[WedgeBob]

We all know that now that the HD 7970 has come out to the market, and seems to be the envy of the GPU world right now, we all know that nVidia's own high-end card is right around the corner. So right now, the question is...which one of these two will reign surpeme during 2012?
Seems like this might be go time for me to go with one of these, considering that I'm still on my GPU that I've had since Windows 7 launched (HD 5850)...so yeah. Let's hear your thoughts.

[Jeff]

WedgeBob, on 02 February 2012 - 05:11 PM, said:

We all know that now that the HD 7970 has come out to the market, and seems to be the envy of the GPU world right now, we all know that nVidia's own high-end card is right around the corner. So right now, the question is...which one of these two will reign surpeme during 2012?
Seems like this might be go time for me to go with one of these, considering that I'm still on my GPU that I've had since Windows 7 launched (HD 5850)...so yeah. Let's hear your thoughts.

Probably depends on the game you're playing. Some games work better with Nvidia; others work better with AMD cards (I keep forgetting ATI is defunct now). I might replace my GTX 570 with the 780, however, it's probably only going to be for Skyrim, which I don't play very much. FSX would also use the GTX 780 quite well since 25% of the framerate comes from the GPU.

If I were you, I would wait for the GTX 780's benchmarks on the particular game you are playing and compare that to the 7970's.

[Kathy]

For me it depends whether or not Nvidia would be able to bitstream hd-audio. Right now high-end nvidia card can't do it.

[Mikko]

Yeah, as has already been said, ask yourself what kind of games you play the most, then see which card performs better with these games. ATI has made more sense for me so far.

[The Commander]

Mikko_Sandt, on 03 February 2012 - 05:53 AM, said:

ATI has made more sense for me so far.

This, because they are also much cheaper here than their nVidia counterpart.

[Bloodshot]

I do like ATI for their cheaper products, but they generally don't know how to create drivers very well, whereas Nvidia drivers have problems but they are like 10x better.

And their drivers actually end up gimping their cards sometimes because they cause performance problems where there shouldn't be.

I actually had poor ATI drivers prematurely end the life of 2 of my ATI cards. The manufacturer replaced one of the older ones it happened to but for the newer one that died (HD 4870 x2 - Ironically, the SAME thing just happened to my friend with the same card) I decided to switch to nvidia, GTX 560 Ti 2 gb - absolutely no problems whatsoever and runs old games and things that use OpenGL fine too, and can max out anything I play.

So unless Nvidia suddenly fires all their coders and makes shit drivers, or all devs switch to endorsing ATI I'm gonna say Nvidia will win in the long run, because most graphically demanding games end up supporting Nvidia over ATI anyway.

Of course, look up benchmarks. There are some cases where ATI (or AMD, whatever) completely kills nvidia and vice versa.

[Inspector Lagomorf]

Thread is basically "Which is better, nVidia or ATI?", a debate not foreign to this particular forum.

[LeoD]

The Mighty Bison, on 03 February 2012 - 02:52 PM, said:

Thread is basically "Which is better, nVidia or ATI?", a debate not foreign to this particular forum.

No way refusing your invitation.

[Mr.Deviance]

NVIDIA or AMD cards?
If you want cheap cards with cheap results due to historically shitty and slow to release drivers, get AMD cards.
If you want slightly more expensive cards with guaranteed gaming quality and premium drivers that almost always get delivered on time for the newest games, then go for NVIDIA.
My last personal ATI card that I used for gaming was an ati9800 which I owned 1000 years ago when dinosaurs still roamed the cities and godzilla was still considered a new movie.
I liked that card but then everything that came after it, showed a shitload of negative points that forced me to buy nvidia cards again and ever since then, I am extremely happy with nvidia cards and so are all the people that I've seen owning and talking about them, while on the opposite side, 99% of everybody that I know and owns/owned ATI cards, curses the day he decided to buy it for gaming, instead of buying an nvidia.

So my recommendation to you is obvious, go for Nvidia no questions asked.

Also, the next nvidia card coming is not a 780 it's a 680.
Currently nvidia is at the 5xx series, why would their next card series be 7xx and not 6xx?
There will be a 7xx series but you need to wait one more year to get it after the 6xx is deemed old and needs to be replaced again.

[Tea Monster]

To every argument for an ATI card, comes one counter argument for Nvidia:

But the Nvidia cards WORK.

Game, set and match.

[The Commander]

Funny, I had more problems with my nvidia than my ATI...

The only problem my ATI has is with Polymer, runs other games as they should considering what it is. (HD 5750)
Where as the 8800 GTS just gave me BSOD while watching Youtube videos (Yes this is true and the information is out there) and couldn't play Minecraft with out crashing to a black screen. (ReaperMan can confirm this as it happens to him)

So I will just stick to my ATI card for now.

