The Official Graphics Card and PC gaming Thread

Tut tut, ATI do these things too, I guess you just don't hear about it... You can't single one of the two out

And actually I'd say the difference is practically nothing - I've seen a comparison article between nVidia and ATI on Crysis and I actually can't see a difference :O

 

Then I'd like to see evidence of it. The only thing that separates ATI from nvidia in running games differently for extra performance is that HD4 series cards can render DirectX10.1 which gives them a performance advantage in games that support it. The only time this has had a negative impact on image quality is in Assassins Creed which was due to a bug they patched in later drivers.
The Crysis thing had a patch, sure you weren't looking at the 'After' shot? It was a big difference, easily noticeable when you were looking for it, but of course if you were used to the nvidia picture there's nothing inherently wrong with it, it's just you don't notice how much more to the picture there should be.

 

hmm this all sounds a tad conspiracy theory to me.
Yay getting a summer job quad and another 4850 here I come!
Quick question though can I use a XXX edition (company OCed) with my normal not OCed card (settings won't stick in 7)? Normally I wouldn't bother with gimmicky company OCed cards but at the moment there cheaper.

 

Call it what you like, it's an underhand business with superior marketing skills (hence the higher sales) compared to the more honest business with frankly poor marketing skills.
Since I take the time to research what hardware to buy, I consider taking the HD4800 route the educated choice rather than the popular choice.
Yes, you can combine a stock and XXX card together. Just bear in mind the gains of having the XXX over two stocks are minimal unless you overclock the stock card.

 

To ME Nvidia appears to be the choice of former Xbox fanboys who stumbled into PC gaming not knowing much and being to lazy to find stuff out.

 

Lol it's not quite that bad. It's simply a case that nvidia are more popular and as I say, do a much better job of sucking people into their products. As a result, it's no surprise that the more 'simple' folk buy them. That does not, however, mean that anyone who buys an nvidia card should fall into that category. They're perfectly respectable products. It's just that for me, ATI is doing the job right.

 

I think I may have been a tad harsh due to the fact that I know at least 3 people who have gone straight from 360 to Intel Nvidia PC and expect me to sort stuff out they don't understand. It drives me MENTAL!!!

 

Like I say, they're the obvious choices. It's no reflection on the quality of the products themselves. Personally I don't mind people coming to me for advice about stuff like that, but one thing that drives me crazy is "I bought this. Is it good?". Why not ask beforehand...

 

I don't mind peeps asking me some stuff and respect to them for ditching the crapbox but it really winds me up when they expect me to fit Intel CPU's and then go about saying AMD/ATi stuff is crap and there systems are ultimately better.

Anywho I 'think' my rant is now over....

 

What's funny is that the 360 has an ATI graphics chip inside it...

 

Wrong, I don't like the 360

But the fact of the matter is you're biased towards ATI - heard that story about ATI not letting Palit and Gainward sell the 4890 and 4770 (at least I think it was that one)? It's because they put GDDR5 RAM in the 4850 when it should be GDDR3, thus making the cards better than ones from Saphire etc. - ATI wouldn't want to harm the sales of their favourite suck up suppliers, would it?

 

That's not being unfair on the customers, that's just getting back at suppliers who don't agree to the terms they set down for producing manufacturers cards. ATI are perfectly within their right to withold a particular card model from a company if they modify it to an extent that could be problematic. The last thing ATI need is egg on their face because a company messed up making their own version of a card. Cue the Gecube X1950XT AGP. There was a wealth of people who sworn never to buy ATI again after that travesty of a card. It was never ATI's fault, they didn't authorise it in the first place.
Also, not to gloss over the point entirely, but with so many manufacturers for ATI these days, remembering that Palit and Gainward are partners together, there are plenty of other brands out there that do the same job. 'Screwing' if you can even call it that, one of the board partners versus screwing the consumer is entirely different.

 

Of course that's screwing with the consumer - we get worse cards for the same price. And no, the manufacturers were perfectly within their rights to change the RAM type... It's almost as minor as a non reference cooler.

 

Think for a minute. No it isn't.

 

GDDR5 in a 4850 would cause all sorts of trouble. The lesser GPU would have performance issues from gaffer taping the resource intensive GDDR5 to it (look at the PS3 Cell, they gave it 8 PPU's and ended up turning one off because it was confusing things internally, thus with each unit you pay for something not used).

Also why would you want one? the 4870 is more expensive due to the GDDR5 and it uses more power because of the GDDR5 so all the advantages of the 4850 are instantly lost.

 

I don't think the power consumption is really due to the GDDR5, it's more due to the extra power the bigger core requires, but agreed, a GDDR5 HD4850 is a little on the needless side.

 

I give up, ATI fanboys

 

LOL - nothing to do with fanboyism

 

This is more a case of a Nvidia fanboy failing at making a point!!!

 

Since when was I a fanboy? I don't believe you made a point and you're the ones saying ATI's good and nVidia's bad - aka fanboys.

I never actually said one was better than the other, so shut the f*** up. I expected better of you guys.

/rant