ATI or Nvidia?

[charger]

With the release of the new ati x1800 xt, it seems that i may have to reconsider buying a nvidia 7800gt, I mean even with it being 8 pipelines less it seems to either keep up with the 7800 gtx or surpass it for the majority of benchmarks i have seen. I can only wonder what the power of the card would be like at 24 or even 32 pixel pipelines, although im not a fan of the rather large heatsink, baring in mind that perhaps other board vendors may include a different cooling solution (hopefully).

Any thoughts are appreciated

[krazy_olie]

I'd say give it a few weeks to decide when we get different models reviewed with different speeds and amounts of ram. Also the new range has a heavy pricetag, based on preorder prices so I doubt they will get any cheaper.

[Ravens Nest]

What video card do you have now charger? can you live with that for a couple of months if so then the prices will probably have dropped on the 7800 GT and the X1800XT a bit by then.

If not then just get the fastest you can afford with the most features for the money.

[NikolaX]

And this new x1800 are noisy ..

[rajindergill]

I would wait a month or two for 3 reasons:

1. To see the relative performance of ATI vs Nvidia with the number of reviews which will hit the web with mass production samples rathern than early engineering/pre-mass production samples.

2. See the effect of the Nvida Forceware 80 drivers. These are supposed to provide some dramtic increases for the 7 series cards. We have to wait and see.

3. Let the price war hot up between ATI and Nvidia which will drive ATI prices definitely down but may also further reduce the Nvidia price.

[specofdust]

If you want to buy now get the 7800GT, it's a mature card, so there won't be any initial manufacturing issues, its actually available to buy in the shops, and there are drivers that have been designed with it in mind.

If you're happy to wait, then just buy whichever one, from the benchies I've seen they perform roughly equally, pretty much 6 and half a dozen.

[NikolaX]

and new drivers for nvidia has support for mix and matching of different brand graphics cards, and great boost in speed!
ForceWare 81.84 BETA Performance Analysis - http://www.tweaktown.com/document.ph...rticle&dId=819
Go for 7800GT

[dangel]

With the release of the new ati x1800 xt

...where? where? Oh, it's isn't out yet

Seriously, there's lots of thread on this now but i think it'll come down to this:

Price: nVidia
Availability: nVidia
Noise: nVidia (ATI's huge clocks means lots of heat in a dual slot solution)
Performance: ATI (but i'd stress by a small margin!) until we see new forceware drivers on dual core systems..
Dual Cards: nVidia (Crossfire is a mess right now)

[specofdust]

It's a paper realease so far, which is totaly what ATi shouldn't be doing. They're being stupid, you tell everyone your spangly new card is out, and they stop buying the previous generation, so there'll be lost of x8XX cards lying about doing nothing, when if they hadnt announced the new range people would be buying them.

I'm tired of companies doing paper launches months before the product actually hits shelves in quantities big enough so that if you want one, you can buy one.

[dangel]

Yes both nvidia and ati did it last time (when i was buying a 6800 ultra) and it really narked me off - i spent ages trying to get a X800XT PE and couldn't find one, found an 6800 ultra (got lucky) and got that instead.

[Applecrusher]

and new drivers for nvidia has support for mix and matching of different brand graphics cards, and great boost in speed!
ForceWare 81.84 BETA Performance Analysis - http://www.tweaktown.com/document.ph...rticle&dId=819
Go for 7800GT

Could you do us ALL a favour and not post a pic of a bench we all KNOW Nvidia will win in? And how about a game that is half decent?

[dangel]

Could you do us ALL a favour and not post a pic of a bench we all KNOW Nvidia will win in? And how about a game that is half decent?

Stop being such a girl - he was pointing out the increases for nVidia owners over older drivers, nothing wrong with that. Plus it's going to have a lot of bearing on Quake4 performance which uses the same engine.

[zachig]

I think the the new ATI X1800 is one HELL of a card, but personally I still prefer the 7800GTX over it.
I wish I could afford one (if I only had the money), as I currently running a XFX 6600GT.

[dangel]

That's the rub - it's priced out of the range of the majority of us, especially those of us who are married

[dangel]

BTW I heard ATI had dropped it's warranty period to a year from three - has nVidia done the same?

[specofdust]

That's why a few dozen years ago the people who were going to make graphics card invented Divorce

EDIT: Dangle man, edit, you're double posting all over the place today. Anyway, I heard rumblings about ATi lowering warrenty times, and if they've done it across the board its frankly disgusting, and something that will move me right over from someone who generally buys ATi, to someone who will always buy Nvidia.