Is the Radeon 8500 or GeForce 4600 overkill for a P3 700 @ 1 gig??

[Toolman]

Is the Radeon AIW 8500 128 or GeForce 4600 overkill for a P3 700 @ 1 gig?? I have a Matrox G400 Max which is great for the CAD work I do, but I was thinking of updating. It would be used for CAD design, gaming, dual monitors, and I'd like to do TV recording & editing too (that's why the AIW).

Your opinions please?

 

[nortexoid]

the ti 4600, yes...

the 8500, no...an 8500LE would be a nice match...

 

[Toolman]

nortexoid, why do you recommend what you did? Why the 8500LE?

 

[CraigRT]

if I had that setup, I'd get either a Radeon 8500 (at most) or a GF3 Ti200

Likely Id get the Ti200
the 700@1000 doesn't have all that much power by todays standards, a Ti200 runs most everything just awesome.. you'd like it alot I think
especially when you can overclock them so much.. mine is at just about Ti500 speeds. and I paid $229 CAD over a month ago. Great deal.

the Ti4600 is way too much GPU for that CPU.

 

[RedShirt]

If I were you, I'd get a retail 8500 64 mb for around 130 (thats the price right now on price watch)

A friend has just a plain 700, no OC and that's what he has and he loves it.

Edit: Forgot about your TV plans... The 8500 AIW would be perfect.

 

[Akaz1976]

well i got a P3-700 that i can run at 933 (at which doesnt work with HL and its mods for some reason). And i am gonna upgrade from GF2 to GF4 4400 today (just got the card).

I think its money well spent as i game a lot and i dont think the CPU is the limiting factor in most games. Plus i hope to upgrade the CPU in late summer or early fall (by that time hope fully P4 2.0A's are reliably hitting/OCing to 3.0Ghz).

Akaz

 

[nortexoid]

i recommended it because any games that would require an extremely fast GPU will be limited by a 700mhz processor...and anything requiring an extremely fast CPU, will, of course, be limited by your CPU, again.

so in either case, u're CPU limited...that is, the framerate of the game is limited by your CPU, not GPU. So your GPU will never reach full potential at any settings because it'll be bottlenecked by yoru CPU before it can...except maybe in extremely high resolutions (which agian would probably run rather slow w/ your CPU!!)

the 8500LE is a great card because it can be had for cheaper than the 8500 while providing the exact same feature set, and it won't be the limiting factor in your computer...going lower wouldn't be worth it, unless u're extremely cash constrained...the 8500LE can be had for peanuts for a high-end graphics card.

I've noticed the 8500 OEM can be had for pretty close to the LE as well, and in that case, I'd go regular 8500 since the core/mem is clocked higher (the actual mem modules are faster too), but it does lack the DVI-to-VGA adapter...u may or may not need that...if u don't, then no biggie anyway...besides, u could pick one up later down the road.

 

[Rand]

I pretty much agree with Neotexoid's comments above.

 

[Toolman]

Thanks for the input. I'm going to do some more research and check them out at Best Buy before purchasing online.

I initially was gonna go for the Radeon AIW 8500 128 even if was overkill, cuz I could drop into a Clawhammer system next year. But who knows what will be available in video cards in a year.

I'm leaning towards the 8500 AIW 64 right now.

 

[SteelCityFan]

I bought a 8500 64MB Retail for my new system, and had to test it in my old P3 600 (Ram was bad).

Anyway, it looked the same on the P3 600, but obviously the fps was lower. I don't totally agree with the "too much GPU for that PC" argument. No matter what speed CPU you are going to use the Video Card on, you are definately going to see a huge increase in image quality, and your fps will increaase as well.

 

[Duvie]

Well for what yo want to do the LE wont cut it, alone that is.....

You could get the 8500LE and then get a tv wonder card which offers the vivo and tv tuner with capturing video in avi, mpeg1, mpeg2 and other codecs...I could capture using my divx codec....

This option would save a lot of money and still give great performance....What it will also do is keep the cost down as to be ready for that future cpu and vid card upgrades....

Capturing will very dependent on cpu ability, so beware...My athlon 1.1@1.2 was extremely better at larger resolutions and higher quality captures then my 750@845 tbird....

 

[FishTankX]

The Ti4600.... well...

The Ti4600 would allow you to do all your work in 1600X1200 with no real performance hit and activate 4XS FSAA at 1280X1024 with almost no huge performance hit. If you love huge textures and godly resolutions, this is the card for you. Price 400$

Ti4400 would just be 10% slower than the Ti4600, just bump the resolution/FSAA down a notch and all will be merry. not like you'll need to with that CPU though, as it won't make much difference. Price 300$

The TI4200, comming shortly, will whup the crap outa the Radeon8500LE when you're talking about high end gaming and would breathe new life into your CPU. 30% slower than the Ti4600 but extreme budget. 200$ OC'able up to around 4400 speeds if you're really willing to risk your hardware. As of yet unreleased, will have to wait a while.. this is my personal reccomendation.

Radeon8500LE/128MB LE it has ATi's trademark slightly do horribly (Slightly buggy at this point in time)buggy drivers and is extremley slow when working in wireframe mode when compared to the Ti4*** series, it's strentgh is texturingp erformance and game performance. More powerful than the Ti200 but then again i've seen minor quirks in their drivers. 140$ or so..

Ti200 A touch slower than the Radeon8500 and *definatley* slower when it comes to gaming, (By 10-15%) it's got Nvidia's trademark "Run like a mofo" drivers, they always seem to be improving something.. same goes for the whole entire Ti4*** series. Would satisfy your CPU. Price is 100-120$

 

[Aragorn992]

Even though the Gf4 is the faster chip, I read that the ATi's like a faster processor more than nvidia chips.

Anyways I had a P3 800 with Radeon 8500, when I upgraded to a Northwood 1.6@1.8 I got about another 60% point increase in 3DMark 2001.

So yes I think your processor will limit you too much to justify a new and expensive video card.

 

[Toolman]

If I opt for one of the GF4s, what do I do about the TV/Video recording feature? They don't have that capability like the AIW 8500 does? The ATI TV Wonder card had crappy resolution!

 

[Duvie]

< The ATI TV Wonder card had crappy resolution! >

Hmmm...I had a nice picture....especially when I made sure I was running the new direct x 8.0a and video update....then coupled with the newest mmc drivers from ATI, I had a great picture...

I have frineds who have hauppage, voodoo, and matrox tv tuner cards and I thought my picture was a bit better.....However there could be other factors there period. I bought some expensive well shielded cable and the picture got better...


The AIW likley has same tuner, so I am not to sure how it may be a whole lot better....

Also I ran my ati tv wonder with my geforce 2 pro for a long time...so no need to fear mixing...