Comparison: ATI and Nvdia

Comparison thread, a little thing I thought of to show which is more preferred and which is better.

Speak your mind out, and for all I care blow it to bits.


note: I'll be joining in once a stable discussion is formed.

Well, i don't actually know much about the exact statistics and stuff, but i really prefer Nvidia over ATI, as i've seen previews where Nvidia get's better grapichal results than ATI.

Also i've had ATI grapich card on my laptop and i found it pretty hard to update the drivers for it compared to Nvidia and i also find Nvidia much nicer than ATI. Also seeing in many games Nvidia marks on loading screens (and Nvidia has nicer logo and color =P (green over red)).

That would be my reason why i use Nvidia instead of ATI.

Hmm, i already discussed this directly with some of ATI man and NVIDIA man.
They lol'd.

In fact, both of them have plus and minus is depended on what software we work with and the hardware that we used.

Not saying that discussion ended, experience is what seeked from discussion like this.

I used both Zotac(Nvidia Chipset), and HIS(ATI Chipset), none of them have failed me yet. I'm not doin any game, just graphic design stuff.

Graphic design can be a bit more resource eating than gaming. Have you taken note of that?

Graphic design isn't more resource hogging than gaming.. 0.o

Let's compare Crysis to Photoshop CS4, and see which one uses up the most resources :P

Now if he was doing video editing, that'd be another story...

Anyway I find NVIDIA better than ATI. I seem to perform better with NVIDIA, and they seem to last longer...

Okay, let me rephrase..

In some cases, graphic design is more resource hogging, but in others (thus Crysis) gaming is hogging.

So which one has better value overall? I'm planning to buy so this thread can help a lot.

ATI is more bang for buck imo.
Nvidia has a premium but you do get that extra performance it just comes at a cost their 250/260 (low-mid) range is quite good, go for the 275 (mid-high) if you have that extra buck and 295 if you have money to burn and want an epeen extention.

Otherwise if you want to go with ATI I recommend 4770 or 4850 for low-mid end and 4870 or 4890 for mid-high end, if you're feeling flush get the 4870X2 or hold out to see what the 5xxx gen cards have to offer.

If you play games, the resolution you play at will determine your card choice as there's no point getting a 4870X2 if you're going to be playing at 1680x1050 (except for more epeen), when a 4870 handles modern games just fine and can handle Crysis on high with AA.

If you plan to play from 1920x1200 upwards go no lower than a 4890 or a 275 anything lower will result in chug or having to lower your detail levels.

Anyway I was into the whole video card wars but I'm pretty much over it just because a card can do 2fps more but costs an extra 200 bucks just isn't worth it and realisticly you won't see the difference in performance.

SLI and Crossfire are overrated as sticking two low end cards together is as expensive as buying an equivalent card higher up on the scale which performs better than the two cards together most of the time.
But as an epeen extention look no further SLI/CF two beefy cards and make those internets kiddies get flustered.
There is an exception though if you plan on playing with three monitors and up go for SLI/CF just don't forget to buy a Matrox Triple Head 2 Go Digital Edition as it's the only way to use SLI/CF in multi-monitor mode, unfortunately SoftTH as of right now does not support SLI/CF so no having to pay 600 bucks for a TH2G.

Oh well that's my 2 cents.
I just hope this thread will be a level headed discussion instead of a fanboy flame war.

From what I seen, Nvidia have had selective quality control problems on certain GPU lines. Example include the 8400 labtop gpu products that were included in older Macbook and Dell labtop lines. You can google it and it will find plenty of information b/c it is/was a big deal, with Apple threatening to dump Nvidia for quality control issues in its nvidia powered Mac Books.

Beside just looking just pure calculation, Nvidia has the advantage of being the de facto standard (Nvidia Pure Video) for GPU offloading assisted programming. If you want more detail just look at ATI's Avivo vs. NVIDIA's PureVideo, and it seems that Nvidia has most of the industry siding with it. Ex, would be for example video decoding software with Nvidia Pure Video enabled to improve decode times/quality and also research institutions using Nvida Pure Video technology in its research computers. However assuming you just want to do things like play games and also play HD video, it doesn't really matter who you pick.

Another maybe important thing to note, is the fact that Nvidia is consistently better than ATI when it comes to driver updates and support. That means if you have a specific software bug with a specific game, graphics card line; it will be addressed quickly if you go nvidia, but if you ATI you will have to wait if it ever comes.

However with that all said and done, I would go with best performance/cost card you can find. Right now, I would say the best value would be had with ATI rather than Nvidia. This is subject to change, as both companies are readying their new lines of Direct X 11 cards. I would personally wait for their direct X 11 lines, then compare and finally make a choice.

If I'm not mistaken it wasn't a quality control problem for the 8400 laptop series it was a design flaw that caused certain parts to overheat and eventually fail.
I reckon Nvidia doesn't update their drivers as regularly as Nvidia though I do find Nvidia's drivers less quirky.
ATI's a bit all over the shop with their drivers the latest update completely changed the UI but it's still good though.

The only case that this would really be true is if you're comparing CS4 to...say. Unreal Tournament GOTY (1999)

Any last generation - current generation game will take up far more than even the hoggiest of graphic editing tools.

That again - is simply talking of standard graphic design (basically anything you do in photoshop) if you were to get into something heavier than that, then yes - it can get hoggy.

@spectre: I think you meant to say "Nvidia doesn't update their drivers as much as ATI"

Anyway I find Nvidia better, but ATI is definitely second choice.

For now if you thinking of buying nvidia, try to avoid cards with the g92 or G94

Heres the link

http://www.engadget.com/2008/08/12/nvidia-g92-and-g94-gpus-failing-too/

Nothing is absolute, b/c Nvidia been hush, hush about it for financial reasons, but I would try to avoid them even if the price is right. Maybe I would go ATI for this purpose?

Note: I have had a Nvidia 9600 GT for more than a year, I hope I am not going to run in any problems in the future.

I think you won't for 2-3 more years. I won't either, until I find that a fair amount of the games I have can't run on High settings. Then I'm going to get a new one (probably 2 for SLI reasons)

SLI ain't worth it imo you're better off getting a better mid range card.

SLI is worth every Centavo and Peso I feed my computer, I've tried SLI on a friends computer and it was a blast (yeah Crysis on Max with a 120 plus FPS)

Depends on the hardware that's running mate.
The only place you'll benefit really from multi card setups is high resolution gaming meaning 1920x1080 and up.
Triple monitor setups are where your multi-card setups can really shine and if you intend to do that power to you but otherwise it's a white elephant of a purchase.
Don't forget you need a fast cpu to not bottleneck the video cards.

Here's Left 4 Dead running off my 4870, admitantly I had to lessen AA a bit but otherwise it ran like a dream.

Have you tried using SLI on a newer game? Oh wait you can't... I forgot that it was the only technology that requires specialised profiles to work in a game...

Whooooops.

OP, if you want bang for buck with openings for upgrades - check out ATi 5870 (around 520AUD) or a 5850 (300AUD) There's a few shortages, but they're fantastic cards, especially for performance to price. Oh, and they're DirectX 11 compliant too.

both can be crossfired for extra hilarity, and unlike SLi crossfire doesn't depend on profiles to work.