Replying to Video Card Battle: ATI vs. N-Vidia

8 series is good, but I compared them yesterday I still vote for ati :) and its cheap too :D, I compared them with games and other 3d graphic eatter applications still ati stands with out a prob on the other hand

nvidia give me some other issues with the graphics like wow new map in the game coz of messed up graphics like lines and stuff like that lol

well I still say ati is better if you want power and save money but I'm not a nvidia hatter I got an 8 series on my other pc :)

-drigger

I choose NVIDIA over ATI, mainly because of the Linux compatibility and that I trust NVIDIA as that's the first card I got with my first computer.

xboxrulz

Unless people have way too much money to burn, there really isn't a point to getting an 8 series card from Nvidia. But for those people who want to spend around 400 on a graphics card, the 8800 GTS cards are pretty nice. Personally, I like Nvidia better than ATI. ATI hasn't exactly had the best deals on graphical power when you consider the price.
No matter what graphics card people get, they almost always forget to get better cpus, ram, and hdds. Most people just settle with normal IDE. If anyone wants faster responses from games, a crappy IDE connection isn't going to cut it, try going for SATA or SCSI (thats what i have).

Also don't forget young gamers, your graphics card isn't going to speed up your games load times.

It's the time your hard disk(s) and cpu(s) take to load that data into memory and make use of it that affects loading times (internet connection can also come into play on multiplayer games).

Yeah the 8 series, but idk if youve noticed but there RIDICULOUSLY expensive. Sure Nvid has the leading edge now but thats because it was a suckerpunch to the attention that ATI was getting from the consumer-friendly 1k series.

Look at it the way they do, there in it for money, not to make the world a better place with mind-blowing graphics, and the entire point of buisness it capitalism. And as we all know the point of capitalism is selling the best product for the best price. There ARE limits to that of course, which is the consumer. For example, just cause a v10 lambo is being sold at the LOWEST price of 340,000, doesnt mean thats what everyone will buy, but if theres say a honda civic that performs great for 18,000,, alot more will buy that,

How it transfers over is that although Nvidia is ripping innovation a new one, ATI have realized that simply racing Nvidia in innovation WONT bring in the big bucks, what can however is lurking in the wake of Nvid's innovation and using the "yesterdaY" ideas to invest in cards that catch more intrest from your everyday 1grand gamer. not from the 3k gearheads that put out a second mortgage for new hardware.


So yeah, to say that Nvidia is better than ATI is true, is true as far as advancement goes, but ATI has taken the lead in applying to your average consumer.

And the reason Crossfire is not as popular is that motherboard producers did not see "crossfire" as the more appealing thing on the box, because in thier opinion that wasnt the best multi-GPU interface. Through my own research and experience, it really is a much better interface. Nvidia, like all the tech of thiers rushed through its production, and saved it for after release to correct some of the more minor flaws, while crossfire was tested throroughly, which contributed to its later release than SLi. And without decent mother board producers taking enough pride in it to incorporate into thier decent motherboards, it never really got the boost it needed.

Ummm, I'm pretty sure nVidia is in the 8 series now no (and has been for awhile)?

i agree, yu should remake this topic as a poll

im a HUGE gamer, everygam that anyone has ever said was good i have played (unless vid card hasnt let me)

i currently have an ATi RADEON 9200 SE that is 5 years old (se = crippled on top of that) and it ran some of the new games like gta series, warrock (kinda nicely, took ages to load cause the mapping bugs)
and it could even run WoW and very nicely indeed (with SOME options off)

but im a gamer, the way ATi's cards (even the newest ones) render and operate is best for someone who like a mixed genre, who works alot and in breaks he plays, not new but decent/old classic games.

i am getting a PNY n-VIDIA GeForce 7800 GS 256 VRAM. unlike the other 7800's it comes with a fan.

i prefer n-VIDIA over ATi as im a gamer and the time taken to load good new games like warrock is un bareable for me anymore (5-10 mins to load the actual game as in get you to the main screen where you may connect to the game then it takes arounds 15-20 mins to load a Battle Group map (plkanes, heli's cars bikes) aorund 3-5 mins for an Urban Ops (deppending on maps, some like harbour have no vehicles)

and for close combat it takes 1-3 mins

i hate coming into a game last as is thye case with warrock my best FPS game right now.