[Person of Color]

Mr.Deviance, on 04 February 2012 - 09:21 PM, said:

NVIDIA or AMD cards?
If you want cheap cards with cheap results due to historically shitty and slow to release drivers, get AMD cards.
If you want slightly more expensive cards with guaranteed gaming quality and premium drivers that almost always get delivered on time for the newest games, then go for NVIDIA.
My last personal ATI card that I used for gaming was an ati9800 which I owned 1000 years ago when dinosaurs still roamed the cities and godzilla was still considered a new movie.
I liked that card but then everything that came after it, showed a shitload of negative points that forced me to buy nvidia cards again and ever since then, I am extremely happy with nvidia cards and so are all the people that I've seen owning and talking about them, while on the opposite side, 99% of everybody that I know and owns/owned ATI cards, curses the day he decided to buy it for gaming, instead of buying an nvidia.

So my recommendation to you is obvious, go for Nvidia no questions asked.

Also, the next nvidia card coming is not a 780 it's a 680.
Currently nvidia is at the 5xx series, why would their next card series be 7xx and not 6xx?
There will be a 7xx series but you need to wait one more year to get it after the 6xx is deemed old and needs to be replaced again.

Lots of bias in this post. ATI drivers slow to release? Nigga, they're on monthly launch cycles. As for 99% of people you know hating them, 100% of people I know don't regret their purchase. I went from a 460 to a 6950 I modded to a 6970 and the only driver problems I have are in ancient games nVidia also sucked in. I actually had less problems in Sonic Generations with my ATI card.

At this point I'd gladly buy from either company.

And hey, maybe if we're lucky, nVidia will shit out another 5800/8800 GTX/280/480 space heater and then fix it in eight months. That seems to be their thing. Kind of like AMD shipping beta processors like the Phenom 1 and ShitDozer...

[Jeff]

I used to have an ATI card, but it had some issues with a game that I played. I since bought Nvidia cards. Some games I play do not like AMD cards, which is why I haven't bought one in a while. For example, Mass Effect 2's mod called TexMod reports a huge FPS drop with AMD cards. While for FSX, Nvidia gives better performance.

[Gambini]

Cody, on 05 February 2012 - 01:31 PM, said:

Where as the 8800 GTS just gave me BSOD while watching Youtube videos (Yes this is true and the information is out there)

That´s Adobe flash player´s fault, for much they try to deny it. Easily fixeable by disabling hardware acceleration in the video window (which btw makes no difference at all).

Common sense says Nvidia, common sense says Intel. Just like a Pepsi will never taste as a Coca Cola, even when that´s their whole purpose.

At the end of the day, you get what you pay for.

[Person of Color]

I got waaaaay more than I paid for with this card.

2GB RAM, and performance better than a 1.2GB GTX 570 for close to $100 less.

nVidia can lick my taint at the moment.

[Mikko]

In the past ten years I've had four GPUs, two by AMD, two by NVIDIA. I've had far less issues with the AMD cards. Source-engine games particularly never liked my NVIDIAs; neither did Battlefields.

Gambini, on 05 February 2012 - 10:32 PM, said:

Just like a Pepsi will never taste as a Coca Cola, even when that´s their whole purpose.

But it's not their whole purpose. It's supposed to taste slightly different (=better). Pepsi is so much better than Cola. On this issue there can be no debate and no intelligent person can think otherwise..

[Inspector Lagomorf]

I've never had any trouble with my video cards. I generally don't pay attention to the chipset manufacturers. I just go with the highest rated relatively inexpensive cards on Newegg. I guess more often than not I'll opt for nVidia just so I can play eDuke32.

[TerminX]

I always go for NVIDIA, like there's no other brand that even exists. The few times I've messed with ATI cards they were always problematic but admittedly it has been a few years. Additionally, since Plagman is an NVIDIA employee, it would be pretty weird if I bought an ATI card. On the exceedingly rare occasion I actually have problems with my NVIDIA stuff (a very unusual occurrence) I can usually just ask him to try and find the issue in their internal bug tracker and tell me whether or not it's fixed already for a future driver or whether the issue is even known about.

[Gambini]

TX, on 06 February 2012 - 07:59 AM, said:

since Plagman is an NVIDIA employee

This explains the ATI issues with Polymer. It´s all marketing

Quote

But it's not their whole purpose. It's supposed to taste slightly different (=better). Pepsi is so much better than Cola. On this issue there can be no debate and no intelligent person can think otherwise..

haha. I´m not usually influenced by this kind of stuff: but have you ever took a look to their market share around the world? that has to tell you something.

