Just got an ATI RADEON 8500....where's the cream filling???

[PsycoPhreak]

It's not a bad card, but i'm not thrilled at all with it's performance.

My V5 5500 had better image quality although it didn't support alot of the newer features.

the 3DMARK scores on this thing are pretty horrible considering my V5 got 2000...and this thing only gets tops about 3500, and if your wondering, it's the retail version, not the le or the crippled version of the 8500.

This is with the newest drivers from the ATI site and a FRESH format and install of WIN ME, so its not a conflict or corrupt installation...bahh, what a waste of money just to keep up with the ever expanding software/hardware market. Not worth it in my opinion, but i'm going to keep it, see what happens after messing around with it a while. At least i'll see somewhat of a speed increase in some of the newer games I play, for now, i'm done playing around with the crappy drivers seeing i've tried everything I can to increase the performance of this thing with no luck...ohh well...new toys can sometimes be more of a hassle than the old ones......time to go stick in the V5 again...this thing is shelved for a bit.

[scooter4n]

My OEM 8500 got 7900 on 3DMark2001, right out of the box. And another 1200 after driver update.

[Amair_sc]

"this thing only gets tops about 3500"

...

Something is very wrong here...

[juliendogg]

i'm working on 10k default bench with my 8500.
3500 is way way low unless ur using a 550.

[POL-tec2002]

dude i get 1500 with my card. there must be something wrong with it. maybe you should return it.

[Mykex]

I get over 5k with my 7500. Fresh instal of ME (blech) but did you update all of your chipset drivers and whatnot? You were using a V5500 which makes no use of AGP it runs on PCI66 and thats it, so you definatly need to enable what was not in your bios for one and chipset drivers prolly too.

[PsycoPhreak]

OK...after 4 hours of messing with this thing..(tweaking, trying different drivers..OC'ing it) I have come to the conclusion that this card really sucks, i did get the 3dmark score up to 7000, but the image quality is pure garbage on this thing, UT looks like crap...TACH OPS is horrible...CS (even though i haven't played it in a while) looks like S***....so far i see nothing about this card that is worth it except for the framerate, and if people out there think that this card has better image quality than an NVidia card, the the NVidia cards must suck even worse ( I refuse to even try anything NVidia) i'm definetly going to return it even at the cost of the 20% restocking fee, this card is garbadge, i'm sorry i wasted my money on it, all the hype about this card i have read and heard from friends is now BS....this thing is junk....guess thats what happens when ya get used to the image quality a voodoo cranks out...framerate is crap when the image displayed gives you a migrain......

ughhh..no more ATI...no NVidia thats for sure, guess its just me and my trusty V5...personally, i'd like to hang the 8500 out in my backyard and take a few shots at it with the trusty 357...might be worth it after the dissapointment and frustration..heh heh

[IronLungsta]

Psycho,

You definetly are doing something wrong.... I went from a voodoo5500 to a radeon 7500 and the v5 got smoked in every department, apart from FSAA. What are ur specs? It could have something to do with ur agp setup, i know i had to do some things to get my card working properly. Once i did, man i forgot all about my v5.

[Tracert]

"personally, i'd like to hang the 8500 out in my backyard and take a few shots at it with the trusty 357"

So I guess You... ahh... don't like it?

[PsycoPhreak]

Originally posted by IronLungsta
Psycho,

You definetly are doing something wrong.... I went from a voodoo5500 to a radeon 7500 and the v5 got smoked in every department, apart from FSAA. What are ur specs? It could have something to do with ur agp setup, i know i had to do some things to get my card working properly. Once i did, man i forgot all about my v5.

