Havind second though about Radeon 8500

[boonmar]

Got my order in from Dell but having second though about the card. Should I be better off getting the Geforce 3 TI500?

[Noggin]

Well most benchmarks are showing the 8500 as beating the Ti500 if I'm not mistaken. I just got a GF3 Ti 200 and I'm seeing little difference in what I do day to day as from my GF2 GTS 32Mb. If I wasn't so in love with GeForce I'd say get the 8500. I have a feeling that ATI will be in this card war for a while. Probably the most important thing is which company has the better service record?

[Amedeo602]

the GF would cost probably double that of the 8500...i'm still waiting on mine from dell....(quite impatiently, i might add)

[boonmar]

the geforce 3 Ti 500 is about 100 bucks more than the Radeon 8500 I order from dell w/ the 20% discount. We know how good the geforce 3 really is, but Radeon looks good on paper. I know I'll get a great card with geforce but no one knows for sure about the radeon until it comes out. Just worried about the driver issue. People been saying how bad it was with older version of ATI card.

[Ritteri&Bubbles]

Be smart and spend the extra bucks for a Geforce 3. Every moron should know by now that ALL manufacturers rig their "reference" drivers to maximise "benchmark testing apps". In real life applications like grafx and video games the Radeon doesnt hold a candle to ANY geforce 3 series card. Take it from somebody who is always able to test out current cards and drivers when a new product comes out. Benchmark test mean jack, real world apps with stability is where its at.

peace
R&B

[Pinky]

Originally posted by Ritteri&Bubbles
Be smart and spend the extra bucks for a Geforce 3... In real life applications like grafx and video games the Radeon doesnt hold a candle to ANY geforce 3 series card.

ATI looks better, that isn't even up for dispute ;), and VIDEO is about appearance. A couple more frames advantage (literally 2 frames in most cases) is worthless without a good modelling and rendering engine.

[Oni]

Originally posted by Ritteri&Bubbles
Be smart and spend the extra bucks for a Geforce 3. Every moron should know by now that ALL manufacturers rig their "reference" drivers to maximise "benchmark testing apps". In real life applications like grafx and video games the Radeon doesnt hold a candle to ANY geforce 3 series card. Take it from somebody who is always able to test out current cards and drivers when a new product comes out. Benchmark test mean jack, real world apps with stability is where its at.

peace
R&B

What kind of dope are you smoking, and where's your dealer. I'd like to get me some.

The ATI Radeon one of the best cards out there, hands down. Yeah, your GF3 might fly though 3DM2k1, but the Radeon'll win in a true test (Quake 3, UT etc) hands down. Plus, you get the added bonus of, oh, y'know, a little thing called INDUSTRY BEST DVD PLAYBACK when you buy a Radeon.

[M@€$†®Ö™]

Be nice to each other :) No need for slagging each other even a little bit ! Just a kind word :)

Maestro

[Zuck Gou :)]

Originally posted by Ritteri&Bubbles
Be smart and spend the extra bucks for a Geforce 3. Every moron should know by now that ALL manufacturers rig their "reference" drivers to maximise "benchmark testing apps". In real life applications like grafx and video games the Radeon doesnt hold a candle to ANY geforce 3 series card. Take it from somebody who is always able to test out current cards and drivers when a new product comes out. Benchmark test mean jack, real world apps with stability is where its at.

peace
R&B

Alrite...

Though for someone who tests all new cards and drivers you sure are ignorant to the fact that their are other cards(albeit better) than an Nvidia card.

[Cisco Kid]

Flat out the Radeon 8500 is the better card thats the bottom line. Why pay more for a G3? Duh?

Cisco Kid:D

[Microsoft]

well still waiting on reviews and more about there driver support

but maybe i trade you my gf3 for the radeon

[xCarne_Asada]

The Radeon is suposedly better, but Geforce is a more common name and is a product we all know and trust.

