ATI or Nvida

Both ATI cards Ive owned worked like total crap with WB.

Well, ATI let's you do this:

Or this:

...

Left 4 Dead is running pretty well even on my rig (2gb ddr1 ram, athlon x2 dual core 3600, radeon hd 58580). My main bottleneck right now is the CPU.

And way cheaper than having to buy an external gadget like the TH2G from Matrox.

You will have less headaches with Ndivia's drivers.

Both companies have decent cards.  Used to have to configure my 8400gs alot to get it to display games correctly. I have a 4890 now and havent had to make any adjustments for any game.  You'll just get fanboyism with this thread..  Ati does have eyefinity while nvidia is going 3d.   currently ati's newest card is the fastest if thats what you are looking for.  I will say that nvidias new cards are pretty equal in quality anyway.  I havent seen people have problems with ati's driver sets since the 3000 series(especailly the 3650)   Also ati puts out new drivers alot while nvidia is only quarterly so if you have a problem with a new driver from them expect to wait 3 months for a fix.    but like i said its mostly personal preference since they are both quality companies.

My next computer will probably have an ATI 5770 or 5750 card.

At the moment, I think ATI have the upper hand in terms of cards. There latest range (HD5xxx) is DX11, as you pointed out, and generally speaking the drivers tend to be OK as long as you are just using a single card setup (at least in my experience). Having said that, the number of games on the market that make use of DX11 at the moment is quite limited at the moment and while Eyefinity is a nice feature, multiple monitors will be expensive and there are a few other snags with getting it working.

For me though, the biggest deciding factor on what card to buy is the budget you have to work with. You figure out how much you want to spend on the card and get the best you can for that amount of money.If you have $700 to spend on a card, then I'd go with the ATI HD5970. However, if you only have $500 to spend, then the Nvidia GTX295 is the one to go for (this of course assumes you are aiming for serious power in your card).

My experience: ATI cards run better on machines with AMD processors, and Nvidia cards run better on machines with Intel processors.

That puts a pretty big flaw in the framwork was thinking of getting intel i7 with an ati card.

"My experience: ATI cards run better on machines with AMD processors, and Nvidia cards run better on machines with Intel processors."

What exacly did you based your expierience on?

I say in my expierience Nvidia cards are more tolerant to overlocking and you can push their core more then Ati ones. They also tend to be more quiet and run on lower temperature (when you compare 2 cards with about same specyfications). But atim cards 80% of times are signicantly cheaper. So if you are just casual player who wont overlock it to get 110 fps instead of 100 fps why not save money?

Beside the point Nvidia is yet to release dx 11 cards and when that happends we wil have regular price war which is good thing

So I really recomend you to wait fev more week maybe a full month for nvidia releases and you might save about 20% of the price.

Drivers are issue sometimes but usually we wait up to a week for hot fix which brinks everything back to normal so it's not really an issue. Besides it is very rare.

wow. i've used ati cards for years on rigs with amd 2700, 3200, 3500, and 4000 cpus along with intel rigs with 6600, 8400, and now i-7 860 cpus and have never had an issue with any of them. i've had a radeon 1950, 3870, 4850 (2), 4870 (2), 4890 (2), and now a 5850. i want another 5850 so i can run a crossfire config again. that'll really make my solitaire cards look great! i've also installed a couple gtx-285 cards in this rig but they didn't last very long. i had to hack the inf file in the drivers because the nvida drivers see my monitor as a hdtv instead of a pc monitor. everything is pushed to the left and up about 3 inches. nvidia has known about this issue for at least two years and has yet to address it. there are numerous threads about it on the nvidia forum. it isn't just my monitor. it seems they have problems with certain viewsonic, samsung, and lg monitors. i'm sure there's more but i can't remember what brands were involved. ramble, ramble, ramble. run-on sentence after run-on sentence.

my buddy is running an i7 960 with a 4870x2 with no problems.  alot of times multiple graphics card setups are actually hindered by the motherboard and psu.  make sure they are not only qualified but get at least a bronze rating if going with multiple cards.

both brands have their good points and their not so good points. Choose a card that is in your price range, gives you the performance you want and above all has the best cooling coz modern cards tend to run a wee bit warm.

