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

[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]

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 *** 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