Indecision 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.

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.

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 :smile:

+ Is cheaper

They actually cost the same. $500 MSRP

+ 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.

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

This is exactly what they want us to do. On one hand we have those who think nVidia is better :heee: , and on the other we have those who think that ATI is the better :biggrin: . 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. :crash: :vampire: :shocked: :frown:

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.

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!

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?

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.

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 :smile: 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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

scary_jeff said:
I agree with Orph.

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

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

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

luv you to dave :smile:

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

In the benchmarks, nVidia did perform better. I'm kind of leaning towards nVidia myself... Mainly because until recently, ATI was known to make s**tty graphics cards. I was a victim of that.

My computer is pretty fast... in fact, I'll use my opportunity to bring up my stats AGAIN.

Intel p4 2.67 ghz overclocked to 3 ghz
768 megs ddr ram
ASUS P4PE motherboard (no PCI express though... :sad: )
GeForce Ti-4400

and so on...

Also, in Quake III, nVidia's card get superior performance with AF and AA on. By about 40 frames. The only thing that has me concerned was the FarCry thing.

I'm starting to think that I need to simplify this decision.

From here on, I'll make my graphics card buying decision by which company uses the hottest rendered girl in their ads. Right now, ATI is the clear winner in that category. I mean, what hads nVidia got, some bug fairy? I'll give them some time to prepare a new one, just to be fair, but I think they'll have a pretty hardtime outdoing ATI in THAT category.

I think this is the best policy, no?

That's it, get wooed by the boobs and forget the specs, good boy. Do exactly what they want. :biggrin:

They broke my fighting spirit. Just give in, my friends, it's so much easier.

Actually, the only reason I'm going this route is because the cards are so evenly matched that this seemed the best criteria to base my buying decisions on.

It just occured to me that "They broke my fighting spirit. Just give in, my friends, it 's so much easier." is awfully 1984esque.

edit: Could 1984 happen with boobs? I don't know. :razz:

2-bits said:
edit: Could 1984 happen with boobs? I don't know. :razz:

maggie

...Wha? As in the former British Prime Minster?

Gorb, the ATI only does better because their drivers use optimisations that the ATI media review pack said should be turned off in the nvidia drivers, which have an option to use the optimisations or not since the whole 'driver cheat' thing. When they set a game to use coloured mipmaps, the ATI driver uses the 'full' AF, and the performance is basically the same as on the nvidia cards.

In addition, different sites had ATI or nvidia winning because ATI sent out different spec'd cards to each of the main review sites.

This is exactly what they want us to do....

...Their devious plans are clearly bent on worldwide mayhem&confusion. :crash: :vampire: :shocked: :frown:

...and boobs.

<DIV>In the majority of reviews I have read, the NVidia card scored big on old games where all you need is a beasty card - their latest is little more than an overclocked FX, as their new RAM selection will make no difference until PCI-Express is released. The ATI, on the other hand, was the gamer's choice for the very latest games - those that make full use of DX 9's pixel shaders. If you want futureproof, this is the way I'd be looking. Plus then you factor in the cost of needing two separate 12-volt rails for the NVidia...</DIV>

FLASH FROM THE PAST!!!



How do you make a sound card imulate "dos games". ??? :smile:

An example would be... oh... let's say doom? :biggrin:

Yippie Ki Yay!

Yes, but nVidia's card has built in DirectX 9.0c support, and is supposed to do better with games that use that versions Pixel Shader features.

G.Ballblue said:
FLASH FROM THE PAST!!!



How do you make a [color=orange]sound card imulate "dos games". ??? :smile: [/color]

An example would be... oh... let's say doom? :biggrin:

Yippie Ki Yay!

Isn't this thread about videocards?

Eh... hehheheh. Shh.. :biggrin:

Yippie Ki Yay!

I've hated ATI ever since my first computer came with an ATI 3d Rage Pro soldered into the port. I got more frames running HL in software mode. Then I got burned by a GeForce2 which would overheat and crash my second computer if I ran it with the case on.

So I did what any smart consumer would do. I got myself a laptop and doomed myself to suffering slow graphics for probably the next 4 years.

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.

slowly stands up clapping

I'm glad to see my rambling isn't overlooked :smile:

Something else most people don't realize is that even your monitor limits your game performance, and I'm not talking about VSYNC.
In general, CRT monitors are 'faster' then LCD (Got a TFT/LCD here).

