Who makes the better video card? nVidia or ATI

Comparing similar video cards, which company makes a superior product? I cannot vote, because I have limited PC gaming experience.

 

ATI, I have always seen ATI as producing the better performing more cost effective video cards.

This will no doubt turn into a debate. As a matter of fact we already have one.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=68669

 

I would have to agree(ATI), it seems that Nvidia it the first to throw the punch this round though.

 

i own ati, but it seems nvidia is super faster.

 

Alright y'all... make sure you keep it civil in here These things have the habit of going the way of holy wars (and if that's the case, the thread will be locked, bottoms will be spanked, and we'll call out a few plagues of locusts or something... heh)

I put my money down on NVIDIA due to their superior Linux support, superior drivers in general as far as OpenGL is concerned, and generally being faster at any given price-point than it's ATI counterpart card.

 

ATI, even though this is a buyest question, im very impressed with ATI, mainly because their X1400 is supposidly eqaul to the Go 7400, but it is better, therefore NVidia is a step behind with all there cards.

 

I've owned a few of each. I think nvidia has better drivers.

I also often hear that nVidia produces better quality, while ATI produces better frame rates.
But ATI sucks at opengl though, but they cream nvidia at directx.

*note, i may have gotten ati and nvidia mixed up in their strengths and weaknesses. Point is, they each have strong suits depending on what you need.

 

I've never had as many problems with nvidia cards as with ati. Though that's mostly driver related.

 

I think ATI makes better low-mid range cards while nvidia dominates the high end market.

 

Can we have an option 'I have no preference' ?

You also forgot to include manufacturers like Intel and S3

 

I prefer Nvida because it works the best for a game that I own.
Tim

 

Graphics and Intel do NOT go together... -_-

 

Nvidia beats ATI to the punch. Although ATI cards may ultimately end up faster, Nvidia can already bring affordable new tech graphics solutions to the market faster than ATI currently is.

 

I tend to disagree, I thought ATi always had the better high end and nvidia always had the better mid-low range. I can't remember the last time nvidia had the best high end architecture (if you count out the 7950gx2).

 

this is like a teeter totter cause this question will always have diff results at diff times predicated on whats currently on the market.
With that being said with the release of Vista i will say Ati is better by a country mile. My friend has an go8800 and cant play the games he wants to on his vista os.
Theres no driver support from nvidia for vista and he's royally pi$$ed at them. A vid card is only as good as the drivers/support to back it up.
So right now nvidia is sucking the big one, but the story may be diff 2 mths from now

 

Well I was actually referring to nvidia's 8800gtx which has during the last 5 months absolutely dominated ATI's x1950xtx.

 

There is no go 8800 available, so I have a hard time believe your friend has one in his laptop

 

Depends on the generation of them.I wonder how many of the people over here remember the ATI Rage series.Or the FX series fiasco.It depends, for example X1600 for laptops was a great GPU for a good period of time, now the 7700 holds that title.

 

The X1600 was never any better than the 7600 in notebooks. The performance of the two was identical, although it was the 7600 that had better all round support for all games. The 7700 is simply WAY better.

I would agree that for the past, the lower end ATI Cards have seem to be better than the low end Nvidia ones. Although the difference would only be marginal, if even noticable. Nvidia's high end cards are superior to ATI's and have been so for the past 2 years at least. The Geforce 6600 was far better than the X700 for example and actually became the best selling graphics card ever.

 

as much as i would like to say ati...i would have to say nvidia...ati seem to be slightly behind (well very behind) jus as they had released the x1950xt the 880gtx came out and blew that away..i will still buy ati...but its funny when i play games like call of duty 2 or fear that the nvidia logo comes up and it runs better on those cards...still will always be an ati fan ...nvidia only slipped up a little bit recently with lack of support for vista but they are still on top especially as they have released there mid range 8 series for desktops (8500,800)..im hoping ati this year will be on the ball...i know that the HD x2900 should be a killer...and they are already working on the mid range ones too so fingers crossed..

and FREN i love the sig hehehe

 

6800 > X800 (Yes, then the X850 matched it resulting in basically a tie (except for the 6800's SM3.0 support), but that was the refresh cycle half a year later. X800 was the "direct" competitor)
7800 > X1800 (Again, X1900 did pretty well, but that was later)
8800 > ...... (NVidia got a damn powerful card out half a year ago. ATI didn't. I'd say that's a point in NVidia's favor in the high-end market. The fact that they *have* a high end card at the moment)
And then of course, everything from Geforce 4 and down.