[funnyperson1]

ati is also a common name that most people familiar with computer hardware should know and trust...im sorry boonmar you made a bad decision......ive ran my rage fury pro in two computers with 98, and 2000 and have had no driver issues what soever......the only card that ever had problems with was the rage furry max.....

[boonmar]

funnyperson1, did you read the Radeon 8500 review from tomshardware.com

If so, what do you think?

[The Coolest]

funnyperson1>> My driver issue with the RAGE fury Maxx was there. But was fixed, though I still have one problem running Q3A with the MAXX option enabled... Though other games work fine and I get ~500 more in the score with 3DMark2K1

[funnyperson1]

Originally posted by boonmar
funnyperson1, did you read the Radeon 8500 review from tomshardware.com

If so, what do you think?
i think that ATI will update their drivers and send some invisible gremlins to smack tom up......and then all the people who paid 50 dollars more for a ti will we sorry.....

[Pitspawn]

This is turning into a flame war.

Im with the GeForce3 Ti500 on this one. True, the Radeon 8500 is faster at current applications.

BUT WILL IT STILL BE FASTER IN 6 MONTHS TIME?

No, I doubt it. nVidia are notorious for good driver updates. It is likely that a new driver revision will give the GF3 Ti500 even more fps.

The GeForce3 Ti500 has the same features as the GF3 but runs at a higher clock speed. Games are currently being made that utilise the GF3. These games coming out in a couple of months are going to be a lot faster on the GF3. The games will also look better on the GF3.

Another issue is overclockability. It is not impossible for the Ti500 to reach speeds of 300/600. How good will the R8500 be at overclocking? Not very good. The GF3 is released at the moment at a default clock speed of 200/460. With A5 stepping and new 3.8ns ram, these settings are very conservative. The Ti500 uses even faster core steppings and even faster ram.

This reminds me of the argument about T&L when it first came out. It sure did make a difference in some games when they supported. I believe there will be q some difference with pixel shaders and other GF3 enhancements in the near future.

So as an summary...

ATI Radeon 8500 is better for value/speed ratio.
GeForce3 Ti500 will be faster but not atm. It is probably best to wait for the price to drop another 10-15% before buying it though.

Both cards are new and fetch a premium for their cutting edge technology.

[Default]

where did you draw the low overclocking for the radeon 8500 from? it has 3.5 ns memory, lets wait for the real thing shall we?
also if you havn't noticed radeon is optimised for directX 8.1. so 6 months from now radeon will still be kicking some geforce a$$. the directX 8.1 optimisations is also why radeon is being beat by GTi500 in some benchmarks. one more thing not to forget is that radeon 8500 has 4 redering pipelines, where as geforce3 Ti500 only has 2 pipelines. It has been predicted that having the 2 extra pipelines will serve it well in future games such as doom4 and quake4. When you some this all up i think it is very unlikely that Nvidia will make up for all of these hardware shortcommings with new drivers and who's to say that ATi wont clean up their driver act? It's not new news to them that they need better driver support.

[Zuck Gou :)]

I remember Toms review. Didnt he say that ATI was in a hurry to get some reviews, so they released the 8500 to review sites unfinished. Now the 8500 is finished, and wont be using those reference drivers.

With the 8500 sitting there, I dont think anything can justify paying more money for the Ti500.

[Pitspawn]

Well i think that the GF3 Ti500 is a buffer for whatever nVidia have in stock next. nVidia didnt make any architecture changes with the Ti500, they basically just upped the mem and core speeds.

I am not going to bias between the two cards until I see concrete evidence of both cards in modern games. Im not talking about 3dmk2k1 scores, Im talking about real games like Tribes2, Red Faction and the upcoming RTCW.

But yes, on paperwork the Radeon 8500 looks better.