I fixed the issues about the speed, the card is blazing fast now, but, the image quality sucks so bad I can't deal with it.....texture tearing...crap dissapearing right in front of me....HORRIBLE antialiasing...friggin white border around EVERY game I play..the drivers suck for this and most of ATI's cards, i figured give em another shot...but seems like they still got their heads in their a**es, the card has potential, but not in the areas i thought would be better...FPS doesn't matter to me...30 is fine..but image quality..now thats something that for me has to be exceptional or its junk.....and the 8500 is junk. the FSAA wil NEVER compare to the V5's....and aside from all the "wonderful new features" like hardware T&L, dot3 bumpmapping and all the other advertising gimicks and hype that the V5 doesn't have, the cards image quality still sucks....i threw my old V3 3000 in a spare machine just to see if THAT had better image quality....sad thing is..it does.

As far as all my settings go....agp aperature is set to 64...anymore is pointless.....no V5 drivers are still 'hiding" in the system...its a fresh install....did all the updates..got DX 8.1...you name it...i did it...the card just sucks....

PS...sorry to all for my ranting...but for a card thats 2 years old to have a better image than a brand new one..thats pretty sad...and if you never seen a V5 @ 1024x768 4x FSAA in UT, CS...MECH 4, TRIBES 2..etc.etc...you've missed out on the best image quality in a card ever seen...but again...sorry for my frustration...

[Amair_sc]

Hmmm, before you physically destroy the card, send me a pm. Maybe I'll buy it from you.

[Cypher720]

i love my new radeon 8500! i get 9000 on 3dMark2001

[JoeCrappa]

LOL! PsychoPhreak, your comp probably just sucks. You probably don't know how to install drivers well or tweak your system. I just replaced my GF2 Pro with a Radeon 8500 and i love it.

there's obviously something wrong since you complain about things disappearing and whatnot.

[Inteleron]

7500 smoke v5? heh.... my old hercules mx smoked a v5 5500 no prob :D

[IronLungsta]

Lets not get carried away inteleron... The v5 smoked the first mx...
In practically every regard...

[PsycoPhreak]

Originally posted by JoeCrappa
LOL! PsychoPhreak, your comp probably just sucks. You probably don't know how to install drivers well or tweak your system. I just replaced my GF2 Pro with a Radeon 8500 and i love it.

there's obviously something wrong since you complain about things disappearing and whatnot.

well theres a first time for everything i guess, what i mean by that is, when someone obviously has nothing constructive to say, they resort to personal attacks...first one towards me on this site...ANYWAY..not that I NEED to explain myself or defend my technical skills, the point is I do know how to install drivers and as far as tweaking goes...well lets just say i've attempted things most people wouldn't have the b***s to do. I've modified/tweaked everything from simple bios's to actually changing pc board layouts themselves, so lets just say the skills are there, and they been there for over 15 years.

ANYWAY..back to the subject, with an OC of 300/290...i'm getting 7500 in 3dmark.....but again I'LL REPEAT MYSELF FOR THOSE WHO HAVE TROUBLE READING...(ahem)...the image quality sucks...if only anyone who reads this could see the image on my monitor, they'd then understand what I'm saying....it's just that freakin' bad....and switchin' back and forth between drivers and tweakin' just hasn't helped at all....so if someone has something constructive to say or a suggestion......by all means, all comments are appreciated..but for those who just like to throw in petty little remarks....might as well keep quiet.

[GoldenTiger]

Psycho,

The Nvidia-image-quality is a myth. It's actually BETTER than the Radeon by a large amount. ATI's drivers are horrible, and they purposely cripple the image quality in many popular games such as Q3, HL, UT, MOHAA, etc. to get better benchmark scores on websites because they know those are what sites use to test speed. Nvidia's image quality is actually very good, it's similar to my old V5 5500. Quinconx FSAA with 32-tap anisotropy is about equal to 4x FSAA on my old V5 in image quality.

[PsycoPhreak]

hmmm...maybe i'll have to cave in and try a GF3 ti500.....ack..what am i sayin..i must be tired....maybe...something i have to seriously think about....although NVidia has never been a favorite of mine....(sigh).....i'll hold onto this 8500 untill the next driver comes out...if its still this bad...then i have no choice but to make this thing a windchime with holes...


sucks though....all my cards before 3dfx were ATI....then 3dfx....was a diehard 3dfx fanatic...still am...nothing else could do....now I just might have to give them ( NVidia )a shot.....

