Video Card Battle: ATI vs. N-Vidia time to revive the old battle

[CarolinaBlues 0]

my old laptop had an ati...it was an older card and being in a laptop, it wasnt that great. most of my friends use nvidia and they love them. and recently i started upgrading one of my old desktops for a gaming computer. and i bought a cheap nivida geforce 5200 fx with 128mb for only 65 bucks on tiger direct. the thing is awesome, i can run hl2 at full and it only lags once in a while (not even around water). then i upgraded my ram to 512 so i installed doom3 and it can run at pretty high graphics (not full - more like medium) and it wont lag at all. i love this card, and it only cost me 65 bucks. and yeah i know i coulda gotten a 5500 for only 15 bucks more...but i have money issues (like most of us...right?)...i installed all of my games right away after i got it too, to see how good they all run on the system now...all of them look soo much better and run soo much faster. i love it

I so agree

[Grafitti 0]

simply put: Nvidia =stabilityAti = performanceof course the differences are relatively minor, and for most things you probably wouldn't notice any difference. You have to research what you're getting though, as several of the radeon series have been bellyfloppers in the performance arena. Pick a card you like, and research the reviews on it, people's experiences, etc. and you'll get a pretty good feel whether or not it's a winner.

[Killer008r 0]

[by Grafitti]"simply put: Nvidia =stabilityAti = performance"Thats not entirely true. Since the releace of the Gforce 7800 Nvidia has not only blown the performance/statibility records off the charts. Right now the 7800 GTX is probaly the most stable and best performing card that will come out untill they releace the next Gforce (or Nforce)

[pyost 0]

I have always prefered ATI. I don't know why, but I usually don't like better things Actually, I've never had an NVidia in my life! First I had a Sunergy or something like that. Then I don't know what (it was not nvidia), then ati radeon 8500, and now ati radeon 9600xt. It is good enough for me, because it is enough. I'm a quite big Half-Life fan - and it works better on ATI :PI don't think I'll ever take NVIDIA, they boast too much...

[James_K 0]

hahah I cant belive this is back again Well I bet once ATI releas's it's 1000 series it's just going to smash Nvidia but now that ATI has declared it's soon to be release no doubt that Nvidia is going to make a comeback, with it's comeback, and just smash Ati's so basically it's a never ending battle just like this subject it's never ending it's going to go on and on so I dont think it's who's better it's just who's better during what time period

[James_K 0]

hahah oops forgot to mention the crossfire and SLI war, well yah right now crossfire seems to suck and SLI is winning but give it time have you noticed how ATI didn't come out with a big sign saying we've released crossfire? Maybe that was for a reason the big christmas boom is coming and all companys want a taste of that so they released the sort of beta version of it but after the fix all the bugs and kinks I'm sure it'll make a good canadate against SLI

[NoRegrets 0]

nVIDIA and ATI will alwais be in the competitionone time, nvidia is on the lead and the other time ati is on the leadbut it seems that ATI's X1900 XTX kicks Nvidia's 7800 GTX 512but most of the people and me 2 loves more GeForceeven if im using and ati radeon ... )

[Chesso 0]

Topics fairly old, but why not (another one will most likely pop up sooner or later *sigh*).I personaly like nVidia, I have had good experiences with the 7 I have had. The 4 ATI cards I have had were ok, but 2 of them died recently out of nowhere *shrugs*.The 4 ATI cards were pretty low end though like 9250's and such.The nVidia cards ranged from a uhhh....... T2 or some such (can't remember exactly, it was a 16mb card) up to a 5500. All of them are alive and well

[BitShift 0]

I have usually favored NVIDIA.Mostly because they make it easier to understand their series and its easy for you to find which card is better.Like they have Geforce Series 1,2,3,4,5,6, and 7 basically. And in each series you identify which card is better by how high its number is. ( Like Geforce 7800 is better then 7300 ).I have noticed that ATI has made it difficult to identify which series is better because theyo do not have a secure system on how they name their series and cards. You can correct me if I am wrong but even if they do have a naming system it is very poorly laid out.I have bought NVIDIA for years but I just recently bought an ATI X1600PRO because I got a huge discount on it (got it for $120). It has amazed me with its capabilities. In all my games full graphics at any resolution I want.I also found that the drivers on the CD were actually the newest drivers available. NVIDIA always seems to give you their older CD's and then tell you that it is best if you go to their website and download their newest ones.NVIDIA does seem to work better with Linux however, I don't have any personal experience on that because my Linux computer only has a NVIDIA card in it ( because it is AGP and my ATI card is PCI-E ), but from what I've heard that is the case.I don't think there is any better vendor, they all have their strengths/weaknesses. NVIDIA seems better at advertising their cards so that also seems like it has been helping them ( same thing with AMD vs Intel and their processors ).All in all they both make awesome cards that can handle the most stunning graphics.

[xboxrulz1405241485 0]

I always favoured NVIDIA, even though ATI is cheaper, especially in Canada (since ATI is a Canadian company)... but I talk about overall performance. NVIDIA has the best driver you can find for video cards. It's pixel shader is top notch too. However, ATI beats NVIDIA in speed. However, when it comes to graphics, I think speed is not as important as quality.The best thing about NVIDIA is that they support many UNIX operating system like Linux, Solaris and BSD.xboxrulz

[KDEWolf 0]

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...

Edited August 19, 2006 by KDEWolf (see edit history)

[Pharoah 0]

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.

[xboxrulz1405241485 0]

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

[FireSign 0]

i agree, yu should remake this topic as a pollim 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 minsi 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

[Chesso 0]

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

Edited January 23, 2007 by Chesso (see edit history)