Which 3d card is best?

[Zeno]

I plan on purchasing a higher 3d card sometime in April.

I just wanted to know, which 3D card do you think is the best?
I want a 3d card possibly under 175 dollars.

What I mean is what brand do you think is the best?


Please reply!

Thanks

[Tiretool]

For that price range you'll have to settle for an ATI Radeon, GeForce 2 MX, GeForce 2 GTS, or the 3DFX Voodoo 5. I suggest you go with the GeForce 2 GTS with 32 Megs DDR Memory. One can be had for around $160-$170 at pricewatch.

[Floppyman]

I'd say go ATI Radeon. For $178 you can have the retail version of the 64mb Radeon. I've been using for a while now and have been very pleased. Plus it will beat the Geforce 2 at higher resolutions.

If you get the Radeon make sure you get the retail version though as it comes 183mhz ddr ram, while the OEM version only comes with 166mhz ddr ram.

[Lawther]

yes the Radeon 64mb vid card is the pimp! i got mine for around 170 and plan to use it for a long time... amazing graphics/resolution, better than any of my friends other brand video cards

[crcmapper]

I LOVE my Radeon 64DDR

[RJ]

I have Hercules 3D Prophet II GTS with NVidia GeForce2 GTS GPU + 64 MB DDR RAM, and it runs great.
Well, the ATI cards always had some nice features, as improved DVD support, or video capturing, etc.

Both cards are very good. I would say, take the one you want, but they should have:
DDR RAM. Don't take a card without DDR RAM.
At least it should have 32 MB of that DDR RAM.
Also check the extra features you want. For example, if you want to watch DVD a TV-Out could be interesing. Or video-input if you want some video editing, or two monitor outputs if you want to run 2 monitors.
I think these features are the important things to look for, because between Radeon and GeForce 2 there is not so much performance difference.
The GeForce 2, however, is faster than the Radeon in most cases, but there are cases in which the Radeon is faster.
Floppyman said resolution. I don't know about that, but I do know about color depth. 16 bit or 32 bit. I don't remember which one, but with one color depth (I think 32 bit) there is no noticeable difference between Radeon and GeForce 2, wereas in the other resolution the Radeon lays behind the GeForce 2.

RJ

[Floppyman]

Hmmm from what I've read the Radeon is faster at higher resolutions. There is an exact comparision between the ATI Radeon 64mb and Hercules 3D Prophet II 64mb. The Radeon beat the Geforce 2 in Q3's demo 1 at 1024x768 32 bit color and also in the Q3 Quaver benchmark at 800x600 32 bit color. And lastly it also beat the Geforce 2 in 3dMark2000 (game 1 - medium) at 1280x1024 32bit color. I don't if drivers have increased the performance of the Geforce 2 though.

[res07tg2]

I use a radeon 64meg ddr i love it paid 167.00 including shipping for it retail boxed