GeForce4 Ti 4200 or Ati Radeon 9000

[HansG]

Just wondering... my brother wants to buy himself a computer, I think looking at his max amount for the computer and his needs, roughly 200 euros for a graphicscard would be the limit.

Now... which one is better, the GeForce4 Ti 4200 or the Ati Radeon 9000? Perhaps the Ati Radeon 9000 Pro might also be included in this. Or another Radeon, I don't know.

The reason why I ask is because I'm absolutely unfamiliar with Radeon's and I have no idea which models matches the GeForce4 Ti 4200 closely. If you guys can tell me, I can do a price comparison and buy whichever is cheaper. I'm biased towards the GF4 but only because I've had a couple of GF's so far.

All the help is appreciated. URLs with more info are also appreciated.

[gorphon]

personally, Id go with the fucking geforce. the ati drivers are bullshit and have always been bullshit. hey! kinda like this fucking censorship bullshit!
ok. I wont curse so much if you get rid of the fucking asterisks!


plus, you can overclock the gpu on the geforce cards... I have no idea about the raedon.

[maartendc]

check out www.sharkyextreme.com for some good reviews on geforce and radon cards... I think the radon 9000 is in about the same league as the ti4200.. or performs a bit less. And radon had a lot of driver problems... for almost every game you play, you gotta find some patch or something to make it work with radon cards... That sucks. Other than that radon are pretty good cards. But if you want to avoid driver trouble, get a geforce. There is also a new geforce 4 ti 4200 that has just come out... it performs as good as an old ti 4600! and for only €200 or so I think... the memory is clocked higher.. but I don't think that series is already available in Europe...

Want my opinion? Get the geforce 4 ti 4200!


@ gorphon: I think you can overclock every graphics card, and definatly the radons too!

[MoonMan]

Good fucking job there gorphon! You are one smart motherfucker! Oh and FUCK THIS CENSORSHIP BULLSHIT!!!!

[HansG]

Thanks people, I had no idea about the driver problems with Radeons. That alone would justify going for the GeForce4 no matter what.

Oh and do check this website... www.pornolize.com, it's ****ing hilarious!

Edit: goddamnit, is someone f-u-c-k-i-n-g with me or what, why do I get those bloody stars whenever I say the penis-in-vagina word, and you people don't?!

[monkeybutt]

holy crap what is this about Radeon haveing driver problems


:fire I think allot of people be talking **** about some few who don't know what there doing :fire

i have ATI Radeon 9000 pro 128 DDR.. not a problem yet..
i play RCTW, MW4 MERC's, SOF2, Quake3, UT, and so on

i don't know any thing about patches... i never used them just Dled the newest drivers and and was set
OS XP home
Shuttle Ak31
AMD xp 1600
512megs DDR (2100)
SB Audigy
Cnet 200WL pro (nic)
3 Hd's
1 CDRW
and boomslang mouse... NO PROBLEMS AT ALL>>zero defects
just don't use ERazers boomslang drivers ( make you machine freeze up) they did that before the ATI card was installed

or maybe just been lucky...not

Smell my finger

[nasrules]

stick with the geforce. nvidia rock. ati does have driver probs. period.

[Floatylite]

I'd just like to redress the balance slightly with some of what I consider to be biased posts here.

I currently own a Radeon 9000 Pro and have had no problems with it whatsoever. I have ran a multitude of different games from UT original to UT2003, a number of Quake 3 based games, Warcraft 3, C&C Redalert etc. In fact most the currently available games. Not a single one.

Maartendc's post about every game needing a patch is frankly ludacrous. Whilst in the past ATI have had driver problems in the past, the same can be said of SIS, Creative, S3 and Nvidia (29.x drivers stopping all video playback in Media Player being a biggie). The current standard of drivers are much better, and should not give any significant issues.

Before owning this Radeon I have had a Rage 128, Nvidia TNT and most recently a GeForce 2. In this time I have run both Windows 2000 and XP.

Whilst owning the GF2 I came across a few issues. Not enough for me to change to a Radeon, but enough for me to break a few keyboards along the way. The worst of these was problems with refresh rates and blanking monitors. There was a fix, but this issue affected me across all their driver releases. Another noticable issue was corrupted textures in UT2003 in later drivers (which was fixed however).