[deathstar13]

id hold on to the card phreak. its taken me a while to like my card.
but after a couple driver releases its runnen great.gf3ti500 btw and it sucked to me when i first ran it.
what kind of system you running this on?
also what are you using to tweak this with? powerstrip or a ati tweaker? or none at all?
mabey your card isnt as bad off as you might think.

[Cisco Kid]

Originally posted by PsycoPhreak
It's not a bad card, but i'm not thrilled at all with it's performance.

My V5 5500 had better image quality although it didn't support alot of the newer features.

the 3DMARK scores on this thing are pretty horrible considering my V5 got 2000...and this thing only gets tops about 3500, and if your wondering, it's the retail version, not the le or the crippled version of the 8500.

This is with the newest drivers from the ATI site and a FRESH format and install of WIN ME, so its not a conflict or corrupt installation...bahh, what a waste of money just to keep up with the ever expanding software/hardware market. Not worth it in my opinion, but i'm going to keep it, see what happens after messing around with it a while. At least i'll see somewhat of a speed increase in some of the newer games I play, for now, i'm done playing around with the crappy drivers seeing i've tried everything I can to increase the performance of this thing with no luck...ohh well...new toys can sometimes be more of a hassle than the old ones......time to go stick in the V5 again...this thing is shelved for a bit.

Well something ain't been done right thats all I can say and get rid of ME imho. The 8500 is a good card much better than your old V5500 thats a fact.

You will get lots of help through the forum, I do not mean to be a dick but your 8500 has show much more to offer you will see.....

Heck what is the rest of your gear, I got 5090 with my 7500 on 3D Mark2K1 and all tests show the 8500 scoring high 6K and well into the 7K range with a decent cpu and good ram.

Do not start your whining yet , I gotta continue reading the replies to your post now lol.

Cisco KId;)

[Cisco Kid]

Originally posted by GoldenTiger
Psycho,

The Nvidia-image-quality is a myth. It's actually BETTER than the Radeon by a large amount. ATI's drivers are horrible, and they purposely cripple the image quality in many popular games such as Q3, HL, UT, MOHAA, etc. to get better benchmark scores on websites because they know those are what sites use to test speed. Nvidia's image quality is actually very good, it's similar to my old V5 5500. Quinconx FSAA with 32-tap anisotropy is about equal to 4x FSAA on my old V5 in image quality.

Well I have to say that the image quality that my 7500 provides me is better than what my Asus V6800 DDR deluxe card did. But I must say there are alot of other factors that could come into play like how the monitor is set and drivers. Fact is Matrox is the best and most reviews do give the next pick to ATI.

I have owned 3 ATI cards and have not had a single driver issue to date , those cards were Rage Fury Pro vivo, Radeon 64 DDR vivo and the 7500 love em all....

Cisco KId:D

[Cisco Kid]

Originally posted by PsycoPhreak


well theres a first time for everything i guess, what i mean by that is, when someone obviously has nothing constructive to say, they resort to personal attacks...first one towards me on this site...ANYWAY..not that I NEED to explain myself or defend my technical skills, the point is I do know how to install drivers and as far as tweaking goes...well lets just say i've attempted things most people wouldn't have the b***s to do. I've modified/tweaked everything from simple bios's to actually changing pc board layouts themselves, so lets just say the skills are there, and they been there for over 15 years.

ANYWAY..back to the subject, with an OC of 300/290...i'm getting 7500 in 3dmark.....but again I'LL REPEAT MYSELF FOR THOSE WHO HAVE TROUBLE READING...(ahem)...the image quality sucks...if only anyone who reads this could see the image on my monitor, they'd then understand what I'm saying....it's just that freakin' bad....and switchin' back and forth between drivers and tweakin' just hasn't helped at all....so if someone has something constructive to say or a suggestion......by all means, all comments are appreciated..but for those who just like to throw in petty little remarks....might as well keep quiet.


