Video card question...

[Nakatomi2010]

So I've been using ATi cards pretty much ever ince 3Dfx sold themselves to nVidia... From the Radeon 9000, to the 9600 to my current x700 Pro... it's currently just not cutting it anymore and pretty much time for an upgrade.... Problem for ME is that one of the biggest reasons I buy ATi in the first place is because they make their own video cards, which to me says that their built to their standards like you'd expect... Not sure if that logc makes any sense... So I've basically not bought anything but Built by ATi video cards (As opposed to the Powered by ATi cards like Sapphire)

Now, I was going to order a Radeon X1900GT while the rebate was going on, but I missed that offer by about a day, so today I hear that the Radeon X1950 Pro is going to sell for about 200 dollars and perform about the same as a GT, so my question is this....

Basically I'm working with about 220ish dollars, after any mail in rebates, to put towards a card... I'm contemplating even doing the unthinkable and buying a GeForce 7900GT since I can get one for 220 after shipping and mail in rebates from Newegg (XFX GeForce 7900GT), but i'm not sure how the XFX stacks up compared to others, let alone if its worth shifting from ATi to nVidia...

I know you people are going to say "Wait for DX10", but I need to replace y card, and I figure I'll let the DX10 cards mature a bit first, games wont just suddenly be DX10 only for at least another year or so because not EVERYONE is gong to rush out and buy DX10 cards at once....

Thoughts, opinions please...

[nitroshift]

Well, I've used both ATI and nVidia cards in the past and found ATI Catalyst a bit of a PITA. I really don't know what to say, but if I were you, I'd go for the nVidia card.

[ripken204]

Well, I've used both ATI and nVidia cards in the past and found ATI Catalyst a bit of a PITA. I really don't know what to say, but if I were you, I'd go for the nVidia card.

exactly why i went with nvidia. the ati drivers really are just crap. i have a 7800gt and it can play basically every single game out there on full setting with no lag. the 7900gt can only be better

btw, i prefer evga over anything else.

[Albuquerque]

I'm exactly the opposite of the previous two posters... I've owned an ATI Radeon since the softmoddable 128mb 9500 non-pro's several years back; all my previous cards were NVIDIA.

Originally I wasn't sure what to think of ATI's drivers, but even back then I found them more than competent. And I upgraded from a 9500np to a 9800XT 256mb, then an x800xt vivo and continued to love it. Had no problems whatsoever with the drivers, performance or stability, and had no problems with the graphics quality or performance either.

I'm now an owner of one of the ultra-rare only-1500-produced 7900GT-on-AGP cards from overclockers.co.uk. Full 24 pipes, full 7900GT speeds, and 512mb of ram. It performs considerably faster than my x800, but I'm not happy with the driver interface at all. I'm also not happy with the texture quality issues that I see in many games.

I still like having the extra speed of the 7900 GT to be sure. But given a preference, I'd rather have one of the newly released 1950Pro AGP cards instead and take the rather insignificant performance hit.

[ripken204]

the driver interface? nvidia did come out with a new control panel which is trach imo, but you can still use the older control panel which i like alot.

[Albuquerque]

New and old; I don't like either one of them. I also don't appreciate all the IQ shortcuts that NVIDIA selects "on your behalf" that you have to manually go through and disable... Trilinear optimization, mipmap optimization, anisotropic filtering optimization, texture LOD optimizations, texel clamp optimizations.

And when you're done turning all the optimizations off, you still get texture aliasing that you have to manuall jack with the LOD to half-assedly correct it.

I like the speed, and right now even with the 1950AGP out on the market, the 1500-production run of the AGP-connected 7900GT made by Gainward is still the fastest AGP card on the market. And again, I do like the speed, but if I were purchasing a card today, I'd be right back at ATI again.

Hopefully when NVIDIA's G80 comes out in a few more months, they'll have corrected the IQ shortcuts that they initially caused in ther FX line so long ago.

And maybe the extra time will give them an opportunity to continue working on the driver interface. I'd still rather have the ATI CCC then NVIDIA's new offering. Take note that both company's "new" offerings are the only ones being supported in Vista, meaning relying on the prior control panels is relying on obsolesence.

ATI's had much more time refining their new control panel methodology than NVIDIA has, and it blatently shows in my opinion.