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"ATI or NVidia?"

Everyone has their favourites, right?. Favourite food, favourite TV shows. You get the idea. But which compnay is your favourite? ATI or Nvidia?

As old as the Intel v AMD war, this new Graphics card 'skirmish' is great for us consumers because both companies are constantly releasing newer and faster card in an attempt to out do the others. But where do you stand? Who do you support? Do you stand with NVidia, or swear allegance to ATI?

Let me know what you think.

Oh an by the way, I'm for ATI all the way.

Radeon > GeForce

"What could well be ATI's final AGP 8x graphics chip, codenamed 'R420', is due to go into volume production next March.

So claim Taiwanese industry sources, cited by local news site DigiTimes.

The R420 will be manufactured by TSMC at 130nm using low-k dielectric insulation. The chip itself will contain 160 million transistors - almost 22 per cent more than Intel's 'Prescott', surprisingly - and supports G-DDR 3.

It's been expected for some time that R420 would ship in Q1 2004. Though, like Nvidia's upcoming NV40, initial forecasts put it release ahead of Christmas 2003.

Earlier this month ATI President and COO Dave Orton said the company would support 32-bit pixel shader precision "pretty soon", and it's widely held that he was referring to the launch of R420. ® "

The Register. So yeah, they are shifting production sizes. What amazed me was how there were so many more transistors than a P4.

cipro wrote:
> I got my Radeon 9600 pro because as 3D cards go, it was fairly cheap
> and stood a better chance at running Half-Life 2 than the Nvidia
> cards.

I agree, thats the card I own and it's a good all round performer in my games.

I think if I to choose between ATI and nVidea, i'd go the ATI route.

Also the ATI cards seem to generate so much less heat than the FX series - a sign of efficiency.R

Reading reviews of the FX5900 Ultra - FX 5950 Ultra the ridiculous cooling designs required just added to the overall clumsiness of the cards, from double sized cards to liquid cooled exhaust sytems...

My Radeon 9600 has been running at 423/423 and 414/423 for ages now, and (touch wood) has not overheated (its got no on-board fan).

So in terms of design and performance ATI have my vote this round.

tigamilla wrote:
>
> Reading reviews of the FX5900 Ultra - FX 5950 Ultra the ridiculous
> cooling designs required just added to the overall clumsiness of the
> cards, from double sized cards to liquid cooled exhaust sytems...

I'm not clear on the 3D card front, but I assume you're talking about FX using a 32 bit Z buffer while ATI are using a 24 bit one, which Direct X natively supports? In which case, I'm not sure if ATI really is "better" than the FX in terms of hardware alone - it's the equivalent of clogging up the exhaust of a Ferrari.

Icarus wrote:
> tigamilla wrote:
>
> Reading reviews of the FX5900 Ultra - FX 5950 Ultra the ridiculous
> cooling designs required just added to the overall clumsiness of the
> cards, from double sized cards to liquid cooled exhaust sytems...
>
> I'm not clear on the 3D card front, but I assume you're talking about
> FX using a 32 bit Z buffer while ATI are using a 24 bit one, which
> Direct X natively supports? In which case, I'm not sure if ATI really
> is "better" than the FX in terms of hardware alone - it's
> the equivalent of clogging up the exhaust of a Ferrari.

Maybe so but hardware is only part of what determines performance. Software is what controls the card, so Nvidia has made a choice to go to 32Bit rather than 24Bit. In practise this has forced game developers to make specific Nvidia code to run the game at a decent rate.

In a free range situation then the Nvidia cards may be more powerful and may be the faster cards but in the current real world there not really, as you have put it "the exhaust is clogged up for the Nvidia". ATI are also suppose to have some of the best anti-aliasing which beats the Nvidia cards and helps it keep performance while doing 6x anti-aliasing.

Nvidia broke away from doing what direct X supports and this has had an effect on performance levels. You only have to look at what the tests for Halflife 2 show and the levels of performance you get with the ATI. People say "the games made for ATI" etc, but Valve actually spent more time customizing it for Nvidia to actually get any where near the performance of the ATI cards.

The next gen cards may be completely different and direct X 10 may come out with 32Bit and Nvidia have the experience and can offer a faster card than ATI. Currently I would say ATI are the winners at the moment. Nvidia cards are good but I think that this one difference has cost them the best card status at the moment. The previous 4 generations of Nvidia cards have been excellent and clearly the choice previously, but ATI are probably that choice at the moment.

Silly me, posted on my very old account which I dont use :D.

I thought I could detect some Adrian-like technical expertise shining through that post...

:-)

tigamilla wrote:
> I thought I could detect some Adrian-like technical expertise shining
> through that post...
>
> :-)

Yeah. 1st time in ages i've used that account. When I registered ages ago I didnt put an email just a username. The username is also the start of my email, so I only put the start of the email in.

For anyone interested in overclocking a Radeon check out RadLink

http://www28.brinkster.com/chrisww1942/

This must be the simplest tool for overclocking. It also contols all your AA settings and AF settings, truly a nice little program for <300kb, oh and it's free.

Check it out.

Wise words indeed from mossmanfly1340/adrian.

Factual and well informed. Not something you see everyday on these forums.