Yep please post the rest of your rig, I would have to say you are not doing something correctly, pardon me if you have posted the rest of your gear , I have not got to reading that post yet hehehehe

Cisco KId:)

[Morbid]

Originally posted by PsycoPhreak
ughhh..no more ATI...no NVidia thats for sure, guess its just me and my trusty V5...personally, i'd like to hang the 8500 out in my backyard and take a few shots at it with the trusty 357...might be worth it after the dissapointment and frustration..heh heh

No nVidia? Who do you think bought 3dfx out? Who do you think will be using 3dfx's technology (to a certain limit)? If you said nVidia.. you're right! I have a nVidia card, I despise ATi. I'd rather use my old Voodoo3 3500 than anything ATi makes. nVidia is even better than 3dfx. Give nVidia a shot, they're worth it (unless you get some no-name card by like VisionTek). :D

[Tracert]

PsycoPhreak,

Give us a detailed list of what your using in this system and maybe some of us can give some real suggestions.

PS, I would lose ME if you can. Anything post 95 would be better IMOH.

[PsycoPhreak]

ok...the system the card is in is listed below:

ABIT BE6 II V2.0
PIII 800 (was @ 950..droped it back to stock before card install)
384Mb Crucial PC133 SDRAM 2-2-2
radeon 8500 (300/290)
Viewsonic A70-2
linksys LNETX100 (V5) NIC
2 30Gig Maxtor 7200 rpm ATA100 (raid 0, 4k stripe)
Windows Me (fresh format/install)

Now that the voodoo is not in this system, I can try running XP on it (didn't before due to the lack of decent drivers for the voodoo 5 under XP, but then again, I really don't want to run XP on a strictly "just for gaming" system)

My next step is to try the card in my other systems, i know the faster ones will get improved frame rates due to the cpu speeds, but, the image quality wouldn't be affected by the Mhz of them.

I know its got to be a driver issue seeing that with one driver..the "smoothvision" works whereas in another the 'Anisotropic Filtering" works and the "smoothvision" doesn't...etc..etc..etc....I have yet to try one that everything works all together...and right nowI have the latest beta installed and FSAA isn't working at all ( can't set it in the display settings or in any games that allow that option...such as MAX PAYNE, MECH 4...etc..etc...)

[hunter00]

sorry, i have to say, there is something wrong. you're jumping to conclusion too fast i would say psycho. i've seen a radeon 8500 on highest resolution counterstrike opengl, it is BEAUTIFUL compared to the geforce 3 ti's and really blows older cards out of the water.

i understand you do have skills, i would consider maybe starting from the beginning, something is wrong. Trust me, once you get this card fixed right, it is truly beautiful! ati drivers are really fine, i dont know why so many people compain about them.

just give it some time, i'm sure you won't be disappointed.

[CrystalMethod]

Originally posted by Morbid


No nVidia? Who do you think bought 3dfx out? Who do you think will be using 3dfx's technology (to a certain limit)? If you said nVidia.. you're right! I have a nVidia card, I despise ATi. I'd rather use my old Voodoo3 3500 than anything ATi makes. nVidia is even better than 3dfx. Give nVidia a shot, they're worth it (unless you get some no-name card by like VisionTek). :D

Umm... Most of the technical engineering research was sold to Quantum 3D, not nvidia. The only reason 3DFX went under was because of poor management, not a poor product. I do agree that he should try out an Nvidia card, but I still think that there is something wrong with the ATI card he has, and that it could probably be corrected without having to spend any extra cash.

[PsycoPhreak]

Originally posted by CrystalMethod


Umm... Most of the technical engineering research was sold to Quantum 3D, not nvidia. The only reason 3DFX went under was because of poor management, not a poor product. I do agree that he should try out an Nvidia card, but I still think that there is something wrong with the ATI card he has, and that it could probably be corrected without having to spend any extra cash.

heh heh...i was waiting to see if anyone knew who really gained from 3Dfx....Nvidia did in fact gain some Technology...but..Quantum 3d got the vsa 100's and rights to 3dFx's other technology "in the werks"....except for the "mosaic" tile based rendering that 3dfx was workin on...NObody got that and theres no mention of it anywhere...,they did keep some things to themselves, 3dfx may be dead..but i think we'll see another company in the future just happen to pop up with this tech, and it will probably be from the same people that were part of 3dfx.