[Ritteri&Bubbles]

Well I have already had a chance to compare a Geforce3, and a Radeon 8500 on many different gaming titles,DVD titles and video editing programs. The Radeon didnt impress me at all. Im sure we have quite a few huffer's and puffer's in this thread who have never had the honest to god chance to really test these 2 cards out head to head. Like I stated earlier, I dont care about "benchmarks" or "Quake 3 demo" scores. They are all useless. What matters is running real apps. side by side. Somebody out to get a copy of Star Wars episode 1 and run both video cards side by side on Win Dvd. The Nvidia's colors are true, the Radeon is washed out and has alot of digital noise in true comparison. Also Running NFS PU at 1600x1200 at 32bit color shows the Nvidia beating out the 8500 at over 6 fps. Half-Life counter strike at 4fps. and Unreal classic at 8fps! Along with looking smoother, colors are also much more vibrant too. I know there are a few Gforce card mfgrs. that have washed out colors becuase of their own mods. BUt on a standard PNY Gforce card with no overclocking the Radeon 8500 is behind, even though "on paper" it may be more attractive. The Nvidia card will always have better drivers.

SO all you Radeon lovers out there, maybe you ought to stop smoking the crack pipe yourself,stop tripping over "benchmark" tests, put the bag of mushrooms away and give Nvidia its due. And even if in 6 or 7 months ATI finally gets the Radeon to do what it may be capable of, do you really think Nvidia's Ti500 will still be their best consumer chip?? I highly doubt it, they will have something out much better, and with real working drivers too. Maybe someday ATI will realize that all horsepower and no traction = 2nd place. Thats where they are now currently.

[Ritteri&Bubbles]

Here's a little clip from tomshardware.com:

An engine clock of 275 MHz and memory clock of 550 MHz plus a wealth of fancy features should be good enough to make Radeon 8500 the shining star on the3D-graphics horizon. Unfortunately, this product is held back by an inferior or at least immature driver. Low scores in a respectable number of benchmarks, the complete absence of ATi's new 'SmoothVision' FSAA solution and instabilities under WindowsXP, as reported by our close friend and partner Lars 'Borsti' Weinand, www.rivastation.com, are clearly tarnishing the image of ATi's brand new flagship product.

Gee, how familiar this all seems................

[xCarne_Asada]

Its really just a personal preference. They are both good cards.

[Sklathill]

So basically you're saying that Quake 3 is not a real app? ;) In any case, there's no question that the Radeon 8500 is being held back by immature drivers...

Ah well, here's to my Matrox and 2d quality, giving me what I need for my "real apps"...Cubase, Sound Forge, GigaStudio... :D

[Cisco Kid]

Bottom line is the Radeopn provides newer technology, more of it, better 2dvideo, dvd playback 3d clariyt and quality vs the geforce ti.

Radeon 8500 beats Geforce at its own game 3dmark2001 which so many g owners are so proud of , as you always see the scores being posted. To me I really do not care about 3dmark2001.

Nvidia is notorious for releasing driver after driver always improving performance, why not release one driver that does the work of the last 4 or 5 driver releases?

I have owned ATI products and have had no driver issues, currently run a Radeon 64 DDR vivo in XP, have used the beta XP driver no problem, and now I am using the newly release ATI approved XP driver that was released Oct 15th. Lets wait and see what happens in a month, their will be a big performance gain in the 8500 as the driver issue is corrected, you may even see a big difference with the recent driver that just got released.

Bottom line is the 8500 is faster and will continue to be for a while plus support of dx8.1 and serving future games will better in performance "4 rendering pipelines compared to 2"

Price to performance hands down the ATI card is the better choice. Those of you continually whining about driver support I would guess have never owned an ATI card so how the F*** can you even comment on it. Until you own a recently new ATI Radeon card you have no idea about the driver issues besides the garbage that tomshardware clouds your mind with, never seen someone so nvidia biased. And I say this cause I have owned both nvidia based card as well as ATI.

Take that to the bank and smoke it LOL All in fun guys lighten up give the Radeon a try I doubt you will be unhappy, especially at the price

Cisco Kid:D

[antist@r]

i'd go with nvidia,
i have a ti-500 now and its nice,
but when i had a gf2 ultra and compared it side to side with his radeon 64ddr , the gf2 blew it away everytime. most people who use the ati radeon chip sets are going to switch to the new gf3's at my store at least.

