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The Solution.[Video Card Model Guide]

V

vogar34

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jul 30, 2003
Messages
267
This little thread was made to help buyers a little more buy not only giving them the price and performance level, but little reviews as well on each card. Some of this thread might be based on opnion.
If anyone is willing to write their own reviews for any particular graphics card you are more than welcome to just pm them and I will make sure you get recongnized on this post. If you need help determining a certain graphics card I will be glad to help out just post here or PM me. I will also try to rush a graphics card with "high demand."
CURRENT PROJECT: 6800, and 5600 review. New contest dealing with HL2..

This weeks contest!​

Made a revision a day early so here comes this contest with Half-Life 2!
I will make this one easy because I can't think of anything else right now so here goes. I want to know the weakest machine being able to play Half-Lfie 2 at about 15 frames or more on average at 640x480 settings. Please either send me a pm, email me at snikleATvoyager,net or post your system here. Please be specific on the system you are using!

LAST CONTEST​

I want to know who has the weakest DOOM3 machine or one that is capable of playing it the crappiest system out there. If possible submit 3dmark scores from 01 and 03, your name for the forums and your whole system information. I will post Wednesday and new contest will begin every friday. So every friday I will make revisions to the solutions.
Thank you
Vogar34

For contest PM me, if my PM is full you can email me at snikle@voyager.net or AIM me at vogar34

WInner had a:
P4 2.4GHz
512MB PC2100 2.5-3-3-8
64MB to video
The video is claimed to be Intel Extreme Integrated graphics.
I guess the only thing that could beat this is a Geforce 256 or something. This person gets about 2-5 frames in heavy areas, 15 frames avg, and around 30 max


The NVIDIA cards

The Geforce 3
There are three different versions of this card the Ti200, the regular, and the Ti500. The Ti500 is the fastest followed by the regular, then the 128mb Ti200 and finally the Ti200 64mb edition according to many different games and benchmarks. The Ti200 64mb and 128mb editions swap around in the benchmarks and games. If you are on the entry and you do not want to buy the MX series of the Geforce 4 then this card may be the best option for you. Since this card is old the performance is not the best in most modern games, but it does have hardware acceleration in DX8 and NVIDIA’s nfinitefx engine for programmable shaders so I guess that means it outperforms pretty much all the Geforce 4 MX series GPU. So I guess this series of cards is placed under the Geforce 4 Ti4200 in performance and right above the Geforce 4 MX series. ATI’s Radeon 8500 would probably be right above it in performance as well I guess. Since this series of graphics card is older I guess you would be likely to find one for around 30.00 to 50.00 dollars for a used one. Of course it depends on how much value the owner thinks it has and the buyer thinks it has.

The Geforce 4 MX 420, 440, 460, 480, and the new 4000.
Alright I am going to try to make this very simple these are cheap cards all around! They have hardware acceleration in the DX7 area and pretty much from my understanding are basically higher clocked versions of the Geforce 2. In performance they are pretty much right at the bottom of the charts and really are only good starter cards or maybe backup cards I guess. Expect to play newer games at low resolution and low detail if you are using these cards. I have to admit I do not really know too much about the 4000, but I am pretty sure it is weak as well. Performance in this series of cards is like this from the fastest to the slowest. MX 4000, MX 480, MX 460, MX 440, and then the MX 420. Look to find these cards for about 20 to 40 dollars for used ones on the street and to find local store prices simply look in the paper or check a retail store nearest you! Most people should avoid these cards whenever possible except for older machines.

The Geforce 4 Ti 4200 64mb and 128mb.
Alright this is maybe one of the most popular video cards right now according to me and other poll results(results from various sights, but doesn't mean almost everyone has a ti4200 at all). This card is getting pretty old as well as the other cards listed above, but this card still is keeping up with current games. This card has hardware support for DX8 and if you are looking for a cheap solution to your graphical needs look no further it won't let you down. Plus if you are lucky you can overclock this card pretty well so who knows you might have a really good OC. Look to buy this card on the street for around 50-80 dollars, that is what they usually go for. 64 mb version is usually faster just in case you like speed more than space. As of right now at 64mb you are doing pretty well anyways so get the 64mb version if you have a chance at getting it.

