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"Radeon 9700 or Geforce 4 Ti 4600? HELP!"

Which one of these do you reckon it's best to go for?

They're both 128Mb cards, but I haven't got a clue about PC gaming, so i'm havcing trouble deciding!

Anyone got any valid reasons for picking one over the other?

Radeons are supposed to be quite good, but ther'e snothing to use it for yet, apparantly... so a GeForce 4 Titanium, or even maybe an MX 460 would do for now... right?!

It's going in a P4 2.8 with 512 of DDR, maybe 1G in a month or two. But I'm not sure.

I only want it for Generals, Normal Browsing and maybe some decent FPS's and RTS's.


Thanks.



Game

Echelon_vs_Lightforce wrote:
> So you are seriously trying to say that nVidia deliberately say that
> the Ti4200 is SLOWER than it actually is? How can they 'lie' about the
> clock speed of the card when you can verify this figure yourself once
> the card is installed - a tech company would never, never, never say
> that their product was SLOWER than it actually is. Ever.

lol

Lugwig wrote:
> I've got a GeForce 4 Ti4200 Platinum, I think, and the guy at the shop
> told me it's better than the 4600, and they lie about the clock speed
> or the bus speed, on of them. Plus, it's cheaper, and you will have
> enough money left over to buy yourself a new face.

So you are seriously trying to say that nVidia deliberately say that the Ti4200 is SLOWER than it actually is? How can they 'lie' about the clock speed of the card when you can verify this figure yourself once the card is installed - a tech company would never, never, never say that their product was SLOWER than it actually is. Ever.

I have heard of nVidia (and ATI) using shall we say, questionable means, to inflate polygon though-put stats and texel rates, but to purposely say a card is slower than it is, seems rather strange. In fact, it's more than strange. It's a lie. the guy in the shop wanted to make a sale.

Bottom line. A stock Ti4200 is in no way faster than a stock Ti4600 when used on a system of the same spec. Regardless of make or manufacturer. I am not going to get into details as it doubt you would have a clue what I am talking about, but just look at the theoretical texel throughput of a Ti4200 and then compare it to the Ti4600. Even before we move this into the real world, on raw power the Ti4600 wins hands down.

Note. I am not saying the Ti4200 is a bad card. Far from it. It kicks the butt of my GeForce 3 and is a damn fine vid card. It’s just not as quick as a Ti 4600. Oh, and a Radeon 9500 Pro will take them both to school when you flick on a little AF or AA.

I've got a GeForce 4 Ti4200 Platinum, I think, and the guy at the shop told me it's better than the 4600, and they lie about the clock speed or the bus speed, on of them. Plus, it's cheaper, and you will have enough money left over to buy yourself a new face.

If you want a card that won't last you too much logner go for the g-force card, if you want a card that is way faster with AA and AF turned on and DX9 support (for future games) go for ATI, i have the Radeon 9700, its a great card and i've had no probs, just make sure you have at least a 300w PSU (i would go for higher), my opinion of Nvidia has gone right down, the FX has been a flop and everyone is now going for ATI, go for the ATI i say.

Or get a creative labs. A very reliable company.

LeadTek WinFast isnt it?

And no, you are infact wrong anyway ;-)

Get the sparkle one. They overclock their cards by default and the performance improvements are pretty noticable.

I have a GF4 Ti4600, and it's great. If you do get one, make sure you get the WinTek one (I think that's what it's called :S)

The 9700 is a damn good card. The drivers are not a problem.

Plus, its the only card at the moment which is fully compliant with Direct 9. I'd go for that over the Ti series.

Having said that, if you want a Geforce card, get one of the new Geforce FX cards. The speed difference between the Geforce 4's and FX's are said to be the same as the ones between the Geforce 2's and 3's.
Thats pretty damn fast.
And pretty damn expensive too.

Alternatively, they are bringing out whole new PCI slots (to replace AGP) which are much faster. You could wait a few months and then replace your entire motherboard and card with the faster ones. They are cheaper to make too apparantly so may be cheaper to buy.

So yeah, Geforce FX or 9700.
The Ti boards are slowly getting dated!
Already *sigh*

I'd agree with Echelon here - if you've got the money to spend, go with the 9700, but from what you said you want to be doing you should be ok with the 9500, with the possibility of modding it later on should you feel daring/bored (however, boredom has caused the death of 2 CPUs and a mobo for me so far...).

I've been fairly loyal to nVidia up until now - that is, every graphics card I've bought with knowledge of what it is other than just a standard "graphics thing" has been an nVidia (2x GF2mx, 1xGF3 Ti500, 1x GF4mx460). The GF4mx was bought fairly recently for a box under the TV, simply because it was cheap and had TV out, but I wouldn't recommend it for use in a games machine - it wouldn't do the rest of that spec justice. If you can find a cheapish second hand Ti4600 then consider it, but really if I were to buy anythign right now it would be a 9500/9700 - DX9, far fewer driver issues (nVidia having major problems getting performance from the FX with their Detonators) and excellent performance for a reasonable price - seen the FX launch prices? More than most of the rest of my system, heh..

i'd naturally go with the Geforce because i trust them a lot..... and not only that but even my geforce 2 seriously enhacned my K7's available power. i went from struggling at 800x600 in UT with medium graphics to a surprisingly comfortable 1280x1024 at highest(enabled effects in console etc.) - so if a Geforce 2 can make that kind of impact, a geforce 4 would be great. but forget those - get the new Geforce FX card thats causing a bit of a stir around places. its got a different style and look to it, but its the best out there (or so they say) but with all new cards its expensive.