Decisions, Decisions

[ANApex]

Ok for my next high-end system do I get a Ti 500, 8500, or wait for the GF4 or R300?

[Ryu Connor]

I think the vanilla GeForce 3 or the GeForce 3 Ti200 are the best buys right now. I'd spend the money you would save by not buying a 8500 retail or Ti500 on some other aspect of your computer.

That or just save the money and build on it for the spring release of video cards.

[ANApex]

Well right now to budget I'm saving for is rather high roughly 3k. So I wouldn't be interested in saving money on the video card. Will the spring releases be worth it though?

[Ryu Connor]

The spring release cards - based upon the rumors - would appear to have insane amounts of fillrate. Since the NV25 is not a new design, but instead the TNT2 equivalent of the GeForce 3 (NV20) it will be a higher clocked design and have minimal changes to the die.

I can't say for sure, but I believe the R300 is a re-spin of the R200.

As I see it anyone could benefit from the above cards at their release. Slow CPUs will leave plenty of fillrate behind to burn for higher resolutions or more eye candy. High end CPUs will push frame rates into obscene levels and also have the same leverage of power for eye candy and progressively higher resolutions.

Personally I have always been a fan of the refresh revisions of NVIDIA's cards. (TNT2, GeForce 2, etc). So I'll likely get one. Likely Visiontek or MSI.

That is why I say going with a lower cost solution now may prove to be a more savvy choice.

[Sauron]

I almost decided to play the waiting game for Spring releases, but then just dove in and purchased an ATI 8500. You can't go wrong with the price (Current PriceWatch.com price of $169.00) and the hydra-vsision and fantastic performance are big time sellers. Sure, most reviews out there will have Nvidia winning Quake3 benchmarks and such, but these advantages are only minimal.

Now, if you want to wait until this Spring, there should be some real interesting outcomes. This could be where ATi suprises Nvidia. According to this article at TheInquirer.net, http://www.theinquirer.net/14010201.htm, ATI is set to release a graphics card that supports DirectX 9 and is faster and cheaper than Nvidia's GeForce4. You know the GE4 isn't going to be cheap upon it's release in Feburary. If you're looking for the best, stick around till Feb/March and see what both comapanies have to offer. Either way, we win.