Anyway....I do believe something is wrong with the card itself....the best way to descibe it is....everything in any game looks like its being rendered in 256 colors...thats the best i can describe it to give an idea of how bad the image is on this thing.
I'm just about ready to give up after hours and hours on end trying to get it working "right"....I decided that getting a Nvidia is out of the question, i've already spent way to much for the card I got now...add 20% restock to the price i'm stuck getting a GF3 ti500 here and its over $400.......not worth it at all.....

[EDIT] i'm going to take this thing back and get another one....its got to be a glitch in this card....i'll know for sure by tomorrow hopefully...:(

[AKDUDE]

I think you got a half dead card. It happens, return it for another.
AKDUDE

[slim_lim]

PsychoPhreak, I may have an idea as to what's causing your problems. You're running an older BX-chipset motherboard that's not AGP 2.0 compliant, which all modern videocards require. What you have is AGP 1.0, which may or may not be able to feed enough juice to the card to keep it running properly. The end result is that it may not work or work but experience all sorts of problems.
I can't comment on ATI image quality, as I never owned an ATI card. But what you described sounds like more than just poor IQ, seems like you're having serious technical problems with this card. I guess you should return this card and try something else. Since you can't be sure what might work or not with your older mobo, I suggest you grab a card or two from a local store with good return policy (like Fry's) and test it out before commiting to a purchase.
In case you're wondering, I'm in the same boat as you are: I have a Abit BH6 board with AGP 1.0. and planning to upgrade to a new video card. I tested out a Geforce2 TI on it and it worked great for the most part, but I did have some issues with it, like display corruption after waking the monitor from sleep. Can't say the IQ on it is that great but it's not bad either. Certainly not anything as horrible as you're describing. You might want to start there or even better with a Gefrce 3 ti200. I would advise against anything really high-end however, since it's just not worth it to spend a whole bunch of money upgrading such an old system. If you have $$$ to burn, invest it in a whole new system.
P.S. Oh and for the love of god ditch Win ME. It's the biggest pile of monkey feces M$ ever released, and you're bound to experience many problems with it. Move up to XP, or if you want to stay with 9x for now, go with 98SE.

[Henry Rollins II]

I just would like to say: I like my Radeon 8500LE. I think it was an improvement over the GeForce3 I had before. Cheaper too. :cool:

regards,
Henry.

[PsycoPhreak]

I agree Win ME is not the best platform to run on, I can't try XP right now, I'm waiting to get the cd back....( ahem...you know who ya are, wheres my cd? ).

The AGP issue did occur to me, I was trying to avoid a hassle by sticking the 8500 in another system just to see if that was the problem ( looks as though I may have to try it, although having to mess with another one of my systems that isn't for gaming was not something I wanted to do, but, I'm thinkin about givin it a go.)

I'm sure the TH7II-RAID will run this thing better, how much i'm not sure yet, I don't want to risk burning out anything if this card IS bad...the BE6 I don't care about really...I test everything I get in it because its not only stable, but can take a beating ( and this one has ) maybe i'll ask my friend if i can stick it in his intel board, he's got the 815e chipset, that should be good enough.

