For a while there, the graphics-card market was getting a bit boring. We had Nvidia's GeForce3 sitting alone at the top of the heap, with a correspondingly high price tag. Nvidia also had a big entry-level winner in the GeForce2 MX, while other GeForce 2s slugged it out with ATI's Radeon cards in the midrange. Add a few fringe players or dark horses like the Kyro II, and you had the market pegged.

This scenario has changed significantly over the past month or two. First, ATI made waves by announcing its new Radeon 7500 and 8500, which pushed the envelope at both the mid- and high-priced levels. Then Nvidia fired the next salvo, revamping and renaming its graphics accelerator chips with the new Titanium line -- the GeForce2 Ti, GeForce3 Ti 200, and GeForce3 Ti 500. Suddenly the video landscape has shifted, competition is once again rampant, and it's a great opportunity for anyone looking to update his or her PC's graphics card.

The two big boys on the block are definitely Nvidia's GeForce3 Ti 500 (available in cards like VisionTek's Xtasy 6964) and ATI's Radeon 8500 (which powers ATI's card of the same name). Each aims for the lucrative high end of the hardcore gaming and home entertainment markets, and each has its inherent pros and cons.

The GeForce3 Ti 500 is basically a higher-clocked GeForce3, coming in at a core speed of 240MHz with memory running at 500MHz DDR; in the old days, Nvidia would just slap an Ultra suffix on the card, but under the new Titanium rules the numerical rating 500 is used. Since it sits at the peak of Nvidia's product line, it comes with a high price tag; GeForce3 Ti 500 cards start at around $330 and can reach $375 or more depending on the brand name or extra features included.

ATI Gets Ambitious

The Radeon 8500 is a different kind of release, since it's based on an entirely new core design. ATI now matches the four rendering pipelines of the GeForce (up from the original Radeon's two), while actually decreasing the texture units per pipeline from three to two (again, coming in line with Nvidia's designs and probably the lack of developer support for the Radeon DDR's third TMU).

The 8500 is clocked at 275MHz for both its core and its 64MB of DDR memory, but as in the case of AMD versus Intel, comparing graphics cards using only megahertz is the wrong way to go. The Radeon 8500 also adds DirectX 8 and 8.1 hardware support, along with a few new or enhanced features focusing especially on image quality -- smoother 3D surfaces and fancier lighting effects -- rather than raw frame-rate speed. The Radeon 8500 has also profited from aggressive pricing strategies, and can be found for under $250 for a retail card. Be very careful buying OEM versions, since ATI has confirmed the existence of white-box 8500s with lower clock speeds.

The Radeon 7500 is more in line with the new Nvidia releases, in that is shares quite a bit with the previous Radeon design -- basically taking the previous-generation Radeon core and adding goodies like a faster memory controller and support for dual-monitor output. Oh yes, and shrinking the core process from 0.18 to 0.15 micron for an incredible boost in speed, from the original 183/183MHz (core/memory) of the Radeon DDR to a whopping 290/230MHz for the 7500. Can you say, "all-out assault on the value segment"?

At 290MHz, the Radeon 7500 is actually higher-clocked than its 8500 sibling, but as we noted above is not a competitor in terms of raw performance. The Radeon 7500 is far more suited to compete against the various Nvidia GeForce2 products and give ATI a viable entry in the entry-level and middle markets. Prices also reflect this, as retail boards can be found in the $160 range.

Naturally, Nvidia didn't let the release of the Radeon 7500 go unnoticed, and has loaded up its product line with new mid-range and value chips. Possibly its most important new release is the GeForce3 Ti 200. Who hasn't looked longingly at the GeForce3, but been brought back to Earth by the high prices? Well, Nvidia has decided to throw us a bone: The GeForce3 Ti 200 includes the exact same hardware and feature set of the generic GeForce3, but is clocked a bit lower at 175MHz core (down from 200MHz) and 400MHz DDR (down from 460MHz) memory.

These lower megahertz ratings may put you off initially, but remember that using the words "lower clocked" to describe any GeForce3 is a very relative affair. The Ti 200 easily outperforms any GeForce2 solution, especially as resolutions are increased. You also get all of the 3's DirectX 8 hardware goodies, as well as enhanced antialiasing performance, and all at a price of around $175.

While emphasizing the GeForce3 family, Nvidia hasn't entirely forgotten the GeForce2 core. The new GeForce2 Ti is basically a combination of the GeForce2 Ultra's 250MHz core speed and the GeForce2 Pro's 400MHz memory, filling a niche between the performance levels of both products. This wouldn't be news at all if not for the new chip's bargain-basement pricing; new GeForce2 Ti boards can be found for as little as $113, which makes the GeForce2 Ultra and Pro (to say nothing of the slower GeForce2 MX) virtually obsolete.

Pick a Winner

Besides speed and price, the factor that should loom large in your mind is the driver situation. The GeForce3, GeForce2, and Radeon 7500 architectures are not new, and their drivers have been through a few revisions since release, but the Radeon 8500 is a totally new design, and its initial drivers will definitely need some further tweaking to match the stability and relative performance of other offerings. In fact, some features of the Radeon 8500 will only be activated by future driver releases.

For now, online forums offer plenty of jeers about ATI's history of subpar drivers and the 8500's initial (albeit narrow) losses to its Nvidia rivals in brute-force benchmark speed, but ATI has publicly and emphatically promised to be more competitive in the driver wars as well as superior in image quality. The contest has just begun.

So the market is shaken up and we have a boatload of intriguing video options, each with its own set of pros and cons. For DVD playback, ATI still rules the roost, while 3D gamers will still be best served with a GeForce3. The Radeon 8500's aggressive pricing, however, does make it a very powerful entry for high-end, general-purpose computing, while both the Radeon 7500 and GeForce2 Ti offer unprecedented levels of power and features to the entry-level bargain buyer.

There are really no bad picks when it comes to this crop of video cards, but one product tends to leap out from the pack: From where I'm sitting, the GeForce3 Ti 200 can't be beat. Its price-performance ratio is simply astounding, and the small speed penalty compared to higher-end GeForce3 boards is well worth its significant savings. While great for buyers, the GeForce3 Ti 200 in some ways seems almost too good to be true. Maybe Nvidia got an early dose of the holiday spirit, or just got good and scared about the newly aggressive ATI? Either way, this is one gift horse I'm not going to look in the mouth.