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Nvidia vs ATI

Discussion in 'PC hardware help' started by otester, Jun 6, 2004.

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  1. otester

    otester Guest

    Whats the better graphics card. I have a 256MB Sparkle GeForce FX5600 XT with 61.11 (Forceware) and the performance is pretty crap. Tell me your opinions on both. I was an Nvidia lover.
     
    otester, Jun 6, 2004
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  2. otester

    otester Guest

    My Spec:

    2800+ AMD Athlon XP (Barton) runs at 2.08Mhz
    256MB Sparkle graphics card
    60GB Maxtor HD 7200RPM
    1GB Crucial PC3200 DDR Memory
    MSI K7N2 Motherboard
     
    otester, Jun 6, 2004
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  3. Praetor

    Praetor Moderator Staff Member

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    This should be in hardware section.
    [​IMG]

    1. You asked us to explain which card is better than which however you have only listed one card. :)

    2. The FX5600XT is a midline card (and currently superceded by the 5700 if im not mistaken) if you wanted super performance at whatever cost the 59-- series would have been the way to go.

    3. I dont intend to get into OR ALLOW pointless nVidia-ATi pissing contests. Although I am an nVidia man myself, both companies make very respectable products. "Traditionally" nVidia has favored raw speed while ATI has favored efficiency and AA/Ansio quality (see http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/85366 for a little rant on AA/Ansio).

    4. The GFX5600 while certainly never was the flagship card is not really by any reasonable definition, "crap" -- now if you expected to play FarCry at 1900x1600x32 4x/8x AA/Ansio with all the details and sound settings ramped then perhaps you both overestimated the perforamcne capacity for your video card and proc. You should however be able to get a decent game at 1280x1024 QuinCux/4x or so (hell its not like you notice antialiasing when playing FPS games -- well unless you're a camper :p)
     
    Praetor, Jun 6, 2004
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  4. otester

    otester Guest

    I didnt mean a contest for which specific card is better, i meant in general, which make is better. but the radeon 9600XT (256MB) (which is equivalant) is better than the FX5600XT by miles and about the same price. i cant even get a decent game 1024x768.
     
    otester, Jun 6, 2004
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  5. otester

    otester Guest

    I only got 1738 on 3DMark03
     
    otester, Jun 6, 2004
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  6. Praetor

    Praetor Moderator Staff Member

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    1. Well you kinda answered your own question eh? :)
    2. I dunno where you are getting your cards but for me at least the GFX5600 is at least $50 cheaper than the 96XT
    3. The GFX5600 is nowhere near the equivalent of the 9600XT the ATi card is far superior.
    4. "In general" there really isnt an answer. Both companies make excellent products -- 'sides you arent buying purely on the basis of the "bling-bling brand name principle" are you? If so, it's probably a good idea to spend time to figure which product suits your needs and budget before buying something because "the brand is better" because in a lot of cases that leads to either excessive spending or poor choices :)

    Define decent. My Ti46 here give me more than decent performance.
     
    Praetor, Jun 6, 2004
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  7. Nephilim

    Nephilim Moderator Staff Member

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    A better match for the 9600XT is the GeForce FX5700 Ultra. The FX5600 didn't live up to it's designation.

    My personal conviction is that both companies make outstanding cards, you just have to know which models are the real performers since they both sell "economy" models that have similar names to the performance cards.

    I liken it to a "Ford vs. Chevy" debate. The Ford lovers like to nitpick stupid stuff about Chevy's, the Chevy lovers nitpick Fords and so on. It's the same thing with ATI and nVidia.

