GeForce2 GTS, KyroII, Radeon DDR Oh My

[reefguy]

Holy Cow Batman...my head is about to explode !!

GeForce2 GTS, KyroII, and the Radeon have been on everyone's lips for suggestions for upgrades lately. One day I read the Radeon is the way to go then the next day I read a different thread that says the KYROII is the way to go, then the GeForce2 GTS. Am I to assume that these three boards are so close to one another in visual quality that the choice as to which one is best is a non issue?

I am looking to upgrade from my Innovision GeForce 256 SDR.
The reason being that the 2D on this card is fair to midland. I do play 3D games (currently Anarchy Online) and do want good to excellant 3D quality along with good to excellant 2D quality. I run my 17" monitor ar 800 x 600. I recently have been doing quite a bit of Excel and PowerPoint work (reason for noticing the 2D quality) but do still get some time to play games.

The price difference between the three above mentioned choices is negligable so...which one is the cat's meow ??

 

[Freewolf]

I have owned all three cards and I choose the Radeon ddr vivo as my video card in my main machine. It has better 2d than the gf2 Visiontek card and better drivers than the kyro2 and more features than both
Freewolf

 

[rickn]

I had a Radeon 64mb VIVO, I replaced it with a Hercules 4500 Kyro 2, I have no regretted it. Drivers on Kyro 2 are very solid, 2d is very good.

 

[classy]

I have had all 3. I stayed with the Gainward Geforce2 Pro 450. It even has a good price. It is superior to both the other cards. The Radeon does have better 2d. But for all around performance the Geforce is better.

 

[ryandw]

Thread at HardOCP about visual quality with screenshots of each.

 

[reefguy]

TextKABOOM !!!
ARRRRGH !!!
You guys did that on purpose, didn't you ??

 

[bunnyfubbles]

I second the Gainward GF2 Pro. The card can be OC'd around Ultra speeds, which would widen the performance gap even more over the Radeon or the Kyro II. Plus Gainward has been praised for their great 2d, which should be a great increase in 2d quality over your GeForce 256. All in all you should be more than satisfied with every aspect Gainward's GeForce 2 Pro/450 has to offer.

 

[powervr2]

he is talking about a geforce 2 GTs not a geforce 2 GTS pro
that is more expensive than any kyro 2, geforce 2 pro might be faster than kyro 2... I am not sure if the increase in price justify the gap between the two...

(in some games geforce 2 pro is faster, in others kyro can actually beat geforce 2 pro, but generally it's faster the same doesn't happen with geforce 2 GTS against wich kyro is similar in performance)

with kyro you will get decent 2d quality... geforce cards are known to be hit and miss regarding that aspect...

 

[Nintari]

From my experience...
I have a gf2 gts 32mb and it runs great...2d is ok...3d is pretty cool
also had (brought back so I could get a radeon 8500 when its released) a kyro II 4500 (hercules)
I do have to say the 2d was a lot better than my GF2 and the 3d looked great! But it did lage behind my GF2.
BTW I have a Creative labs Geforce 2 gts so that may not be a good example of a gf2 for image quality (or so I have been told)
I can't wait to get my Radeon 8500 though and see what that will be like
and btw incase anyone is saying why am I going with a 8500 instead of a GF3...
The computer it will be put in will be hooked to a TV at all times. After talking with ATI for a while I found out that the radeon 8500 will put out to the TV at all times during post and dos prompt etc, and once enabled in windows will be on all the time. The GF3 from what I have read has weak TV out and you cant see dos, or post.

And on a final note. Anyone wanting to build a box like mine A kyro II card is excellent for this!!!
The TV out seems to be more hardware based than anything and does a great Job, however it looks better under XP than windows ME/2000 thanks to the clear type setting. I use 800x600 resolution (which te kyro II can do 1024x768 but 800x600 is better all around for performance/image quality) And have certain settings set to produce large fonts all across windows. I used it comfortably to surf the web, and play many games. And BTW I was using s-video so no telling how well it would look using RCA.

If anyone has any questions on this setup let me know by PM and I will try to help

 

[Teasy]

<< and btw incase anyone is saying why am I going with a 8500 instead of a GF3... >>



I don't think you have to explain yourself there, the Radeon 8500 has all the features that Geforce 3 has and more, far faster HW T&L and a higher raw fillrate. IMO its simply the superior card. Obviously we haven't seen its real performance yet but considering it should probably have at least a 20-30% increase in performance with retail drivers its actual speed is enough for anyone. And logically it should be faster in the end then the Geforce 3 since it has a higher fillrate and they both use IMR. What really impresses me is Radeon 8500's features, once you have a certain pixel pushing power (equal to Geforce 3) then thats fine for a few generations, whats important then is features and Radeon 8500 has it all in that department. I'm partcicularly interested in seeing its adaptive anti aliasing and N-patch tesselation.

 

[BFG10K]

the Radeon 8500 has all the features that Geforce 3 has and more, far faster HW T&L and a higher raw fillrate.

Not to mention texture compression that works correctly.

I cannot bring myself to pay $300 for a GF3 only to find a rainbow lighting show when I enabled texture compression.