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Nvidia vs ATI

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

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  1. askyew

    askyew Regular member

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    I have read quite a few articles about the fx5900xt. It is highly reguarded as an excellent overclocker. It comes in at under 200usd on new egg. I like my ATI card but damn their drivers. It overclocks well but you have to change the heatsink and install a fan or you will get heat stutters. I was suprised to find on ATI tool that the core in my AIW9600NP was an R360, but with the standard passive cooling it didn't matter anyway.Now as far as the 6800 vs. X800 in DOOM III I read that the person that worked on the doom engine also worked with nvidia on their drivers so that may have something to do with it. Nvidia vs. ATI which is better? The answer is neither, but looking at the latest prices I am glad there are two of them instead of one monopoly(think about the price).
    _X_X_X_X_X_[small]P4 2.8c @ 3.2
    Abit IC7-G
    2x80 gb seagates barracudas
    ATI AIW 9600 soft mod by w1zzard
    2 x 256 pc 3200 Kingston valueram(hynix chips)[/small]
     
    Last edited: Aug 23, 2004
  2. JSRife

    JSRife Guest

    What's the internet have to do with file sharing...ha ha
     
  3. otester

    otester Guest

    P2P is cool. Obviously you use the internet to share (no shit).
     
  4. The_OGS

    The_OGS Active member

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    I can watch TV on a 17" LCD flatpanel (KDS Radius).
    Its source is my old Pentium Pro that runs an AVerMedia TV board, and the (NTSC) display is 640x480.
    Similar resolution for DVDs - the point is, this 'low' resolution looks pretty good on a non-interlaced monitor!
    This explains why I am happily playing Doom3 at 640x480 (FX5200, I know, it sounds sad) but it looks pretty good :) all special effects enabled.
    Hell, just about everybody can play Doom3, those requirements aren't too tough.
    But I'm gonna grab either a Radeon 9600XT or a GeForce FX 5700 (both 256MB, both same $) but WHICH??
    I want 800x600. Gotta pull the trigger on this before I waste all my money on gasoline or something...
     
  5. otester

    otester Guest

    get a TV Tuner!
     
  6. The_OGS

    The_OGS Active member

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    ?
    Oli, what makes you think I don't have (numerous) TV tuners...?
     
  7. sammorris

    sammorris Senior member

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    Everyone can play Doom 3? That's not the case i know, but MOST people, I get what you're saying. and to Praetor, we did cease that Bt stuff. I whole-heartedly agree with askyew in his general respect. Neither company are better for all situations, but for your own situation, usually there is a card that you prefer. Not always the case though. Just in my specific case, i am in favour of ATi. But i do agree about ATi's drivers, have they released support for higher resolutions yet or are we still "stuck" at 1920x1440? Because my monitor and several programs use 2048x1536 but the damn driver doesn't support them!!! How ridiculous!!
     
  8. Xian

    Xian Regular member

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    An interesting commentary at
    http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=18029
    talking about how ATI will be behind Nvidia for the next couple years in most respects.

    Of particular interest to me was the licensing of game engines and the commentary was right on target I think. While ATI runs Half Life 2 better and Nvidia runs Doom 3 better, whose engine is everyone going to license? I have to agree that there will be a lot more developers licensing the Doom 3 engine than the Half Life 2 engine. Following that line of reasoning, since the performance of that engine is superior on the Nvidia platform the flood of games in the near future using that engine will also perform better on Nvidia hardware.
     
    Last edited: Aug 25, 2004
  9. The_OGS

    The_OGS Active member

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    Very interesting; great read, thanks Xian :)
    It's VERY hot in the kitchen (but ATI claims to be able to cook, so...) LoL
     
  10. sammorris

    sammorris Senior member

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    Well, as I hear, Nvidia's graphics engine is more complex and difficult to program, so as i see it, ATi will have more takers, but the biggest games may use Nvidia. So what, really, yes, nvidia may be slightly faster, but it's the other properties (power, size, etc. that keep me with ATi) as long as there is an Ati card not outrageously expensive that handles big games well (i'm not bothered if it "only" gets 80fps instead of 90, what is the point???) really for the "modest" gamer there is no crucial advantage.

    It's still ATi for me at the moment, i'm afraid.
     
  11. Praetor

    Praetor Moderator Staff Member

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    Ouch. Any idea why the hell ATi skipped out on that boat??

    .
    Ouch. Harsh but yeah, true.

    That'll be a shot in the nuts for ATi if that ever happens but with the way nVidia does things (i.e, announce something now but release it ten thousand years from now), ATi does have quite the opportunity to reply ... i dont think it will come out soon enough to deal with the blow dealt by Doom3



    The way i see things is that nVidia comes out with the groundbreaking, proof-of-concept stuff first .... they just cant get the stuff out to the market fast enough. Look at the 6800 line for instance ... they annnounced that a full month ahead of the X800 ... but what hit the streets first? nVidia has a lot of work to do in the "deliver ontime" department
     
  12. buxton

    buxton Regular member

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    I don't think they have PS 3.0 for the simple reason they didn't think it was required. PS 3.0 was a big nVidia selling point. Hard to say if it is the great technology it is supposed to be. The difference between PS 2.0 and 3.0 isn't that great in a still, it's going to be nearly impossible to tell the difference in game.