Why did I change to using ATI? Purely economic. Where I live (the UK), the Radeon 9000 was significly cheaper than a Ti4200, around 40% less in fact.

Both the Ti4200 and Radeon 9000 have their strenths. If you want it purely for 3D games, then the Ti4200 will be quicker (though not massively so). If you watch a lot of VCD/DVD/DivXs, the Radeon 9000 will be better due it's more advanced DVD acceleration (though again, if you have a fast(ish) CPU this probably won't be noticable). For a lot of 2D work such as using Word, office type stuff the Radeon 9000 will again have an edge, ATI have been proven to have quicker 2D performace (though again this may not be noticable as 2D performance has not really been an issue for the last couple of years).

In conclusion, if both cards can be found for the same price, I'd choose the Ti4200. However, whichever one you choose you should be more than enough for all of latest games releases.

Hope these bits of information are useful to you so you can make an informed choice of which card to get.

Kind Regards.

[maartendc]

Yes I agree, sorry about that.
In the past, lets say the radon 8500 and earlier, there have been MAJOR driver issues with radon cards. But I have heard from a lot of people that thigs have improved lately. Ati is cleaning up it's driver problems. So I mostly take back what I have said about Radon drivers. But I'm sticking with Nvidia and geforce for now...

[HansG]

Thanks floatylite. I still haven't figured it out, the budget is even lower than I thought... I might even have to go for a MX (nightmare) or a cheaper Radeon, but I do need confirmation that those driver problems have been fixed for older models!

[maartendc]

Well,I did some research about ati driver probs, and I don't find many recent ones. I think from the radon 9000 and up, there aren't any probs, but cards lower than the 8500 might have serious driver probs... Or are there new, better drivers for those cards too? If your budget isn't that large, maybe you can't go for a higher card than the 8500, and maybe you should consider getting a geforce 3 ti or something. Those are really good cards, and have more features than the geforce 4 mx, and probably cost less. Geforce 3 ti have got some directx 8.x features like the geforce 4 ti, that geforce 4 mx haven't got. So don't get a geforce 4 mx, it's better to go for the geforce 3 ti. I don't know about the performance of the radon 9000. I guess it is in the same league as the geforce 4 ti 4200. The radon 9500 is in the same league as the ti 4600, or even better. And the radon 9700 is the fastest card available. The radon 8500 scores less then the geforce 4 ti 4200. And a little bit better than the geforce 3 ti 200/500.

So it al depens on what you can spend. If you can afford a radon 8500 or up, you can go with radon. But if thats too expensive for ya, I'd go with geforce....

[HansG]

Thanks Maarten, the problem is... I'd love to go for a GeForce3. The problem is that it seems almost impossible to buy 'older' PC parts... computerstores just don't offer them anymore. For example, the cheapest processor I can go for is the AMD Athlon XP 1700+, which is still overkill (only 75 euros though) but there just aren't any 'older' ones available. The same goes for videocards. A GeForce3 would definitely do the trick, but they are no longer being offered in computerstores.

Just for comparison, in my PC (1 year old) I have a GeForce 2 Pro with 64 MBs, and I have never run into any kind of problem with games. Therefore even for me a GeForce3 would not be necessary, let alone a GeForce4. That being the case, my brother will definitely not need all that power. But I don't seem to have much choice.

Thanks for the research on the Radeon, I will stay away from the older models. I have seen a few cheap Radeon 9000's (90-100 euros), I think I will go for that. I totally agree that the MX sucks big time!

[Floatylite]

HansG

Looking through your situation I would definately suggest the Radeon 9000 Pro. I picked mine up for £54 (not sure how that translates to the euro equivalent, us brits are still with the pound).

We have the same problems with older hardware such as a GeForce 3. The only places selling them are second hand or from bankrupt stock.

As for GeForce4 MXs, they are basically GeForce 2s but with added DVD decoding and a quicker memory controller. Thus a GeForce4 MX 460 will perform around the same as a GeForce 2 Ultra in 3D.

Regards.

