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Thread: ATI vs nVidia - differences?

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    Senior Member AD-15's Avatar
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    ATI vs nVidia - differences?

    hello,

    I do not understand too much about how GPU's work, so I am not sure what exactly the technical differences between nVidia's and ATI's offerings will create.

    All that I currently assume is that ATi cards have greater performance levels that nVidia counterparts, with thus higher framerates, whilst nVidia cards focus more on detail and graphics.

    Am I completely wrong?

    What do you think?

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    HEXUS.social member Agent's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by AD-15 View Post
    All that I currently assume is that ATi cards have greater performance levels that nVidia counterparts, with thus higher framerates, whilst nVidia cards focus more on detail and graphics.

    Am I completely wrong?

    What do you think?
    Completely wrong

    You get small image quality differences, but by large, they are pretty much the same. In game, they are rarely seen.

    nVidias 8800 range are currently the best models out and beat ATi's offering by a fair amount. Hopfully ATi will bring some competition out soon.
    Quote Originally Posted by Saracen View Post
    And by trying to force me to like small pants, they've alienated me.

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    Yep, it was said that Nvidia give higher FPS, and ATI a better image quality, but they are so similar now you really wouldnt notice a difference, just go for the best card for your buget







    P.S Nvidia FTW

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    AKA daniel.phillips Sprite's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by AD-15 View Post

    All that I currently assume is that ATi cards have greater performance levels that nVidia counterparts, with thus higher framerates, whilst nVidia cards focus more on detail and graphics.

    Am I completely wrong?

    What do you think?
    Yeah you managed to get that the wrong way round
    Main - Intel Core i5 2300 @ 3.5GHz, 8GB DDR3 1333Mhz RAM, Asus P8P67 Pro, Coolermaster iGreen 600w, GTX 480, Antec One Case



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    mush-mushroom b0redom's Avatar
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    Depends on budget and what you're doing with it, ie Linux support is better for nVidia cards etc.

    Post back your budget and what you're doing, and people will make suggestions.

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    Mostly Me Lucio's Avatar
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    At the end of the day it's brand preference, you get some people who swear by Nvidia and some who swear by ATI. Currently though, there's no compition for the Nvidia G80 range of cards, ATI still haven't realised the long awaited R600.

    Other than that, the main reason I personally stick to Nvidia cards is that most of the games I play have the "Nvidia: the way it's meant to be played" logos on them. I'm hedging my bets that means the game was designed on PC's using Nvidia cards and thus is less likely to have GFx bugs.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Lucio View Post
    Other than that, the main reason I personally stick to Nvidia cards is that most of the games I play have the "Nvidia: the way it's meant to be played" logos on them. I'm hedging my bets that means the game was designed on PC's using Nvidia cards and thus is less likely to have GFx bugs.
    I think most of the time that's just nVidia slipping the game makers some green.

    I second what tigerboyce said though, with ATi vs. nVidia the winner depends on what price range you're looking at.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Lucio View Post
    Other than that, the main reason I personally stick to Nvidia cards is that most of the games I play have the "Nvidia: the way it's meant to be played" logos on them. I'm hedging my bets that means the game was designed on PC's using Nvidia cards and thus is less likely to have GFx bugs.
    Saying that I have some games that say ATI on them. It depends who is sponsoring who in the design studio world. But on the back of the box of most, if not all, games these days is a list of all supported chipsets and they mostly say which GPU chipsets they support, and to me that says those cards will have no problems what so ever. so yea it's pretty much brand preference but as it stands Nvidia has the best card out for now...

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    Banhammer in peace PeterB kalniel's Avatar
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    Of the *last* generation of cards, there was quite a difference in philosophy between the two makers at the high end. NVidia generally favoured higher overall numbers of pipelines and thus more texture processing units etc. ATI favoured fewer pipelines but uncoupled the shaders, so you'd have three pixel shaders per pipeline rather than just one per NVidia.

