>>>| Radeon (ATI) - - VS. - - Nvidia |<<<

[MDE]

I'll forego my planned post to quote rbV5's post for added impact:

Originally posted by: rbV5

Share your opinion: nVidia or Radeon?

My overall opinion: Another idiotic, self serving, my dogs better than your dog thread in the video forum that serves no purpose other than to justify your recent videocard purchase. Statements like

(over 40 pollers counts as a statistically accurate sample>>> a representative sample) of Anandtech forum members prefer for video cards.

on a forum with 125,736 members pretty much sum up how utterlly ridiculous this thread is, the lack of any "real" flaming illustrates how tiring these threads have become.

OK we get it, you bought a 9800pro and you like it, how about STFU and go play some games.

 

[alien886]

I would just like to emphasize my earlier comment...

I am just curious for crying out loud. I am NOT trying to convince ANYONE that one is better than the other (Radeon nor nVidia). Relax people, jeesh!

 

[MDE]

When you post something like this, you're just asking to be flamed. Read the already locked flame wars about this subject or endure flames directed at you and expect your threads to be locked.

 

[merlocka]

Originally posted by: alien886

Originally posted by: Rollo
You still haven't explained why you think a sample of 40 people is statistically significant in this population alien886. I want to see if you even know what statistics ARE.

I think you're just a kid who bought a 9800 Pro and wants to see soem people tell you that you made the right choice, or see an ATI circle jerk.

I think you judge people before you even know them. No I am not some "jerk" or ass-hole, who is too-rich and too self-centered to think outside the "ATI circle." I did research, learned about video card performance, and went out on limb (a very expensive one) to buy a high-end video card (ATI Radeon 9800 Pro). If I never mentioned the 9800 Pro, which I ONLY mentioned in my signature, you can't conclude that I even bought a 9800 Pro.

Yes, I have taken College Course called "Statistics," and I have learned that 40 is the "magic number," if you will, where n is greater or equal to 40 (number of people in a given sample) the figure is statisically signficant. Thus, my intentions of this poll, or the combination of the poll and the forum topic and its posts, are to discover the majority preference of video cards (likely to be ATI or nVidia). The majority involves a sample of Anandtech forum members (this is not a majority preference of the whole population, i.e. all computer users in the U.S. or all computer users in the whole world- probably because this is nearly impossible).

It might be statistically significant if there weren't people like me who voted for nVidia just to mess up your statistics.

 

[VIAN]

No Quixfire, you said We Win. I just said I Win as a mock.

 

[BenSkywalker]

Maybe because Valve worked solely with ATI???
Where did you get this from?

Had to comment on this one Pete- how about ATi, Valve and nVidia? It certainly was no secret.

That was the lowest thing I have seen yet in the computer industry.
No mention of the Doom 3 benchmarks?

I can see using nVidia's 'Shader Day' equal, but how does the DooM3 benches compare? If Carmack wanted to do what Valve did, we could have seen the FX5200 beating the 9800 simply by him demanding that the latest official drivers be used from each company. Unlike the case with Valve, ATi already had their hands on DooM3 for some time. Carmack also didn't come out and make a bunch of accusations that noone in the industry has been able to verify to bash ATi- he even went so far as to record his own demo because he thought nV's played too much in to their favor.

If Carmack wanted to make ATi look bad as Newell did with nVidia, he would have let nV run their best case scenario bench and he would have made everyone use the latest official drivers. We would have seen a much larger disparity then we did with HL2.

 

[Regs]

Originally posted by: i82lazyboy

Originally posted by: Regs
I have more reason to believe that if there is a compatibility issue, it would be more because of mobo chipsets than the games themselves.

maybe that's because you're an ATI fanboy whom, can't seem to perform the simple task of hyperlinking his own rig?

Well no. What I actually meant is that ATi video cards have compatibility issues with motherboard chipsets and not games. However, since you're simply one of the most ignorant guys I ever met, I expected that much of a response.

And yes, my current Rig, is getting upgraded to a A64 and I was uncertain of what motherboard to construct it with. Hence, why I deleted the link since I was too busy returning motherboards I did not wish to use. Maybe it was unnecessary for me to remove the link, can't argue with you there.

 

[Aftermath]

Call me a fanboy all you want, but I stick to ATi for now because of my horrendus experience with two nVidia chipset based cards.

My TNT2 was stable and nice, but had a bizzare problem with the mouse pointer dissapearing, which never stopped through various different drivers.

Then my GeForce 2 MX just had terrible image quality. Drivers were nice and stable, but everything was washed, no vibrance at all.