[TUK101]

Originally posted by slim_lim
PsychoPhreak, I may have an idea as to what's causing your problems. You're running an older BX-chipset motherboard that's not AGP 2.0 compliant, which all modern videocards require. What you have is AGP 1.0, which may or may not be able to feed enough juice to the card to keep it running properly. The end result is that it may not work or work but experience all sorts of problems.
I can't comment on ATI image quality, as I never owned an ATI card. But what you described sounds like more than just poor IQ, seems like you're having serious technical problems with this card. I guess you should return this card and try something else. Since you can't be sure what might work or not with your older mobo, I suggest you grab a card or two from a local store with good return policy (like Fry's) and test it out before commiting to a purchase.
In case you're wondering, I'm in the same boat as you are: I have a Abit BH6 board with AGP 1.0. and planning to upgrade to a new video card. I tested out a Geforce2 TI on it and it worked great for the most part, but I did have some issues with it, like display corruption after waking the monitor from sleep. Can't say the IQ on it is that great but it's not bad either. Certainly not anything as horrible as you're describing. You might want to start there or even better with a Gefrce 3 ti200. I would advise against anything really high-end however, since it's just not worth it to spend a whole bunch of money upgrading such an old system. If you have $$$ to burn, invest it in a whole new system.
P.S. Oh and for the love of god ditch Win ME. It's the biggest pile of monkey feces M$ ever released, and you're bound to experience many problems with it. Move up to XP, or if you want to stay with 9x for now, go with 98SE. Thats what I was going to suggest is making sure that agp 4X is enabled and make sure that agp fast writes are enabled. I know that if one or the other isnt enabled on my 32 meg ddr radeon, that it doesnt work very well either. :beer:

[PsycoPhreak]

I was about to go to sleep when i decided to run sandra...

I checked the AGP settings with it and look what i see.....lets see if anyone can find what I see wrong....

[PsycoPhreak]

OK....heres the snapshot of sandra...:

[slim_lim]

No, nothing wrong I can see in that screenshot --not much relevant info there anyway. However I stand by what I said: You have AGP 1.0 and the cards officially requires 2.0. AGP 1.0 does not support 4x (1x and 2x only) nor does it support fast writes. If that's what this card needs to run properly (like TUK101 said), you're out of luck.

[PsycoPhreak]

Ahh, but there is one piece of relevant info in that shot.....

Look at the latency..255 clocks???..

Thats not right, should be lower, in my other sytems the latency shows only a maximum of 64....and I asked a friend of mine to check his and his is 128 (old card?)...( they don't have an 8500 in them though) so, that could be a hint that maybe, just maybe there is a problem with the AGP on the board..or the card itself, if anyone else has the 8500 and can run sandra, i'd appreciate some input on what the latency is on their sys, because I believe 255 clocks is to much...but..then again..could be the way the cards run...i don't know for sure seeing I only have this one to run on...

[cmcquistion]

I've never seen a latency of 255 clocks. Usually 64. Sounds like this board isn't going to do it for modern AGP graphics. Try the card in a different machine and see how it goes.

[Lou Natic]

Don't want to start anything, but I just gotta throw in my 2 cents...

I personally LOVE my GF3 Ti500. It might be made by a "no-name company" (VisionTek), but the image quality is simply amazing. I'm not talking out of my ass on this. I've compared the same games on my friends systems that have 8500s and they just don't look right at best, and all-out horrible at worst. The 8500 couldn't mip map it's way out of a wet paper bag, and the anisotropic/trilinear filtering just sucks. And if that wasn't enough, you have to install a driver from ATI, garbage in code form.

Sure, my GF3 Ti 500 gets around 100 3dmark2001 points less than a 8500, but I didn't buy a vidcard to get into a p**sing contest over 3dmark scores. I bought it to play games fast and make them look great, which my card does in spades. Driver support is good, considering there is a driver for any given system to run smoothly. With ATI, their drivers seem more geared to get higher benchmarks, image quality be damned.

If it were me, I'd take back the 8500 and buy a GF3 Ti500. Considering the new GF4 line just came out, the GF3 line just took a huge hit in pricing, making the Ti 500 actually affordable (if you can still find one in stock). Either that, or save your pennies and wait for the GF4 Ti line, which will beat the socks off any 8500 or GF3. Either way, you'll be alot better off.

