Buying the Card...not the hype

[Jasper]

Buying the Card...not the hype

[Jasper]

We have posted up an article on Buying the Card...not the hype. This article looks into what features users should be looking for in a new video and what features users should avoid paying the extra money for. With the current graphics race between ATI and Nvidia heating up, it can turn quickly into a marketing "checkbox" feature support item. Which means uses can end up paying for features that they may never take advantage of.

Buying the Card...not the hype

[crosscourt]

Halleluah!!!!! Finally an article that backs up what ive been saying to members and games forum posters,thanks to Jasper.Presently there are 3 games fully optimized for gf3 cards and  most games run faster on a gf2 ti200 than on a gf3 ti200 due to the processor speed difference so with the lag in software adoptance being a generation behind is not only a better choice but gives you more bang for the buck by far.Well done and something that will be of interest in thegamers forum,kudos,CC

[papanut]

CC, what 3 games are those, maybe I will get them so I am actually using some of these features I paid for. I picked up a visiontek geforce3 when the price got to about 329. dollars, and I am happy with it. Lately been playing a lot of Return to Castle Wolfenstein, that game certainly seems demanding enough to benefit from a higher end consumer vdo card.

[Jasper]

One point that was not brought up in the article. One thing to look at in deciding to spend the extra money for the high end card, is the life of the card.

For example lets say you are looking at a $100 MX card v. a $350 GF3 card. I personally would go with the high end card even though the MX card may be just fine for most things today. I like to think that I could get 1 year + over the MX card in lifespan. Not only would the DDR memory prove to be helpful going forward, so would the features of the GF3. My point is, life span is something everyone should look at .

Now if your debating between a GF3 Ti 200 or Ti500, it really is silly to not pick the Ti200. The slight performance increase of the Ti500 and the price difference really will not buy you anymore time on the life of the card.

[jsmiddleton4]

You could change the title of the article and make it relevant to computers in general, not just video cards.  Nice article.  I actually bought a Geoforce2 TI and yes I know its limits.  Even with those limits, it performs very very well.
We've forgotten what fast video really means.  We now compare a very fast video card, as the Geoforce 2 TI, to a Geoforce 3 TI and since the 2 TI is slower we actually act like the TI 2 is slow.  Somehow we need to establish objective standards for determining performance rather than bouncing data off the next, fastest and newest card to establish "slow" or "fast".
My Geoforce 2TI is a very fast video card.
Jim  

[Kaanin]

Good insight, I'm generally a new technology whore but you brought up some very good points. When buying video, my strategy is to buy something fairly current and not upgrade again for around 2 years. So I'm not as bad as the hardcore 3Dmark people, but I probably could spend my money more wisely.

[crosscourt]

No doubt Jasper the geforce 3 TI 200 is the best buy on the market and will be dropping to a regular price of $149 here shortly and the gf2 TI to $99 so the gf2 mx400 will either go alot lower or become obsolete.
The performance difference between the gf3ti200/ti500 isnt worth spending another $160 and the gf3 ti200 is a great overclocker so Nvidia has a real winner here and as prices drop the ti500 can be a future upgrade.

Papanut Aquanox is the only fully optimized game for gf3 on the market presently but Aliens vs predator 2 and Return to Castle Wolfenstein due have some optimizations for gf3s,CC

[Senior Citizen]

I cannot afford to buy the hype. Tomorrow I am getting the Hercules 4500 To replace my Stealth 3 S540.

[crosscourt]

Excellent choice Senior and if anyone has read the very good article over at aceshardware about the kyro 2 vs the geforce 3 youll see the two cards are actually both very future proof as long as developers allow the kyro 2 to do what it does best and not code only for the Nvidia cards.
Kyro 2 can do 8 layers of textures in one pass instead of the multi pass texturing  seen in geofrce products although the gf3 is capable of quad texturing.
Kyro 2 has two weaknesses first is anisotropic filtering,it uses 16 sample so turn it off or face a big performance hit,second make sure the game you play doesnt force the Kyro 2 to use multi pass texturing which slows it down incredibly since it can do it in one pass.
Kyro 2 is fully capable of being an excellent card even with newer games coming up.Doom3 and Quake 4 will have support for Kyro 2 as well as others.Patches and newer drivers will improve its speed and if you are runninga 800mhz cpu or faster the Kyro2 will be happy.
The Kyro 2 benefits the most from a fast cpu and optimizations which allow it to scale better thn any other videocard on the market.
Only the Geforce 3 is truly future proof but at what cost and with what games thats the question.Let me know how your Kyro 2 is working and if i can help ive worked with it alot,take care Senior,CC