ATI or nVIDIA?

[reli]

just wondering who do you guys vote for

ATI or nVIDIA?

I've heard that ATI is well known for quality and nVIDIA for performance, though nVIDIA seems to better exposure and better demand.

okay, we have two equivalent cards which one would you choose? if price, of course ATI would be cheaper. so let's heard it.

[Mr.Tweak]

ATi is known for having better 2D quality but I'd have to say personally I'm more a fan of nVidia.

[Beefy]

I'm a nVidia fan as well, but that's mainly because I haven't really seen much in person of the ATI range.. I'd still give it a shot though

[zeradul]

Equivalent cards and you think ATI will be cheaper? I doubt that, what type of cards are you looking at?

[Darthtanion]

Both companies make a fine video card, but I still prefer nVidia because they have much better driver support. Though the broken drivers from ATi have been fixed, they still don't release anything new very often; or at least not often enough for me.

But before you make the plunge on a new card, take a look at the new offerings from Matrox. I haven't checked too deeply into it, but it's being touted as an nVidia killer, and should also be priced competitively. :)

[Albinus]

As a small scale O.E.M. who has dealt extensively with both brands, here's my humble opinion. :)

ATi have better 2D quality than nVidia - as long as ATi make the card as well as the chip. Since ATi has been selling their chips to 3rd party board vendors like nVidia has always done, they often place poorer quality filters on the card to save money. If you need high resolution clarity, either a Matrox or an ATi branded card are your best shot :thumb:

3D performance, nVidia seems to have the edge over ATi currently, but that will probably change in the future. 3D Quality? nVidia chips 3D image quality has not changed much since the original GeForce IMHO. Before you shout at me, I mean after turning off all the fancy DX8 features and the like. Sure they have got much faster, but it's the same quality that was wowing people in the year 2000. Look at the Radeon 8500 compared to a Ti4600, on an older game engine that is not optimised for DX8 (such as Quake III Arena), and the Radeon will have superior 3D quality.

Drivers? nVidia hands down. Whilst they have had a few hiccups as of late (nV Loop and the like) they still leave ATi for dead. Although ATi continues to improve their driver quality rapidly, they still lag IMHO. Exposure? Well when companies such as 3dfx and S3 started to move board production in-house, they went belly-up. ATi noticed that nVidia was going from strength-to-strength by just selling the chips, so followed suit. This has helped ATi immensely, it won't be long before they will have good "mindshare" like nVidia.

Just remember, ATi has been around a LOT longer than nVidia, and if anyone remembers the Riva 128 and earlier from nVidia, you would think they sucked. The Riva TNT changed all that :)

Hope this helps - and yes my first 3D accelerator was an S3 ViRGE :scream:

[RDR]

Equivalent cards and you think ATI will be cheaper? I doubt that, what type of cards are you looking at?

I find ATi cards to be 5-20% cheaper than an equivalent (I use that term loosely) nVidia offering. At least that was true during the Geforce 3 era, ATi really doesn't have anything to compare with the with the Geforce4Ti line.

I can get an ATi produced Radeon 8500LE for $215cdn, a Powercolor GF3 Ti200 goes for about $235cdn - that's a fairly good match up in terms of perfromance

[zeradul]

Ok, well I guess I am considering the ebay market... new, and barely used...

Since far far more GF3's sold than 8500's you can get a GF3 for 60% that amount RDR, and the radeon would only be slighly cheaper than the price you quoted, (if any... people without connections still trying to not pay retail)

[RDR]

I suspect people in the Toronto Area may be able to get slightly better then average prices on ATi products - since the ATi headquarters is located in nearby Markham

It seems like every hardware wholesaler and retailer has the full range of ATi OEM and Retail products - but only sected nVidia cards, w/ the balance being special order.

I got my Radeon retail vers. the first week it came out for $339cdn - that's about $210-$215usd. It may not sound that great now - but it was a phenominal price at the time

[reli]

maybe this might help

http://forums.tweakers.com.au/index.php?board=1;action=display;threadid=859

Best card in June

[reli]

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