My uncle has an ATi X1 and says he'd give it to me for gtaming but its way better for programming and things alike, hes makes vids and stuff and his machine runs faster than those of the bbc news computers.
(providing he baufght alot of mem sticks too and had abpou 20 100mb sticks of ram added now he has a pwnt box at the side of his puter )

I vote for n-VIDIA as im a huge gamer

KDEWolf, I have to disagree about your AGP/PCI-E support and long term support section. NVIDIA still produces cards in the 7xxx series for AGP. 7xxx being their latest series, they still support people in older architecture. ATI, however has ditched AGP support on their X series, which is the equivalent or under NVIDIA GeForce 7xxx series.

Even in driver support, they just recently removed anything under GeForce 3 a couple months back. However, ATI dropped support for the 8xxx series long ago. Which, this series is a later series than the GeForce 3 series.

xboxrulz

I have GeoForce that came with my lapop, and I like it, but I don't really know much about this whole thing. I'm not a big gamer, so the main tax on my Nvidia card is using the multiple desktops it allows me to have. BTW BitShift

Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning.

That has to be a VERY popular signature! I have seen it many times on different forums.

This battle depends highly upon how do you use it, but not in a simple way. I made an extensive research some time ago to buy my brother a new video card, and discovered some interesting things. I'll divide this into some 'sections' I find important.

Long run compatibility / driver support:

N-Vidia's top edge video cards, from their release to like maybe 2 years later are well supported with drivers and optimization. After this period, they usually 'forget' the older cards. This might be a problem if, like me, you don't have much money and/or can't buy new PCI-E video cards due to motherboard compatibility (and no money to buy a new one, of course). BUT nowadays NVidia is being tricky and supporting many game makers, and so optimizing games (World of Warcraft, for example) for being run in their cards, what can be nice in the future.

On the other hand, ATI's video cards are widely supported and optimized even 3 or 4 years after their release. Sure they're not as important to the developers, but still you get a longer lifetime. Myself used to have an ATI Rage Pro (8Mb on-board card, insanely old), and it did run even Warcraft 3 quite well, tough in 1024x768 it had a little lag after some time.

Short run / Teh r0XX0rz video card:

For bleeding-edge new video cards, it will depend on what's happening on the screen, and what are you looking for on it . Basically nowadays, ATI has the most powerful hardware for single-card solutions, but their drivers are not as mature as NVidia's, which end up by having more trustworthy drivers and better technology. For multi-card solutions, NVidia has a big advantage here, since SLI nowadays can beat Crossfire easily, mainly because of not-so-good ATI drivers. But this can be worked on the future, so let's not take immediate conclusions.

One curious thing I found out, is that playing games in resolutions smaller than (roughly) 1280x960, ATI has advantage. From (roughly) this resolution on, NVidia beats ATI as easily as bigger the number of pixels on the screen.

My conclusions:

If you have plenty money, NVidia's SLI multi-card solution is currently the best deal. For single-card, I'd go ATI for mainly performance, and NVidia for 'quality', let's say.
For mid-level cards, I think it's a draw. Both brands have their equivalent cards, and it's up to you to find out what's best to fulfill your needs.
For low-end, I'd go ATI all the way.

You must keep in mind that usually ATI drivers develop more slowly, but have better long-run support. NVidia has better drivers nowadays, tough not as much powerful hardware. If ATI overcomes these driver issues, Crossfire could beat SLI, and probably would be more of a deal. But if you *really* has to play games at 2048x1536, and has enough money to support this need, NVidia would be a better choice.

I hope this can help people. Just don't trust my judgment 100% and come here later telling that X didn't do Y with Z card's drivers... As you can see, research is always the best thing to do before buying anything.

[edit] By the way, anyone willing to donate an old regular PCI card is pretty much welcome. =) I can't stand this GF2 anymore... Old stuff here, you see...