This should suggest that everything matters in your computer when regarding performance :smile: .

When I had that LAN awhile back, I was playing Far Cry, maxed settings, on a CRT (1280x1024, 21-22", Hitachi, they were made for SPARC machines, good thing Sun switched over to VGA :smile: ) monitor and it was smooth as silk. If I play it now on my TFT (1024x768) it's pretty laggy, not too bad though, playing for about five minutes clears it up (go cache).

Jeff has the best point of you all.
Who cares if a 99gillion ATI has a 2% faster frame rate then some NVIDIA card, the only way you know is because you looked for it and measured it, or read some liars 'benchmarks'. But do you honestly notice any of these performance 'increases' while playing the games? Unless you have a monitor from the year 2035, I doubt it.

Personally, I'm waiting for NVIDIA; I do prefer them, simply because they're cheaper and have bigger bundles here. But speaking about overall performance, they're the same, not to mention, your BUS and processor come into play as well :smile: .

Crono said:
slowly stands up clapping

I'm glad to see my rambling isn't overlooked :smile:

you didn't really think that we thought you were always wrong did you?

seriously though, there had to be a time where you and i would stand on the same side of a discussion..

its nearly impossible for you to be wrong every time

their latest is little more than an overclocked FX, [...] The ATI, on the other hand, was the gamer's choice for the very latest games - those that make full use of DX 9's pixel shaders. If you want futureproof, this is the way I'd be looking. Plus then you factor in the cost of needing two separate 12-volt rails for the NVidia...

I just don't understand where people get this kind of 'information'?:
o 6800 is a totally new arcitechture. How can it be an overclocked FX when it actually runs at a lower clock rate!?
o nvidia cards have 'better' DX9 support - when games use PS3, ATI cards won't be able to utilise it. OK PS3 doesn't look that different, but what it does do is look as good while running faster. So you can expect that 5% 'advantage' ATI has in some PS2 games to evaporate as soon as the PS3 patches/games come out.
o You don't need two power connectors on the nvidia any more. The second connector is only needed if you have the top end card and want to overclock it (pointless).

I'm not saying 'buy nvidia' or 'stay away from ATI', but please, make a decision that isn't based on information that is either outdated, or just plain wrong.

i think what we really need is a thread thats realistic..

how about we post our machine specs, and those that truly understand cards look it over and recommend the top card for that pc??

i am an Nvidia fan, but my ATI card is fantastic, considering first and foremost "I HAVE NEVER OWNED BETTER" i have nothing concrete to compare it with so.... and also, i don't truly by into the benchmarks either cause when i see how poorly mine scored, and how pretty it looks on my monitor, i cannot really convince myself that they are getting 5000% better results with the newest cards out there (<--- points to exaggeration used to illustrate my point)

personally, i am considering an Nvidia 5200, i think its the best i can afford, and best my 2.6 celeron can utilize.. but i am open to suggestions.

It's hard to know what the best card is for a particular processor unless you have actually tried different cards personally - not many websites are interesting in testing how well some new card does on a celeron 2.6.

What is your budget? It doesn't seem like a long time since you got the Radeon - why not save for a bit longer, then buy something when HL2 is out?

scary_jeff said:
It's hard to know what the best card is for a particular processor unless you have actually tried different cards personally - not many websites are interesting in testing how well some new card does on a celeron 2.6.

What is your budget? It doesn't seem like a long time since you got the Radeon - why not save for a bit longer, then buy something when HL2 is out?

my budget will be about $125.00
the 9000 card doesn't really like the taboo editor.. that is my only concern.. ATI might not like editing for HL2 :sad:

and the celeron issue.. yeah a celeron is substandard, but its still fast as hell compared to my old 1.4 athlon T-Bird :/

I agree with Jeff, wait until hl2 is out and get the same card cheaper.
You can't really expect a stolen version of an in development game to
be compatible with everything. :smile:

Well, It looks in your budget to get a 5700 or 9600 of some kind. Try to stay away from anything that says 'SE' in its name though.

scary_jeff said:
Well, It looks in your budget to get a 5700 or 9600 of some kind. Try to stay away from anything that says 'SE' in its name though.

/me reminds jeff of prices vs. availability.. i live in bum-fuk-egypt arkansas.. but am considering buying online to save bucks/hassle..

also, what exactly does "SE" stand for? "Substandard Equipment"?

