Indecision 2004
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Re: Indecision 2004
Posted by 2-bits on Fri Jun 11th at 10:13pm 2004


Both nVidia and ATI have some pretty sweet next gen cards out. I'm thinking of picking one up, but I'm hesitant to do so due to the cost of the cards themselves. Even though they're both lightyears ahead of the previous generation, they are both $500, so I have to make sure the card I pick lasts!

All the magazines I've read show nVidia with both higher synthetic and actual benchmarks, yet mysteriously say that ATIs card is faster. While it's true that on some games ATI hardly drops a frame with 4xAA and 4xAF on, nVidia seems to own the card in most cases anyway, even with all that stuff on. But some note that that on faster computers, the ATI card is much faster than the nVidia card...

In other words, while I am fairly sure that one is superior to the other, and by more than a hair, all the evidence I've gathered both online and from magazines contradict each other and themselves.

So maybe some of you people can help me out a bit. Or at least confuse me. [addsig]




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Re: Indecision 2004
Posted by KingNic on Fri Jun 11th at 10:53pm 2004


ATI all the way. Advantages over the 6800:

+ Doesn't need a hefty PSU for overclocking

+ IS actually faster, although not by much

+ Is cheaper

+ 1 slot cooler. The cooler suggests that an OTT cooler, such as the VGA silencer for the current line of ATI cards, could be purchased in the future. Nvidia's doesn't leave this room for optimisation

+ Given Nvidia's dealings with the FX's, and subsequent attempts at covering up, I wouldn't trust any benchmark from them for a long time.

[addsig]




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Re: Indecision 2004
Posted by xconspirisist on Fri Jun 11th at 11:03pm 2004


What do you want to do ?

rendering - maxtor
windows gaming - ati
compatability / lastability - nVidia

If my opinion means anything to you, nVidia. They seem to put a lot more care and thought into their products, they're compatable on multipul opperating systems, and you get free, cool game demos, too




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Re: Indecision 2004
Posted by 2-bits on Sat Jun 12th at 12:21am 2004


? quote:

+ Is cheaper


They actually cost the same. $500 MSRP

? quote:

+ Given Nvidia's dealings with the FX's, and subsequent attempts at covering up, I wouldn't trust any benchmark from them for a long time.


I didn't get any benchmarks from nVidia. They ones I am referring to were in an issue of PC Gamer. The benchmarks showed nVidia's card being faster than

ATI's by a few frames in new games, and by many frames in old games (Quake III), the one exception being that ATI did considerably better than nVidia's card

in Farcry at 1280*1024 55,52.

In fact, while I'm thinking about it, here are the benchmarks
(I'm typing them from the magazine)

nVidia GeForce 6800 Ultra:

3dMarks03(1024*768, trilinear filtering, no AA, 1 AF: 11,394

Aquamark3 (Default test run at 1024*768):
Score: 57,765
GFX: 8,724

Quake III (1280*1024):
All settings maxed, no AA: 368 fps
All settings maxed, 4x AA 8x AF: 330 fps

Unreal Tournament 2003 (1280*960):
Flyby results, all settings maxed: 222 fps

Splinter Cell (1280*1024):
All settings maxed: 65 fps

Halo (1280*1024):
All settings maxed: 69 fps

Far Cry (1280*1024):
Very High settings, water set to ultra high, no aa or af: 55 fps

Very High settings, water set to ultra high, 4x aa 8x af: 37 fps




ATI Radeon X800 XT P.E.:

3dMarks03(1024*768, trilinear filtering, no AA, 1 AF: 11,361

Aquamark3 (Default test run at 1024*768):
Score: 55,320
GFX: 7,854

Quake III (1280*1024):
All settings maxed, no AA: 351 fps
All settings maxed, 4x AA 8x AF: 291 fps

Unreal Tournament 2003 (1280*960):
Flyby results, all settings maxed: 222 fps

Splinter Cell (1280*1024):
All settings maxed: 63 fps

Halo (1280*1024):
All settings maxed: 63 fps

Far Cry (1280*1024):
Very High settings, water set to ultra high, no aa or af: 55 fps

Very High settings, water set to ultra high, 4x aa 8x af: 52 fps

It would seem that the nVidia card is the clear winner, albeit by a hair, in terms of performance. But the mysterious 21 percent framerate drop in FarCry has me concerned. Would this mean that games in the not so near future would cause nVidia's card to fall off the edge of the earth...?

