[masteraa]

The old question, Seems like it hasent been asked here in the last few weeks. Gamers, And professional work users, Whats best?

Nvdia or ATI?
Which has better value?
Which has less issues?
Which is more popular?

[Smith6612]

I'm an nVidia person. Yes, ATi has been performing nicely against the GeForce cards, I just stick with nVidia. I've found their cards to handle more load on them, despite them having more of a tendency to like to overheat if your cooling system blows.

Otherwise, I find the nVidia cards to be more common amonst hard core gamers, and ATi for the people who want to have the same performance or close to the GeForce cards, but want to save some money. Also, now that the GeForce 8, 9, and 200 series cards now have CUDA abilities and now have PhysX processing abilities thanks to a new driver, that makes GeForce cards even better.

[GBH187]

ati cards are currently cheaper and faster
not sure why smith says nvidia is more reliable there is currently a class action lawsuit against nvidia due to their mobile chips being unreliable

[wolfy67]

I've always had good luck with nVidia products. With the unified driver system in place I haven't had much trouble upgrading to a new card. It's truly plug-n-play for me.

The only problem I had was moving from an old PCI card to an AGP. A few hours of searching the net later I found I just had to delete and reinstall a few drivers (MCP Bridge I think?) and it worked like a charm.

I haven't used any ATI products myself but have helped friends install their cards. It's always been a bit of a hassle. Honestly, though, I didn't notice much of a difference between our two machines running nearly the same ram/fsb/chipset. Only major difference was the graphics card. The benchmark programs always reported a very similar score varying just a few points.

[Smith6612]

Originally Posted by GBH187

ati cards are currently cheaper and faster
not sure why smith says nvidia is more reliable there is currently a class action lawsuit against nvidia due to their mobile chips being unreliable

The mobile chips are not reliable because of the heating issue. GeForce cards produce a lot of heat and most laptops have no way or dissipating all of that heat, let alone with the CPU, RAM and HDD producing heat as well. nVidia can't do a thing other than make their mobile cards run slower. Laptop makers need to work on their cooling systems for laptops better.

[GG-Xtreme]

Up to the Geforce 8-series, Nvidia has been a clear winner. But with the release of the Radeon 4850 and 4870, ATI has taken the lead for value. Heat issues can be overcome with a simple fan-control program or patch, and they are only slightly more unstable than Nvidia cards atm because drivers haven't matured yet. Nvidia cards are still more popular though. And CUDA-based GPU PhysX isn't really a plus on the Nvidia side since it has already been ported to ATI cards as well using modified drivers. Nvidia still holds the top performance spot, but their cards are highly overpriced in comparison, and the few cards below their top-tier GTX 280 are disappointing in performance, actually falling behind ATI's cards.

[Spartan Erik]

I'm an nVidia fan, but the Radeon 4850/4870 are giving nVidia a run for its money

[vigge_sWe]

nVidia since all offewrs from it (first 10 levels of portal, half-life 2 deathmatch, half-life lost coast for free). Then you need it for FPS creator x10. + they sponsor ESWC

[componentwarehouse]

NVidia if you play a lot of games (or do pro graphics work) that needs very good graphics, but ATI if your building a cheaper computer that doesnt need the very best graphics (eg. for occasional gaming).

Alex

[GG-Xtreme]

Originally Posted by componentwarehouse

NVidia if you play a lot of games (or do pro graphics work) that needs very good graphics, but ATI if your building a cheaper computer that doesnt need the very best graphics (eg. for occasional gaming).

Alex

I'm sorry, but I don't follow your argument. ATI cards are known for superior image quality compared to Nvidia, so if you wanted 'better' graphics, you'd go with ATI. And now that ATI has released the 4870X2, ATI has better performance as well (although it is quite a bit more expensive).