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If you're
reading this page, chances are you're a PC hardware
enthusiast who is constantly thinking about his (or her)
next upgrade. You may have your heart set on a shiny
new GeForce 4 Ti 4600 or 128MB Radeon 8500 All-in-Wonder,
but you don't have the kind of coin necessary to support
your "hardware addiction". So what are you to do?
Do you continue to save your money until you have enough
cash for the latest and greatest, or do just bite the
bullet and stick with what you have? These are
questions that companies like NVIDIA and ATi try to answer
for you, by introducing mid-range, "mainstream" cards with
most of the features and performance of their flagship
counterparts, at a fraction of the cost.
Today we'll be
taking a look at three such products, the
Apollo
Graphics Devil Monster II Radeon 8500 LE, the
ATi Radeon
8500 LE and an
NVIDIA
GeForce 4 Ti 4200. All three of these products
offer features like pixel and vertex shaders or have dual
monitor support, but they are clocked lower than the
high-end products in their respective company's lineup.
These lower clockspeeds result in lower costs. All three
of these products are priced at or below $200, about half
that of a Ti 4600 or 128MB Radeon All-In-Wonder.
It's time to get up close an personal and see what these
cards are made of...
Apollo
Graphics Devil Monster II Radeon 8500 LE
ATi Radeon
8500 LE
NVIDIA
GeForce 4 Ti 4200
CLICK ANY
IMAGE FOR AN ENLARGED VIEW...
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Specifications and Features |
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Pure Titanium |
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Apollo &
ATi Radeon 8500 LEs
Overview:
- Powered by the
RADEON 8500LE GPU and 128MB of DDR memory
(250MHz Core / 250Mhz.
Memory - ATi) (250MHz. Core / 230MHz. Memory -
Joytech)
- Designed ATI
Technologies Inc.
- Dual display
through video output support
Features:
- Features TRUFORM
technology to make characters more life-like
- High-resolution
32-bit 3D gaming up to 2048x1536
- HYPER Z II
technology conserves memory bandwidth for improved
performance in demanding applications
- SMOOTHVISION,
ATI?s most advanced anti-aliasing feature to date,
eliminates distracting visual artifacts for
smoother-looking images
- Advanced visual
effects
- SMARTSHADER
technology takes advantage of the DirectX 8.1
features to enable more complex and realistic
lighting effects
- Support for OpenGL
1.3 applications
- CHARISMA ENGINE?
II supports full Transformation, Clipping and
Lighting (T&L) at 62.5 million triangles/second
peak processing capability
- PIXEL TAPESTRY II,
the rendering engine, powers an incredible 2.4
gigatexels/second for high fill rates in 32-bit at
high resolutions
- Dual display
support and DVD playback
- Leading-edge
HYDRAVISION technology supports traditional CRT
monitors and TVs
- ATI?s VIDEO
IMMERSION II technology enables integration of
industry-leading digital video features, including
advanced de-interlacing algorithms for
unprecedented video quality
- Use video-out to
connect your PC to TV or VCR for recording
- Industry-leading
video playback
- ATI's VIDEO
IMMERSION II technology enables integration of
industry-leading digital video features, including
advanced de-interlacing algorithms for
unprecedented video quality and integrated digital
TV decode capability
- Includes
programmable gamma for the overlay and Frame Rate
Conversion (Temporal Filtering)
- Hardware DVD saves
the expense of buying a separate MPEG-2/DVD
decoder card and motion compensation allows for
DVD decoding with minimum CPU usage
- HDTV ready
Products designed and built by ATI offer:
- ATI warranty
coverage
- Reliable customer
service
- Driver updates
from ATI.com
- Exclusive ATI
software for optimized performance
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NVIDIA
GF4 Ti 4200
Overview:
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Controller: NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4200
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Bus
Type AGP
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Memory
64MB DDR
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Core
Clock 250MHz
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Memory
Clock 500MHz DDR memory
-
RAMDAC
350MHz
-
API
Support Direct-X, Open GL ICD for Windows
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Connectors VGA, DVI, TV In/Out
NVIDIA
nfiniteFX II Engine:
-
Dual
programmable Vertex Shaders, fast Pixel Shaders
and 3D textures give developers the freedom to
program a virtually infinite number of custom
special effects never seen before and gives you
the power to play true-to-life characters in
hyper-realistic environments. At twice the
performance of GeForce3.
Lightspeed Memory Architecture II:
Accuview
Antialiasing Engine:
TV Out
Jack:
Requirements:
-
266
MHz or higher CPU (AMD K6-2 or Intel Pentium II or
higher)
-
AGP
2.0 Compliant Socket
-
Windows 95 OSR2, 98, ME, NT 4.0, 2000, XP
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64MB
of RAM
Features
at a Glance:
-
AGP 4x
compatible with fast writes
-
256-bit 3D and 2D graphics accelerator
-
NVIDIA
nView display technologies
-
Lightspeed Memory Architecture II
-
Accuview Antialiasing
-
High
Definition Video Processing Engine
-
TV Out
connectors
-
DVI
connector
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The Devil
Monster II Radeon 8500 LE is a 128MB, dual monitor capable
video card from Apollo Graphics based on ATi's reference
design. The card is bundled with an S-Video cable, a
driver CD, a simple user's manual and an adapter plate
that allows users to connect a second analog monitor.
Intervideo's WinDVD software DVD player is also included.
The Devil Monster II's bundle is adequate, but we would
have like to have found a game or two included in the box.
We were excited when we saw the cooling solution that was
installed on the board though. This is the first
Radeon based video card we have received that shipped with
any kind of memory cooling or "enhanced" cooling for the
GPU itself.
The ATi built
Radeon 8500 and NVIDIA GeForce 4 Ti 4200 we received were
both reference designs and did not arrive in full retail
packaging, so we are not able to report on exactly what is
included with the shipping products.
Quality,
Setup and the Drivers
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