Which Card?

[Inu_Yasha]

Ok, which card would you guys reccommend? A radeon 9700 (not pro) or a gf4 4600? I'm open to suggestions, I'm looking at the 4600 because of vivo, but also, I may wait till the new gf fx comes out... But as of now, which would you guys reccommend? I only have a 4x agp if that makes a difference. Thanks.

[ibelevnf8]

Well if you want the GEFX, i think that it has a starting price of about $499

or that's what i have heard so far. I would think that once that card came

out, other cards prices will drop a little. Maybe not. But it's pretty much up

to you.

 

If i were to pick out of those two, i would go with the 4600. But that's

my preference, I'm nvidia all the way.

[TiM]

Radeons is more perspective in fact. Potential overclock limit on GFoxes is less than on Radeons. ATi - my way! B)

[Bassdude1000]

go ati. but really, save the extra 100 bucks and get the pro retail, or get oem and overclock.... its the way to go.. or jsut wait for the fx

[Inu_Yasha]

The one i was looking at is not pro... two reasons: 1) it costs more 2) I don't have a pro agp slot (i don't think). Its just a radeon 9700; also, does anyone know where i can get some benchmarks on a 9700 card and which brand is best (and worst).

[TiM]

Tweakers.net

Tom's Hardware Guide

PC Magazine

ATi Takes Over 3D Technology Leadership With Radeon 9700

[Inu_Yasha]

Ok, now I'm in need of opinions and suggestions and such. Ok, first off, I need someone who has experience with vivo... Is it any good for encoding stuff off a vcr and such? Also, does it encode sound? Next, I need opinions from people who have experience with either ATI or NVDIA cards (or both). I know that the GF's have really good quality, but how about ATI? From the reviews and benchmarks, the 9700 (not pro) beat the 4600, but in picture quality, which would be better?

[mikeock]

Havind used both cards, 9700 and a 4600, i would say for picture quality 9700. Overclocking with a 4600 voltage modded can take it withing the 9700 speeds taht the 9700 cannot overclock past. A guy from work, bought a 9700 and took it back since it does not overclock as well as a 4600. Really this is a personal preference type thing here, i just wanted to make that you got all the info

[DevilMB3017]

In refrence to your question, VIVO will not encode sound, you have to use the Line-In on your I/O ports.

[Inu_Yasha]

so, when you encode using vivo, how do you get sound? Also, I'm not planning on heavily overclocking and i'm not going to do the voltage mod. So which, performance and look wise, would you choose

[TiM]

So... With VIVO you can normally encode VCR's, but not DVDs etc (for better picture try to use Pinaccle systems). Encoding in 3 steps: Encode video using VI, Encode sound using Line-In/Optical-In (your sound card), combining video+sound (video edit programs like Adobe Premiere). VO is also not good enough to use it with pro-level TVs, but watching movies with mine 24" Sony is OK.

 

And Radeon's picture quality is better than GF's (for me) - no special tests. I just have 9700 and 4600 at my work and I like Radeon much more than GF!

[Inu_Yasha]

So then, vivo is really not what its cut out to be? That's the main reason I liked the GF 4's. I'm willing to try the radeons so I may go that route (I used to hate radeons). Is there a way to use vivo from a GF4 card on a radeon?