The magazine goes on to talk about how ATI was the clear winner, which is weird. And from the commentary on the benchmarks, they definitely did not get the benchmarks backward.

What they were saying is that these cards are so powerful that the 3ghz p4 became the limiting factor. Using FX-51, ATI leaped ahead by 276 fps in Unreal Tournament 2003, while nVidia hit 261 fps.

As for what I want to do with it... well, windows gaming.

Normally I would go ahead and buy the ATI card, honestly, and I wouldn't be posting this. But then I remember how many of my graphics problems were solved merely by switching to an nVidia card.

the power supply problem for nVidia is no obstacle. If i'm going to spend $500 on a lasting video card than I might as well spend $30 - $50 on a 480 watt powersupply (something that monstrous is going to last, for sure)

It's a complicated question. [addsig]




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Re: Indecision 2004
Posted by 7dk2h4md720ih on Sat Jun 12th at 12:24am 2004


Nic, ATI were also found guilty of producing inaccurate benchmarks.




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Re: Indecision 2004
Posted by Biological Component on Sat Jun 12th at 3:37am 2004


This is exactly what they want us to do. On one hand we have those who think nVidia is better, and on the other we have those who think that ATI is the better. Meanwhile, perpetual contradictions keep circulating and chaos ensues...

__
__

It is the diabolical videocard developers and their "Great Video Paradox" that we should fear. Their devious plans are clearly bent on worldwide mayhem&confusion.

[addsig]




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Re: Indecision 2004
Posted by Gorbachev on Sat Jun 12th at 6:01am 2004


ATI does all the AA and AF waaaay better than Nvidia cards. I've heard of inherant issues with ATI and OpenGL, but only in some cases and have yet to see any problems personally. If I were to pick I'd go ATI. Over the last few years I've gone from an Intel/Nvidia fan to AMD/ATI. Granted there are a handful of exceptions, but for the most part I just feel too distanced and lied to with the larger corperations in both situations. I get a lot of quantity over quality feeling. Since the larger companies aren't the ones struggling to break into profit. [addsig]



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Re: Indecision 2004
Posted by $loth on Sat Jun 12th at 6:16am 2004


Well, if you want to buy a graphics card that lasts, do what i'm doing, wait for BTX cases and PCI Express, 1X pic expres is 2x faster than AGP. It goes up to 32x! [addsig]



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Re: Indecision 2004
Posted by scary_jeff on Sat Jun 12th at 9:27am 2004


Stop talking about nVidia cards needing two slots. You are an idiot if you put another card right next to a powerful graphics card anyway.

The PCI-X cards from both companies use the same power connector, and the AGP 6800 now only needs two connectors for overclocking. This doesn't affect any normal customer as video card overclocking doesn't normally get you many benifits anyway.

I'm not sure how you can say 'ATI does AA and AF way better'. There wouldn't seem to be anything to back this up. People post a portion of an antialiased scene rendered on two different graphics cards, and nine times out of ten, people can't tell which is the nvidia and which is the ATI one. On top of that, ATI cards now do not have the option of running 'full' AF all the time, unlike nVidia cards where there is a driver option to disable the optimisations if you want.

