Its come to the stage where my Geforce 1 DDR seems to be giving up the ghost (crashes and whatnot - probably heat related). I've been wading through the forums and reviews for some time and I think I?ve managed to get some basis of what pro's and cons are of all the cards, however there are still some points that i am still a bit hazy on.
I basically think the GF3 ti500 is too expensive for my pocket and the Radeon 8500 seems to be perpetually out of stock (in the UK anyway). This really leaves the ti200 and the 8500 LE (OEM). I'm rather reluctant to go for an OEM part due to warranty issues, etc..
So in my mind its between the waiting for the 8500 (probably a couple of months) or getting the ti200 now. I know the 8500 is faster, etc.. but it is also more expensive (> £40-£50), so the ti200 seems possibly a better bang-for-buck card, but generally speaking with both cards 'you get what you pay for' in terms of FPS. Saving £50 today will allow me to get a new card sooner than I might otherwise have been able to.
My main concerns are the image quality of the cards. Some images from the geforce seem to be totally blurred and some seem to quite good. Take these two for example:
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.html?i=1558&p=6
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.html?i=1562&p=7
2d quality would also be a plus I suppose.
So essentially what I?m saying is, do you think its worth the wait for a 8500, or will I be just as happy with the purchase of a ti200. Or even I suppose waiting till the GF4 is released and possible price drop of other cards.
My current system is a AMD XP 1800+, Abit KR7-RAID, 256Mb DDR, etc..
Thanks.
I basically think the GF3 ti500 is too expensive for my pocket and the Radeon 8500 seems to be perpetually out of stock (in the UK anyway). This really leaves the ti200 and the 8500 LE (OEM). I'm rather reluctant to go for an OEM part due to warranty issues, etc..
So in my mind its between the waiting for the 8500 (probably a couple of months) or getting the ti200 now. I know the 8500 is faster, etc.. but it is also more expensive (> £40-£50), so the ti200 seems possibly a better bang-for-buck card, but generally speaking with both cards 'you get what you pay for' in terms of FPS. Saving £50 today will allow me to get a new card sooner than I might otherwise have been able to.
My main concerns are the image quality of the cards. Some images from the geforce seem to be totally blurred and some seem to quite good. Take these two for example:
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.html?i=1558&p=6
http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.html?i=1562&p=7
2d quality would also be a plus I suppose.
So essentially what I?m saying is, do you think its worth the wait for a 8500, or will I be just as happy with the purchase of a ti200. Or even I suppose waiting till the GF4 is released and possible price drop of other cards.
My current system is a AMD XP 1800+, Abit KR7-RAID, 256Mb DDR, etc..
Thanks.