The Geforce 4 Ti4400
So the second level of the Geforce 4 TI is sort of a tough one to judge because it is sort of an in betweener card. You know the one people don't buy because they only have to pay a little more to get the next step up or overclock the step down to speeds past this card. Hey if this helps you it is pretty much in the same postion as the Ti 4200 in price range plus performance as well. If the price is right and you need a starter card grab it!

The Geforce Ti4600
Here is the card you may want to get if you are looking for a Geforce 4 Ti video card. The performance increase is good enough that you will actually notice the difference from the two lower cards of this series. Just remember that this card and the other Ti cards lost the battle in quality settings to the ATI 9500 series so if you want to skip ahead to those go ahead (That review is not created yet so you can just go buy a 9500 for right now!). Well if you do not really care about FSAA or other features go ahead and buy this! You will not be dissapointed. Price for the street should be around 70-110 dollars. For a Geforce Ti I recommend this one strongly unless you are really cheap.

The Geforce 4 Ti 4800
Well there are two different versions to this card the Geforce 4 Ti4800 SE and the regular Ti4800. I really do not see too many people that have this card, but I have heard and seen benches on how good it is. The SE version is in between the 4600 and 4400 in performance so it probably makes it a card to avoid so just stick to the regular edition and you will be fine. If you can find an excellent price on this card go for it like I always say for almost every Geforce 4 Ti card. I still suggest the Ti 4600 the most, but if you want to find one both the SE and regular go for around 80-120 dollars used whenever you find one from time to time.

The Geforce FX 5200 regular and ULTRA
When I look at this card all I can think about is how much NVIDIA is laughing at the people who purchsed this card at higher prices. Also this is the only FX card to survive the product listings all the way through the FX series. First the 5800 was removed and replaced by the 5900 then the 5600 was replaced by the 5700 finally the 5950 replaced the 5900. During the whole time the 5200 had full support. Anyway this card holds a place in performance just above the Geforce MX 480. This means that the regular 5200 is basically a continuation of the MX line in a way. The 256mb version of the Geforce FX is just a waste of money because who needs all that memory in a cheap graphics card? Trust me you will never have playable frame rates at high resultions that need that much memory. You dont really even need that much memory for newer cards even. The ULTRA version of this card isn't too promising either because you can most likely take the regular version and overclock it to ULTRA speeds. The ULTRA version performs above the 9000 PRO, Geforce 3 series, and the 8500 series. My opinion is to avoid this card and maybe for the same price buy a Geforce 4 TI 4200 because it is so much better. The street price can range from 40 dollars to around 70 dollars for used ones.

The 5600 coming soon!

The 5800 and the 5800 ULTRA
This card is basically considered a screw up by the actual company that made it, however it is a pretty decent card. At first this card had a really huge, and loud fan from pretty much all the makers of this card. The original card had what looked to be exactly the same idea as the VGA SILENCER cooling solution, but louder. Now that were done talking about that lets talk about the performance of this card. The performance of the 5800 is just under the Ati 9700 and the same thing with the 5800 Ultra and the 9700 Pro. When you turn up the FSAA settings this card stays with the game and actually does not loose too much ground which stops it from making the game unplayable or anything like that. To make things run a little smoother you can always overclock it I guess, but I wouldn’t because of the cooling solutions it already requires to have it run properly. Needing a pretty good cooling solution for overclocking this video card may help you in your decision a little. Personally I would avoid this card because of the price people usually try to sell it for and most people have voided the warranties on these cards anyways. Expect a 160 to 200 dollar price range for the used street price. Other option would be to just spend a little more and go with the 9800 Pro because you would get so much more. If you see one for a decent price don't let the age fool you this is a pretty decent card even for high level graphics.
 
ATI CARDS!!!!