That leaves:
9800 series > Geforce 5 FX: Clear win for ATI

And then a few of the refresh cycles:
- x850 vs 6800 since no 6900 was ever made, but that was basically a tie
- X1900 series vs 7900 series (If we don't count the 7950gx2, this is a win for ATI. But why shouldn't it be counted? It is a high end card. And it is fast. I'd call it a tie)

So, if we do everything possible to make things look good for ATI, they have two victories and one tie. Personally I'd say one victory and two ties.

NVidia has 7 wins and one or two ties.

And finally, we can't really make this comparison, since ATI sucked horribly until Geforce 5/Radeon 9800, which obviously piles up a lot of wins for NVidia. So all the above is pretty much invalid (but it does show that ATI is not simply "better in high end".

A few things we *can* conclude are:
- In the last 3 years, ATI has been consistently unable to keep up with NVidia's schedule. They've been lagging more and more behind in terms of release dates. (To the extent that the 8800 has now had 5-6 months without any competitor)
- In the last 3-4 years, NVidia has been most aggressive about supporting new features (First SM3.0, now SM4.0)
- Both companies make fast cards.

 

well im just too used to calling al nvidia's go's
So if you wanna get technical ill call it a g80
or 8800 GTX.

and nothing in my post mentions "it" was in a laptop does it??

 

First, for gaming, their performance is almost equal :
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=74146
A8Jm had 512MB dedicated v-ram but X1600 had 256MB dedicated v-ram and the rest was shared with the main ram.
But for non-gaming tasks I think X1600 was slightly better.

 

Its like asking how many licks it takes to get to the center of a tootsie pop....the world may never know

 

or its like peeps on Autoforums comparing the roadgrip between Pirelli or Bridgestone tires or will my 56hp lawnmower cut faster than my neighbors 52hp mower.
Oh, and cant forget the ol classic is a 8mp camera better than 7.2 mp camera

add your own sarcastic 'which is better' comparison here ________________

 

Nvidia 34, Ati 13 woot!

oh i voted nvidia as i find they are easier to use (drivers n cp) and have been happy with their desktop and laptop cards in terms of price and performance.

 

I believe your wrong:

9800 > 5900

x850xt > 6800ultra >= x800xt - http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/2004-27gpu2_34.html (read 35-45)(specifically p.43)

7800 = x1800 - http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=26720

x1900xtx > 7900gtx (although it was close)

8800 >=< ??? (we'll see when it comes out)

Can't count the 7950gx2 because it is basically two 7900gts on one card. If you want to count it then x1950pro dual > 7950gx2.

 

But you also said ati has the better mid-low end. I dont see how.

6300 > x300
x700 =< 6600 > x600
x1650xt = 7600gt > x1600xt
7600gs > x1600pro
7300 > x1300

=< means close but alot of opengl games at the time settled it for most.

 

Dude, everyone knows that you can't measure MP to compare digital cameras, you have to measure CMOS size... that's what really matters

But yes, it does depend on many factors. So you need to know what your use case is, and then fit the product to that. That being said, NVIDIA tends to be better for most high-end use cases, as well as most common use cases, from my experience with lots of computers and graphics programming. ATI has the lead in supporting actual open-source, but NVIDIA's drivers work better on Linux. Lots of things to consider...

 

Well, maybe everyone knows but you sure dont by what you just said.

Imagers come in 2 technologies. CCD and CMOS (well theres JFET and LBCAST too but i wont touch base on them, it'll just confuse u even more)
Each chip produces the same end result digital bits. They just process differently and some CCDs have a far better dynamic range than some CMOS chips.
So until you learn that theres another technology besides CMOS you'll never know if theres a diff or not

 

I know there are both, I was just making a joke. You will note that CMOS is still a valid image detection chip, so I was not off-base. My point is that a larger CCD or CMOS will detect a better image, even if it doesn't have a higher MP count. An 8MP 1/1.8" CCD will always produce a better picture than an 8MP 1/2.7" CCD, simply because there's more light per pixel on the detector, resulting in a more accurate image reproduction, less dithering and bleed-through. That's why (along with better optics) my 5MP prosumer Fuji camera takes nicer pictures of the same scene as compared to my 6MP Olympus point and shoot.

I actually do know what I'm talking about most of the time, and will admit when I don't, and I REALLY don't appreciate the tone of your post. FYI, insulting people, much less mods, is not a good way to make friends.

 

Didn't I mention that one? (I counted all GF FX as one generation, since the result didn't change between the original cards and the refresh ones)

That depends a lot on which reviews you read, which benchmarks they use, and which driver revision. In general, the 6800's were faster than the X800's, and the X850's caught up, probably were even slightly faster (but had no SM3.0)

Again, depends a lot on which reviews you read, but generally, no, the 7800's did better than the x1800's.