    The best thing to do is research, research, research and ask a lot of questions :)
     
    Nephilim, Jun 6, 2004
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  8. Praetor

    Praetor Moderator Staff Member

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    LOL that never occured to me! LMAO

    Indeed background info is crucial -- its not like these video cards are a buck a piece (even then, a dollar is a dollar hehe)
     
    Praetor, Jun 6, 2004
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  9. Xian

    Xian Regular member

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    Personally I give the Nvidia cards the edge for one reason - their drivers are more stable and have more support. Both ATI and NV have great hardware but I have had more driver trouble with ATI than I ever did with Nvidia. A couple games I had to downgrade drivers to get them to work with ATI - Neverwinter Nights a couple years ago was one I remember. It was one of my favorites at the time and would not run with the latest Catalyst drivers available and it took them at least 3 more revisions to fix the problem. It would work fine if you downgraded to an older driver. I also had a similar problem with an even older ATI card years ago - breaking existing stuff with their new releases.

    Another thing is support for anything but Windows. Nvidia makes Linux drivers available almost as soon as the card is released. Some of ATI's hardware took a year or more to have drivers released for Linux and even then they were binary only.
     
    Xian, Jun 7, 2004
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  10. Praetor

    Praetor Moderator Staff Member

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    LOL i almost forgit about that haha! :)
     
    Praetor, Jun 7, 2004
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  11. otester

    otester Guest

    i get my cards from ebuyer (www.ebuyer.com) and the FX5600XT and 9600XT are about the same price.take a look for yourself. the 'new' 56.72 drivers are crap they really mess up your system.
     
    otester, Jun 12, 2004
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  12. Praetor

    Praetor Moderator Staff Member

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    And the 9600XT is a better card... not by a massive margine but noticeable


    How do they mess up your system? :) They've run rine everywhere I've seen.
     
    Praetor, Jun 12, 2004
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  13. otester

    otester Guest

    The 'new' 56.72 drivers made my system very slow and it freezed a lot. i now get my drivers from guru3d.com because i can get even better drivers from them which are the 61.40 and have been brilliant so far along with the 56.72 stereo drivers (different from the other bad 56.72).
     
    otester, Jun 12, 2004
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  14. otester

    otester Guest

    Is a radeon 128MB 9800 Pro better than a 256MB 9600XT?
     
    otester, Jun 12, 2004
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  15. Nephilim

    Nephilim Moderator Staff Member

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    I'd go with the 9800 Pro 128. Even though the 9600XT 256 has twice as much RAM it only has four pixel pipelines compared to the 9800"s eight pipelines. The double serving of RAM on the 9600XT isn't going to make up for the fewer pipelines.
     
    Nephilim, Jun 12, 2004
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  16. otester

    otester Guest

    Hacked drivers can change it from 4 to 8 pipelines (9600XT).Omega Drivers.
     
    otester, Jun 13, 2004
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  17. Nephilim

    Nephilim Moderator Staff Member

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    Why even ask the question then?

    The Omegas are optimized drivers, nothing more, nothing less.

    The hack you're thinking of is for the old 9500 Pro which could be modded to enable the four latent pipelines and then OC'd to make it a 9700 Pro. The 9600 doesn't have any latent piplines so unless you have any spare pipelines lying around and the ability to will them onto the board and work you're out of luck.
     
    Nephilim, Jun 13, 2004
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  18. otester

    otester Guest

    i meantn that you can make the graphics card think it has 8 pipelines, so it acts as if it does.
     
    otester, Jun 13, 2004
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  19. Praetor

    Praetor Moderator Staff Member

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    If the card physically doesnt have those pipelines, there's no way you can make it "think" or "act" like it does for obvious reasons (i.e., the card isnt sentient)
     
    Praetor, Jun 13, 2004
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  20. Nephilim

    Nephilim Moderator Staff Member

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    No such thing as "virtual" pipelines :)

    Just to clarify things,

    Pixel pipelines are an actual physical part built into the board so no amount of software or "tricking" is going to make up for what is not physically there.
    _X_X_X_X_X_[small][​IMG]
    JMLS-166S/Plextor PX-708A/Plextor Premium[/small]
     
    Last edited: Jun 14, 2004
    Nephilim, Jun 14, 2004
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