The Radeon 8500 series
Alright this card comes in four different versions, which are the 8500 128mb, the 8500 64mb, 8500 AIW (all in wonder), and the 8500LE. With these cards it is sort of hard to tell where they actually stand. Some might say by looking at benches the 8500 is similiar to the Geforce 3 line, but some might say it competes with the Geforce 4 Ti 4200. One thing is for sure, this card beats all of those Geforce 4 MX cards and performs right around the Geforce FX 5200 Ultra and non ultra. Well since I can't give you the best excact performance location of this card I will say this. I would avoid this card if the seller is selling it over 60 dollars even if it has mods on it, however I do see these cards going for more than 60 dollars and that is pretty scary to think people spend that much on these older cards. If it is the AIW version and you just happent to like it for bringing TV to your machine than that is fine. This card will give you excatly what the Geforce 3 does and that is the power to run newer games at low quality. The good thing about this card is that it can play all the current games to the best of my knowledge. This card screams the words "I am an entry level card now!"

Core name: ATI R200
Core speed: 275mhz for the 8500 64mb, 250mhz for the 128mb
Memory speed: 64mb version is 550, 128mb is 500
Memory bus: 128-bit
Pipelines: 4

The 9000 AIW, regular and PRO
As you can alrighty see from the title there are three diffrent types of this particular graphics card. This is basically an entry level card that has hardware support for DX8, so you can get your fix on some of the most recent games. The 9000 is a card were you get what you pay for and it really shows. This card performance wise drops down into the Geforce 4 MX series zone, which means it is weaker than pretty much an other non-bargain video cards. Even though it is near the bottom the good thing about this card would be the price is near the bottom as well. I suggest to buy this card new because the price on these are 50 dollars or below on the retail versions! If you are looking for a backup card or an entry level one this is another contestant for that category. My advice is to buy this card over the Geforce 4 MX series, the 9100 and the 9200 because it is a better performer.

Core name: ATI RV250
Core speed: 275mhz
Memory speed: 550mhz
Memory bus: 128-bit
Pipelines: 4

The Radeon 9100
Ok this card is known as a rare card and most people only think of it as being an imbedded graphics controller. This is not true obviously becuase if you search for the 9100 on price watch you will find an actually card version of the 9100. Even though many of the people I know who use this card are happy with its ability to play current games at a cheap price, but that is just about it because it is truly CHEAP. I guess I would have to pick this card over the Geforce 3, Geforce 4 MX, and the 9200 because the performance and quality mix is better. I only see this card on the street from time to time and the price range I guess is around 40 to 60 dollars. This is an entry level card so do not expect great things form it at all.

Core name:
Core speed:
Memory speed:
Memory bus:
Pipelines:

The Radeon 9200 and 9200 Pro
With hardware support for DX8 this card shows a slight slowness in performance than that of the Radeon 9000. Some benchmarks they swap from time to time for some reason (probably just quality settings), but usually the 9000 stays ahead in most of the benches. Don't expect a fairy tale come true from this card expect to be able to play games like Battlefield 1942 and Unreal Tournamnet 2003 decently with this card. As for doom 3 and Half Life 2 I would buy a new higher level card instead of trying to mod it to get every drop out of this poor card. Expect street prices to be anywhere from 15 dollars (yes I have seen 15 dollars before) to 40 dollars. Even the new retail versions of this card are very cheap. Look at New Eggs's selection of them.

Core name: ATI RV280
Core speed: 250mhz
Memory speed: 400mhz
Memory bus: 128-bit
Pipelines: 4

The Radeon 9500 non Pro 128mb and 64mb
The first thing that comes to mind on these cards are the chance of opportunity and the chance of failure. Will the softmod be successful or will it not? For this card that can be a major concern when purchasing this card for overclocking reasons. For those of you that do not know what softmodding is I will have to tell you. Softmodding is simply flashing the bios with a different bios, which is perferably a better cards bios. For performance look for these cards to perform around the Geforce 4 Ti 4200 with the 128 version being faster. Try to avoid the 64mb version for two main reasons. Like I already said it is slower plus from my understanding it has no chances of being softmoddable. If you want to take a chance with overclocking then buy this card, otherwise go with the 9500 Pro because it has a very noticeable performance and quality increase. For those two cards look to spend around 75 to 100 dollars on the street.