I went from the GF2 MX to a Radeon All in Wonder 32mB DDR which I caught for almost 50% off through multiple rebates at Best Buy, and the image quality was like night and day. Everything was rich and vibrant, though the speed wasn't a huge jump over the MX because of its very low clock speeds (333 DDR versus 220 SDR overclocked speeds of the MX.) However, I never had any major driver issues with ATi. No games with big issues, no major problems what-so-ever. I went from the AIW to an 8500, now to a 9800.

I stick to ATi because they haven't failed me yet. I've had a couple driver versions that simply did not work, and I still don't know why. But as soon as I realized they didn't, I reverted to an older version and everything was fine.

DISCLAIMER: This message as just an opinion, a preference. Don't retaliate with what a fanboy I am, or what may or may not have been wrong with who, or what and for whatever reasons or how ignorant about nVidia I am. At the time I did everything in my power to fx any problems that arose, or to correct any issues. I know I could've had bad cards. I don't trash nVidia or praise ATi, I simply stick to ATi because of my current running success rate with their cards. I also do not pledge any loyalty to either company. If I find that next generation nVidia has a better offering (bang/buck) than ATi, I will likely go nVidia.

 

[mikecoch]

If I find that next generation nVidia has a better offering (bang/buck) than ATi, I will likely go nVidia.

My thoughts exactly....

3 Months ago with $200 burning a hole in my pocket I decided to upgrade from my GF2 card. I checked out this forum ( and others ) and saw everyone saying a Radeon 9800np ( Circuit City - $199.99 ) was a very good buy. I bought and I am very happy with my selection.

Next time I go to upgrade my video card I will do the exact same thing. If Nvidia, ATI, Matrox, or someone new has the best card ( bang for buck wise ), I will purchase it. To me, at least, it just makes the most sense.

Of course, everyone is entitled to their own opinions...

 

[xerotheory]

wow, for those of you saying that VALVe optimized hl2 for ati, how stupid are you?

fact remains that the majority of the users out there have an nvidia based card.

Now think about it, why would they sacrifice all those people?

dosent make sense.

 

[Whitedog]

*yawn*

 

[MichaelZ]

hehe, wat he said ^

 

[xerotheory]

yep, ati vs nvidia threads suck, because its just personal preference.

 

[Pete]

Had to comment on this one Pete- how about ATi, Valve and nVidia? It certainly was no secret.
I don't understand, Ben. From what I read, I thought Valve coded to DX9 spec, then spent time with nV to get the FX up to speed. I hadn't heard that Valve worked solely with ATi. Given the 3D card user base gleaned from their various Half-Life polls (which showed nV domination, specifically of the budget GF2MX), they'd be complete morons to exclude nV from consideration. Maybe I don't have all the facts, though.

Anyway, as to Doom 3, I saw presell boxes at Best Buy today. They had nV logos on them. nV paid for the websites to bench the Doom 3 beta way back when and provided their own demo. ATi did not provide a demo, though I don't know whether that's because they weren't given a chance or chose not to. ATi also didn't have drivers that worked with their top-end card, which makes me (perhaps naively) lean toward the "no clue" explanation. There are also rumors that nV paid id or Activision to code nV-specific paths, though that may be hooey. nV obviously did something to get their logo on the Doom 3 box, though. Not only their logo, but the Doom 3 presell also includes a $10 off coupon for a 5700U.

What can I say? I consider Carmack, Newell, and Sweeney "above the fray" when it comes to the 3D wars, so I tend to belieev them. But, IMO, both preview benches of D3 and HL2 smacked of quick money rather than fan service, given their narrow and imperfect delivery.

 

[stardust]

Originally posted by: alien886

Originally posted by: Rollo
You still haven't explained why you think a sample of 40 people is statistically significant in this population alien886. I want to see if you even know what statistics ARE.

I think you're just a kid who bought a 9800 Pro and wants to see soem people tell you that you made the right choice, or see an ATI circle jerk.

I think you judge people before you even know them. No I am not some "jerk" or ass-hole, who is too-rich and too self-centered to think outside the "ATI circle." I did research, learned about video card performance, and went out on limb (a very expensive one) to buy a high-end video card (ATI Radeon 9800 Pro). If I never mentioned the 9800 Pro, which I ONLY mentioned in my signature, you can't conclude that I even bought a 9800 Pro.

Yes, I have taken College Course called "Statistics," and I have learned that 40 is the "magic number," if you will, where n is greater or equal to 40 (number of people in a given sample) the figure is statisically signficant. Thus, my intentions of this poll, or the combination of the poll and the forum topic and its posts, are to discover the majority preference of video cards (likely to be ATI or nVidia). The majority involves a sample of Anandtech forum members (this is not a majority preference of the whole population, i.e. all computer users in the U.S. or all computer users in the whole world- probably because this is nearly impossible).

Significant only with statistical significance or correctly worded question... ur question is biased either way

 

[Webthug]

Originally posted by: cm123

Originally posted by: VIAN
Hah, AMD all the way.

