geforce ???

[geezauksev]

hi,
Im looking to buy a new video card and im a bit confussed on what to buy i dont have a lot of cash which is a proplem.
i have found two cards im intrested in they are.
geforce 3 ti200 128MB DDR or
geforce 4 mx440 64 MB DDR
The geforce 3 looks the best but they all have differant features etc.
there both made by inno3d the tornado one.
any info about this would be great.
cheers andrew

[mjc]

Do the GF3...the mx cards are a "cut down version".

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mjc
Computer Links (http://www.dreamwater.org/tech/mjc/index.htm)

Celts are the men that heaven made mad, For all their battles are merry and their songs are all sad.

[Jude3085]

I say gefore 3 card too.

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John

[joea64]

I will have to disagree with mjc3 and jude here http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/smile.gif - that is, _if_ you're on a budget and looking for a good general-purpose card. I bought a GeForce 4 MX440-based card yesterday (the ABit Siluro GF4 MX), and so far, I'm very pleased with it, especially now that I seem at last to have solved my DVD-playback problem.

The thing is, not everyone is a hard-core first-person shooter gamer who needs scads and scads and scads of DDR RAM and all the latest bells and whistles for their video. I hardly play first-person shooters at all (excepting maybe No One Lives Forever), because most of those games literally make me dizzy :P (that goes all the way back to Doom, a true vertigo-inducer if ever there was one.) My gaming taste goes much more to overhead-view strategy games, which don't require nearly the type of souped-up video that first-person shooters, flight games, etc. do. For instance, Civilization III worked very well on my old video card (a TNT2 Riva M64 with 32 MB), and ought to scream down the pike with this new card.

For DVD playback, what you really need is a hardware engine on the card that handles the playback routines and takes the load off the main CPU, and the GeForce 4 series has it. And for things like Web page creation, basic photo editing, word processing and Internet use (all of which roles I use my system in), you don't need fancy video either.

Now, you certainly should avoid the MX420 - it uses old-fashioned SDRAM which slows down the memory bus speed to something like 166MHx. The MX440 and above use DDR, which, in the MX440's case, pegs the memory bus speed at 400Mhz. Furthermore, the GeForce 4 MX440, in its various incarnations, can typically be had for well under $100; I bought mine for $79 (plus sales tax).

It depends on what you're looking for. If you're heavily into 3D gaming, then I expect you should go ahead and get the GeForce 3 (though I am given to understand that that series of cards is going to be phased out as the GeForce 4 Titanium series gets into the market). If, on the other hand, you need to save some money and you're looking for something that will serve you well in multiple roles, get the MX440 or MX460.

-Joe-

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Alternate email: joea64@yahoo.com

[saphalline]

Originally posted by joea64:
...get the MX440 or MX460.


Ugh! Don't even mention the MX460! No offense but have you seen the prices on that sucker? It's typically more expensive than the GF3 Ti 200, which we can all agree performs much better for games and 3D apps. The only GF4 MX card worth the price is the MX440.

As to geezauksev's problem of a budget card, yes the GF4 MX440 is probably the best in terms of price. At $80 average, it's a lot of power for the money. But consider that the GF3 Ti 200 averages $110. This means that for $30 more (not even the price of a recent game) you can get about twice as much 3D performance and the latest features of DX 8 games (not to mention other GF3 benefits such as reduced rendering). That's what mjc and Jude3085 were pointing out.

However, if another $30 really is too much to swallow, you have to wonder if selling a few older games would help. I mean, gaming is expensive but cheaper than ever. Who would have guessed 3 years ago that today a fast processor (Athlon XP 1700+) or a mid-level video card (GF4 MX440) could be bought for under $100 each? I think we've all gone a little soft http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/wink.gif.

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"No, we do not gnaw on our kitty." - Dr. Evil

[joea64]

Originally posted by saphalline:

However, if another $30 really is too much to swallow, you have to wonder if selling a few older games would help.


Bite your tongue. http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/wink.gif I'm one of those people who _swears_ by older games - in fact, I still keep my old Dell Dimension (originally Pentium Pro, but boosted to PII333 with an Overdrive CPU) with Win95B around so I can play those older games. For some reason, probably connected with the latest versions of DirectX, Theme Hospital (which uses a very old version of DirectX) won't run properly on my Duron, so I play it on my Dell. Frankly, I think a lot of the older games were better-designed and more interesting than many of the newer ones, simply because the limitations on graphics and sound of those days meant that game designers couldn't be seduced by whiz-bang pictures and sound and instead had to pay attention to boring things like AI and playability. http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/smile.gif

-Joe-



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Alternate email: joea64@yahoo.com

[iisbob]

OK, keep in mind here that the G4 MX series are not really Geforce 4's-they are actually the same core chipset as the original Geforce 2 Pro set, so if you purchase one you are stepping back; and the G4 MX series do not support the new Direct X 8 features, nor will they do so in the future.

The geforce 4 MX series were as asnine an attempt at continous profit as MS's Windows ME bastardization of 98se.

Definately don't waste your money on a G4MX when you have the oppertunity to buy a Geforce 3 Ti series-not only do no games currently ( or previously ) released tax it to it's utmost, but none will for the immediate future. And Nvidia is fixing to release an entirely new chipset structure completely different from their previous Geforce series with a whole new programming language.

Any doubts/questions on the Nvidia core chipset data & specs, head on over to the Guru3d (http://guru3d.com/) for complete info.


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iisbob

There is no such thing as a stupid question; just an improper one.-my own belief

[This message has been edited by iisbob (edited 06-16-2002).]

[iisbob]

Thought i mind as well post this on the released Geforce chipsets; NV11=Geforce 2 MX, NV15=Geforce GTS, NV17=Geforce 2 Pro/Geforce 4 MX, NV20=Geforec3/Ti, NV25=Geforce4 Ti, and soon NV30=?

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iisbob

There is no such thing as a stupid question; just an improper one.-my own belief

[This message has been edited by iisbob (edited 06-16-2002).]

[saphalline]

Originally posted by joea64:
...game designers couldn't be seduced by whiz-bang pictures and sound...


Older games can always be described that way, tho, so that's not fair! http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/wink.gif I mean, Age of Empires is a game I still play and I thought its graphics were pretty impressive back in the day. Diablo also had a lot of eye candy with its full 32-bit color. Civ II was very detailed in its sprites, especially the maps of the cities as you built them up. If you want to go even further back, I think you'll find the same thing - the first color games were considered flashy and shallow in comparison to their "pure" B&W counterparts. By the time DirectX 20 comes out, we'll be embarrassed to admit that we still have our AthlonXP 2000+ machines running old DX 8 games on the antiquated WinXP OS!

"But the games were so much better back then!," we'll say. It's one big cycle.

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"No, we do not gnaw on our kitty." - Dr. Evil

[extended_ram]

MX is the value version, not as good.