generation cards come out later this year. Also I have, 2 60GB IBM Deskstars with Raid 0.

I'm happy with it. Especially since the new bios now support the AMD 2100+ and the new Thouroughbreds coming out soon.

Yah I like the mobo alot because it is stable and the new bios revision supports the new processors. Anyway I have been hoping to change my cd-writer for some time but haven't actually gotten down to buying a new one Play games more than actually writing cds. Your system specs are cool too man, I don't have a spare hdd to run raid so it is kind of wasteful of my raid motherboard at the moment Yah I wanted to get the all in wonder (the hercules version) but it was just too damn expensive to consider, together with the 128mb version of the radeon8500 which is another expensive card. I keep hoping that the geforce4 4600 price will drop when the new geforce card comes out.

I just read a review of the R8500 AIW card at [H]ardOCP, and i was mightlily impressed. It seems with every driver elease, this card becomes more and more of a beast. I had no idea the AIW version came w/ 3.3 ns 128DDR Sdram, and is clocked at 275/275 (550). It was an impressive review, as it competes quite well w/ the Geforce4 Ti4200. Anyway, here is the link for anyone interested.

BTW- ATI leaked new drivers again today- up to version 6071 now...
I hope it's o.k. with the admin to post a link to review- I know I always take them w/ a grain of salt
Here's the link http://www.hardocp.com/reviews/vidcards/ati/aiw_8500_128mb/index.html

To be honest the best thing to use to really determine what card is best for you is to look at madonion.com. Then you can pick your system out and see what different cards do. Grant you all computers are not the same, but it is an approxiamation since not many have the luxury of just getting these cards and testing them out on there system.
I too am struggling with what card I want to buy. I am stuck between a Geforce 3 or Geforce 4 or an ATI 8500. All of these cards are a great improvement from my current Geforce 2 GTS, but I am a budget gamer looking for the best bang for my buck. But looking at the bright side of things the longer you wait the more the price will drop. My friend bought a Radeon 8500 OEM for $130 and now 2 weeks later it is at $107. So being cautious can and usually does work to your advantage.
Next taste comes into play. So I always ask myself these questions when buying any component: Does it do what I want it to do? Is this a quality product? How long will this thing last me before I need something new? And for graphics cards does it look good and run smooth? These usually narrow down my choices. So best of luck to anyone who is looking to buy a new graphics card.

My System:
Case: Antec SOHO 1030
Processor: Intel Pentium III 1 GHz
Motherboard: Asus CUSL2-C
Memory: 512 MB PC133
Hard Disk: Quantum Fireball 30 GB
Video Card: Asus V7700 Geforce 2 GTS 32 MB
Sound Card: Creative Labs Sound Blaster Live! 5.1
Ethernet Card: Realtek 530TX
Ethernet Card: Netgear FA 311
CD-ROM: Creative Labs 52x
CD-Burner: Creative Labs 12-10-32E

Here's another thing to thing about: do you want to buy a video card now or wait til August for Nvidia to release details and launch dates of the NV30. Then do you want to get the NV30s or buy a Geforce 4 when all the prices are lowered. Even then, even if you got your NV30, 6 months later, Nvidia would release details bout the NV35. The truth is that we cant keep up wit Technonlgy like at this pace.

And this thread will go on long enough for us to Say the Geforce 6 is the best card.

Aint it the "eclipse" or sth.