Wich video card?

weboneando

weboneando

1
I´m assembling a new pc for games with parts that have been left around and now have to decide between this two cards:

- Leadtek A250TD wich has 128mb and Geforce Ti 4200 AGP 4X
- Pixelview PV-N36XA with 256mb and Geforce FX5700LE AGP8X

Wich one would you recommend that I should use? the only porpouse of the pc is gaming.
 
spottydog

spottydog

1
The FX 5700LE


Graphics Processor Nvidia GeForce FX 5700LE
Graphics Processor Codename NV36
Graphics Core Clock Speed 270MHz
Pixel Pipelines 4
Texture Units Per Pixel Pipeline 1
Vertex Units 3
Pixel Shader Version 2.0+
Vertex Shader Version 2.0+
Installed Video Memory 128MB
Memory Technology DDR SDRAM
Memory Clock Speed 200MHz
Memory Bus Width 128-bit
Primary RAMDAC Clock Speed 400MHz

Graphics Processor Nvidia GeForce4 Ti 4200
Graphics Processor Codename NV25
Graphics Core Clock Speed 250MHz
Pixel Pipelines 4
Texture Units Per Pixel Pipeline 2
Vertex Units 2
Pixel Shader Version 1.3
Vertex Shader Version 1.1
Installed Video Memory 128MB
Memory Technology DDR SDRAM
Memory Clock Speed 222MHz
Memory Bus Width 128-bit
Primary RAMDAC Clock Speed 250MHz
:)
 
L

LTR12101B

1
Looks like you have to go with the FX5700LE... It's got 256Mb and it's directX9 (Pixel shader 2.0) hardware.

The Ti4200 is only directX 8 hardware (pixel shader 1.3 or 1.4) - though it may well be faster in DX7/DX8 use - it depends how badly limited the 5700LE (limited/light edition) is.

The "full" 5700 is more powerful than a 4200, so unless they've "lite'd" it to death, any cutback is more than compensated by the DX9 hardware capability.
 
L

LTR12101B

1
3dmark has been marred by cheating, to the point that few reviewers still use it, but it is convenient - there are timetrial modes in a lot of ganme demo's - Aquamark is one that springs to mind.
3Dmark 2003 would be the one to go for on this class of card, and comparing Nvidia to Nvidia, the driver cheating doesn't matter.

A brief history of 3Dmark has some interesting pointers...
1. The 99/2000 era - tests were DX6, maybe even DX5
2. 2001 - 3 tests were DX7 (capable of running on DX6 hardware using software T&L), one required DX8
3. 2003 - 1 DX7 test, 2 DX8 tests, 1 DX9 test
The 2005 version (I'm not really keeping up on them), is likely to major in DX9 - and these tests DO echo the high end gaming of the period.

Basically though, the Geforce 4 Ti 4200 is the very creditable bottom level of what was probably Nvidia's finest range of cards (excluding the marketing con trick that was the 4 MX), but it's a DX8 card,
The 5700LE is a light/midrange DX9 card.

If you're looking back to DX7/DX8 game support, the Ti4200 is the stronger.
If you're looking forward to DX9 (beginning to become more important now), then the 5700LE is the only choice.

Between an adequate DX9 card, and an excellent DX8, I'd be inclined to go with the DX9 solution, as it looks forward, not back.
 
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