Dunno man, but I would go for the GeForce 4. The ATI looks like a GF4 killer on paper, but in practice it's hindered by retarded driver support. However this used to be the case some weeks ago, problems seem to be minimal with the new driver release from ATI.
 
In terms of raw performance, the Ti4600 IS the king of the hill in today's terms, no doubt about it. And since it's same price as the ATI, it should be a no-brainer.
 
I am personally waiting for the GF4 Ti4200, Im on a tight budget, and it would make a good upgrade from my actual GF2-MX400

For what its worth; go with the Nvidia. Myt reasoning is that because Nvidia has a huge share of the graphics card market, most games & software is developed on and made for Nvidia. ATI support is sort of an add-on.
 
Like palos I'm waiting for the 4200 to become an off-the-shelf item, then we'll see what happens to the 4400 and 4600 prices and buy which one feels like a decent deal. I' guess we're talking July/August shopping here.
 
H.

Well
 
Got the Geforce 4 - 4600 Ultra
 
leadtek one
 
so far so good,
 
did 3dmark though, and only got a score of 7128
 
thought it woould be higher
 
 
(Asus P4S333 / P4 1.4 @ 1.61 / 512 pc2100 /IBM deskstar 20g/ Leadtek geforce 4 - 4600 Ultra)

ofcourse do not go with the nvidia card
 
this is why...
 
 
although those cards r "good" now they r relatively the same, but in 6 mothns they will hardly be worth talking about, and in a year they won't even be menioned.
 
all in all, you will be left with pretty much 2 cards of the same generation performance for games, maybe the nvidia will give you 39FPS and ATI37FPS or 36FPS ("blown away" not)
 
BUT the Ati card will have all these other extras for u to enjoy
-remote control
-live DVD capture at 720x640 resolution @30fps per sec
-the best vid in
-BY FAR the best vid out. I have the 8500 and man the vid out is unbeliavable. just amazing. Ofcourse the desktop fonts are not clear but that is the faiult of the tv, on plasma it is cristal clear.
-also the drivers for ATI are much superiror in design!! Everything is so easy to use. U have one little icon by the clock and id DEAS everything for you BIM BAM, no fidelling arround in advanced this or that and all that bull **** like with the NVIDIA cards.
 
-second, it has hyperview, and you can use 2 monitors at the same time to do diff ****. Again all controlled by the litle icon. When you see how they intergate it all together it is just amazingingly well designed.
 
 
 
those features are far more important than the extra 3 or 4 frames in TESTS...
 
 
finally, toms benchmark means nothing!! It is just a matter of optimizing the drivers for those few games that he and all the rest of the internet uses (copy him) to test. it is always the same games. There r a lot of sories out there about the tricks each use to optimize for quackeIII and aquaworld and all that ****.
 
So testresults r one thing, but totaly diff from real world. Jedi was a god example, as soon as they use a game that that was a suprise (not used before) to benchmark look what happens...
 
Also if u want to be ignorant, ATI is the king of 3d mark 2001, and has been for some time. Not that it means anything.

Geforce 4.
 
 
Why buy a card that puts you behind from the start >>>>ATI

Is gaming important to you? If yes, go GeForce4.
Is gaming slightly important to you? If yes, go GeForce 4.
Video and workstation work? ATI.

Whats the deal with the new Matrox cards that will be coming out soon then? I'm currently running a Dual Monitor system using a GF2MX card so i'm interested in their new cards coming out as their dual monitor support is very good so I've seen.

nice game cracks
 
 
ati 8500 is better than ti500. that is why it is called the gfoce killer.
 
do not compare a 4600 to the 8500. it is stupid.
 
compare the ati radeon 10,000 to the 4600 and again u know why the new generation radeons are kalled the geforce killers.
 
they totally destroy nvdia!
 
so if gaming is important to u get ati, if u just need basic workstation tghink to get a pictre on ur monitor get a 4600.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
oh yes. i forgot to say. got a 3d mark 2001 score of 10,150.
got radeon 8500, the ultimate overcklocker!
 
 
if u don't believe it go to 3d mark and do a search, everyone is getting 10,000 plus with this card! Way faster than 4600, and it is not even mean't to compete against it.
 
the new 10000radeon model is ati response to geforce 4, and is crazy power.

No, the 4600 is faster than the 8500. IF that's what you say is a basic workstation card, you're nuts. The 8500 is a good card, make no mistake, but saying it is faster than the 4600 at stock speeds is not correct. 310/310 is some of the more extreme overclocks for the 8500, up from a 275/275. My GF3 hits 250/571 up from 200/460 stock. The 8500 OC's nicely, but it's not the highest in terms of the major overclock numbers. You're padding the 8500 too much. If any GF4 Ti, it's closer to the Ti4200 (not that it's a bad thing).

Whats the deal with the new Matrox cards that will be coming out soon then
 
There is definately something happening at camp Matrox although what exactly we are not sure.
We have been through this a while ago and the end result was the G550, although a good card in it's own right was not what we were expecting.
If only half of the rumours surrounding the next card from Matrox are true then we are about to see a new "King of the graphics cards".
 