Anyway, ATi seems to have guaranteed performance over nVIDIA, but there are also compatability issues that ATi cards face that do drop a lot of games off of their shelf.

I chose nVIDIA.

You are so right! As a whole it seems more people have hardware issues with ATI still as well including things like disabling bios settings, of course NOT to say Nvidia is perfect neither.

I myself would love to see another GPU company step up and give some worries to Nvidia & ATI for awhile. Why is it anyway Matrox can not drum up better technology?

Matrox does not design 3d game chips. They build professional graphics cards used by Professionals. How many gamers are going to use a graphics card designed to run in 4 LCD's at 1600x1200? or a 256MB tripple head card the tuns in a 66mhz 64bit PCI slot?

 

[Webthug]

double post sorry.....

 

[Sid59]

intel extreme

 

[BenSkywalker]

I don't understand, Ben. From what I read, I thought Valve coded to DX9 spec, then spent time with nV to get the FX up to speed.

They spent time with nVidia parts, not with nVidia. They were quite clear on this when Valve did their ATi promo event. Valve also failed to simply compile the code they already had for the DX9 'Pure' path using the Microsoft provided compiler.

I hadn't heard that Valve worked solely with ATi.

Read back through the ATi promo event that Valve put on, nVidia pulled the same type of stunt with their own promo event a bit later(getting Bungie to pull some of the same stuff Newell did).

Anyway, as to Doom 3, I saw presell boxes at Best Buy today. They had nV logos on them. nV paid for the websites to bench the Doom 3 beta way back when and provided their own demo.

It is a TWIMTBP game, not debating that at all. As far as nV's provided demo, the sites never got to see it. Carmack saw the demo and recognized that it would favor nV too much so he recorded one of his own to use.

ATi did not provide a demo, though I don't know whether that's because they weren't given a chance or chose not to.

What are you talkin about? ATi provided a demo of DooM3 to hundreds of thousands of users

ATi also didn't have drivers that worked with their top-end card, which makes me (perhaps naively) lean toward the "no clue" explanation.

I don't think ATi knew that the D3 demo was going to occur, they didn't do a very good job last time they got their hands on it. That said, if Carmack were in nVidia's pocket he could have easily demanded that the latest official drivers be used, as Valve did, and had nVidia obliterating everything in ATi's lineup by a significant margin. Why wasn't that done? It would have been very dishonest and not in the least represenative of what actual in game performance will be.

There are also rumors that nV paid id or Activision to code nV-specific paths, though that may be hooey.

Go back and read Carmack's .plans starting in late '99 through the next couple of years. Look to all the features he says that DooM3 is going to be using and what he will be pushing on GPUs with the D3 engine. Looks an awful lot like the blueprints for the NV3X line of boards including the use of FP16. ATi doesn't offer the extensions to exploit that nVidia does, and they don't offer some of the particular features that nVidia does that DooM3 can take advantage of. Now, in order to believe the 'nV paid for the custom code path talk' you must believe that nVidia knew in 2000 that their parts were going to have trouble with FP16 performance in relation to FP32 and that this would be a major issue in comparison to ATi. They would have had to have had some incredible psychic ability for that to say the least

What can I say? I consider Carmack, Newell, and Sweeney "above the fray" when it comes to the 3D wars

Newell claimed that nVidia was using a 'cheat' that detected when screenshots were being taken and improved IQ to look better in comparisons. With all the hatred towards nVidia and 'investigation' done by the crew @B3D don't you find it the slightest bit odd that none of them can find anything to back this claim up? They managed to 'back up' that static T&L was never going to be used, that 3dfx was on the verge of taking over the industry, that DX8 level shaders would never take off, and that a flood of DX9 PS2.0 packing games were right around the corner and those were all PR FUD. If that claim was factual, they would have certainly posted about it(I'm sure they looked in to it, and couldn't find anything). Then we have the timing of the HL2 bench release. For DooM3 it was obvious, they had the demo to coincide with the FX5900U launch. Why did Newell decide to release the HL2 demo when he did? There was the release of a new product mere weeks away from ATi, and it was at an ATi event that he was parading around, so what could the real reason have been? As a side note, the Det50 drivers were waiting in the wings and gave a dramatic performance increase, and we never did see the HL2 benches on the latest ATi hardware.

Newell above the fray? Please. He makes BB blush.

 

[cindy22]

Ati drivers have come a long way ,they are now very stable but not perfect ,no drivers are ever going to be perfect.If you go to any nvidia drivers forum you'll see that they have alot of problems with their drivers but we don't ever hear complaints about them.