The x800 isn't a new hardware generation, it's the same architecture as the 9800. ATI would have you believe that they didn't implement PS3 because it's not needed - the reality was that they didn't know how to implement it. Have a look at these slides leaked by nvidia marketing - nvidia admited they made them, and ATI hasn't said any of it isn't true:

http://www.elitebastards.com/page.php?pageid=4929&head=1&comments=1

But overall, none of this makes a real difference. The stuff costs the same and performs withing a few percent in most applications. It doesn't really matter what you buy. Is buying ATI over nvidia now going to make a difference as to when you need to upgrade again in a couple of years?




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Re: Indecision 2004
Posted by KingNic on Sat Jun 12th at 9:32am 2004


Alien_sniper; ATI were found guily once, and they said "whoops sorry about that, the guy who did it has been fired", the next release of their drivers fixed the cheat and still had the speed optimisation. Nvidia on the other hand continue to put more cheats for benchmarks into their test, and on one side clean denying that there's any sort of dodgy optimisations going on, and on the other side accusing every other company out there of conspiring against them. The truth is that they screwed up with the GF4s, and even more with the FXs. They then tried to screw their customers.

The ATI is cheaper. I don't know where you're getting your prices from, but over here the 6800 is generally around ?350, while the X800 is around ?300.

$30 to $50 on a 480 PSU is asking for it to burn out. A cheap powersupply won't be able to maintain it's power as stated in its name. That'll just be a peak. For one that's able to maintain 480 or higher, you're looking at ?70+ over here, $120~ by my calculations.

And as for waiting for new technologies like PCI Express $loth, you could do that forever. The moment PCI Express comes out, there's gonna be a new technology announced which is "just around the corner!". I know people who have been waiting for PCI Express for a full graphics technology cycle.

EDIT::

Jeff you missed my point about the two slots. My 9800 pro at the moment takes 1 slot with the default cooler, but because the cooler's so small, you can get a two slot cooler to help cooling even more, like the VGA silencer. Before the VGA silencer, I could only maintain about 5350 3dmarks stably, at the moment I can achieve over 6200 3dmarks, with artifacts in specific DX9 shaders, or 5800 3dmarks with no artifacts whatsoever. All thanks to the lovely VGA silencer.

Yes Jeff, if you want to believe a company who have been lying as much as they have done over the past 2 years then go ahead.

[addsig]




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Re: Indecision 2004
Posted by beer hunter on Sat Jun 12th at 10:00am 2004


? quote:
In other words, while I am fairly sure that one is superior to the other, and by more than a hair, all the evidence I've gathered both online and from magazines contradict each other and themselves.


No surprises there then synthetic benchmarks can be misleading.

The big difference in the Far Cry scores may be down to the Nvidia drivers having a bug or other problem with that specific game, it'll prolly get fixed over time and the drivers optimised.

imo both cards are roughly the same as far as performance goes, there'll be anomalies with certain software but i wouldn't let that put you off choosing one card over the other.




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Re: Indecision 2004
Posted by scary_jeff on Sat Jun 12th at 10:04am 2004


This is the exact thing that we don't need tbh kingnic. Calling people a fool because 'oh noes they believed teh evil liars who are the other company' doesn't really get anybody anywhere. Where is the benifit in being so against one company that anybody who doesn't not like them as well is some kind of naive blind child? You think nvidia just completely manufactured this information then released it onto the web? If this was all lies, don't you think that ATI would have at least something to say about it?

I'm really tired of all these AMD/ATI people who think they have seen some kind of light by making their purchasing decision, and that anybody buying nvidia/intel is a misguided fool. How about "it's just computers" and "it really doesn't make that much difference what you get"? If the difference is so clear and obvious, why don't all the huge OEMs switch over to ATI/AMD? I suppose they were all just blinded by the lies of intel and nvidia, and did no research of their own?

Wow... an extra not-even-10% 3Dmarks. There is a reason why 3D mark has been abandoned by major review sites you know.