Matrox do not run on a six month product cycle like other companies and it has been a while since something truely new was released by them.
All indications are that something will be announced within the next couple of weeks, until then any specifications you read are just rumour, but with so many of these rumours being alike we have to assume that at least some of them are true.
If you pop along to http://www.matrox.com/mga/home.htm you will see Matrox have added a new Flash into which reads "Coming May 14th".
Some of the rumours and expected specifications include DirectX 9 support (Microsoft have been using Matrox hardware to demonstrate DirectX 9 at shows), Pixel Shaders and Vertex Shaders 2.0, Displacement Mapping, 40bit colour, 512bit 2D Graphics core, 256MB DDR SDRAM, 256-bit bus-width, 400Mhz RamDac etc
 
A lot of us are waiting to see what Matrox can produce, they still offer the best 2D and general image quality of any cards available on the market from any manufacturer.
Matrox were the first to develop Dual Head displays and their technology is still the industry leader in this field.
Matrox have relatively good driver support and lastly you know what they release will not be replaced after you've only owned it for 6 months.
Personally if the specifications ring true I shall be there and I'll be getting one as soon as they are released.

Quote:
Whats the deal with the new Matrox cards that will be coming out soon then

There is definately something happening at camp Matrox although what exactly we are not sure.
We have been through this a while ago and the end result was the G550, although a good card in it's own right was not what we were expecting.
If only half of the rumours surrounding the next card from Matrox are true then we are about to see a new "King of the graphics cards".

Matrox do not run on a six month product cycle like other companies and it has been a while since something truely new was released by them.
All indications are that something will be announced within the next couple of weeks, until then any specifications you read are just rumour, but with so many of these rumours being alike we have to assume that at least some of them are true.
If you pop along to http://www.matrox.com/mga/home.htm you will see Matrox have added a new Flash into which reads "Coming May 14th".
Some of the rumours and expected specifications include DirectX 9 support (Microsoft have been using Matrox hardware to demonstrate DirectX 9 at shows), Pixel Shaders and Vertex Shaders 2.0, Displacement Mapping, 40bit colour, 512bit 2D Graphics core, 256MB DDR SDRAM, 256-bit bus-width, 400Mhz RamDac etc

A lot of us are waiting to see what Matrox can produce, they still offer the best 2D and general image quality of any cards available on the market from any manufacturer.
Matrox were the first to develop Dual Head displays and their technology is still the industry leader in this field.
Matrox have relatively good driver support and lastly you know what they release will not be replaced after you've only owned it for 6 months.
Personally if the specifications ring true I shall be there and I'll be getting one as soon as they are released.

Yes I was impressed with the G450 I used on my summer placement last year. I'm not impressed with the dual monitor support of the GF2MX i'm using at the moment so getting a fast video card with better duel monitor support is what exactly what i'm looking for. I'll have to watch out for the Matrox cards when they come out ...

Details on the new Matrox card will be announced May 14th, according to an e-mail I got from them yesterday.
 
The new card can be alot, but it is unlikely to shake Nvidias Ti4600 position as the No 1 gamers choice.
 
ATI starts remainding me of Apple and Linux, its a religion for their users. And now we have some true believers among us, Hallelujah.
 
H.

If the now "rumoured on many sites" specifications for the G1000/Parhelia ring true it will blow anything currently on the market from NVidia & ATI out of the water and then some.

I think it might actually surpise us when its released, thing is i know matrox drivers are usually good but they havent really done a performance card in ages and i just hope they can produce this time Tis a shame when good hardware gets wasted by bad drivers.

Quote:
Tis a shame when good hardware gets wasted by bad drivers.

Yeah like the ATI Rage Pro and Rage 128.
Anyways, this new Matrox product looks impressive, I was a big fan of the Millennium line and my uncle use to own a Mystique, some fine 2D imagery and color quality there.

Hell yeah, I'd be delighted to go back to Matrox, their 2D picture was always better than the competition. But I'd be surprised to see tests confirm that they - out of the blue - come with a card that surpasses Nvidas 3D performance. Besides, they'd have to work magic on drivers too, for the last two-three years games were more or less developed to run well on Nvidias chip (and the other way around).
 
H.

Definitely, all developers recently have used GeForce class video cards in their development machines. Although I am sure they have put in Radeon boards too, but Matrox is a bit out of the loop here and will need to really make a big splash to win back fans and win over Nvidia users.

Just because Matrox haven't had anything new to market for a while doesn't mean they have been sat around doing nothing.
The G400 was the last truely new card, the G550 was just a variation on it.
There have been rumours a plenty for the past two years and it would appear that this card has been some three years in development.
They would not dare release a card that wasn't at least as good as the current "top of the range" cards.
 
Matrox have always been in favour with those demanding the very best image quality on screen and those that require advanced dual-head controls, I've only really bought in Matrox based systems for work over the past year, unless really heavy graphics work was required.
 
I really think a lot of people are going to be suprised come the 14th when this card is at last announced.
More so they will be suprised how quickly this card comes to market too.

Should be intresting to see...

Well i think this is gonna be a big suprise hopefully