Gainward GF3 Ti200 Pwr Pk or Hercules 8500LE

[hoppergrass]

Got a Birthday coming, and the wife says I can upgrade. Getting an XP1600+ and a vid-card to go with it. Which vid-card would you get? The Gainward GF3 Ti200 Pwr Pk or Hercules 8500LE? I'm leaning toward the Gainward Ti200 Pwr Pk cause I Love nVidia's driver support and I believe, and convinced, it is untouchable by other companies. But at the same time, I love a super clean image and some eye candy which brought the Hercules 8500LE in the picture (cause I used to have a RadeonLE). Someone Please convince me on which one you would get. I'm Torn Between two Lovers!! The Majority will probably be my Winner. Thanx

[The Spyder]

Dude- get the GW GF3 TI-200!!!!! ATI drivers and cards have always corruped windows on ANY systems i have ever had-
sPYDER

[SiGmA_X]

And look at getting a XP1800+ instead of the XP1600+... It's about $10 more then the XP1600 and it is a bit faster. I would go for it.

And I am in total agreement with The Spyder - The GeForce2Ti200 is a great card. Get the Leadtek GeForce3Ti200-128MB model. It can be found here.

Enjoy!

[hoppergrass]

Sigma, maybe I should tell you my situation. The Leadtek looks and sounds nice. But First, I have a $200 limit for my B-Day. Why $200? I'm a father of 4 young boys. They too would live on a computer if I'd let them. If I wasn't dumping money into their boxs, I'd have a mean rig right now. I wish they where old enough to get a job! I just built the third one a few weeks ago and it's only missing a cpu. That is where my aging T-Bird 800 will rest in. Not only that, in the middle of getting a fourth box going for my wife too. That is where my GF2 GTS will rest in since my wife likes LANing too when my buddies come over. My goal is to keep them off of mine!!

[SteveI]

ooh... I'm in a very similiar family life/pc situation... If you want to get the most for your money, go with the XP1500+, save a few bucks and oc it just a bit harder. OR you can take the full cheapskate approach and get a 1gig duron, half the price, but definitely not half the performance. $45 for my 6 year old's PC, not that she needs a 1.375ghz. But new, you can't get any cheaper.

Edit: hmmm.... does your lan fold???

[mookydooky]

Originally posted by hoppergrass
Sigma, maybe I should tell you my situation. The Leadtek looks and sounds nice. But First, I have a $200 limit for my B-Day.

You are in LUCK! Take a look at this. Based on the just released GeForce 4 Ti4200, this will blow the doors off any GeForce 3 or RadeonLE for only 159.00 plus shipping. Also available with DVI output for 20.00 more. You can probably OC it to near GeForce 4 Ti4400-4600 levels.

[hoppergrass]

SteveI,

Initially, I actually was looking at the 1.3 Duron, but at a review they had trouble unlocking the multiplier. The Pencil trick no longer worked. Thats why I'm going for the XP1600, which is only 3 Bucks more over the XP1500! I figured if Im in the position to gain some more power I want to make it count :-D. Plus I got to thinking, I LAN at my place 2-3 times a month, and I do most of the game hosting. So a larger L2 Cache is important to me, so a Duron would'nt work for me. Hummm, a Duron @ 1.3GH for your kid? Sounds like your Your kid has Pretty Smoking Box!! Oh, what did you mean by, Does Your LAN Fold?

Mooky,

I was definitely looking at that GW GF4 earlier. It gave me Butterflies! But If I went that route, I couldn't get the XP CPU. Me getting another CPU is the highest priorty, so I can get the other Comp going for the 2 younger kids to cut down on the Sibling Rivalry! Since I'm always Fixing and Administrating around here, I get the New Stuff for Payment (lolololol), while they get my old stuff which is not too shabby. I'm just sneaking the video card in the $200 Buying Limit.

[mookydooky]

I guess I misunderstood your post, I thought you were saying that you were looking for a $200 video card. Anyway, the Folding thing is a distributed computing project that AOA has taken on. The project studies protein folding in the hopes of a better understanding of the processes that cause various diseases such as Alzheimers Disease and ALS. Here's a link to the folding FAQ. Our team is currently 13th in the world, by sometime next week we should be 12th. We have one of the smaller teams but we are ranked higher than many teams with many more members. Our high ranking is a testament to the dedication of the core members of the group, led by SteveI, Jazz, Kat, et. al. We hope you will join.

[SiGmA_X]

Well, if you are on a $200 budget, take a look at this:
AMD XP1800+ ($94 @ NewEgg.com)
Chaintech GeForce3Ti200 64MB ($106 @ NewEgg.com)

And depending on when you order, you probably will be able to get it all cheaper, or at least the XP1800. The XP1800 has dropped from $110 (OEM) to $94 (OEM) in about a week.

When are you placing your order?

[hoppergrass]

Oh My Goodness Sigma!! Thanks for the Heads Up!! How high do you think the 1800+ will overclock? Do you think it will do 1725Mhz (150x11.5). Because of my RAM Config, my mobo runs fabulous at 150 at Turbo Settings:-D

[hoppergrass]

All In All, a great buddy of mine bought a Radeon 8500 (ATI's Top Dog) two weeks ago. Which is backed up on a Abit KG7 Lite w/t T-Bird 1200. He had that Frog Eating grin the whole time he was here last. Now I'm out for some Friendly Revenge. I figured, for 1, my mobo turns his mobo into a little girl, when it comes down to performance (AMD760 vs KT266A). For 2, a XP1500-1800 processor will cream a old cored T-Bird 1200. Which leaves me for 3, looking for a nice overclocked, mid-high performance vidcard. With that combination, I should be able to shut him down in the Benches next time he comes over. lolololol. And to make a Giant Statement, I will do it with another Vid-Card and Processor that both together, cost less than his vid-card alone!!

[SiGmA_X]

Originally posted by hoppergrass
Oh My Goodness Sigma!! Thanks for the Heads Up!! How high do you think the 1800+ will overclock? Do you think it will do 1725Mhz (150x11.5). Because of my RAM Config, my mobo runs fabulous at 150 at Turbo Settings:-D

I'm sure that it can do 1725. Probably more, because my XP1900+ can do 1704MHz with out any added heat and Spyder'z XP1800+ can do a massive 1.9GHz with only air cooling.

And have fun kicking' your friends computer's @ss!

[SickBoy]

Not a fan of ATi. nVidia has always treated me better. Yeah, you play the "Driver of the Week" game with nVidia but overall their performance and support is outstading compared to those crazy ATi Canucks.

I have a, Abit Siluro GF3 Ti200 card myself, and while I haven't fired it up yet, I already know I will be satisfied.

sb