[LeoD]

Mikko_Sandt, on 06 February 2012 - 05:35 AM, said:

Pepsi is so much better than Cola. On this issue there can be no debate and no intelligent person can think otherwise..

SInce I'm dumb then anyway I'd like to bring my inferior taste into this non-debate: Coke is Matsch better!

Gambini, on 06 February 2012 - 08:20 AM, said:

I´m not usually influenced by this kind of stuff: but have you ever took a look to their market share around the world? that has to tell you something.

Well, that tells exactly nothing about quality. We have VHS video tapes, MS Windows, Avatar, Bud, ...

[Jeff]

Quote

Currently nvidia is at the 5xx series, why would their next card series be 7xx and not 6xx?

I was just searching their next GPU and came up with it. Might have been early information.

Something I was going to add. If you are going to buy an AMD card, I heard the 8000 series of cards is coming out this year, so you might want to wait. The GTX 600 series is between 20-50% faster than that 7970 (for the 670 and 680 Nvidia equivalent)

[retro gamer]

i've had plenty of cards from both nvidia comes out slighty ahead in the most reliable , other components in the machine do play a part in the stability of the graphics card , not all components get along and lead people to think one companies cards are not very good. ive seen two identical machines and ones had problems and the others been fine, luck of the draw really.

[Tea Monster]

Cool hardware is no good if your drivers suck.

[Martin]

I run Linux. Apparently, trying to get an ATi card to work properly with the OS can be a headache. I decided to go with an nVidia card, and have not regretted it. Getting any hardware to work with Linux is generally more convoluted than Windows or OS X. I'm not the most computer-literate person in the world (certainly not on these boards), but I managed to get my card running all by myself. Just. Assuming it's true that ATi cards are a cunt to get working with Linux, I would have been up shit creak without a paddle. So yeah, I'd probably stick with nVidia all the way, just because I like my Linux. I plan on partitioning Windows 7 Ultimate (got an awesome pirate copy of it, installs and updates like a charm!) with Ubuntu. The latter will be for internet so I don't have to run anti-viral software on the Windows side. I will never take the Windows partition browsing the net. My experience of Windows is that it just invites viruses in. It's like MS and Norton/etc are all in league with each other.

Can someone with greater knowledge of the subject clear up if ATi cards are bad for Linux, and why? Is it because they suck ass at OpenGL like I seem to hear all the time? The only ATi 'card' I've ever owned is the GPU in my GameCube, haha. Oh wait, 360 as well. I preferred it on GameCube though, you got a sexy little ATi logo on the front of the machine

[Kathy]

Martin, on 03 June 2012 - 05:53 AM, said:

I will never take the Windows partition browsing the net. My experience of Windows is that it just invites viruses in.

Windows just have more malware and more dumb users, that's all.

[Martin]

Well, there's certain sites I go on without even worrying about it on Linux. I would never go on them on Windows. Ever. I would immediately get a virus. The only 'online' my Windows side will be seeing is updates and online gaming. Nothing else.

[Kathy]

Then it is your security that lacking, not Windows'.

[Martin]

Nah bro, you do have to be careful on Windows. The amount of malware for it is astronomical, especially in comparison to that of other OS'. It wouldn't surprise me if the ratio of malware for Windows vs competing OS' was something huge like 1000:1, or even bigger. I don't like running a bloated operating system that has a million unnecessary things taking clock cycles away from what I'm actually doing. I'm going to keep my Windows partition tight and lean.

[Bloodshot]

I've had this computer since 2008, and have only gotten 2 viruses and removed them, and I don't use any active virus protection software

If you have a good gaming computer and don't know how to protect it download Virtual PC > get a vhd of winxp or something > save an image of it and browse the internet with that. There you go, if you ever get a virus, just delete it and revert to your backup. It's not like you'd have to worry about resource usage since you wouldn't leave it open while you are using hardware intensive programs anyway (but if you have enough RAM you can)

On topic, ATI is definitely more budget and you can get more power for less $$$, but I typically have been swayed away from ATI since my last couple of cards from them were basically killed do to faulty drivers. I got a GTX 560 Ti and haven't had a problem with it since

[Inspector Lagomorf]

Martin, on 03 June 2012 - 06:17 PM, said:

It wouldn't surprise me if the ratio of malware for Windows vs competing OS' was something huge like 1000:1

80% of all computer users operate on Windows. Of course there's going to be more malware, but that isn't a problem if you have proper virus and malware protection. If 80% of people used Linux, Linux would be just as vulnerable as Windows.