Help choosing video card...please

[Loafer]

Hello,
Been coming to this site for awhile and finally have a reason to post...

Trying to recommend a video card to a mate, who wants a mid range card mostly for 3D apps. E.G. Auto CAD, 3D Studio Max, Maya(animation) and playing DVD's- he wants to be able to zoom in on 'frozen' pictures. I did warn him 'he will go blind'

He was looking at a GeForce4 Ti 4200 128mb vivo8XAGP, but I was wondering if an Ati AIW 9100pro would be better ?
What do you think ?

Any help appreciated
Thanks

Dougie

 

[Shaft]

For gaming performance the ti4200 is better, but for the apps he is going to run I would say to go with the Radeon. ATI's all-in-wonder series has been established for a while now.

 

[agissi]

I agree Shaft, if hes not playing games I'd get the AIW

 

[Loafer]

Okay, thanks for the replies.
I guessed the Ati was a better choice as they always used to be good on image quality (from what I remember).

Dougie

 

[negroplasty]

Not to be a spoil sport, but I have not heard many good things about the AIW series of ATi cards. I hear about several driver problems they experience and so on and so forth, I am not saying anything against ATi here, just be aware of what you are buying before you buy it.

I have heard many more bad things about these cards from actual owners, even on these boards! I would search, but I am in a really lazy mood, so hopefully one of those people will post in here and help you out.

BTW, as I said, this is not experience, just rumor; so take no notice of me as I don't want to start another controversial war here.

 

[snowman]

go with the G Force FX series

 

[agissi]

Originally posted by snowman
go with the G Force FX series

Im sorry, but that would be the dumbest thing to do. One, the FX(all of 'em) suck, and (2) they're quite costly. Considering hes not playing games, the 9100 AIW, or Ti4200 would suit him quite well

 

[acidosmosis]

I'm going to have to disagree here and say, if your going to be doing 3D Modeling, AutoCAD, and other programs like these -- coming from experience; the Geforce3 should be sufficient. If he does choose to play games later on the GF3 would be sufficient for lots of current and upcoming games.


Edit: As a little background information I was a computer animation major for 9 months and my personal computer was a AMD Duron 800 with 64 megs of RAM and a Geforce2MX400. That alone was more than sufficient for the modeling and graphics that I was doing at the time, and to be 100% honest my system outperformed the Silicon Graphics (SGI) systems that the school had at the them when those systems had more RAM and faster processors.

 

[Loafer]

Well I guess I should say something at this point, seeing as I started this thread.
I should have known that I'd get " 2 for Ati and 2 for geforce". Anyone want to throw in a matrox just to make it a 3 horse race ?
I think I'll suggest to my mate that he can choose between a Geforce4 and 9000 AIW as I guess both will be adequate for what he wants.
I must admit I leaning towards the Geforce because of the driver issue with radeons...........at least with Nvidia you get bloody endless drivers to choose from.
If i'm wrong I'll send him to these boards and this thread and blame you lot

Thanks again for responding, at least I feel now that it probably wont matter which card he has.

Dougie

 

[agissi]

Why not make this a 3-Way!

Originally posted by Loafer
I should have known that I'd get " 2 for Ati and 2 for geforce". Anyone want to throw in a matrox just to make it a 3 horse race ?

Rotf, go figure eh

Originally posted by Loafer
Thanks again for responding

Its a pleasure here at TS, feel free to stay

 

[Nick]

Geforce 3 Ti200

I've had this card for over a year now and it's awesome, not only cheap but its a great card. Get the 128 mb ddr version too.