ATI or NVIDIA

[puntoMX]

I think I'm gonna order a new Radeon real soon. Probably a 4650, or perhaps a passively cooled 3450..

Naaaaa... You would like to take a look at the HD 4830 by then .

[sternkanz]

The first card I got was a Riva TNT2 which while it wasn't particularly fast (when I got it) still played games for almost 2 years before I switched to ATI and got the 9600 Pro and then (a good bit later) the X850 XT PE. While I upgraded twice, a friend of mine got a Ti4400 (or was it 4600?) and it lasted him for 4 years and he was even able to play GTA San Andreas on it (although not very nicely ).

I've always found Nvidia's cards last fairly long, and they have nice features, while ATI cards (ignoring the 2xxx series) were always pretty good on power and performance but somehow had to be replaced after a while. If Nvidia got their act together now and managed to fix their drivers for the 9xxx and 2xx series then they should be able to edge up to ATI.

I'm definitely interested in seeing the next line of cards from both manufacturers.

[Sysdll]

My HD4870 is making my eyes bleed. IQ is too high? Textures at a distance are way too sharp.

Sorry I didn’t see this sooner.

I repaired a computer that had an ATI card with an Envision monitor and it was too much. The colors looked over saturated and it lacked shadow detail. I tried CCC and the monitor adjustments but that just made it worse. I tried it with an nVidia card and it was fine. I would say it’s a mater of matching the right card with the right monitor.

To use an old school film reference ATI looks like Kodachrome and nVidia looks like Ektachrome. At least to my eyes.

[weEvil]

My HD4870 is making my eyes bleed. IQ is too high? Textures at a distance are way too sharp.

Sorry I didn’t see this sooner.

I repaired a computer that had an ATI card with an Envision monitor and it was too much. The colors looked over saturated and it lacked shadow detail. I tried CCC and the monitor adjustments but that just made it worse. I tried it with an nVidia card and it was fine. I would say it’s a mater of matching the right card with the right monitor.

To use an old school film reference ATI looks like Kodachrome and nVidia looks like Ektachrome. At least to my eyes.

I figured it out. Everything was 'over optimized', texture shimmering. Catalyst AI was set to High, when it should be set to Low. Performance difference is negligible from Low to High.

Its back to normal and everything looks great.

Edited October 26, 2008 by brucevangeorge

[FarCry3r]

The first card I got was a Riva TNT2 which while it wasn't particularly fast (when I got it) still played games for almost 2 years before I switched to ATI and got the 9600 Pro and then (a good bit later) the X850 XT PE. While I upgraded twice, a friend of mine got a Ti4400 (or was it 4600?) and it lasted him for 4 years and he was even able to play GTA San Andreas on it (although not very nicely ).

I've always found Nvidia's cards last fairly long, and they have nice features, while ATI cards (ignoring the 2xxx series) were always pretty good on power and performance but somehow had to be replaced after a while. If Nvidia got their act together now and managed to fix their drivers for the 9xxx and 2xx series then they should be able to edge up to ATI.

I'm definitely interested in seeing the next line of cards from both manufacturers.

I still have my good old SAPPHIRE ATi 9550 card and playing C&C3 and Crysis with it, although not very nice to play, ATi are the best, forget nVIDIA with their lies, problems, etc. ATi to the end!

[CoffeeFiend]

Yay! I was greeted with this nice window this morning when I was going to check the weather forecast:

To keep with Sysdll's analogy, I'd say nvidia looks like crashesalotchrome to me (alright, that's not film... I miss shooting Velvia/Provia/Sensia though).

I really got to order an ATI card sometime soon... Before I take the sledgehammer to this one at least.

The new Radeon 4830 cards seem to be around $175 (a little too much for a complete non-gamer, and also considering the 4850 is only $15 more on special) unfortunately, and the only one in stock (Sapphire) at ncix is not dual DVI either (and the $15 extra 4850 is...)

[puntoMX]

Ouch...

So, what about the HD4670?

Anyway, I´m waiting for the HD4xxx line to come in soon, so I sold my 2600XT and I´m working now on a 6200LE (OWYEAH!), but... what a difference in speed and stability; I had to try different drivers from nVidia to get Vista work without the hardware failure message (although it says it recovered the fault)...

[CoffeeFiend]

So, what about the HD4670?

There's a 3 of them below $120 (all 3 having dual DVI too), so I may get one of those instead.

There's also a 9800GT OC+ on sale for like $110, but I wouldn't want of it even at $10.

[cluberti]

If you're a total non-gamer, the 3xxx series of cards should be more than sufficient, and much cheaper. If you do need the additional fill rate (the 48xx cards are much beefier than the 3xxx cards in this respect), you're right to wait. I'm running 3650s in my two newer rigs, one for daily use and one for my MCE, and both are more than enough to handle what they're used for (HD video, MCE tasks, and the occasional game of tinker).

[CoffeeFiend]

If you do need the additional fill rate

Not at all! The heaviest thing this card will ever run is Aero Glass pretty much. Well, eventually I might upgrade to photoshop CS4 which is supposed to be able to use GPUs to speedup things (not sure how much effect it'll make). The only real features I'm looking for are:

• not nvidia garbage
  
• does H.264 decoding in hardware if possible i.e. Avivo/UVD (nvidia's system just ain't working at all, using any driver/decoder combo I've ever tried -- it was false advertising IMO)
  
• low power/quiet
  

Looks like you can easily get a dual-DVI 3650 for $75 (everyday's price). It's PCI-E 2.0 and everything else. I guess it's as good as it gets, so I'll order one.