Making the switch - ATI to Nvidia
I've been a loyal ATI consumer for around 5 years, maybe more. I built my new machine three days ago, choosing the Sapphire ATI Radeon 1950XT 256MB.
atm, I play Oblivion and NFS Carbon, I was BLOWN AWAY by the gfx capabilities. Very fluid, very sexy - very impressed, of course until it started crashing. After a few days of testing, I concluded the gfx card was defintely at fault (it's not even OCed). I was running 6.10 catalyst straight off the CD, but immediately preceeded to download 6.11 to check if it was a driver problem. When that failed to install (along with 6.9 AND even 5.13 which was a long shot anyway). I quickly realised, and was DISGUSTED to discover there was NO SUPPORT for my card whatsoever. So I am left with incredibly unstable games, which is unacceptable.
This card, although amazing I will admit when it DOES work, is getting promptly returned. I have no idea when it comes to Nvidia. So the question remaining is what card would be a good replacement with at least equal performance for £200 (+/- £20) - considering the ATI 1950XT cost £177.
As mentioned I mainly run Oblivion, Carbon, Doom3, at around 1440x900 at full or near full. My machine basic specs: Intel 2.4 Duel Conroe, 1GB @ 1066, ASUS P5WDG2 WS PRO (MB)