Yep, I think I said that too. But I dpon't see why the 7950GX2 should be counted out. I don't *care* if it is one or two dies. It is *one* card, that is sold as *one* and fits in *one* single PCIE slot. That means it should be compared to the best ATI has that fits into a single PCIE slot.
After all, this isn't a "fair play" competition. It is a comparison to see which company gives the best performance in each generation. And in this generation, nothing beat the 7950GX2, hence that wins.

Er, no. The 8800 has been faster for 6 months. When ATI releases a product, we'll compare that to the best NVidia has out by then (which is probably a 8900)
Why shouldn't NVidia be credited when they're *twice* as fast as the best ATI has to offer for a full 6 months?
The 8800 has to be the biggest, clearest victory any GPU has *ever* scored (With the possible exception of the very first 3d accelerator cards)
It is definitely *not* a question mark, or something "we'll see about".

 

I call ATI because, back when I bought my card, they had a distinct image quality advantage with ansiotropic filtering. NVIDIA classically has had better driver support though, I think. In the end, I wouldn't do anything besides compare them on a card-to-card basis.

I think price/performance is the deciding thing at any given point anyways, regardless of who has the fastest card on the market at the moment.

 

The old poll at hothardware.com (before the vista one) showed 41% of people were still waiting to see what R600 was like, im one of those 41% who is waiting.

If were not then x1950pro dual > 7950gx2 , Thats just two R570 dies on one card

http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/04/06/crossfire_on_a_stick/

-.-

So basically its a toss up.


I think this thread should just be closed.

 

ATI has a bunch of monkey's making their drivers... nvidia drivers give you options to control almost everything that happens on screen. Pay the extra cash and get a quality NVidia product... It's not all about FPS and which card is faster.

 

Well right now I'm not very happy with either manufacturer. I know I'm being a bit harsh, but which is worse? A manufacturer that does nothing or one that can't seem to do things right? The former is obviously ATI who finally released decent mid-range parts last year nearly a year after their competitor and have been sitting around for half a year ever since. The latter is nVidia who releases the great 8800 with poor Vista drivers and no DX10 drivers and takes so long to release mainstream parts when they had the perfect opportunity to steal the market from their competitor and when they are released they barely outperform, if they even do, their predecessors, and only redeeming feature is DX10 support.

It just seems to me like the whole graphics industry is stagnating. I guess they've pushed so fast in the last 5 years and they finally need to take a breather.

 

There's pros & cons to both ati and nvidia.........if you average everything out they're about the same. It's like comparing a monkey to an arangatang.

 

They both produce great products, thats bad question for a # of reasons, asking who makes the best chip at the present time for a specific market segment would have been much better, not to mention the fact that Nvidia doesnt even make their own cards( I know you were probably just referring to the chips, but I had to point that out anyway) at present nvidia has had the notebooks performance market by the nose for awhile, the middle ground is about even, I just hope we get a viable 3rd competiter in the fray soon, competition is what drives the market, and gives us better products at better prices.

 

I've owned alot of both, from the radeon 7500, 9000IGP, 9200, 9550, x300, x600, x800, x1400, x1600, and my current x1950xt
from nvidia I've owned the GF4 mx400, 5600ULT, 6150LE, 6600GT, and lastly the 7600GT. I usually build a pc and then end up selling it to someone within 2-4 months. not only is it nice profit on my part but I get to use all these cards for awile before I sell them! So far, I've liked both of them almost equally. Although I no longer like the control center for Nvidia. The whole layout is time consuming and feels sloppy, especially since a rotating Nvidia symbol doesn't show the user how any of the options will affect gameplay, other than AA.... Are they forgetting about AF, and mip settings!?

I don't know why exactly, but to me it seems as though nvidia just wants to rush everything to the market and make as much money as possible without worrying much on quality, where as ATI just wants to be the worlds fastest and efficient.

I know that I wont be getting any of the 8 series cards, mabe the 9 series, but thats a good year or two away!

I for one, have to 100% agree with Iceman0124. There needs to be another GPU only company to compete with! Seriously.. when both companies released the X1700 and 7700 AT THE SAME TIME! I knew something was up! I swear they're the same, or are working together or something!

 

More like they both want to make as much money as possible, they both try to achieve good quality.
The difference is much simpler. lately, ATI has been falling behind schedule, NVidia hasn't. If you want to promote ATI, then yes, you could use that to say "yeah, but that's because they don't rush their products, and care more about quality".
Which isn't true at all. It's just that for various reasons, they've gotten a bit delayed. Doesn't mean they're better or worse than NVidia. (And NVidia has gotten delayed in the past as well. I don't hear people accusing ATI of rushing the 9800 series cards, when NVidia got delayed)

So? That doesn't change the fact that for almost half a year now, NVidia has had a card that was roughly twice as fast as anything the competition could offer.

