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GeForce 5 this Fall...

Ok, seems to be some knowledgable folks out there about graphics cards, so i'll pose a question-

I have the Dual gig with GF4MX. So, I also have the annoying "flashing" bug associated "supposedly" to the GF4MX card. My dilema is to-

1)wait for Apple to fix the problem (driver update, etc) and live with the card.
2)get a GF4Ti (which I heard still exhibits the 'flashing"
3)get the 8500
4)wait a few months and get the next card release

Now, 80% of my work is in Photoshop, then DreamWeaver, then email, surfing, ftp, etc. So which is the best card for what I do? What is the best card period? I've seen benchmarks where the GF4MX beats the 8500 repeatedly in certain tests which adds to my confusion.

Hopefully, someone can school me on graphic cards. Also, are there any limits to the ATI 8500 like DVD playback or something?
 
8500

Get the 8500. Its the best card out there.....

I would buy your old card off of you, for I am still with the ATI Rage 128 Pro.

My dad got an 8500, and the thing is flawless.
 
Re: 8500

Originally posted by MacAztec
Get the 8500. Its the best card out there.....

I would buy your old card off of you, for I am still with the ATI Rage 128 Pro.

My dad got an 8500, and the thing is flawless.
Click to expand...

See, two out of two Mac faithful agree... get the Radeon 8500 :D
 
I'm gonna have to look into ATI for my next Mac, since you all seem so adamant about its performance...

BTW- Congrats on 2K Alpha!:D
 
ATI GPU features

For 2D you are better off with the ATI since they have the best copybits performance in the industry. End of discussion there.

Something else I like about the ATI cards is how they are used for DVD decoding. Have you ever used the trick with background colours? (red: 0, green:16, blue:0). Make a background of that colour (and be sure to save it as a format that will preserve the colour attributes), make it your desktop, start a DVD, full screen it, then hide the DVD player app. Voila, you now have the DVD running on your desktop. Not very useful but a neat trick nonetheless.

It is also a cheap card for the power and uses highly portable drivers (for example, try running X11 on a Radeon as opposed to a GeForce). nVidia is a nazi like that. They are one of those "in Microsoft's pocket" companies.

My vote: Radeon!

Jeff.
 
So why do you guys feel the 8500 is better when it lost a lot of tests to the GF3 and some to the GF4MX?

http://www.barefeats.com/graf30.html

I have a cinema display, would that be a problem with the 8500? Also, how will the 8500 stack up to the GF4Ti once it ships?
 
For 2D you are better off with the ATI since they have the best copybits performance in the industry. End of discussion there.
/QUOTE]

Then why did the GF4MX scroll faster then the 8500 in PS? That's why I'm confused. I hear that ATI makes the better 2D card, and that the picture is sharper, but it seems to be slower then what I have now in some tests.
Click to expand...
 
ATI

I have seen many tests. Infact, I saw one comparison with the 7500 Dual and the G4MX. Showed me that ATI was better right there.

The 7500 ranked better performing in all the games, most graphic intensive work, final cut, and some other things.

The only thing that the 4mx beat it in was like shadowing a picture or something.
 
MacAztec, the 8500 gpu is even better then the 7500 gpu, so it should do even better. When the 8500 came out, a magazine (a peecee mag) reviewed it and gave it a 10 out of 10. They even compared it to the top end gf chipset at the time, and the ONLY reason the gf came close was because nVidia had JUST released a driver update. If it wasn't for that, the ATI card would have completely wiped the floor with it.
 
nVidia Loyalist

I got in a little late I guess, but I think it is time we hear from the other camp. While the only experiance I have with ATI on Apple is the card in my TiPB 500. It does a fine job, but I didn't buy the TiPB for gaming. Everything else that I use I will use nothing less than nVidia. This comes from years of building my own computers. In the PC world nothing compares to the speed, and compatibility of nVidia. I'll give you an example:

One of the more recent computers I built, I put in an ATI All-In-Wonder Raedon. I did this because the person I was building for, wanted the flexibility of that "All-In-Wonder." Now I have been building computers for years, and I know what I am doing. While installing, I came accross a huge bug. In Win98, the sound card will not work. I tried 3 different cards: SoundBlaster(SB) Live MP3+, SB Live Platnium 5.1, and SB Audigy MP3+. Not one worked. Put in a different video card, an old TNT2, and all three worked. I must have spent 3 days going through different configurations of puting the Sound card in different slots, using different drivers, not using OEM drivers, absolutly nothing. I gave up and told the person I built it for, that while in Win98, you will not have sound. Fortunatly, he wanted a dual boot system with Win2K as well, and in Win2K, they both worked. I had to disable some features on the ATI card, but at least the sound and video worked.

That was the worst conflict I had with ATI, but not the only one. By the way I did finally trace it down to a 16-bit legesy sound driver. Since Win2K can't use 16-bit drivers, it works.

As for the speed issue, I believe that when they came out(ATI 8500 series) the benchmarks were very close to that of the nVidia GF3 Ti series. On average I believe the ATI cards won out, however remember, that was competing against 5-6 month old technology. Now that the GF4 series is out, I find it hard to believe that ATI cards can hold a candle to them.
 
Hey sturm375, I have heard of problems caused by the motherboards with the new Radeon cards (8500). Personally, only Giga-Byte motherboards will do for me, since they are rock solid and have NO issues with AMD chips. I tried one from Asus last year when I was building my t-bird rig (1.4GHz) and the thing wouldn't even show the booting screen correctly. Switched to the Giga-Byte GA-7DXR mobo and it works flawlessly. I even updated the bios to accept the XP2100+ chip (which is now on the mobo). This is not the first Giga-byte board I have used, and I have to say, each and every one that I have used is rock solid. This one uses DDR memory (PC2100) which makes it even nicer. It does have sound on it, but I disabled that and went with a Soundblaster Audiogy card (firewire port on it even).

I'd suspect the mobo you chose had more then a little to do with the problems with the video card... Also, which all-in-wonder did you install?? Did you go cheap and just get the Radeon, or did you go new and get one of the 7500/8500/8500DV models??? I never skimp when there are better cards out. If you go with the old model, you really only have yourself to blame. PLUS, I would NEVER install w98 onto a new system... win2k or Linux (even though I have yet to do linux).
 
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