I have a i7 920 O/C'd to 3.67Ghz with two 4890's in crossfire. Loads faster than a 295 GTX

So far I've had no problems at all

I would have to say the ATI drivers have improved over the years. On the hardware

front ATIs new 5000 series of cards are very good. I've updated 3 of my main systems

with the new cards. One system is running MS Vista Ultimate in crossfire. The other 2

are Win7 Home Premium systems. One has a 5890 and the other has a 5770. All the

systems have the latest 10.2 drivers.

The only systems that have nvidia cards are the linux ones. I still prefer Nvidia

cards for my favorite linux linux distro ... oh an I prefer Gentoo for my linux

distro .. I only use AMD CPUs and chipsets.

ATI or Nvidia?

Both have solid technologies behind them, and yes of course, both will run with a Core I7.

When your talking about video cards from 2 different technologies, but with similar performance.  I firmly believe you get more for your dollar with ATI.

Above quote is completely untrue as a general statement.  As both companies have had these pros and cons depending on the "family" of cards your dealing with.

THE REAL TRICK... once you decide on the video card(s) you want, is to find a quality manufacturer ie. EVGA, HIS, XFX, ASUS, SAPPHIRE...  as not all manufacturers build the same video card the same way, which effects things like voltages and or cooling.

Good luck this this one... and do some more specific technical research than this thread.

personal note - I am a gaming freak with my Core I7 920 and my ASUS 5850.

Comparision of dx 10 cards. As you can see most of times ATI are hotter both during idle and under load compared to their Nvidia partners

Instead of postin ripped toons post somethin that make more sense

I did some research before gettin my 4870. I also was planning to crossfire them but luckily I didnt. I seems now fev major releases this year are all going to be dx 11. So right now there is no point investing in not so newest technology.

DX 11 will allow games to use multicore processors more efectivly.

Current list of dx 11 games:

Aliens vs predator

Bad company 2

Metro 2033

Upcoming titles:

Race driver grid 2

Crysis 2

Dungeon and Dragons Online

Fev more coming soon since dx 11 is used in game engines like:

Cryengine 3 (from crytek makers of crysis)

Vison engine (used in ubisoft games)

I still wait what nvidia will show for dx 11 gaming before upgrading.

PS. March seems to be very intensive in pc gaming. Many titles will/is out:

Bad Company 2

Supreme Commander 2

Assassin's Creed II

Just Cause 2

Command & Conquer 4

The Settlers 7

GTA Episodes from liberity city

ATI. Their drivers suck (only thing ever to crash my Linux system other than faulty hardware), but they offer the best 'bang for the buck' by far, and I've had excellent experiences with their reliability. Wish I could say the same for NVidia though, my 8800GT's and my brother's 7200's deaths still hurt me (my brother's because the cheapskate replaced it with one of my own rather than buy another card).

Nvidia had a big lead over ATI prior to the AMD acquisition, but there have been some changes since then.   ATI has been getting a big influx of engineering talent.   AMD has a big peripherals division, and they're able to share talent and design methodologies across boundaries.  Plus with Freescale Semiconductor laying off big-time (even talented people), AMD has been capitalizing on that a lot.  Nvidia hasn't, even though they've got design centers in a lot of the same cities as AMD. 

One would also think ATI's would work better on AMD CPU's/mobos, because the verification folks can perform all their QA and performance analysis in-house, whereas it requires a coopetition effort between Intel and AMD to verify an ATI on an Intel platform.  But for some reason, that advantage just hasn't made an ATI/AMD platform perceptibly better to end users yet.  I don't know if it's the marketing, the European Commission's antitrust regulation (I'm not too worried about the U.S.'), or if the ATI/Intel configuration is just plain just as good.