Anyway, my point was just that no matter how you look at it, NVidia has had a few kick-ass years. They've also reigned supreme for what, 5 years up until the Geforce 5. So any kinds of statistics you create will be badly skewed.
ATI has only had one year where they truly slaughtered the competition. Since then, it's been much more even, and honestly, there isn't some kind of big difference in philosophy between the two companies. It is not true that one cares about quality, the other about performance. It's not true that one goes after the high-end market, the other mainstream. It's not true that there's *any* overarching characteristics that really separate the two companies always and forever. Their entire lineup changes from year to year, so obviously, their respective advantages and disadvantages do as well.

 

Yep, the 8800GTX reigns supreme, kills ATI's top cards...even in Crossfire config. On the other hand, ATI's middle and low end cards are solid, and that's the biggest consumer base by far.

 

I agree, in my desktop I use nVidia cards, and they seem to perform better than my friends SLI x1800's of course I think an x1900 is equal to a 7900GT, but from what I've read here ATI seems to dominate with x1400/x1600/x1700 card series.

 

I prefer ATi. FPS isn't everything. Beyond 60 FPS, there's absolutely nothing unplayable. At those levels, the subtle differences in the lighting, shading, and colors come into play, and which ATi is always better at. I am one of those who feel that ATi's pixel shaders are superior to Nvidia's.

 

I believe ATI does overall and I prefer ATI.

 

The irony is that it always takes ATI 6 months to 1 year to offer a decent mid-range component. Just look at the original X600 which was a waste of time, followed by the X700 which still couldn't take on the 6600GT, and finally ATI just gave up and started using cut-down X800 and took the price margin hit. The same with the X1600 which couldn't compete with the 6800GT at launch despite being more expensive and then it also fell to the 7600 series. Again ATI had to release a stop-gap with the X1800GTO to fight the 7600GT, and the X1900GT in the lower-high end segment. It's only with the recent X1650XT and X1950Pro that ATI has dedicated mid-range parts that perform up to the competition. Admittedly the end user might not care much that ATI has to constantly cannibalize their high-end parts to offer something decent in the mid-range, but it shows consistent poor execution on their part. Hopefully the X2600 will be a one shot hit. It shouldn't be too difficult given the 8600 series performance level.

 

I'd say ati definetly... if not for the sake of anything else then for the sake of at least having more experience in making video cards (whoever remember when nvidia just started with some Riva cards)..

I'd.... had only ATI not pissed allover it's customers who wish to a) run anything else than window$ b) use openGL apps c) have had older cards... to which suddenly support was dropped in the latest propietary linux drivers, leaving off with "only" opensource dri/drm drivers, sligthly slower than ati's.

Remember also however, this is a laptop forum, so performance is not all that counts - how about battery usage, power drain, heat dissipation? Which company produces cooler/more notebook-environment friendly cards? I'd again say ati, but I don't know - unfortunately (in this matter only, however that may soon change) I run Linux so have no comparison as to how the cards gain/lose in window$ regarding battery life/heat/fan noise.

Cheers,

//m.

 

ATI's manufacturing costs have always been higher, but as you've said we as consumers don't care if we don't see it. As for the 7600 taking down the X1600, huuuuuuh? Far as I know, both cards are about equal in performance, especially if we're talking the mobile market.

Anyhow, ATI has always been more devoted to the lower end of the market, and their integrated solutions have been around forever. NVidia on the other hand has always focused more on the high end stuff, cards that cost $800 that only hardcore gamers and people with money management problems could afford. Where they clash is the middle segment of the market, and as you've said ATI sometimes resorts to using their high end cards with disabled pipes in a budget card role.

 

Well, in your original comment I was responding to you mentioned the 8800GTX which is a desktop part so my response was mainly about desktop parts.

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2717&p=10

On desktops, the 7600 series walked all over the X1600 series. The 7600GT was like 50% more powerful than the X1600XT. Even when ATI dropped prices so that the X1600XT faced the 7600GS instead, I believe the 7600GS was still faster. ATI had to release the X1800GTO to face the 7600GT and even then I'm pretty sure it was close until you started to turn up the resolutions and AA/AF when the X1800GTO's 256-bit memory bus gave it the bandwidth advantage.

I guess you could say it's unfair to directly compare the 7600 and the X1600 considering the 7600 was launched a quarter later. However, that still doesn't excuse the X1600 launching at a higher price point than 6800GT and yet underperforming it.