GeForce2 MX or GF256 ? (need help to decide)

[Hasitha]

A friend of mine is looking to buy a GeForce card. The options he has are GeForce2 MX or a GeForce256 (Not sure whether its a DDR or SDR ). Both cards are about the same price(about $150). So what would you recommend?. If the GF256 is a SDR then should he buy that or the MX? And what if the GF256 is a DDR?The GTS cards are hard to find here ( only available ones are Asus & Creative which are both too expensive/actually over priced!!!!, about $300 ) so they are out of reach .

[Ultim8_Evil]

Speeds of Geforce cards, fastest first:
Geforce2 Ultra (faster core and memory)
Geforce2 GTS Pro (same speed core as GTS just faster memory)
Geforce2 GTS
Geforce1 256 DDR
Geforce2 MX SDR (128bit Memory Bandwidth)
Geforce1 256 SDR
Geforce2 MX DDR (only 64bit Memory Bandwidth)

------------------
PentiumII 400 (Deschutes Core)
Supermicro P6SBA (BX Chipset)
256mb NVRAM
Geforce2:GTS @ 230/395
15gb Seagate HDD (512k Cache)
20gb Maxtor HDD (2mb Cache)
LG 48x CD-ROM
HP 8x4x32 CD-RW
SBlive 1024 Value
Creative FPS1500 4.1 Speakers
Samsung SyncMaster 750s 17" Monitor

[USSVoyager]

I would choose the GF2MX if it is a choice of that or a GFSDR. If it is a choice of the GF2MX or the GFDDR then I would pick up the GF2MX if he is using an original Athlon system due to the power consumption of the GFDDR, otherwise I would pick up the GFDDR due to its faster memory, meaning better framerates at higher resolutions.

USSVoyager

------------------
Speed is everything - Warp factor 9, Mr. Sulu!

[netdude]

GeForce DDR.

[CenturionStrategy]

Yeah, I'd say the DDR, it's quicker.

HOWEVER, if your PSU/MOBO is possibly not capable of taking the power strain, consider the MX, which really isn't far off in terms of performance.

Of course, it's best to get the SDR, not the DDR GeForce2 MX, or the DDR Geforce 1, as Ultim8 says.

------------------
...and the 8th and final rule, if this is your first night, you have to fight.

[miha76]

MX deffinetly. old DDR Geforce is not that fast and if you find MX with fast enough memory chips (SDR or DDR) it can overclcok so good that can beat old GeForce 1 DDR very easely.

Also MX is requires much lees power and that means 0 hardware problems, compareing to old GF1.

And finaly GFMX hase more advanced arhitecture, (two pixels per clock) though memory is kiling her perfromances but definetly there is no reason to buy old GF1 even if it is DDR.

------------------
The worst system is not the one that has slowest QIII frame rate, but one that not works correctly.

[Hasitha]

Sorry I forgot to mention his system specs, they are as follows
PIII 800eb (133x6)
ASUS CUSL2-C
128mb (IBM PC133) RAM
17” ADI monitor
250W PS.+ Mercury ATX casing
30GB Quantum ATA 66
Asus 50X CD-Drive
SB Live! Value
SIS 4mb PCI VGA

[Deanril]

The MX Will Never beat the DDR,overclocked or not,even then,you cant overclock the DDR??????

The DDR will overclock very nicely,I had my DDR with a 235 watt power supply,dont let these people scare you,its not that power hungry,it use to have driver issues,now its fine.........

[monkapotomus]

Originally posted by Deanril:


The MX Will Never beat the DDR,overclocked or not,even then,you cant overclock the DDR??????

The DDR will overclock very nicely,I had my DDR with a 235 watt power supply,dont let these people scare you,its not that power hungry,it use to have driver issues,now its fine.........

I agree, the DDR would be the choice to go. and i also agree that the DDR isn't that power hungry. i myself am running a TBird 900 with a 64mb GeForce 256 with a crappy CompUSA Case only using a 250 watt power supply. this power supply isn't even AMD approved, but i don't run into any power problems what so ever.

[Hasitha]

Are there any known (yet unsolved) driver issues with the GF256? (I’ve heard there are some). Is it a wise decision to get the GF (even it is powerful then the MX) when the GF2 is out?. One other thing is that, I don’t hear about the GF256s as the other GF2 cards, wonder why?

[Destwuckshun]

I've got a Geforce 256 DDR running on an Athlon 500 system. The reason why you don't hear about the Geforce 256 as much as the Geforce 2 is that the Geforce 256 was the first Geforce and the Geforce 2 is....you guessed it the second so the Geforce 256 isn't as new anymore. I'm very happy with my Geforce DDR though. I can usually get 70fps in q3A in 1152x768 and they're pretty overclockable too.

[netdude]

The GeForce DDR is the quicker card. Four graphic pipelines compared to the MX's two. I can overclock mine up to 140mhz without a problem and knock the memory up to 325, it's fast for me. I have a Azza motherboard, i've never had a problem with the AGP voltage supply for the card, i'm using a 250W supply.

[Mer|d|an]

MX or DDR? No choice. I've had both and the DDR is better, even if it gets flippin hot. Pity that mine had to get sent back to the suppliers

Problem with memory, lines in games and I hadn't even overclocked it yet. I barely had it a week!!!!!!!

[Hasitha]

Thank you all for your replies. Finally the GTS is here at an affordable price!! ($190) . I think my friend will be getting that at last. I think it is a Creative (there is no box therefor I guess it is an OEM). Thanks anyway for all your replies.I might also consider get one for myself after the price drops a little more. For now I’m stuck with a TNT2 M64 .

[flat-v8]

In this 3D power hungry aquarium using ASUS 6800 GF-256 DDR & Evga GF-MX SDR the frame rates are almost the same, 256-DDR=100-101 fps, MX-SDR=99-100 fps. The MX's are so cheap! $93.00 its the best for the money. Check out this Aquarium, its awesome! & will heat up your processor pretty good too. www.fish-byte.com