Which is a better graphics card?

[Zookdaddy]

My previous question has started me thinking about purchasing a new computer. I was thinking about a Dell. I was on their website and noticed they offered a couple graphics cards. Which one is better the: 32mb DDR ATI Radeon 4X AGP or the 32mb NVIDIA GeForce2 MX 4X AGP? And if someone could offer reasons why one is better than the other I would appreciate that as well. Not sure if I'm gonna be getting a new one, but if I do I want to get a good graphics card.

[jankerson]

Between those 2 cards I would pick the ATI card.

I had one and it was faster than the Gforce2mx.

Better yet if there is an option get the Gforce 2, not the mx.

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[fredo0000]

For me the best between the two is geforce 2 mx You can compare at this address and add your scores to 3DMark2001. http://fredo0000.free.fr/page_lien_i...3dmark2000.htm

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When</A> you dont now what is the t°c of your processor.

[MoodyBlue]

fredo0000

In the histogram at the bottom of your link, it shows the ATI Radeon to be 2 notches higher than the MX.

I dont have any number to back up my choice, but I have a Radeon DDR and my friend has an AOPEn geforce mx 400- Bottom line... my graphics look much nicer & I scored higher in 3dmark2k1(I guess I do have some numbers).

If ther is a choice between Radeon and Geforce2- and your a gamer- you might be more pleased wth the geforce2. Although, I havent encountered any game my Radeon wont play (my rig = pIII 800@933 256mg RAM).

[rangeral]

Since ati made better drivers recently they are on a par with the gf, as mentioned above if there's an opportunity to get gf pro I would jump on it.

[unfrgivn]

I owned a Radeon 7500 and Radeon VE dual display and I returned them both after a couple of days. Compared to my Geforce256, the ATI cards looked like trash. I couldn't hardly look at the screen. Get the GeforceMX, the colors are nicer and it just looks all around better especially at high resolutions where the ATI really falls off in quality in my opinion. The radeon might be marginally bettter as far as speed, but the GeforceMX will look nicer.

Just my opinions seeing as how viual quality is totally opionated.

-unfrgivn

[outside looking in]

I owned a Radeon 7500 and Radeon VE dual display and I returned them both after a couple of days. Compared to my Geforce256, the ATI cards looked like trash. I couldn't hardly look at the screen. Get the GeforceMX, the colors are nicer and it just looks all around better especially at high resolutions where the ATI really falls off in quality in my opinion. The radeon might be marginally bettter as far as speed, but the GeforceMX will look nicer.

That's got to be a first. Everyone else on the planet seems to think the MX cards are at the bottom of the pile as far as 2D image quality is concerned, with the usual comments like "the Radeons have much better color saturation in 2D and 3D, and much crisper display in 2D, especially at the higher resolutions."

Are you sure you didn't accidentally swap the names of the MX and Radeon when making that post?

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Only 30,000 to 40,000 genes in an Einstein, a Michael Jordan, or a Bach? Boy, can that God guy write tight code or what? - David Rudloff

[This message has been edited by outside looking in (edited 11-10-2001).]

[GOSHARKS]

2d quality of the gf2 mx cards really suck. can barely read small text on my 21" triniton, 1600x1200x32x85hz. the horrible 2d quality was/is a reason that i am waiting for my radeon 8500 from dell.

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[unfrgivn]

I know I seem to be only person in this forum that thinks the geforce series have better 2D than the radeon. MY radeon was horrible. The 3D quality in games like Deus Ex and Max Payne was atrocious! I thought I was playing tomb raider because of all the artifacts on the screen 2D was not that great either. Text was blurry and colors were not vibrant at all! And this was with 2 different Radeon cards with the latest drivers at the time according to people in the forum. Haven't used a Geforce2MX but I'm assuming it can't be worse than my Geforce256 and the 2D quality of my Geforce comes pretty close to 2D quality of my Matrox secondary video card for my other monitor. As far as I'm concerned they're both excellent cards and I didn't pay more for than $70 for each of them.

[dpic]

Zookdaddy, get whichever card is cheaper. Obviously, they are both decent. I have the GeForce and it's fine. Buy a slower processor and put all the money you can into the Hard Drive and monitor. Dell memory is expensive, and you can get it at plenty of other places. You'll use a good monitor and hard drive (as a spare) for years down the road while your kids will playing Frisbee with you new, hot-shot motherboard/cpu in about three years.

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[outside looking in]

yep, unfrgivn is smoking crack again. TNT2 had bad 2d, GeForce256 had bad 2d, GeForceMX has horrid 2d, GeForce 2 GTS has bad 2d except for a couple of rare (and more expensive) brands, GeForce 3 has pretty good 2d except for a few brands that are bad.

The Radeons are all made by ATi, and if you had one with bad 2d IQ, it was defective and you should have had it replaced.

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Only 30,000 to 40,000 genes in an Einstein, a Michael Jordan, or a Bach? Boy, can that God guy write tight code or what? - David Rudloff

[a13antichrist]

Well speaking as someone who has only ever bought Matrox cards, I would never even think of touching Nvidia. ATi is the only other one that I would ever even consider.

Their driver support, however, leaves a lot to be desired..

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[zoom]

ATi drivers are getting better and have gotten better...Its just that they've had such a bad reputation in the past, that's its hard to remove the stigma....impossible to do it overnight..because there will already be people whohave made their mindsup and sworn of ATi.

Remember how people used to puke when you would mention Via Chipsets? well look at the 266A now? its like that with Ati...they are improving.

They should be releasing what is rumored to be the stablest/fastest drivers very,very soon. check rage3d for the scoop.

I have a RAdeon VIVO and using it on XP with the latest drivers, playing AVP2 now....the image quality is awesome and the speed is excellent for an old Athlon 800.

[unfrgivn]

I must have had some wierd drivers that were incompatible with my system then because I definitely wasn't smoking crack (at least not the night when I got my Radeon) But like I said, it really looked like trash even when I was just looking at the desktop. Since I'm the only one in this forum who thinks this, there definitely must have been something wrong driver wise.

I agree with a13antichrist, matrox is the way to go (unfortunately Dell doesn't sell them currently). My secondary monitor is running on a 5 year old Matrox millenium and I use that more than my primary monitor with the Geforce (especially for web browsing or word processing because the text is much sharper and it doesn't hurt my eyes as much if I am at the computer for awhile). I'm tempted to get a Matrox G450 for my primary card and just run both monitors on that, but then I would have to perfectly good video cards lying around Oh well.

-unfrgivn