GF3Ti200 and Radeon 8500

[LuDaCriS66]

I know this kind of topic has been beaten to death but I need opinons on this specific situation. I live in Toronto, Canada and most of the computer hardware I purchase is from the net. I was looking forward to purchasing an ATI Radeon 8500 but now I'm considering the VisionTek GF3 Ti200. The only reason I'm considering it is the price. Because of the damn exchange rate now (crappy Canadian dollar), a Radeon 8500 would cost me $400 while a Ti200 would cost approx $255. Exactly, how limited is the GF3's DirectX 8.1 capabilities? I'd much rather get the 8500 but if it comes down to money, I would go for the Ti200.

I'll be using the card with an Athlon XP 1700+, 512mb PC2100 Crucial DDR, an Epox 8KHA+, and WinXP.

I'm currently using a Radeon 32mb DDR so I'd like to see the significant boost in performance.

Thanks in advance

 

[vyrt1go]

I have an Athlon XP 1800+ on an MSI K7T266 Pro2-RU, also with 512MB Crucial.....you can see the specs by clicking on v3 below....anyway, i have the PNY GeForce3 ti200 and i can overclock the sh!t out of it. i leav it at 200/460 just because none of the games i play require any more than that. but i have heard that the visiontech cards are even more overclockable. i dont know what your 3dMark2001 scores are, but mine were 6949 with my AXP at 1533MHz (1800+) and vid card at 175/400 (gf3ti200 default) and by just increasing the gf3 specs to 200/460 i got 7450 3dMarks....a considerable increase, mostly because of the internal memory bandwidth of the card. i can overclock my processor (increase the fsb to 140/core clock is then 1610MHz) and overclock the vid card to 200/460 and i get ~7800 3dMarks. i dont know the abilities of the ATI card as i have never owned one, but if those specs give you an idea of the performance of a US $200 card, i think it is all the performance you could ask for out of a card like that. btw, a friend of mine has the identical system as me (only difference is im running RAID and he is not, which has no effect on game performance whatsoever) and he has the regular GeForce3 (Gainward Gf3, core clock of 200 DDR clock of 460 (which is why i set mine to that ;>) and i get ~300 more 3dMarks (same drivers(det. 22.80), identical BIOS settings, perhaps due to the updates to the gf3 core with the ti line of cards)....well, i think thats enougn for now, if you have questions, email me and i would be glad to answer them (if i can)....good luck

vyrt1go

 

[LuDaCriS66]

Hi, thanks for the reply. On my current system a PIII @650, 384mb pc133, Win98se, and a Radeon 32mb, I got a score of approx 2400.

I'm building a new system with an Epox 8KHA+, Athlon XP 1700+, and 512mb of DDR PC2100. If I purchase a VisionTek Ti200, which I can probably get for approx $160 USD, I might be putoff if the ram is 5ns. I know it stills performs well, but I'm kind of reluctant to get a Ti200 for $160 if there are Radeon 8500's for about $220. (I prefer not to be OEM products)

It's just that the exchange rate here really jacks up the price.

 

[vyrt1go]

the PNY Verto Geforce3 ti200 is a full retail (PNY's brand) product. in a spiffy box and everything. it comes with a full lifetime warranty from PNY (in fact, they warrant ALL of their products for life. mem/vid cards/cdr's etc...as does visiontech). both the PNY and visiontech cards are available in a retail box (you can get either at best buy). i would recommend the ti200, but if you are partial to ATI then go that route. i know that the PNY will do anything you ask of it. as for whether or not the ram is 4 or 5 ns, i dont know, but im sure you will not be dissapointed if you go with the gf3ti200.....its one hell of a card for the money (i paid $225 for my TNT2 Ultra )

 

[Gunslinger08]

Heh, you can buy an 8500 OEM and then flash the BIOS to basically make it a retail 8500.... but you didn't hear it from me, cause Ati will come after anyone who even knows about it.
Josh