I have waited for months in order to upgrade my V3 (good little card, it O/C's to 195) to a new card as a present. I have been leaning toward a Radeon because I have heard wonderful things about it, and everyone who I talked to GREATLY PREFERRED the Rad. to the MX. However, as of late, I have seen several posts about problems with the Radeon.
Here are my specs.
Cel. 566@850
Abit BE6-II
192 MB RAM
Windows 98 SE
I have heard the Radeon performs wonderfully in W98, and of course the Nvidia products are great in W98 too.
I play a variety of games but I probably spend the majority playing UT, Q3, etc. If I was just a FPS gamer, then I would go the Nvidia route, but that is not the case.
I have listed my preferred cards in the order that I would buy them today:
1) Radeon
2) GTS
3) MX
What are your thoughts about my decision? Also, for just a little bit more money (~$70), would getting a 64mb version of the Radeon be worth it?
Radeon or MX/GTS for Christmas??
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BlueWeasel
- Senior Member
- Posts: 110
- Joined: Mon Nov 27, 2000 1:23 pm
- Location: Tupelo, MS
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BlueWeasel
- Senior Member
- Posts: 110
- Joined: Mon Nov 27, 2000 1:23 pm
- Location: Tupelo, MS
I have never used Nvidia (I have always been a 3DFX guy, but now I don't have a choice), but I have heard horror stories about the terrible 2D quality.
The image quality is suppose to be excellent on the Radeon, and becuase I play alot of 2D RPG's and spend a lot of time at the Desktop, 2D quality plays a big factor in my decision. Don't get me wrong, I want the FASTEST card, and I think the GTS is a little up on the Radeon, but if the 2 cards are pretty much the same in speed, then I would probably pick the better image quality over a minor increase in speed.
Here is the big question:
I know there are a lot of you who have used both the Radeon and the GTS cards. For those of you who went from a GTS to a Rad, do you wish you could go back to the GTS or are you glad you got the Radeon and vice versa?
BTW, I can probably pick up one of the engineering sample 64mb Radeons for $160 shipped. While these run at a lower speed than the retail versions and do not have VIVO, the guy told me everyone he has sold will O/C to at least 190.
It seems like a great deal to me. Since some of you have gotten these samples, any thoughts regarding these cards?
The image quality is suppose to be excellent on the Radeon, and becuase I play alot of 2D RPG's and spend a lot of time at the Desktop, 2D quality plays a big factor in my decision. Don't get me wrong, I want the FASTEST card, and I think the GTS is a little up on the Radeon, but if the 2 cards are pretty much the same in speed, then I would probably pick the better image quality over a minor increase in speed.
Here is the big question:
I know there are a lot of you who have used both the Radeon and the GTS cards. For those of you who went from a GTS to a Rad, do you wish you could go back to the GTS or are you glad you got the Radeon and vice versa?
BTW, I can probably pick up one of the engineering sample 64mb Radeons for $160 shipped. While these run at a lower speed than the retail versions and do not have VIVO, the guy told me everyone he has sold will O/C to at least 190.
It seems like a great deal to me. Since some of you have gotten these samples, any thoughts regarding these cards?
<b><font face="Arial," color="#3333FF">B1u3 \/\/34531
Epox 8RDA, XP 2000+, 1gb RAM, GF4 Ti4200, WinXP Pro
Epox 8RDA, XP 2000+, 1gb RAM, GF4 Ti4200, WinXP Pro
I have both a 32 meg GTS and 32 meg DDR Radeon in systems right to each other connected to the same monitor.
The quality of GeForce videocards 2D image quality seems to vary. Even by the same manufacturer.
On my Creative Labs Annihilator 2 the resolution is at 1280x960x32 and it looks good. To my eyes the Radeons 2D quality is a bit better and sharper than GeForce2 GTS but its not a big difference. Other people say the Radeons image quality is much better than the GeForce2 GTS's they had.
The GeForce2 GTS beats Radeon handily in 16-bit color and up to 800x600 in 32-bit color. At 1024x768 {and higher} in 32-bit color the picture changes. The performance difference between GeForce2 GTS and Radeon is close. Basically GeForce2 GTS leads the Radeon by a few frames in most games.
Since 2D image quality is a big factor for you and you can get an engineering sample 64MB Radeon for $160 shipped then I would say go Radeon.
The quality of GeForce videocards 2D image quality seems to vary. Even by the same manufacturer.
On my Creative Labs Annihilator 2 the resolution is at 1280x960x32 and it looks good. To my eyes the Radeons 2D quality is a bit better and sharper than GeForce2 GTS but its not a big difference. Other people say the Radeons image quality is much better than the GeForce2 GTS's they had.
The GeForce2 GTS beats Radeon handily in 16-bit color and up to 800x600 in 32-bit color. At 1024x768 {and higher} in 32-bit color the picture changes. The performance difference between GeForce2 GTS and Radeon is close. Basically GeForce2 GTS leads the Radeon by a few frames in most games.
Since 2D image quality is a big factor for you and you can get an engineering sample 64MB Radeon for $160 shipped then I would say go Radeon.
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BlueWeasel
- Senior Member
- Posts: 110
- Joined: Mon Nov 27, 2000 1:23 pm
- Location: Tupelo, MS
SBP:
How many frames does the GTS beat the Radeon?
I know this is not a fair benchmark since Nvidia cards are the cream of the crop when it comes to Quake engine games, but if you take the two cards, with the exact same computer and game settings in Q3A, what is the difference in the FPS reported when doing a timedemo with demo1?
What would you guess it would be? The GTS beats the Radeon by 10 frames per second. . . 20. . . .?
Yeah, I know this benchmark really sucks, but I am just trying to get an idea of the difference. Better yet - does anyone have a link to a comparison or shootout between the GTS and Radeon?
How many frames does the GTS beat the Radeon?
I know this is not a fair benchmark since Nvidia cards are the cream of the crop when it comes to Quake engine games, but if you take the two cards, with the exact same computer and game settings in Q3A, what is the difference in the FPS reported when doing a timedemo with demo1?
What would you guess it would be? The GTS beats the Radeon by 10 frames per second. . . 20. . . .?
Yeah, I know this benchmark really sucks, but I am just trying to get an idea of the difference. Better yet - does anyone have a link to a comparison or shootout between the GTS and Radeon?
<b><font face="Arial," color="#3333FF">B1u3 \/\/34531
Epox 8RDA, XP 2000+, 1gb RAM, GF4 Ti4200, WinXP Pro
Epox 8RDA, XP 2000+, 1gb RAM, GF4 Ti4200, WinXP Pro
Quake 3 Video Card Round Up
Blue Weasel,
I don't know if this is what your looking for, but here's a link to a video card round up Firing Squad did last September. It compares a couple of GeForce cards, the Radeon, and the Voodoo 5. Of course this is several months old and any driver updates will have changed the results shown here.
http://firingsquad.gamers.com/hardware/ ... efault.asp
I've been running a Creative Labs Annihilator Pro since last Christmas and to me the 2D and 3D image quality is excellent.
[Edited by MAC on 12-22-2000 at 02:06 PM]
I don't know if this is what your looking for, but here's a link to a video card round up Firing Squad did last September. It compares a couple of GeForce cards, the Radeon, and the Voodoo 5. Of course this is several months old and any driver updates will have changed the results shown here.
http://firingsquad.gamers.com/hardware/ ... efault.asp
I've been running a Creative Labs Annihilator Pro since last Christmas and to me the 2D and 3D image quality is excellent.
[Edited by MAC on 12-22-2000 at 02:06 PM]
Keep in mind that they are using a 1Ghz CPU to do those comparison(not realistic IMO). And September 9 is over 3 months ago, ATi have much better/faster drivers now.
Here is a better one with a PIII-750.
http://firingsquad.gamers.com/hardware/ ... /page8.asp
It's exactly the same at 1024x768@32bit, anything above that resolution the Radeon win, anything below that resolution the GTS win.
Personally I will go for the Radeon for the quality.
Here is a better one with a PIII-750.
http://firingsquad.gamers.com/hardware/ ... /page8.asp
It's exactly the same at 1024x768@32bit, anything above that resolution the Radeon win, anything below that resolution the GTS win.
Personally I will go for the Radeon for the quality.
Coco that ATI Radeon 64MB Preview is from July 17, 2000. That was before the release of the detonator 3 drivers which increased performance for GeForces at 32bit color high resolutions.
This shows a few things. A lot of these reviews are from months/weeks ago. There have been new drivers released that improve the performance of these respective videocards. Then most of the time these higher end cpus are used. Thats good if a person has a gigahertz cpu but what if your like BlueWeasel? And to top it off sometimes you look at the some of these sites results and you know the results are not right.
"How many frames does the GTS beat the Radeon in Quake 3 engine games with same computer and same settings?" If the resolution is 1024x768x32bit and above then under 10 frames per second for sure.
[Edited by sbp on 12-23-2000 at 03:10 AM]
This shows a few things. A lot of these reviews are from months/weeks ago. There have been new drivers released that improve the performance of these respective videocards. Then most of the time these higher end cpus are used. Thats good if a person has a gigahertz cpu but what if your like BlueWeasel? And to top it off sometimes you look at the some of these sites results and you know the results are not right.
"How many frames does the GTS beat the Radeon in Quake 3 engine games with same computer and same settings?" If the resolution is 1024x768x32bit and above then under 10 frames per second for sure.
[Edited by sbp on 12-23-2000 at 03:10 AM]