[yakimushi]

Hehehe, you all forgot to mention that the 8500 has dual-head, which is VERY appealing to someone like me: computer artist and gamer on a budget...

[Oni]

Originally posted by Pitspawn
Games are currently being made that utilise the GF3. These games coming out in a couple of months are going to be a lot faster on the GF3. The games will also look better on the GF3.

Um, last I heard, a little game called DooM 3 was being designed around the Radeon line's 3rd graphics pipeline (Havn't forgotten about that, have you?). And as such, will most definately SMOKE the GeForce 3 like a bowl of fine fine Canadian cannibus ^_^

[Violator]

Originally posted by Oni


Um, last I heard, a little game called DooM 3 was being designed around the Radeon line's 3rd graphics pipeline (Havn't forgotten about that, have you?). And as such, will most definately SMOKE the GeForce 3 like a bowl of fine fine Canadian cannibus ^_^

And said little games current ETA is early 2003, late 2002 at best, are you honestly going to be still running an 8500 at that time?

[Rav]

I have used a Radeon 64 VIVO for over a year now, and it is an outstanding card. There have been many driver updates by ATI (despite what people say) and my card performs much better than it did out of the box. Having compared it side by side bith friends Geforces, its image quality is superior in all respects. I expect the 8500 to be even better. Who cares if the new nvidia card will do 275 fps and the 8500 only 250 fps? Will you ever notice? I personally would prefer to have the quality over 25 fps beyond human comprehension. Not to mention the great DVD and VIVO, and with 8500 HDTV and DVI. All of those outputs will even work as mutiple displays. Its 2D is incredibly crisp.

In any case, 8500 is a faster, better card. Given a few months the drivers will be solid and it'll be doing what we all expected it to. Same thing that happened with the original Radeon.

-Rav

*edit PS, Tomshardware is and has been nvidia biased.

[Pitspawn]

OMG flame war.

ATI and nVidia fodders should stay in seperate forums like Intel and AMD fodders :)

After reading a ton of reviews, the Radeon 8500 does strangely whoop the GF3 Ti500 for hardware speed. BUT, drivers seem to push the GF3 Ti500 to the top of every single game benchmark.

Unfortunately, ATI have been very slow at releasing drivers in the past. I assume that the new driver releases will be dependant on how much profit ATI make on their new 8500 card.

And the reviews say although ATI 2D gfx are crisper than the GF3 Ti500, this is only noticable at highest resolutions of >=1600x1200.

Not being funny, but not even the radeon can run at these resolutions and get a decent fps.

I still stick with what I say. The radeon is better value atm. BUT, if nVidia brings the cost of the Ti500 down much more there would be no competition.

[Yodums]

I think the Ti maybe slow in the benchmarks now but nVidia new drivers will eventually increase the performance of the card alot...


And your just thinking right now but how will it be in the next 6months to a year...

I mean it maybe the best now but will it last.. .

[Amedeo602]

the gf3 ti might outperform the radeon 8500 in games/benchmarks. However, will you notice the difference between 150 fps and 160 fps? Probably not. Will you notice the $200+ missing from your wallet if you get the ti 500? Probably.

If you order the Radeon 8500 will it outperform your VooDoo4 and make you happy with your purchase? Yes. Same for the GF3. It's all a matter of preference and there's no point in arguing as no one's going to be swayed by these arguments until both cards have been on the market for awhile and we see how the driver support goes.




That having been said, my money's literally on the Radeon :)

[Zuck Gou :)]

Like I've said before I cant see the Geforce3 Ti 500s extra cash being justified.

The cards are too close in terms of speed. And the Radeon wins in the features department.

Why pay more?

[Default]

read the article from Digit-life and all will be explained!! ATI comes out on top!!