[nasrules]

if your budget is still around 200 euros, a Ti4200 64mb DDR is still possible. you can get them for £130 which i think is below 200 euros from www.dabs.com

http://www.dabs.com/products/prod-search.asp?action=search&tid=700&mid=450&mid=351&mid=669&ob=manufacturer

whatever u do, dont get a geforce 4 mx. as described in the previous post.

floatylite: £54?? bluddy hell where from?

[Floatylite]

Nasrules,

Hi there. I didn't intent to put the GeForce 4MX forward as a recommendation, rather just describing it's performance and features as way of a comparision to the other cards listed within this discussion. I agree, it would be bottom of my list.

As for my Radeon. It's a 64MB Gigabyte 9000 Pro. It was actually £54.12 (but whats 12p between friends). I purchased it from A2Z Computers, which is in Loughborough, Leicestershire (not sure how familar you are with this part of the country). The address of the web site eludes me at the moment.

Regards.

[HansG]

I will definitely keep an eye out for the Radeon 9000 (Pro). I am going to purchase mid-February, so the prices will drop... but so will availability :-(

Looks like you made a good deal on that Radeon 9000 Pro Floatylite, I can't find the same kind of deal. It's hard enough finding a simple Radeon 9000 for that money.

My budget is now below 100 euros, and so far I have found this one:
Ati Club3D ATI Radeon 9000 LE 64DDR DVI, for 89 euros. That sounds fair enough.

BTW, if I'm not mistaken 1 pound equals to 1,55 euros. When are you poms finally going to make the switch? :-))

[Floatylite]

I don't know the specific details about the ATI Club card. The only web site I could find which reviewed it was in Czech, and I must admit my grasp of the Czech language isn't up to much. From what I can tell, the main difference between the pro and non-pro versions is the clock speed.

Depending on whether you (or your brother in this case) are happy and brave enough to get involved with overclocking, you should be able to get it to the Pro version level without much trouble.

Waiting till February time sounds like a good idea. With Nvidia finally releasing the GeForce FX, it should drive the prices down of both ATI and Nvidia lower end cards. We'll probably have to have another arguement between us all as to which to get.

As for us poms getting into the euro. I suppose that all depends on when our dictator like prime minister Tony Blair decides it's best for us (not that he's letting on when that will be). Sorry, I shouldn't let my political prejudices show through so much ;-)

Regards.

[HansG]

We'll continue the discussion in a little while then!

Seems like it's about time the british people did something about Blair. He's starting to look more and more like a gay Bush-equivalent... forcing political decisions through to which the British people clearly object (a war on Iraq for example). He should also not force your country to abandon the GBP, you should come to the conclusion yourselves that it is the smartest action to join us in the euro... another referendum. So far the euro is on it's way to knocking down the dollar from his #1 spot permanently and with the extra strength of the pound it would become the #1 choice for the world. The Americans can keep their military strength (weakening their economic strength whenever force is applied), we'll take the economic strength!

Sorry, it's hard to keep my political ideas from floating in from time to time... no matter how unrelevant :-))

Anyway, to get back at the subject... thanks for your input as well. The thread is really helping me out.

[AnimeDood]

ahh why not an intel 810 chipset? hahahaha thats what my piece of shit has.

[Sephiroth]

This link (http://www6.tomshardware.com/graphic/20021218/index.html) from tomshardware is updated and has all the benchmarks from most of the high end video cards avaible today..

If money isnt a option then i would wait for the Geforce FX to come out which i dont think is that long maybe a few months. Even if it is i would wait because when it comes out prices for the other Geforce cards should go down.

Note the ATI radeon 9700 is the "next gen" nvidias next gen card is the Geforce FX which is why it scored higher.

[isus]

personally, i think ati is better, bc they MAKE and SELL the cards... but i also like apple, who make and sell their own comps... but stick with the gf4, bc it is easily oc'ed.

[HansG]

I have one more question... is there a noticable gain in framerate when playing Grand Prix 4 and going from a GeForce2 Pro 64 MB to a GeForce3 Ti 200 64 MB? What about from the GeForce2 to a GeForce4? Or is is just processor power that GF4 demands... can anyone tell me this, I am having trouble finding this out myself on the internet.

This time it's for me... I saw an inexpensive second-hand GeForce3 Ti 200 64 MB, and I've got the GF2...

