Geforce3 or Radeon 8500/9100?

[mricks86]

Hey all, I am throwing together a second machine (mostly for gaming for the kids) and want a decent video card in it, but I'm not looking to dump hundreds on the newest ones. I am open to suggestions based on what you guys/girls have used, but I'm looking at the standard Geforce3 and maybe the Ti500 vs. the Radeon 8500 or 9100 (or whatever ATI card would be the equivilent).

I'm not trying to start a Nvidia vs. ATI war, I'm just looking for opinions based on your experience. Any thoughts are appreciated!

Thanks!

 

[CJP]

I just upgraded to a Radeon 9800 and am in the process of selling my Geforce 3 Ti500. My Ti500 has been great and it and Radeon 8500 cards will play today's games ok but they're getting a little dated. They are DirectX8 cards and don't do FSAA or AF very well. For example at Newegg.com you can get a Sapphire Radeon 9600 Pro for $148.00. That would give your kids DirectX9 support for games like Half-Life 2 (although it probably isn't going to power something like Doom3 that well. But neither will the Ti500 or 8500). Also, you'd get usable FSAA and AF which adds alot to the visuals. I'm not up on the current Nvidia crop of cards but I think the 5600 Ultra is similar to the 9600 Pro.

 

[McArra]

I think 8500/9100 would be the best choice but not sure. Any way If you spent something more ($100 or so) you can get 4200Ti wich is more powerfull than every other in budget cards.

Edit: 9600Pro would be a great choice, better, of course, than 4200Ti but more expensive also, and I don't think children will see the difference.

 

[modedepe]

A ti500 might be a little faster than a 8500l3/9100, but slower than a 8500. I'm not entirely sure though. They'd both be fairly equally matched, so you might want to just get whichever you can find the best deal on. And of course, as was said by the others, a ti4200 for $100 or radeon 9600 pro for $140 would be the best if you could get one, but maybe the kids won't be that picky anyways.

 

[Insomniak]

The 8500 will provide better performance. I'd go with it.

 

[mikeford]

I just picked up a refurb Sapphire from newegg, 8500LE 64mb DDR for $40 plus tax shipped, and my guess is that it will do OK for some time to come.

 

[Blastman]

I sure hope your Sapphire 8500LE has ? 4 - double sided ? memory modules instead of 2. My Sapphire 64MB 9100 (aka 8500LE) has only 2 double sided modules, and that means a 64bit memory bus and also it also means it?s 30% slower than the 8500LE?s with 4 double sided modules (128bit memory bus).

 

[bandana163]

A full 8500 is above all GF3 versions, but a 8500LE-9100 might be roughly at the same level as the Ti500.

 

[draco8099]

At Newegg in the refurb section there is an Asus Geforce 4 Ti4200 for $75 :Q

 

[bandana163]

Grab it!

Edit: 128MB, 250/512, 8XAGP - sounds like a pretty new Ti4200.
There is also one with 3.3ns RAM, 250/550:Q
And another with 600MHz memory...