Core name: ATI R300
Core speed: 275mhz
Memory speed: 540mhz
Memory bus: 128-bit
Pipelines: 4

The Radeon 9500 Pro
This card is one of the best midranged video cards I have ever seen, but one of ATI's biggest mistakes maybe. Wtih 8 pipelines, 128bit memory, and the will to play games at higher quality settings this card cooks for the price that is. With high detail, but no FSAA expect the same performance as the 9600XT (which is basically where the exact mistake came into place by ATI). To the best of my knowledge this card will not be able to softmod to the 9700 so if you are looking to softmod go to the 9500NP. For the street price expect 95-130 dollars for used ones. This card is awesome for the price, but it has been put into the discontinued products list on ATI's website so it is hard to buy it retail. This makes it the first dicontinued Direct X 9 graphics card I believe.

Core name: ATI R300
Core speed: 275mhz
Memory speed: 540mhz
Memory bus: 128-bit
Pipelines: 8

The Radeon 9600se (suck edition)
This is a very chep version of the ATI 9600 with lower frames in games. Unless you want to blow your money on a higher price low end video card I would suggest going with something else. If you want cheap go with the 9000 Pro because you will be happier. Street price is around 50-70 dollars. ONE TO AVOID BY MY OPINION!!! Sorry for that little outbreak all of you 9600se owners. I guess there are a couple of good things about this particular card. This cards performance varies at the bottom of the bench charts and when quality is turned up it doesn't take a major hit like all the other lower end cards. With that said the major problem with this card is that it is already pushing only around 30 to 40 frames that when quality is turned up the game becomes unplayable. I really don't know anyone who has gotten a successful overclock of this card or has modded it at all. If anyone has modded this card to another 9600s level (like flashing it) PM so I can add it to this review.

Core name: ATI RV360
Core speed: 325mhz
Memory speed: 365mhz
Memory bus: 64-bit
Pipelines: 4

The Radeon 9600
Unlike the 9600se the regular 9600 has a little more perfromance under the sink. This card fares pretty well for a an entry level gamer, but not really a big hit at all for the middle range gamer. In fact you might just want to call this graphics card the Radeon 9600SE 2 because it is still under the Geforce 4 Ti 4400 and the Radeon 9500NP cards in performance and just barely beats the Geforce 4 Ti 4200. If you have purchased this card at least you can feel happy about not buying the 9600se, that only competes really with the Geforce FX 5200 and the Geforce 4 MX series. Although that is really all you can feel good about because it is a low level card for a higher price. Add this card to the avoid list because its performance just stinks and if you turn on any quality settings or FSAA the game becomes unplayable at standard resolutions. I guess I would expect the street price range for these to be about 70-90 dollars for used, but it really isn't worth that even though it is a newer DX9 card. If you where originally going to get this card you are better off getting either a Geforce 4 ti4200 or a Radeon 9500. If you can't find one of those save up and get a 9600XT or 9800pro.

Core name: ATI RV360
Core speed: 325mhz
Memory speed: 400mhz
Memory bus: 128-bit
Pipelines: 4

The ATI 9700 non-pro/pro, AIW
Well you want the power to play games at decent frames with pretty decent quality without spending too much. The first true king from ATI that most likely allowed ATI to gather more fans for thier company. I am not sure if ATI knew the power of this card or not or if they knew Nvidia wouldn't be able to beat it for some time or if they could. Fact is this is a great card for the price. Finding it on store shelfs is impossible at this time because it has been out of production for some time, but you can find one used from about 105.00 dollars all the way to 180 depending on if it has some special cooler on it or if it is the AIW (All in Wonder) version of the card. Also if you feel lucky you can get a 9500-nonpro and try to softmod it to a 9700, but you have to make sure it has 128mb of memory and an L-shaped ram placement. If you want to look at the performance of this card as of today you can expect it to be above the 9600XT/PRO, 9500 series and below the 9800 and the 9800pro for ATI. For Nvidia it hangs around the 5900 series of the FX line of cards maybe beating it in several games by a few and vice versa. I guess here is a simple way of explaining this cards position. If you are looking for a slightly cheaper card than the 9800 here is your alternative and if you don't want to spend extra money on a 9600XT get this card cause it is usually cheaper used and offers more power! What? Not simple enough yet? OK. Buy this card so you can enjoy Half-Life 2 without spending too much. There ya go.

Info for the 9700pro
Core name: ATI R300
Core speed: 325mhz
Memory speed: 620mhz
Memory bus: 256 bit
Pipelines: 8x1

Info for the 9700 non-pro
Core name: ATI R300
Core speed: 275mhz
Memory speed: 540mhz
Memory bus: 256 bit
Pipelines: 8x1
 
You should hit up the midrange and higher end cards first. I think that's where alot of people will want to concentrate their efforts.

Meaning 9200's and 5200's are the suck and no one should buy them.
 
VOLARI CARDS!!!!


--reserved until i have time to sum up these cards--


im a lazy son of a bitch
 
Originally posted by vogar34
ATI CARDS!!!!

The Radeon 8500 series
Alright this card comes in three different versions, which are the 8500 128mb, the 8500 64mb, 8500 AIW (all in wonder), and the 8500LE.
Click to expand...

Don't forget the 9100, which the 8500 was rebadged as for some reason. May have had a few frequency tweaks but basically it's just an 8500 with another name!
 
More cards added
I will continue on to the Mid level cards this week
It is great to have the forums back!
 
oh, are they are out? with like.. drivers.. and stuff?
 
W1zzard said:
nice .. i see a sticky coming ..
Click to expand...

before it's stuck i think it should include information on core speed, memory speed, number of pipelines, and memory bandwidth
 
Yeah the volari cards should be out. Plus I will be adding core speed and such to rhe reviews soon. I will be sure to add matrox cards as well.
 
You really should start with the higher end cards and work your way down. All the GF3 and Geforce MX's with Ti4x00 series is more of a histroy lesson if anything.

Although don't get me wrong the Ti4x00 series are hella budget cards if you have only about $100 to spend.
 
yea unfortunately ti4200's can be hard to find now.
and you should group all the GF4Ti's together.

and for the ti4800:
ti4800SE is a 4400 with 8X and a Ti4800 is a 4600 with 8X.

and if you want i could help you with the rest of the cards and add 5600 info.
 
Group GF4 Ti's together; same with Radeons. No point in separating different speed grades of the same chip.

Missing GF FX 5500, 5600, 5700, 5900, 5950, 6800s, Radeon 9700, 9800, x800...

Be consisistant with structure & formatting; your listings of the ATI cards are too different from the nVidia cards.


Why does your FX 5200 spend so much time talking abot nVidia's marketing & so little actually talking about the card?
 
Error- radeon 9600xt is RV360. You might separate it out a bit more because its quite different from the rest of the 9600 series in that it uses the new controversial filtering algorithms that the x800s use, and also has temperature monitoring stuff that other non xt cards dont have. Also, 9600xt uses low-k, so its properties are a bit different.
 
I have made a few mods but I will be posting some more reviews in a little while. Sorry it is taking so long to get the top end card reviews out, but I want to make sure they are right. Check out the sort of contest at the top for the weakest DOOM 3 Machine!!!! Weekly contest will continue relating to graphics in the future!
 
Intel Extreme Integrated graphics for my Doom 3 machine...

With all settings and effects turned down to the lowest/off, and res at 640x480, it still runs worse than on my friends Radeon 7000.

My comp:
P4 2.4GHz
512MB PC2100 2.5-3-3-8
64MB to video

Friends comp:
Athlon XP 2100
512MB PC2700 unknown timings
64MB Radeon 7000

friends comp > mine...

That is until I actually get my comp back, sommmeeeedaaaaaaaayyy
 
Anymore suggestions, trying to make format improvements before updates!
 
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