At the moment ati 's 9600xt to 9800xt are better performance/price/image/value cards than nvidia's.but I hope nvidia would come out with their next generation cards to be much better than their fx's cards nowadays.

even tomshardware site which was bias before writing in past article about how nvidia's 5800fx would crown ati's 9700 pro (we know it actually wasn't true and became a big flop for nvidia) but now he's seen the light after doing his latest review which he recommends ati 9600xt over nvidia's 5700fx ultra and 9800 non pro over 5900 non pro!

check it out at:



toms hardware review

 

[cindy22]

for people who want to purchase ati or nvidia cards XBIT LABS has a latest review of fastest 2003 video cards he also lists the reasons why you should buy nvidia and the reasons you should buy ati:

"This way, we can conclude that graphics adapters based on NVIDIA GPUs are more suitable for:

Professional gamers caring more about high fps rates rather than image quality;
Those who are not interested in the next generation games NVIDIA products fans
Those who work with professional 3D applications.

The graphics solutions based on VPUs from ATI Technologies are more suitable for:

Those who want to play with the highest image quality;
Those who are following the progress in the computer games industry;
Those who value the quietness

check it here at:

XBIT LABS conclusions ati 2003

and



XBIT LABS conclusion nvidia 2003

 

[Richdog]

Cindy no offence but your posts are getting incredible repetetive, lol.

 

[cindy22]

no I'm not offended richdog.
but theres alot of people out there trying to give bs advice to others like 5800fx is much faster than 9700 pro or 5600fx ultra is faster than 9600 pro etc.

I just want people to know the truth ,cause I was like many others, a gulible person that listened to some bs people on certain forums and certain bias article reviews that said nvidia's cards are faster and actually went and bought one ,an geforce fx 5900 back then. I was so dissapointed and exchanged for ati 9800 after paying a $100 stocking fee of course.I'm now so happy with the clearer image and fasteness this card produce and can handle higher resolutions with aa and af cranked compared to my fx5900

 

[Webthug]

From my experience with Nvidia, Ati & Matrox over the past three years I would put Nvidia as first prefference. Whilst i have had problems with Nvidia Graphics cards notably GF4MX440's these have all had problems due to the sloppy engineering and manafacturing of the cards them selves and has had never had anything to do with the parts supplied by Nvidia, the GPU and the drivers. none the less all of these were all RMA'ed promptly and the 4th 440MX is working happily. The more expensive cards that i have owned TNT2 Ultra, GF2 Ti, FX5600U have all worked flawlessley since the day they were installed. I have never had any driver problems, game bugs, hardware incompatabilities BSOD's from the Nvidia Drivers. Matrox would be placed second on my list because like Nvidia i have never ever had problems with the cards and their engineering. They come behing Nvidia because i have had some interesting game bugs on their hardware but in all fairness none of their VC's are gameing cards. Another thing that i was highly impressed by was their customer support. I now move to Ati. My first ATI card was a Rage 128 that had two cores and had twin moniter support. That stayed in my system long enough for the drivers to totaly f**k up three instalations of windows 98. When Win2k came out i tried again to get the rage 128 to work but with similar sucsess. I avoided the ATI line until fate determined me to be given an *apparently* dead 7500. While the drivers were an improvement on that of the Rage, games would ocasionally crash and not having the internet at that time was unable to download an almost unending string of updates, the card was released from games duty and was the driving force behind the desktop and office aplications of my parents PC. When the 9600 Pro cam out i decided to give Ati one more chance and went out and purchased the card. Whilst Ati have now fixed all of their driver bugs and *most* of the unexplainable in game crashes but not to be out done, ATI have developed an new issue with their cards. Hardware Incompatability. My 9600 Pro HATES my Asus P4PE with a passion. The serial ports, paralell ports, onboard LAN, Netgear gigabit NIC, silicon immage ATA controler all either refuse to work or work unreliably.
So in summing up... Nvidia based VC's are nice as long as u avoide the cheep cards. They have a nice driver package and ot would apear that considerable money has been placed into hardware compatability. Nvidia allow the manafacturers a lot of freedom which is realy a two edged sword. one one hand u get vc's with faster memory/coreclock etc but oin the other hand manafacturers cut corners with the cheeper cards causing end user problems. Avoid the cheep cards and unheard of manafacturers and u will have no problems. Nvidia recieves 2 votes. For professional applications Matrox VC's are a pleasure to work with. I'm not shure how many buisness PC's i've sold with G450's in but i am yet to find a dud. Whilst i would like to get my hands on a pihellia tripple head thingy they are currently prohibitavely expensive. Matrox gets 3 votes. While ATI have improved leaps and bounds over the past few years their products, from my expierience don't quite cut the mustard. Shure the 9800XT gets a better benchmark than a 5950U but when games crash on the 9800 where a 5950 would never have that problem, a slightly lower FPS is better than no FPS when the game crashes. Ati gets 1 point

Matrox 3
Nvidia 2
Ati 1

My $0.02

 

[Pete]

Thanks for the thorough reply and the laugh, Ben.