GF MX440 & Radeon 9000, which is better?

[rama]

Currently, I only have an old display card with 8M VRAM. Although the demo works more or less ok, I want to buy a low price display card (largely for this game) and need some advice.

Between GeForce MX440 and Radeon 9000 (not PRO), which is 1) more suitable for this game, 2) better in general?

Thanks.

[Schrullenhaft]

For CM your best bet will be the NVidia GeForce4 MX440 you listed. It will offer fog effects that aren't available on the ATI (assuming you're on a PC and not a Mac). Plus FSAA is available in 16-bit color, where it isn't on the Radeon (to my knowledge). Thus the GeForce will have FSAA in CM, while the Radeon won't.

As for which one is better overall, these charts from Tom's Hardware will give you some ideas (they're on the next several pages). The Radeon 9000 tends to do a little better in most benchmarks.

[easytarget]

no contest - nvidia

i just gave away a radeon 9000pro out of disgust

benchmarks never tell the whole story - playing actual games using the card in question is irreplaceable - i've liked every nvidia card i've used and i've hated every ATI card i've used

as you can tell, i feel rather strongly about this

[rama]

Thank you. Most likely, I'll buy a GF4 MX440 for my PC soon. :cool:

[Fionn]

I'm no tech-grog by any means but I will say that I just got a 128mb MX 440 on my new rig and it runs CMBB perfectly ( and quickly).

So, put this down as a non-tech grogs endorsement from a sheer "it looks good and hasn't given me any trouble" point of view

[leakyD]

Hi there-

I was just gonna post and ask what a good card to get was. I love this forum!

One more Q. What's a good brand of GeForce MX440?

I see a bunch on pricewatch, but am not familiar w/ the brands. Cheap is good, but not always best, right? Any suggestions?

Thanks!

[easytarget]

i've had good luck using newegg.com for vid cards

they aren't the cheapest place to get them, but they are competitive and they provide good service and ship quickly

as for cards, i've used quite a few different mfgs over the years and honestly most of them are going off nvidia specs and the performance difference is negligible

if any one of them would come out and make a point of saying they are putting a superior fan on the gpu, one that is not going to wear out in say a year, i'd buy one in a minute - gainward comes closest on this score currently

gainward has what they call gold samples - this means a couple good things - they put heat syncs on the vid memory and they put what to me looks to be a pretty decent heat sync/fan on the gpu - oh, and they select only best yield on the gpu and it comes overlocked with a warranty (which shows how confident they are in the product because usually overclocking is the 1st thing that voids your warranty - these guys not only cover it, they send it to you overclocked and with software for tweaking it)

finally, i've been using a Ti200 for a couple months from these guys - and the software that comes with is good stuff - i actually use the overclocking software to underclock my card so that CM doesn't overwhelm it in big battles due to heat - works well)

check out gold sample MX440's and Ti200's for yourself at:

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduct.asp?submit=manufactory&catalog=48&manufactory=1387&DEPA=1&sortby=14&order=1

[rama]

I'm thinking whether it's better to wait a month or 2 before buying. When the GeForce FX comes out in February, there may be quite a big drop in price for GeForce4 products.

[easytarget]

yep, that happens about every six months judging from the last couple years of product releases from nvidia (and even these days ATI)

so catching the last generation cheaper is only a matter of being patient enough to catch the wave as it comes by every six months or so

the latest wave appears to be just about ready to hit with the release of NV30 only days away - and the next rev of the R300 from ATI probably only a month or so off