[Sephiroth]

Originally posted by HansG
I have one more question... is there a noticable gain in framerate when playing Grand Prix 4 and going from a GeForce2 Pro 64 MB to a GeForce3 Ti 200 64 MB? What about from the GeForce2 to a GeForce4? Or is is just processor power that GF4 demands... can anyone tell me this, I am having trouble finding this out myself on the internet.

This time it's for me... I saw an inexpensive second-hand GeForce3 Ti 200 64 MB, and I've got the GF2...

Games play alot smother and you can turn up the detail levels and make them look alot nicer. Load times are also a little better. Since you have a geforce 2 you should be ok for all games out now. If i were you i would wait until the next nvidia card is out and the prices of current cards drop and then get a really good georce 3 or a geforce 4ti..

ATi cards such their driver support is horrible and the tv recording isnt the best from what ive seen.

[maartendc]

Sepiroth is right about smoother framerates and higher detail levels. Also smoother framerates at higher resolutions.

But the difference between the geforce 2 pro and the geforce 3 ti 200 isn't all that much I guess. Geforce 3 has directx 8.x features that the geforce 2 doesn't have, but in memory speed etc. it's not so different. I don't think there is a reason to upgrade from a geforce 2 ti to a geforce 3 ti. If you're geforce 2 ti is becoming to old to play new games, it's best to wait until you can afford a geforce 4 ti 4200 (maybe 128mb). Because the geforce 3 ti wont take long to get too old.. so. If the upgrade is worth it depends on how cheap you can get that second handed geforce 3 ti. I'd go for it if it was about €100 or less. No more.

The difference in geforce 2 ti and geforce 3 ti is big. I'm gonna say it one more time: if you can afford a geforce 4 ti 4200(maybe 64mb) GO FOR IT! Maybe wait little while, until the geforce Fx comes out. Then there might be some gamers who sell their geforce 4 ti to get a geforce Fx. I don't think you'll find many second hand geforce 4 ti's right now. But you can search if you like..

Good luck!

[Floatylite]

For Grand Prix 4, the game is quite CPU bound. A lot of time is spent on the physics of the cars. One way of increasing the speed in this particular game is to try turning of the 3D sound effects.

Like maartendc and Sephiroth said, you would see an increase with moving to a Ti 200 across most games. If the price isn't too much and you trust the person selling it, it may a worth a shot. One possible thing to bear in mind is that the Ti 200 was very popular due to it's overclocking ability, a cheaper equivalent of a normal GeForce 3. I've never actually seen a card damaged by overclocking myself, but their is the possibility that it has been "thrashed".

From a personal standpoint, I'd wait to see what happens when the GeForce FX is released, and (depending on your budget) look at either GF4 Ti4200s or a Radeon 9500 when prices start to tumble.

Regards.

[HansG]

Maarten, the GeForce3 is currently (bidding) at €52, not too big...

I think I'll resist my wallet grabbing itches for now. I don't really need a new videocard, but it was just so cheap that I started hesitating! Also, 52 euro sounds cheap but if I do calculate it back to guilders it's still quite a bit and as I said, I don't really need it...

I'll try and do it the smart way, wait for the dust to settle after the FX and then grab myself a nice super-GeForce4. Or pick up a GeForce3 with a box of crackers :-)

[maartendc]

Oooooolalalalala, €52 is very cheap. I wouldn't be able to resist! But waiting seems wiser...

[kevoid]

I use a Radeon 7000 and it works fine if you have the updated drivers.

[maartendc]

Mmmh, usually they just put their name on it.
I have a creative geforce 4 ti 4200, which has a superb looking cooler, but is more expensive. i wanted to get a cheaper one, but the store I went to only had this one. But I'm happy with it.

Some brands give better games with their cards, or better cooling. But all cooling is suffiecient, and there is absolutely no difference in performance. Get the cheapest brand you can find, unless you want good games and better cooling for oc'ing...


Oh, btw, those cards are all NVIDIAS! The chips are supplied by nVidia, and are distributed to the manufacturers who make complete cards of them... So they are all nVidia. All geforce's are!

[Krell]

Thats a great question zebi.