Lastly, where are you getting your prices from? I can only find the 6800 on pre-order, and pre order prices are never representative of the actual retail price. Everybody knows that it takes a few weeks of a new bit of hardware being available for the price to come down to it's normal level, as there will always be people willing to pay more to be the first to have it. The suggested prices released by nvidia and ATI for the cards are the same.




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Re: Indecision 2004
Posted by Leperous on Sat Jun 12th at 11:53am 2004


You make it sound like nVidia also tricked you into killing babies and drinking acid



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Re: Indecision 2004
Posted by Juim on Sat Jun 12th at 12:53pm 2004


Well, I have been having the same internal debate over which card I'll be buying later this month. You can all plainly see there is a stong division between the ATI/Nvidia camps. This debate is being echoed over and over on almost every board I see it on. I personally have decided to go with the X800 XT when it ships later this month. The Nvidia, while it does seem to have a bit more going for it (PS 3.0) for example, offers nothing else in the way of performance, with regaurd to the games I have now and will soon be purchasing. I will be upgrading to BTX, and PCI express , and 64 bit CPU when the time is right, and by then maybe I'll see a reason for the Nvidia card. Who knows. [addsig]



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Re: Indecision 2004
Posted by Orpheus on Sat Jun 12th at 1:09pm 2004


personally i think we all are overlooking something far more important here that if Nvidia or ATI's biggest card is best.

unless something has changed recently, bigger cards require bigger computers to take full advantage of them.. at least thats how it used to be, and how i read it then.

seems to me, if you don't own a powerful enuff PC, you are wasting your bigger card, and your money.

that topic crono posted recently about parts working in-conjunction to produce optimal power, also holds true for video cards..

IMO, most of us, don't need, or cannot utilize the newer cards, and this topic is more/less rubbing salt into that wound.

i am not happy with my ATI 9000, but i am more so than i was with my older cards.. the 9000 gave me about twice the performance it seems.. but still fell far short of my expectations prior to buying it.

BTW, it runs the *taboo* HL just fine, so there you go.. bigger isn't always the better route.

[addsig]




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Re: Indecision 2004
Posted by scary_jeff on Sat Jun 12th at 2:19pm 2004


? quote:
a stong division between the ATI/Nvidia camps.


Who here is pro nvidia? All I'm saying is that it is not nearly as one-sided as every ATI owner seems to think... The performance between the two cards is very close, the recommended prices are close, anybody buying from either manufacturer will be just fine. What card you choose won't affect:

o What games you are able to run
o When you will need to upgrade
o What shaders you will be able to enable

Surely these three issues are far more important than what card gets the best 3Dmark score, or which company has told the most lies over the years?

I agree with Orph. There is absolutely zero point buying the most expensive from either manufacturer, because by the time you have a CPU that isn't limiting it, you will be wanting a new card anyway. You end up paying $150 for a ten percent perfromance increase you wouldn't notice even if your PC was fast enough to take advantage of it... Notice how all the benchmarks are taken on some 3.4EE or a $500 Athlon FX - unless you have something like this (unlikely), the most expensive cards aren't worth your money at all.




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Re: Indecision 2004
Posted by Orpheus on Sat Jun 12th at 2:42pm 2004


? posted by scary_jeff
I agree with Orph.

man, its so nice to see that in print ever once in a while

[addsig]




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Re: Indecision 2004
Posted by 7dk2h4md720ih on Sat Jun 12th at 2:43pm 2004


I'd do a print screen if I were you, mightn't see it again for another year or so. *runs*




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Re: Indecision 2004
Posted by Orpheus on Sat Jun 12th at 2:45pm 2004


? posted by Alien_Sniper
I'd do a print screen if I were you, mightn't see it again for another year or so. *runs*

luv you to dave

[addsig]




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Re: Indecision 2004
Posted by Gorbachev on Sat Jun 12th at 7:10pm 2004


By better AA and AF I didn't mean image quality, I meant performance. They run better while both on than Nvidia cards do. [addsig]




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