Fury? G400? ViperII? it's geeting soon! so I need advice.

[DataOrb]

heeelo!
yes, I have posted this befor, but I am going to revision it a little....

I need to replace my Screahing, Agging 2 years old TNT. after thinking about it alot, I have decided to buy a new vid card in the end of feb. so, let me just ramp things up.

I have a hard time choosing between the:

ATI Rage Fury Pro ( 139$ At Egghead )




The Matrox G400Max ( 209$ At Shop@Matrox )



And the S3 ViperII (159$ at Egghead)




now, as I said at my older post,I am not buying a vid card for "hardcore" gaming, but Medicore gaming at most.
What I care most is image quality.
both in 2D and 3D.
farme rate is also something I care about, but anything higer then 30 at 1024X768 in 32bit color is better then ok to me.
DVD quality is also a factor I like to consider.
could you please give a rating to the cards?
in 2D eyecandy, 3D eyecandy, DVD eyecandy, Drivers and 3D Frame rate. oh.. and please, add life-span...

oh... yes, and just to make it a little more intersting.
say, I will wait for another couple of mounths, what offerings (G450, Nv15 - any info on these chipsets? ) will I be able to get at a price tag of 200$?

oh... forgot to add my system specs:

Asus P3B-F M/B
160Mb Seimens 100Mhz SDRAM
Celeron533@600
SBlive Value W/FPS1000 Speakers
Mag Innovision PerfectVision 770Ti TrinitronFR+ 17" monitor.
CL RivaTNT OC to 110Core/120Mem
Poineer X8 Slot Feed DVD-Rom
etc...

thanks once more!

------------------
=-----=-----=
DataOrb 2000
-Reality is Relative.
=-----=-----=

[This message has been edited by DataOrb (edited 02-07-2000).]

[Ruffian]

The ATI's are the best for watching DVD and do ok for gaming also.

Viper II i have heard does good for watching DVD too, and good at gaming also. Plus you got all those multimedi features.

G400 - dont know sorry :-(

And they should all do great in 2d.

[Jesse Thompson]

These cards are not really in the same league... as far as the ATI goes, no way... you'll see very little increase over the TNT you already have.

The G400 is a really good card, but only if you have an Athlon or PIII (SSE).

The viper II is sort of an enigma at this point. Its T&L engine is disabled in the current set of drivers, and I would not recommend this card until some things improve a bunch.

Given that you have a celly, I really don't want to recommend any of the previously mentioned products... maybe you should look into a GeForce... a SDR should do okay for you if your not a hardcore gamer.

[Dave_B]

I think, image quality wise, the Matrox would be the best. ATI is pretty good for image quality and DVD support. I can't recommend Savage-based cards - never had one and I see too many negative posts. Oh, and OEM Matrox G400 single-head cards can be had for $135.

[DataOrb]

ok,
if the MG400max have problems with celeys,
I guess I will go from a GeForce based card.

so how about the ASUS V6600 GeForce SDR? can you recommend it? or should I go for the CL SDR GeForce?

oh... yes, on more thing,
does anybody know how is the DVD quality with a GeForce card? does it support any kind of motion compression?

many thanks,



------------------
=-----=-----=
DataOrb 2000
-Reality is Relative.
=-----=-----=

[DataOrb]

ahh...
mybe should I get the DDR version of the CL GeForce? can you give me a date on when the DDR version card price will drop to the 200$ range?

Thanks once more,



------------------
=-----=-----=
DataOrb 2000
-Reality is Relative.
=-----=-----=

[g13]

I don't think you'll see the price drop in that range until 3dfx releases their next generation or the NV15 starts showing up on shelves. I haven't any idea when either will be released but I can say strongly that they won't be out by the end of Feb. On the Viper2 I agree completely with Jesse Thompson and wouldn't recommend that card unles driver situations change dramatically. I think there's so much more potential there than the current benches indicate.

The CL GeForce comes with WinDVD which may ( I don't know for sure) come with some type of motion compensation. I've had no problems with it on my system and it actually performed better than the Sigma Hollywood decoder which I've since removed.

If you consider your next purchase an interim card, you may also consider a TNT2 which is more in the price range of the other cards you had mentioned. If you have the money to burn a DDR card certainly wouldn't disappoint but it would be hard to do with so many other great cards on the near horizon.