NVIDIA's GF4 Ti4200 Vs. Radeon 8500LEs
From Apollo Graphics and ATi

Mainstream Graphics Cards Do Battle...

By - Marco Chiappetta
April 11, 2002


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...

Specifications and Features
Pure Titanium

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, ATIs 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
  • ATIs 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

NVIDIA GF4 Ti 4200

Overview:

  • Controller: NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4200

  • Bus Type AGP

  • Memory 64MB DDR

  • Core Clock 250MHz

  • Memory Clock 500MHz DDR memory

  • RAMDAC 350MHz

  • API Support Direct-X, Open GL ICD for Windows

  • 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:

  • With 128-bit DDR Lightspeed Memory Architecture II provides nearly double the memory bandwidth of GeForce3.

Accuview Antialiasing Engine:

  • High-performance, high visual quality at high frame rates.

TV Out Jack:

  • TV Out connector allow you to play on any size TV in your house with an s-video connector.

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

  • 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

 

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