[Bull]

The latency timer on my vidcard is 248 clocks and I get 6609 on 3dmark2k1 stock. I don't think thats the problem but If I were you PsycoPhreak I would get that card Rma'd and get another one. You probably just got a bum card. It happens sometimes.

[PsycoPhreak]

OK, here's the deal....., got another card, jammed it in, fdisked & reformatted again (just to play it safe) installed win ME again..(i know..i know....but my XP cd still hasn't made its way to me.)

Installed beta drivers, newest ones, set AGP ratio to 1:1 ( takes care of the agp 4x issue about speed....100 Mhz FSB makes for 200 Mhz AGP @ 2x....still below its max..with a 2:3 ratio makes for 264 Mhz AGP @ 4x( so my 2x is close to 4x speed)...so its not stressin....yet...we'll see what happens when i bring the FSB back up to 133...heh heh)

loaded JUST 3dmark 2001...nothing else except windows and 3dmark installed..ran default test and scored a modest 5601.

Image quality still has a problem, but not anywhere near as bad as it was. now i'm trying to figure out...why this card looks a little better visually..but gets a lower score than the other one? ( 7000 in 3dM 2k1) as everything is set exactly the same.....and yes, its a real retail again....fresh outa the nice big shrinkwrapped red box! (275/275...weird thing tho...the ram is marked with -33 instead of -36 like the last one...)

Anyway, i guess i'll settle for this thing and see what future drivers do to make it better, but, i'll think twice next time I go out to buy the latest and greatest.

PS..the latency on the card should be between 64-128 so i been told, so it seems there was a prob with the last one...i gotta install sandra again, ( can't get the update from them...site is down? i dunno...) until then, i have no clue what the latency is on this one......

[]-[itman]

Originally posted by Lou Natic
Don't want to start anything, but I just gotta throw in my 2 cents...

I personally LOVE my GF3 Ti500. It might be made by a "no-name company" (VisionTek), but the image quality is simply amazing. I'm not talking out of my ass on this. I've compared the same games on my friends systems that have 8500s and they just don't look right at best, and all-out horrible at worst. The 8500 couldn't mip map it's way out of a wet paper bag, and the anisotropic/trilinear filtering just sucks. And if that wasn't enough, you have to install a driver from ATI, garbage in code form.

Sure, my GF3 Ti 500 gets around 100 3dmark2001 points less than a 8500, but I didn't buy a vidcard to get into a p**sing contest over 3dmark scores. I bought it to play games fast and make them look great, which my card does in spades. Driver support is good, considering there is a driver for any given system to run smoothly. With ATI, their drivers seem more geared to get higher benchmarks, image quality be damned.

If it were me, I'd take back the 8500 and buy a GF3 Ti500. Considering the new GF4 line just came out, the GF3 line just took a huge hit in pricing, making the Ti 500 actually affordable (if you can still find one in stock). Either that, or save your pennies and wait for the GF4 Ti line, which will beat the socks off any 8500 or GF3. Either way, you'll be alot better off.

I will just say 1 thing about this and leave the rest be just to clarify something. Visiontek is nowhere near a no name brand. They were the first ones to get the GeForce3 card out. In my opinion they also have the best image quality for the nvidia cards that's why i like them. they're not the fastest nvidia card but their image quality is simply amazing IMO.

[Lou Natic]

The whole "no-name brand" comment was directed toward Morbid. He might consider VisionTek "no-name" but they have quality products on the market first.

And that has me torn alittle bit. I know I'm not buying a GF4, but if I were to, I can't decide between the VisionTek or Asus Ti 4600. The VisionTek sports 300core/650memory but the Asus sports 330/660. I know the VisionTek will have good image quality, but for the money I want the faster card. Argh, I'll just stick with the GF3 for now. Considering I have a XP 1900+, I should be able to power my way through games until the NV30 chip hits the stores.

[]-[itman]

Where did you find info on the ASUS card? Also both companies get the same chipset from nvidia ASUS just tweaks it a little so get the Visiontek card and tweak it yourself and *bam* you have the same speed card only with better image quality:cool: