Dose anyone know what the best one is ?

500....

Asus TI 500 equv's

I should have stated that what is the best Model and who makes it :/

ah thank you I might do a bit of look for that model :D

as u can c at http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.html?i=1581&p=22

there really isn't much difference. the only diff ur gonna c is how much it costs and what extra features is boasts.

Check out an issue of atomic, they bench the GFC3s I think... then again.

Get the gf4 ti6500

GeForce 3 Ti's

How f***in stupid are u MorgÏsh©.

morgish you tool,

read teh topic
Topic: GeForce 3 Ti's

I think he was making a suggestion that he shouldn't get a gfc3 but a 4. Anyway, gfc3 are better aren't they?

Morgish: Pay for a GF4 ti-6400 for me and i'll gladly get it!

i was just saying he would be better of spending a little more and getting one.

Pharcude.. 2 or 3 ?

no the geforce 3's ARE NOT "BETTER"

true, the geforce 4 MX 's perform on par with a piece of s*** (namely geforce 2 mx400s/200s) but the geforce 4 TI series will perform better than a geforce 3

get your facts straight before you answer a person's request.

my advice to you would be along morgish's lines (shudder.. morgish.. right.. ewww)

try for a geforce 4 ti4400 if you can afford one - they are the geforce 4's "budget gamer" model (i coin that phrase) as they perform well and overclock in similar percentages to a geforce 3 ti 200

what i'm saying here is the relationship between a ti4400 and ti4600 is much like the relationship between a ti200 and a ti500

the ti200/ti4400 performs slower but can be overclocked to the bigger sibling's speeds thus making it a "budget gaming" card :)

true, the geforce 4 MX 's perform on par with a piece of s*** (namely geforce 2 mx400s/200s)

actually its more like somewhere between a gf2 ti and a gf3 ti200.

get your facts straight before you answer a person's request.

o the irony :p

Best value for money is the ti200 since you can just overclock it easily without any mods to faster than a stock ti500 anyway. Saves you 400$.

Leadtek or MSI. relativly cheap and perform the same.

Listen duke - he asked for our opinions
i gave him mine

i tested a gf4mx at uni and it sucked massive ass. so i told him that. if you have a problem with me stating my opinion maybe you'd like to take it up with your mum...

Actually you should buy an ATi Radeon 8500.

then if u wanted to state your opinion you should have clearly indicated it. such as

true, imho the geforce 4 MX 's perform on par with a piece of s*** (namely geforce 2 mx400s/200s) after i completed some tests on them at my man love centre

but then again its far more acceptable to give references to online reviews.

Everything written here are peoples opinions. Even the testbed sites, cause what happens in one place isnt automaitcally true of another.

Why the hell would he need to put IMHO in a post anyway. No one takes anyones word here as gospel, and nor should they.

Sif a redeon hunter! people dont go for visual qualitiy these days:)

IMO, generally speaking, other people's experiences with something are usually good indicators about it - more so than a review on a single site. I'd rather read a thread on this forum about a product than go review surfing, cuz at least this way I'm likely to get exposed to a wider variety of feedback about a product (in between the abuse and kiddy spam).

IMO trog is stirring yet also trying to get his point across whilst doing so..

not stirring - I didn't even read most of this thread

For the record, I have a Hercules GeForce 3 Ti500 w/ 64mb and its pretty good. I've had a few problems with it, mainly weird instability issues that I didn't seem to get with my Asus GF2MX (which was a great card, albeit a bit slow).

Nah the 8500 absolutely kicks a GF3 Ti500's arse in pure specs AND real world results. Also worth noting that the 8500 has hardware mpeg2 (dvd - something you won't find on probably all GF-based cards), tv out and dualhead support as standard. The Radeon 8500 really does amaze me with its features (it really does kick the arse of anything based on nvidia chipsets).

ATi Radeon 8500 All-In-Wonder includes (in addition to standard 8500 features manifest): tv tuner, remote control (Not IR but RF), Digital/analog video editing hardware, dual display and more.

ATi Radeon 8500 128 MB version.

ATi Radeon 8500 64 MB version.

ATi Radeon 8500 LE.

To all prospective videocard buyers I say this: stop being sheep - just because Joe Blow next door buys a GF3 doesn't mean YOU have to. Do a little research into the subject and you will find that the 8500 is a very good card indeed. Image quality is much, much better (something ATi prides itself on), and you get far more bang for your buck; the ATi Radeon 8500 is significantly CHEAPER than a GF3 Ti500 (by about $300).

Hey trog, you know that Hercules is now making ATi-based cards? Hercules has been around a very long time (far longer than nvidia) so it says a lot if a respected manufacturer like Hercules changes which chipset it will use.

"get your facts straight before you answer a person's request."

shut up daffug ya f*****y little poofter.

Oh btw, does anyone on this forum own a Radeon 8500 (any model) ?

IMO, generally speaking, other people's experiences with something are usually good indicators about it - more so than a review on a single site. I'd rather read a thread on this forum about a product than go review surfing, cuz at least this way I'm likely to get exposed to a wider variety of feedback about a product (in between the abuse and kiddy spam).

Damn right! Reviews from hardware sites are always a little dubious because the video card companies can vet the cards being sent and make sure the reviewers get a card that is rock solid and overclocks to buggery. You or I commenting in a forum have regular cards bought in a shop. That's a much better real world opinion. Although we're often a little biased because we want our card to be the best :)

Yeah Hunter I have an Auriga Radeon 8500 bought from Sunlit a bit over a month ago for $480. I'd love to have bought the Hercules 8500 All-In-Wonder but can't afford it :(

The Radeon is nice (now). But it's really not a card for newbie PC users. I went through four driver revisions before I got acceptable Windows XP performance. It was initially half as fast in XP as it was in Windows 98. It's now on a par.

There are no general stability issues in windows and most games run fine. I only have two lingering problems with it - I can't play Counterstrike at 1280x1024 because it loads into a window instead of fullscreen (dunno if this is a driver issue or a CS issue). But it runs perfectly at 1152x868 (or whatever the 2nd highest res is).

Need For Speed 5 won't run at the moment. The only drivers where it worked were the leaked 6043, the newer (leaked) 6052 break it again.

Other than these two problems the card is great. Aquanox is bloody awesome! Quake3 is FAST! Seriosu Sam 1 & 2 rock. Unreal Tournament is unreal (sorry). Carmageddon 2000 is finally playable on my PC. Colin McCrae is sweet. And I've tested Diablo2, Warcraft2, and about half a dozen other games with no problems whatsoever.

To be honest I don't see a huge difference in image quality in Windows. Although, maybe I had a GF2 with a good ramdac. But the quality is very nice, clear, bright and sharp. The options to tweak settings are every bit as in depth as nVidias.

DVD playback is great. I haven't seen the PC use more than 30% CPU running fullscreen at 1600x1200 on my 21" monitor. The colours and playback quality is definitely better, there is no stuttering at all. Even the DivX avis look better (although that may be my imagination).

Finally, the multi-monitor support is brilliant. Try to imagine how cool it is to pipe DVD playback to your TV while you search the internet for something on one monitor and use the second monitor to type up a big word doc. Mmmm sweeet...

How did this turn into a Radeon review anyway :)

Well there you have it people - right from the mouth of an actual owner of a card.

DVD playback is great. I haven't seen the PC use more than 30% CPU running fullscreen at 1600x1200 on my 21" monitor. The colours and playback quality is definitely better, there is no stuttering at all. Even the DivX avis look better (although that may be my imagination).

If that isn't an incentive to use hardware DVD decoding then I don't know what is :). I'd always go for hardware over software any day.

If you would research a little or get a litter experience hunter, you would find that the Geforce 4 is on par with the radeon in DVD playback and image quality ... so that point now is invalid since the gf4 series are out

And if you actually had a clue yourself you would have remembered that the Radeon 8500 was not designed to compete with the Geforce 4 but the GF3. And where is this so-called experience of yours coming from?

Oh and neither the GF3 or 4 has hardware mpeg2 so you're talking s*** if you think the quality is better.

Hunter; I just got a new system today with a Radeon 8500 :)

Mmmmm. I wish I had money :).

no offence but you havent seen either card so you cant say much than speculate

ive seen all three cards and have used all three cards

Actually I have seen them in operation, and from the reports I've received both online and offline, the 8500 really does hurt the GF3, and makes a serious dent into non-mx GF4s. Besides, its not JUST performance which makes a good card - its the features, price, quality, drivers, speed, compatibility (to name a few). In the features department, you would be hard pressed to find the sort of stuff you find on ATi cards (ie ATi cards using the 8500 chipset).

Another issue with nvidia-based stuff is that the cards themselves aren't manufactured by nvidia, so you effectively lose consistency and quality.

well to get one thing straight ATI need a few lessons and tips from nvidia on making drivers, they still have a long way to go as they do have quite a few compatibilty problems with some software

as for quality and consistency that argument is stupid really. Ati have licensed their chips to other manufacturers as well. In fact hercules are the only decent company that make video cards for them, the rest are no names ie. auriga, powercolor etc etc.

as for features for ati cards you dont get the features until you pay the premium of about ~900 bux for the all in one cards since i presume theyre the ones your talking about. the normal radeons arent as feature rich as the all in ones

Oh, and seeing and using are diferent things

as for quality and consistency that argument is stupid really. Ati have licensed their chips to other manufacturers as well. In fact hercules are the only decent company that make video cards for them, the rest are no names ie. auriga, powercolor etc etc.

Powercolor? I'm yet to see an 8500 card from them... Auriga? I was told that is a Hercules card?

as for features for ati cards you dont get the features until you pay the premium of about ~900 bux for the all in one cards since i presume theyre the ones your talking about. the normal radeons arent as feature rich as the all in ones

Bulls***. Have you even seen the spec sheet for the standard versions and the DV versions? Probably not...

Face it you're just some jealous nvidia fanboy who doesn't want anyone buying anything BUT nvidia.

seriously ... get a clue .. i had both cards , currently i dont have either an ATI or a nvidia .

specsheets dont mean jack until you actualy get to use the cards and it seems you havent used either so your talking out of your ass

OK. You're both right and you're both wrong... so calm down ;)

The Radeon 8500 comes standard with a shedload of features. But it doesn't have TV IN or the TV Tuner. It still does multi monitor and has full hardware support for DVD in even the most basic OEM models. So sure it doesn't 100% compare to the Asus GF3 that does TV capture but price for features it whips pretty much every other card (ok maybe not Gainwards Golden Sample either ;)

The Radeon doens't whup the GF3's ass but it is definitely on a par with it. Some things are faster, some are slower, some are about the same. From what I can tell performance wise they're a dead heat. And that comes from comparing with a friend who has an Asus GF3 Ti 500 Deluxe.

Piludski is right about the licensing and the drivers (sorta). ATI do still make and sell their own boards which will prominently feature "Made by ATI" on 'em. Others are being built by other companies, Auriga (an Australian company BTW - where is your pride! ;) Gigabyte, Hercules et al. Buy a good brand - get a good card.

The drivers were crap but are steadily getting better. Remember that the GF range has been out longer than the Radeons. The drivers have had more time to mature. When the Radeon 8500 has been out as long as the GF3 I'd expect to see really good performance out of the drivers.

I really won't speculate about how it compares with GF4 cards until I or a close friend has one that we can do some testing with. But I will say it's going to be at least as close to a GF4 in performance as the GF3 is. So if you wouldn't upgrade from GF3 to GF4 you certainly wouldn't go from Radeon8500 to GF4.

And B - congrats dude. Let us know how you get on with the new card. I'd love to compare notes with someone about the problems and the successes with the card.

yeah..as i think pharcyde said.topic is gf3 ti's...but here is wat my new comp will be...

amd xp 2000+
asus a7v266-E
80gb hdd
256 ddr(kingmax) pc 2700
asus gf3 ti500..but might wait for gf4(decent model that is)

heck yeah...all this for $2500..or close to it

get the abit kr7a instead...better board imo

also is that really enough ram

Cool sKryBe, im getting the system tomorrow morning, i'll give you info about preformance and the fun times f***ing about with drivers if you like:). Also what are the best drivers at the moment you would recommend?

Hunter, although ATI cards are great (a friend of mine has one, excellent speed, colour etc), it isn't actually a gaming standard, while the geforces are. Geforces are for games, ATI is for video editing, it has been like that for a while. Remember, the king of game engines, John Carmack, says that the standard that he prefers are the nVidia based chipsets. You can't argue that. (I read his .plans a lot =P)

Yea asus all teh way.

Auriga (an Australian company BTW - where is your pride! ;)

Really? Not a lot of hardware is designed or made here :/.

are there even places in aus where that sort of stuff can be manufactured?

Of course. Don't forget that they don't actually have to fab the chipsets... they are manufactured by ATi, nvidia or whoever. The PCB design and assembly can easily be done in Australia and has been done so for many years :).

I bought a Geforce ti4400 today and would like to test it against an ATI :) The better image quality over my ti500 is unbelievable and video playback is awesome :)

Havent had much time to do any testing yet but will soon :) so far i just ran 3dmark once and overclocked the card only to 300/600 , left the cpu (1800+) and fsb at stock and got 10571 3dmakrs , so thats a nice indication if improvement over the geforce 3

No hardware mpeg2 playback on those GF's I see...

ok defugg is a fag it's true i actually own a gf4mx and that sucker flies.....nowhere near my old gf2mx i mean s*** i now run q3a at 1280*1024 and am constanly above 100 - 160 fps (peaks over 200 fps with everything on....this card IS NOT ass...it's f***ing great value....so budget card monkeys...this is your new card...go forth and purchase!

oh and btw my CPU isa lowly 1gig P3

are there even places in aus where that sort of stuff can be manufactured?

Yeah I actually worked in a factory that produced circuit boards for a few days (this is years ago). The technology to make boards isn't phenomenally difficult, the chips themselves are. But you buy them and solder the suckers on.

And B, sorry I'm so slow. Best drivers I found so far are a toss up between the 6043 and 6052 drivers (if you're using Windows XP). Under Win98 I've been using the 9021s. Also, make sure you follow the guides to COMPLETELY uninstall the old drivers before installing new ones. It's a pain in the bum but it's essential.