8500 and the new GeF3?

[janaak]

I do read Maximum PC every month and they do have good reviews from time to time, but I'd like to ask the people on what they think. (You may have to read dec2k1/jan2k2 editions of Max PC) Which card would you pick? and can you give 2 reasons, more like one with the overall abilities, then the second would be cost pricing...

[HAL9000]

I would go with the ATI. My reasons?

1) I have been using ATI for about 95% of the systems I build and know them quite well.

2) I think they have a better picture quality than the GeForce cards.

[Tiretool]

If money were no object, I'd go GeForce 3.

*They are king of the frame rate hill.

*Their picture quality is as good or better than ATI's. (This is purely based on personal opinion and there is currently no way to determine whether video card A has better picture quality than video card B.)

*Bragging rights!

[RJ]

I second the ATI Radeon 8500.

I have been using ATI cards since februar 1998 and switched to nVidia in mid 2000 only because of their performance (GeForce 2 was alot faster then the first Radeon).

But ATI gave the Radeon more performance. The Radeon 8500 is as fast as the GeForce 3 if not a bit faster. Anyway it has better display quality, offers the best FSAA (full screen anti-aliasing) on the market, supports DirectX 8.1 capabilities, and offers full hardware MPEG-2 (DVD) decoding.
And it's not as expensive as the GeForce 3.

RJ

[Tiretool]

It's been so long since I viewed online benchmarks I neglected to do my homework before posting the information above... It would appear that the Radeon 8500 currently holds the trophy for best frame rates and high 3DMark scores... so I humbly retract the statement made about "current king of frame rate hill".

Please don't misunderstand though... I still stand behind my choice. Given a blank check today, I would still opt for the GeForce3 Ti 500. I'm a die hard fan... what else can I say? Just look at my avatar!

And for all you ATI freaks... :P

[janaak]

Thank you guys for giving me the heads upon this subject. I have already decided on which card to purchase, and that would be the ATI. I have had previous experience with the Radeon SDR PCI card (yeah, I had one of those lame Wal-Mart HP rigs... so if you want AGP, read the box! I got it for a present so I wasn't complaining). But the first 3d card was of course IMHO a 3dFX Voodoo 3 2000 pci. Basically loved that lil sucker... I had no problems with it... until one finds out to update the driver... dang Alice! But witht the company bought out by nVid, I was thinking... and plus the at that time, I did not know who else made pci cards since I've only known 3 "known" manufacters of video cards (3dFX, ATI, nVid). But to make the story short from what I have currently have...

I would pick 3dfx if they were still in the video card battle.
With ATI as second. But nVid's prices make me want to go to computer salvage sales and ask if they have something. Oh well. But thank yous guys once again.

[Orcmonkey]

I would have got the GF, but hey thats just me. Ati's are cool too.