    If I had to guess why no PS 3.0 and SLI - by the time the next crop of games appear - Doom3, HL2 or Far Cry Engines both ATI and nVidia will have PS 4.0. SLI mode needs a PCI-X compatible motherboard - major upgrade - and at the moment still quite expensive - same as above, by the time the price is withing reach if the average man on the street, the next gen card will be here (Nearly Here).



    http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/half_life_2_fx/

    This has a whole glut of screen shots of HL2 using DX8, 8.1 and 9.

    There is also some benchmarks here

    http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/half-life2_vst/

    Looks like HL2 will indeed favour ATI.

    You can also see the differences in performance between PS 2.0, 2.0b and 3.0.

    http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/far_cry_ps2.0b/
     
  13. Praetor

    Praetor Moderator Staff Member

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    I wont argue visual quality as im sure I wont notice a difference either but for certain PS3.0 gives quite the adrenalene jolt to NV cards (and im sure also to Ati cards too had they implemented PS3.0)

    Note however that even midrange OEM machiens (for which most of the sales account for), are starting to come as PCI-express platforms
     
  14. buxton

    buxton Regular member

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  15. sammorris

    sammorris Senior member

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    To be quite frank, at the moment, SLI is absolutely useless. You need three expansion slots and a sever-based motherboard by ONE MANUFACTURER ONLY, with two PCI express 16x slots. It's a far-off dream for the moment, and I don't think it should give ATi any concern.
     
  16. JSRife

    JSRife Guest

    Who knows what will happen. Maybe the new games of today don't need ps3.0 or whatever it is that only Nvidia has.
     
  17. sammorris

    sammorris Senior member

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    well, i don't think its the ps3 business that causes ati's lag in doom 3, so who knows.
     
  18. otester

    otester Guest

    ATi lagged a bit in doom 3 because doom 3 is shit, no offence to fans and ati wont lag in HL2 because HL2 isnt shit (duh). Im goina buy an ATi X800XT 256MB DDR3 and ive already ordered a Maxtor 160GB Serial ATA HD.
     
  19. Praetor

    Praetor Moderator Staff Member

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    A good read indeed however the point still remains that a lot of casual PC buyers (i.e., from OEMs or 1st time DIY builders) are gonna go nVidia because of the sheer marketing tsunami that goes with "all those checkboxes" etc ... I was quite shocked myself hearing first that the "X" series wouldnt have PS3 support and then hearing that ATi wouldnt be dabbling with it ever.

    - Technically its two manufacturers (i think) ... Alienware made its own board too (please correct me if im wrong)
    - Still, point well taken but it does allow the industry to develop engines and extend on current ones a great deal

    Wow what a clueless child ... here's a charitable lesson for you:
    - ATI crapped out on Doom3 because (a) the engine was designed on nVidia hardware (b) all the optimizations and efficiency structures etc for ATI cards that make them so killer were not useable thus you had a classic case of nVidia (5th gear 6000rpm) vs ATI (1st gear 6000rpm) ... naturally ATi is gonna get toasted clock for clock.
    - ATi is gonna be better for HL2 because (a) an etch-a-sketch could power HL2 (b) it was designed on ATi hardware (c) it uses a 1year old, last generation graphics engine -- something the ATi hardware excels at -- not a next generation engine that Doom3 uses -- this isnt a shot at ATI/Valve ... just truth
    - Dont forget to tell your parents to buy you the Platinum edition, you'll need that for the fanboy braggin rights club
    - Fool. If you think ATI lagged out "a bit" you need to get your head out of the ATI spin/press-conference room. To think that the 6600GT -- thats the budget line btw -- gives comparable performance to the X800 -- thats the premium line (not to mention obliterating the X600 and X300) is nothing to shy away from. ATi cards perform4 very well no doubt (as ive personally played Doom3 on a X800 but for a $500 card i'd expect more ... then again I guess the difference is that I'd have to pay for it myself isnt it?
    - Thanks Oli, gave me a good laugh
     
  20. buxton

    buxton Regular member

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    Doom3 may be a shit game - although I liked it - it was what is was supposed to be - and from that point of view it did it well. The Engine is FAR from shit and will be powering next generation FPS for the next 5 years or so. It isn't PS3.0 that causes ATI to lag in Doom3 - it's OpenGL - PS3.0 is DirectX. I think the OpenGL equivelent is used and it's compareable to PS2.0

    I think it is nVidias advanced shadowing technology, that Doom3 uses in abundance throughout, that is the big difference. Add that to ATI's 12 month old GL driver....

    And so now ATI's problem becoms clear - every FPS, and lets face it it's FPS games that get all the press on the PC, over the next five years will run better on nVidia. Anyone that decides to use the Far Cry engine can switch PS3.0 on - and again nVidia wins.

    The thing that may/may not save ATI is the time frame - by the time these games appear - likely to be another 12 months - PS4.0 will be out and they may just get away with it. If some really top notch games appear before that with PS3.0 they are going to struggle...UNLESS Catalyst 4.9+ improve GL drivers and PS2.0b can be used.

    And now I have lost my train of thought so I will stop :)
     
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