My only question is why people overclock. All it does is shorten hardware life.

So they can buy a cheaper card but get the same performance as an expensive one by running it hotter, shortening its life and adding expensive cooling options to try to compensate ultimately costing more for less....;)

It's called 'logic'....;p

I think he means with new systems that don't need it. but it seems people have to be able to say my pc is bigger that yours 

I haven't yet been able to get an overclocked system truly stable.  I've corrupted a few Windows installations in the process.  I just pay for the higher rating anymore. 

I don't think overclocking shortens hardware life as long as components are kept cool enough.  I've never had a CPU burn out, but I once had a video card burn out and it wasn't even overclocked. 

The way I see it today is ATI has the best cards on the market, (5000s). March 26th that may change. The 5000s run cool, are very fast, and use little power. Nvijya g200 cards run alot hotter, use more power, cost more but have way better driver support and they do everything. I'd go ATI if you are gaming primarily, Nvijya if you let you box fold when you aren't using it or you use CS or something like that. Until the 26th, then everything needs to be re-evaluated based on what the GTX480,470 turns out to be and what it costs. I have a pair of 5870s that replaced a pair of GTX260-216s. The 260s aren't anywhere near close to the 5870s performance wise when gaming, but I put them in an old case to let fold to save the world and they turn in 4 times the 5870s folding numbers.

Ask this question again in April and you will have a more definitive answer. Benchmarks for the new nvidia card will be released.  Keep in mind that the new nvidia card is going to be $700 and it will be compared to the  ATI $700 dual gpu 5970.  The nice thing is that you are planning on waiting and the answer will most likley be obvious in a couple of months.

They will release budget versions in the future.  Personally I like love the fact that they release the top end part first then follow up with the less expensive ones.  This gives us early adopters a longer liefspan on the component and we don't have to wait any additional time for it to be released. 

If you are playing in that price range for a video card then the questions will be:

1.  Which card has the best benchmarks and in game framerates?  (My money is on the 5970.... i doubt a single GPU card will be better, although it may be close, see info below.)  Then that brings us to the 2nd question:

2.  To PhysX or not to Physx. 

This is the position i'm currently in.  I had a card burn out on me back in October so i got an inexpensive nvidia 'interim' card.  The 5000 series of ATI cards were announced but not readily available and nvidia hadn't delayed their release of Fermi at that point.  I figured that i could use the interim card for physx if i went with Fermi or i could stick it in an HTPC if i went with the ATI 5000 series.  I've been waiting to play batman AA until i could fully anable physx lol. 

I've only used nvidia cards in my own computers, since the TNT days of yore.  I've used ATI cards for some of the systems i've built at work and my wifes laptop etc.  ATI's cards are good, nvidia cards have just been a bit better when i was purchasing.

As an FYI in regards to SLI / crossfire, it is best to buy the single fastest card that you can afford. For arguments sake, lets assume you have a $400 budget for your vid card.  The $400 video card will outperform (2) $200 videocards.  ie.  the ati 5970 will outperform (2) 5830's.

In any case I found 'some' ***benchmarks***

The GTX480 beats the 5970:

29% in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
61% in Borderlands
25% in Far Cry 2
28% in Resident Evil 5
18% in Media

***HOWEVER I do not believe those numbers at all and suspect that the test were tweaked or adjusted to favor the nvidia card.  One main reason being is that the card isn't being released to the major hardware reviewers.  The GF100 is just 11 days from release.  If this card was the 5970 destroyer that nvidia claims then they would have this card at anandtech, hardocp, toms and similar for benchmarking. In Nvidias defense though most of the time their cards outperformed ATI's.

Here's an interesting article.

http://www.semiaccurate.com/2010/02/20/semiaccurate-gets-some-gtx480-scores/

good luck bro!

j