    This meant that NVidia cards did better when it came to speed of texture handling and stencil shadows (they had a special feature for this alone) - so they rock at Doom 3 engine games for eg., but ATI cards did better when it came to heavy shader usage, so rock when it comes to Oblivion or Far Cry. ATI also used a higher quality method of anisotropic filtering and anti-aliasing, so image quality was better if you had enough spare speed to crank up the settings.

    However.. we're now into next generation, and NVidia's 8000 series now follow a more ATI-like uncoupled shader units thing, and they've got so much spare power they've implemented at least as good anisotropic filtering as the ATI cards. We've get to see what ATI's answer to this card is.

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    Anthropomorphic Personification shaithis's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Lucio View Post
    Other than that, the main reason I personally stick to Nvidia cards is that most of the games I play have the "Nvidia: the way it's meant to be played" logos on them. I'm hedging my bets that means the game was designed on PC's using Nvidia cards and thus is less likely to have GFx bugs.
    Do not ever go by that. There are MANY games out there with the "Nvidia: the way it's meant to be played" logo on them that are safer/better to play on an ATI graphics card and makes a complete mockery of the whole thing.
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    A shadowy flight. MSIC's Avatar
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    ATi and nVidia are indeed the two main producers of graphics chips. They are not the only ones however, as a bunch of other manufacturers design their own, such as SIS, VIA and Intel, but in general non of these are any good in games that require 3d processing (pretty much any modern game you can buy).
    This then leaves you with the big two, ATi and nVidia.

    These 2 companies design 3 main tiers of chips (a budget, a mid-range and a top-of-the-line) and then with each of those will alter a few things (such as core or memory speeds) a bit to give a bit more variety (and muddle things up for us).

    There are always all sorts of rubbish things said about requirements for games ("you NEED to get an 8800 to play so-and-so reliably") but most games makers will be stupid to make a game truly unplayable for 95% of games players. In actual, honest terms, most modern games are playable with almost any modern graphics card - it's just a question of having to change the screen resolution and the levels of details in order to keep the frame rates fast enough for you to enjoy it.

    If you have an example of a game you want to play, i am happy to suggest a reasonable card to play it with.
    Edit: We also need details of the rest of your computer to give proper advice - computers need to be 'balanced' well, otherwise you create bottlenecks.
    Last edited by MSIC; 10-04-2007 at 01:01 PM.
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    Quote Originally Posted by MSIC View Post
    There are always all sorts of rubbish things said about requirements for games ("you NEED to get an 8800 to play so-and-so reliably") but most games makers will be stupid to make a game truly unplayable for 95% of games players. In actual, honest terms, most modern games are playable with almost any modern graphics card - it's just a question of having to change the screen resolution and the levels of details in order to keep the frame rates fast enough for you to enjoy it.
    I second that. I got an AGP 6600GT And I can play the likes of HL2 full settings at 1920x1200 and not much of a problem. even Stalker is pretty acceptable aswell. While the likes of an 8800 is definatly better, for now they are by no mreans a requirement, not until a few DX 10 games are released and even then only a few features will be unavailable when using a DX9 card. but ofcourse when that happens the whole Vista thing will come into play aswell.

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    I would hope you can play HL2 on a 6600GT. Have you seen the hardware people play that on?

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    In the past though, you wouldn't touch Nvidia with a barge pole, and now they're all the rage. The tamagotchi's of 2007.

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    Quote Originally Posted by tigerboyce View Post
    P.S Nvidia FTW
    Bloody fanboys

    Just get the best card on your budget, i do see some image quality differences although in most things you wont see it.

    However ATI's new offerings on paper seem to prove 15% more performance with there current drivers.

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    ATi's new offerings aren't even being offered and nVidia already has a new bleeding edge chip queued up, same with Intel.
    Quote Originally Posted by Agent View Post
    ...every time Creative bring out a new card range their advertising makes it sound like they have discovered a way to insert a thousand Chuck Norris super dwarfs in your ears...

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