Video Card Debate

I would like to start a debate with the topic of video cards and who thinks what is better. We have ATI and nVidia, and many different manufacters for both. I want to see what everyone's opinions are on which boards, and which manufactures are best and why. So please don't post an opinion without a rationale.

AdamTT

I use Radeon cards, and there really aren't many differences between manufacturers. Some (Gigabyte, MSI) use larger heatsinks, but pretty much they all follow the reference board design and specs. The differences are mostly in software bundles and such, though occasionally a company like powercolor gets in trouble about using slower ram or something.
I personally use Sapphire b/c they are cheap and good.

I there a specific reason why you like Raedon over GeForce boards?

Im with Karsh44, because Radeon ARE the world leading series of cards, ATI have been around way longer than nVidia, When I was doing some work in a small PC store, and we were getting rid of all old systems, I pulled apart a system prior to Windows 95 with a ATI Technologies logo on the board, WOW thats a long time hey? I find them much more value than GeForce, I think alot of people like GeForce cos they've got a "cool" sounding name, young company, and some HIGH POLYGON COUNT MODEL on the front which would lag ANY card on ANY system. If people knew better, they would look at reviews and bechmark results before pulling out hundreds of dollars just because of some false promotion. Im not saying nVidia are ****, Sure they're great........provided that ATI arent in the picture, go to google, and look for some review, most reviews no have graphs showing performance difference to opposing cards from other manufacturers.

ATI Radeon for me!!!!

Oh yeah, its hand having my top PCI slot free, not tha i use it, just looks better. LMAO!

Nic Italiano

I've been considering getting the All-In-Wonder recently, any thoughts about that board?

welll if you want to go for exact cards which are better they go in order like this.

ATI Radeon X800XT
Nvidia 6800 Ultra
Nvidia 6800 GT
ATI Radeon X800
Nvidia 6800
ATi Radeon 9800XT

This round of cards the ATI wins for fastest card on the planet. But Nvidia seems to win in the lower end new cards. The GT seems to be better in benchmarks. Ati won the previous round by a big margin, but these new cards are 80-100% preformance boost.

I've seen some info about alienware SLI, looks sweet, nvidia claimed 20,000 on 3dmark03, where or not that ran it with default settings is the question though.

Thumbs up. You won't get quite the same quality as a dedicated tv-tuner card, but its pretty darn good, and very convenient to have everything in one card.

the only problem i think is that you can't run dual monitors if you wanted.

See, right now i have a GeForce 2 128MB board, old i know, but it's served me well thus far. However, the time has drawn neigh where it must go and usher in a new board to replace it. I want to play some games, newer (Thief III to be specific, w00t!) and don't want to spend more than like $150 on a card that will be good for the next 2 years. I've been pretty busy with work and such (I usually post while at work, shhhh) so is there a clear-cut choice out there for me? Or should i just simply find research out prices for the cards that jkabaseball pointed out?

Adam TT

All the cards he mentioned will be well over $150 (like $300 and up). If you saved a bit longer, $200 is a 9800pro, which is pretty good (have one and love it) though to say that it will last 2 years is probably a stretch. (With 6 month product cycles, even if you bought the latest and greatest now, it would still be mediocre in 2 years).
Closer to $150, the radeon 9600xt or geforce fx5700 ultra are the best, in the $160 range, but the extra $40 for the 9800pro is a pretty big step up.

For and unbiased, excellent video card comparison go to:
http://graphics.tomshardware.com/gr...1229/index.html