Then the GeForce 4 Ti4x00 came out, and it was supposed to be oh-so-great, so I spend a fair amount of money on it, and it turns out it sucked. The drivers weren't too great, the video input (it was a VIVO card) was crippled with Macrovision detection (unless you used ancient drivers), the video output (s-video) quality was pretty awful, and you *HAD* to reboot to change which display is your primary monitor (so things like the video overlay work, so you can play stuff on your TV -- think HTPC). That was perhaps the most problematic/most deceiving card I've ever owned.

Thats what i mean guys, their drivers are very bad, but their hardware features are good, too bad NVIDIA can't write good drivers, even now with their new cards as well. No point having a top video card, if there are no good drivers, and thats been the case with NVIDIA.

If your after a video card with excellent all round features and also features that actually work, then go for ATI 3800 OR 4800 Series. AVOID nvidia!!

(unless your a pure GAMER, then nvdia is a good choice, NOTE: ATI's recent 4800 series card can outperform nvidia's new card almost in every benchmark)

Edited August 29, 200818 yr by shahed26

I forgot to comment on how the poll is setup in my previous post. I see that for the ATI cards the Radeon HD4800 series is combining the 4850 and 4870 into one vote. How come? If the NVIDIA GTX 260 and 280's are listed separately then it would have been better to separate the 4850 and 4870 or just list the NVIDIA cards as the NVIDIA GT200 series.

Indeed, I get loads of HP systems here with fried chipsets from nVidia, especially the 6150/430. These systems include laptops and desktop computers, the V3000 and the SR1915.

I got the NVIDIA Geforce 3 the day it was initially released and stuck with NVIDIA since.

So you got the "not TI" version? That one had a big hardware cursor bug by the way.

I got a golden sample from ASUS back in those days, and it was given to me by nVidia on a meeting. I liked it as it was a good step up from the GeForce 2 .

ATI doesn't seem to have the heat problems...

Well, the Radeon 9800 had heat problems...

I got the NVIDIA Geforce 3 the day it was initially released and stuck with NVIDIA since.

So you got the "not TI" version? That one had a big hardware cursor bug by the way.

I got the original vanilla Visiontek Geforce 3 the day it first was released so, yes, before the "Ti" versioning existed. I still have the card kicking around. I never was aware of a bug and didn't run into an issues using it other than it getting to the point of just being obsolete due to age.

Edited August 30, 200818 yr by rotjong

I voted Nvidia in the poll a few days ago, but am considering changing my mind (although it's too late for the purposes of the poll itself.)

Well. The latest news is that a whole other bunch of nvidia chips are bad. I used to prefer Nvidia, but am seriously considering buying an ATI card. The ATI Radeon HD 4850 looks nice, and allegedly performs on-par with a GTX200, even though it's far cheaper.

I voted Nvidia in the poll a few days ago, but am considering changing my mind (although it's too late for the purposes of the poll itself.)

Well. The latest news is that a whole other bunch of nvidia chips are bad. I used to prefer Nvidia, but am seriously considering buying an ATI card. The ATI Radeon HD 4850 looks nice, and allegedly performs on-par with a GTX200, even though it's far cheaper.

Yes, after my earlier posts I heard more about how much the NVIDIA bad boards has expanded. However, that particular writer for The Inquirer has a serious issue with NVIDIA which is noticeable from previous stories concerning the company. The article may be skewed as a result of the author's dripping hatred for NVIDIA. I'm not defending NVIDIA, mind you, but I do want to see other posts independently verifying what was stated in that The Inquirer article.

I own an EVGA NVIDIA 8800 GT (G92), as well, and it still functions beautifully and will still get much use for HTPC use but I'm definitely unhappy to read about just how far and wide the problems with NVIDIA boards is spreading. This is bad extremely bad news for the company.

Edited August 30, 200818 yr by rotjong

You shouldn't really believe what comes out of that site, The Inquirer. The author, Charlie, is known as an anti NVIDIA person, he's always against NVIDIA and therefore posts a lot of crap about how NVIDIA products are failing, etc. He recently mentioned that XFX and EVGA were going to abandon NVIDIA, which was proved false and now he is claiming that all G92 chips and so on are defected and going to fail. Don't believe any of his s***, its just stupid.

I'm not an NVIDIA fan either, I choose whatever is best suited for me.

NVIDIA, No, GeForce 9800.

I started using NVIDIA cards when the original GeForce came out. I had used a couple of ATi cards before that and had a really horrible experience with them. I switched to a Voodoo 2 setup after the ATi cards. Went with the GeForce after that. I've been an NVIDIA customer ever since. It's what I prefer.

Having a bias (or even a grudge) doesn't mean the information is inaccurate. And, from somewhat inside knowledge, his story is for the most part quite true and easy to prove. He's a journalist, yes, and has a grudge against nVidia it seems, yes. But the story still has truth. Having a bias does not necessarily make you wrong.

the way I see it:

ATI

currently has smaller fab process, meaning less heat and energy use

UVD supports hardware accelerated VC1 decoding

open sourced some driver specs

supports DirectX 10.1

integrated audio for hdmi

NVIDIA

better OpenGL performance

hardware PhysX processing in Geforce8 or later

HybridSLI / HybridPower

Larrabee (Intel)

real-time raytracing

???

Driver stability and performance goes back and forth so much I cant say who is better anymore.

Go with Green! Green Rules, I love Green and going to stay with Green, Green has been with me forever, I never had any issues with Green but have had more issues with Red than Green.

All in all, I think Nvida is the best.

http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articl...ire/0432343.htm

Apparently nVidia may actually have to pay for their failures, if a court agrees with the plaintiffs. Bias indeed.

ATI by far has the better products. They're great for video (I have an HTPC with a silent HD 3450) and decent in gaming (I have a 4850) for the gaming rig. I gotta say, NVIDIA really is faltering BIG time. The whole defective products (G86/84) buggy drivers, no solid products. Heck, even in the mid-range ATI is leading now with the new 4600 series.

This is coming from a guy who's had Matrox, ATI and NVIDIA cards.

http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articl...ire/0432343.htm

Apparently nVidia may actually have to pay for their failures, if a court agrees with the plaintiffs. Bias indeed.

LOL... They are paying for it now

A lawsuit filed in a California court on Tuesday alleged Nvidia violated U.S. securities laws and concealed the existence of a serious defect in its graphics-chip line for at least eight months "in a series of false and misleading statements made to the investing public."

The lawsuit charged that Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang and CFO Marvin Burkett knew as early as November 2007 about a flaw that exists in the packaging used with some of the company's graphics chips that caused them to fail at unusually high rates. Nvidia did not immediately reply to an e-mail request for comment on the lawsuit.

Nvidia publicly acknowledged the flaw on July 2, when it announced plans to take a one-time charge of up to US$200 million to cover warranty costs related to the problem. That announcement caused Nvidia's stock price to fall by 31 percent to $12.98 and reduced the company's market capitalization by $3 billion, the lawsuit said.

More details

http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/39263/118/

Edited September 11, 200817 yr by shahed26

Go with Green! Green Rules, I love Green and going to stay with Green, Green has been with me forever, I never had any issues with Green but have had more issues with Red than Green.

So where does my black one rank?

But seriously: Right now I’m using ATI because I like the IQ. These eyes aren't what they used to be.