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Graphics Card Debate ATI/Nvidia

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Post February 11th, 2004, 8:18 am

Hi all
I need a new vid card and I have narrowed down my choices to 2 very similarily priced cards...

which should i have
Geforce fx 5900 128mb 8x agp
ATI Sapphire 9800pro 128mb 8x agp

i have been browsing hardware forums for a while now but i need some advice from normal people lol
I start a thread and all i get is
"ATI rule, Nvidia are crap!"
"Nvidia Are the best, screw ATI"

so can i just have a normal debate as to which and why...

thanks! 8)
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Post February 11th, 2004, 8:18 am

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Post February 11th, 2004, 12:26 pm

Well, I've been using ATI for the last 6 or 7 years and never had any problems aside from the video capture on my ol' 32Meg AGP Rage Fury Pro 128 VIVO not working on the Soyo 5EHM motherboard (but I had a Pinnacle Studio DC10+ so that was no biggy, heh) and a couple of game incompatibilities under Win2K (The Morrowind map editor for example).

Right now, I've got two ATI cards in here..

64Meg AGP Radeon 8500 Dual Head (used to be a Radeon DDR VIVO)
64Meg PCI Radeon 7500 Dual Head

This gives me a total of 4 monitor outputs for a nice big desktop - although, only one monitor hooked up to it at the moment due to lack of deskspace, heh.

3D runs good enough, 2D runs lightning fast. I've seen NVidias on similar spec systems to the ones I've had, and generally I've been more impressed with ATI. I've been an ATI Guy ever since I switched from my dual 12Meg Creative VooDoo2's oh so many years ago :)
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Post February 11th, 2004, 12:34 pm

lol...

thanks..

i forgot to say that i would be using the new vid card for gaming ;)
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Post February 11th, 2004, 12:39 pm

For gaming my ATI works great. Personally, if I had a good amount of money to spend on my PC right now, my first purchase would be the 256Meg Radeon 9800 (or whatever the latest incarnation of it is), which has like a $500 price-tag.
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Post February 12th, 2004, 3:51 am

I have been an ATI guy since the days of their Mach64 card - almost 9 years ago now that I got my first ATI. And I have been with them ever since. I have had great performance from all of my ATI cards.

This stuff all came from a review in a mag. I can't get the exact numbers cause I can't find the mag, but here is what I remember.
Clock speeds
Nvidia: 450mhz
ATI: 412mhz

At 640x480, both cards displayed a very high frame rate, although the Nvidia displayed more than 100 FPS faster than the ATI. However, as the resolution was bumped, the Nvida rapidly slid, while the ATI card declined slowly. At 1024x768, the ati beat the Nvidia by 70%.

The pictures from the ATI looked superior throughout, and it ran fairly cool, while the nvidia, which took up two slots because of the massive cooling fan, still gave off a fair amount of heat.

I can't remember what game was being used to test it.
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Post February 12th, 2004, 9:09 am

Personally I prefer ATI, I currently own the 9700 Pro and I love it. The drivers are stable which nVidia has a history of having screwed up drivers. ATI usually beats out nVidia in most benchmarks until recently. The 5950fx beat the 9800XT by a slim margin that would not be noticeable to the naked eye so I would still go with ATI. The newer nVidia cards for some reason take up 2 slots. You lose one PCI slot just for a video card. Seems rather stupid to me. Their cooling design is rediculous as well. Sounds like a jet taking off. SO I would recomend ATI to anyone.
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Post February 12th, 2004, 2:34 pm

the reason the nvidia's cooer is so big is because the chip gives off so much heat, and that's only because nvidia is pushing the technology of the chip past what it is capable of by bumping up the clock speed.

I have a mobo which only has 3 pci slots. I can't afford to loose a PCI slot to a graphics card. I also have a PCI card that only works (at all) when in the top slot, and I could not use this card if I bought an nvidia
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Post February 12th, 2004, 2:43 pm

I have a GeForce 3, but if I were tro build a new computer for myself I think I would go with ATI. A while back I built a new computer for someone, and I used a ATI Radeon 9800 All-In-Wonder, and I was definetely impressed with its performance. Although my GeForce card is a few years older than the Radeon card that I used here, the Radeon card killed my GeForce with benchmark tests. I have also heard that the latest GeForce cards are very noisy compared to Radeon, but it has been awhile since I looked into this, so I am not sure if GeForce finally fixed their problem.
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Post February 12th, 2004, 2:51 pm

I vote for ATI, specially their latest card the Radeon 9800XT, in all the benchmarks I have seen it pretty much owns Nvidias Geforce5950FX. Also I remember readin a few articles 3 or 4 months ago telling how Nvidia cheats on the 3dmark tests optimizing their cards for test but actual gameplay is totally different on the home pc. I have beeen a firm Nvidia supporter for the past few years but now I am switching over to ATI. http://www.xbitlabs.com http://www.tomshardware.com
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Post February 13th, 2004, 7:23 am

Like I mentioned in my post. A recent benchmark went to nVidia but by such a slim margin it doesn't matter. And it could have been the result of tweaking the card specifically for benchmark tests. Quite frankly if a Video Card that has a lower clock speed can perform as good or better as a card with higher clock speeds I will go with the lower. AMD used to do it to Intel all the time. ATI has been doing it to nVidia. Supposedly the Nvidia cards are much quiter then they were when they came out with that ridiculous fan but I am sure it is much louder then the 9800XT. What will be interesting to watch is when the PCI express cards come out. Then we will see some serious graphics cards come out. They are expected to hit sometime this year.
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Post February 13th, 2004, 8:46 am

lol...

so the 9800pro it is then lol

i aint to fussed about noise
(although my new comp has 1, YES 1 single fan in it 'on cpu')

i was mainly wondering cus of price...
money is kinda shart atm and i really need an upgrade (ut2k3 a real drag on 9200se) and both cards are about £170

nvidia dont take up a pci slot...it depends on the manufacturer, they make their own custom designs for heatsinks so it aint there fault :P
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Post February 13th, 2004, 9:34 am

nVidia 5900FX
Nucleo wrote:
nvidia dont take up a pci slot...it depends on the manufacturer, they make their own custom designs for heatsinks so it aint there fault


Seems you are mistaken. This board is made by nVidia and it clearly takes a PCI slot away from you. Unless you can show me an FX board that doesn't I'll retract my statement.
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Post February 13th, 2004, 11:12 am

i dont have any pictures lol...

actually....

the leadtek winfast has a very slim design...
Image
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Post February 13th, 2004, 12:21 pm

Quote:
nvidia dont take up a pci slot...it depends on the manufacturer, they make their own custom designs for heatsinks so it aint there fault


From what you posted I thought you said that nVidia's cards do not take up a pci slot but other manufacturer's of nVidia cards do because they can design them any way they want for the most part. But cards built exclusively by nVidia do indeed take up a pci slot. All those other companies that use the nVidia chip can build the card the way they want. That winfast card looks interesting enough, i don't think I would put that in my machine even if I like nVidia cards.
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Post February 13th, 2004, 12:32 pm

Nvidia dont make their own cards anymore...

find me an nvidia card that is made soley by nividia...they dont, other companies make cards for them using their chipset.

ATI have their own brand, no nvidia
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Post February 13th, 2004, 12:32 pm

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