Yes there can be major differences. If im not mistaken, Chaintech is filing bankruptcy. Some of the card manufacturers have infererior heatsinks for the chips.

The Abit cards heatsinking even differ for the same card for a $30 price difference.

http://www.abit-usa.com/products/graphics/gf4_4200_8x/
and
http://www.abit-usa.com/products/graphics/gf4_4200_8x_otes/

Leadtek already HAD a better heatsinking design in the same price range:

http://www.leadtek.com.tw/www/Web_Leadtek/vga/A280_DDRTH_myvivo.asp

The Asus board is even higher priced by another $30

http://usa.asus.com/vga/agpv9280/overview.htm

The next Video Card combo I am going with will be the Leadtek brands cards, one for AGP rendering, one for TV Tuner and recording.

http://www.leadtek.com.tw/www/Web_Leadtek/vga/A250_ultratd_myvivo.asp

http://www.leadtek.com.tw/www/Web_Leadtek/multimedia/TV2000_XP/TV2000-XP.asp

You may download the user manuals from these links for further study, all have a 1 yr warrenty.

I hope this helps,

cheers

[HansG]

I've got a Leadtek WinFast TV 2000/XP. I'm all out of PCI-slots, so I'd like to get my hands on a videocard/tv-card combo as well, that saves me a PCI-slot.

Oh by the way, the quality of my tv-card (supposedly one of the better ones, with a special tv tuner chip) is quite poor indeed. I was really dissapointed and I wouldn't buy another one, unless I got it for free (through a combo). It's more of a gimmick than an actual addition to your computer experience.

Just stand in front of your television, press your nose against the screen and consider that television screens are far inferior to computerscreens (the tv is less fussy)... you'll get the idea of the quality you get on your computerscreen.

I should add that I have quite a long distance to cover from where the cable comes in to my computer (+/- 15 metre), could be the reason why my imagequality it's not nearly as good as that on my TV. But I can't imagine it being BETTER than the TV quality.
I've put it up for sale.

[Krell]

The distance isnt the problem. Its either the drivers or the phillips tuner on the card itself, but thx for the heads up. I read somewhere that the "chips" werent as good as the phillips tuner modules, perhaps thats the reason. I hear the Blaster tv card is also good.

My computer IS my tv, has been for years. Movies and TV on my monitor are pristine, far better than what a tv screeen can produce. My keyboard is my channel changer. Currently I use an ATI All-in Wonder Pro tv tuner card. The quality is good, but I want to get away from having everything in one card.

[Krell]

It sounds reasonable to me, but make sure you get the correct AGP slot board ! Most of the new cards have a 1.5 v seat, where as you may have a MB that takes a 3.3 v board.

Some of the cards even require a seperate 12v power supply connection in line with your IDE connectors. This isnt a problem really, unless you have a power supply thats whimpy or already taxed.

.

[maartendc]

Originally posted by zebi
I think i'm going to buy a geforce 4 ti 4200 128 mb ddr since my 4 years old S3 trio graphics card can't handle any game these days.

mmh, is it outdated already? After only four years? LOL
And 177 euros is a very good prices indeed.

[HansG]

@Zebi, if you have such an old graphics card I'm assuming you have a computer to match. In that case, don't buy the GeForce4 as it won't do you any good. If your computer is 4 years old you definitely need to go and buy a new computer (with a GeForce) to play any new game.

@Krell, interesting! I was so dissapointed that I thought all tv-cards were crap. I remember it being really difficult to find some reviews on tv-cards, if you have any pointers for me that would be greatly appreciated. I'll do some snooping...

[maartendc]

@ zebi: Hans is right. If your processor is 4 years old, a geforce 4 wil definatly be overkill. The rest of your pc will hold back your geforce, and it wont be able to perform as it should. I'd say your processor is a serious botlleneck for a geforce 4 if you have less than a 1ghz processor. Gimme your specs please...

[maartendc]

Yes I know, but things change, graphics improve... Too bad though. I mean, its good that graphics becom better and better, but why can't they just keep making games with the graphics they've got now? Then you wouldn't have to upgrade... too bad.

Well, you've got a very good system indeed, and all I can say is upgrade fast! The only thing missing is a good graphics card, and then you're set for another two years or so... That upgrade must have cost a lot...