News to my ears: nvidia graphics cards are better that radeons at high end games, and i thought there mem flotage point was lower! :eek:

Take anything that says one or the other is better with a pinch of salt at remember that most differences are minimal :smile:

I'm also after a new video card, but not a $500 one :razz: My FX5600 is giving me the s**ts, it overheats even with a custom fan that I installed! It even overheats on games like Diablo 2. Think theres something wrong with it. =/ I'm looking at either a FX5900 or a 9800. Any advise would be helpful.

diablo said:
I'm also after a new video card, but not a $500 one :razz: My FX5600 is giving me the s**ts, it overheats even with a custom fan that I installed! It even overheats on games like Diablo 2. Think theres something wrong with it. =/ I'm looking at either a FX5900 or a 9800. Any advise would be helpful.

if it overheats so easily, you might see if you have the voltages set correctly..

i am not positive on this, but i am betting, unless its an auto setting AGP slot, you might need to set a jumper some place.

my 9000 never over heats, even while running power hungry games.. and it has no cooling fan at all..

Orpheus said:

diablo said:
I'm also after a new video card, but not a $500 one :razz: My FX5600 is giving me the s**ts, it overheats even with a custom fan that I installed! It even overheats on games like Diablo 2. Think theres something wrong with it. =/ I'm looking at either a FX5900 or a 9800. Any advise would be helpful.

if it overheats so easily, you might see if you have the voltages set correctly..

i am not positive on this, but i am betting, unless its an auto setting AGP slot, you might need to set a jumper some place.

my 9000 never over heats, even while running power hungry games.. and it has no cooling fan at all..

neither does my GF4 MX440, i love my graphics card! and it only cost ?10 nearly brand new!

You can check AGP voltage in BIOS. If you are overclocking, you may be running your AGP bus out of spec (above 66MHz), and this could cause the same problem. If you put your own heatsink on, did you use thermal compound, or some kind of pad? If the fan is spinning properly, and there isn't a ton of dust on the heatsink, it seems unlikely to me that your problem is actually being caused by the card itself.

If you want a 9800, get the 9800 pro, but make sure it is the 256-bit version. It performs within a few percent of the XT, but at around $150 cheaper. I'm not sure about the FX5900 series, but I do know that it isn't worth while getting the most expensive one. Also, 256 megs of video memory won't do anything for performance, but in some cases it may only cost you $10 more to go from 128 to 256, so if that is the case, you may as well go for it.

To draw a story around the current reason I would not recommend Nvidia to anyone, this is the situation played by the roles of Linux and Microsoft.

3 years ago, Linux announced a completely secure system. Someone finds 3 small holes in the security. Linux publicly apologises for this, and fixes the holes straight away.

Now: Microsoft announces that windows xp is completely 100% secure. You will NOT find anything more secure on the market. Holes are found, more holes are found. Microsoft denies that there are any in Windows XP. They then announce new patches which will in fact increase stability. The promised stability is there, but certain security measures have been dropped in order to get more stability (no i don't know how, but I'm just telling a story here). People confront Microsoft about the lack of security features, and Microsoft continues to deny it.

Future: The next generation of OSs is announced. First Windows Longhorn is announced, and everyone is blown away. Then the new version of Linux is announced, and it achieves much of the same, but in a smaller package, and generally with a lower price tag (yes linux is free I know :razz: ). Microsoft then generates a document which is "leaked", pointing out several 'flaws' in the new version of Linux.

Would you seriously buy the new version of Windows over Linux?

Good to see you completely ignoring my posts, and trying to paint nvidia as some kind of bunch of evil baby eaters trying to supress the white light that is ATI I was actually going to use the exact same thing as an example of how people go way overboard promoting one side (linux) of something that isn't anywhere near as clearly defined a choice as they think. It's easy to sit there and say 'linux is free so it wins', but how free is it really when you are running a business where your specialist software only runs on windows, and none of your staff have any idea about using linux?

What is the thinkin in your example anyway? That only a completely mislead and nasty company would try to dumb down talk of security holes in its product, and to point out advantages of its own product over that of its main competitor? Honestly, what company in their right mind would not do these things?

You seem to be completely ignoring the most recent ATI driver issue which they have not made any appologies for with the AF methods. They hardly 'played fair', but the fact of the matter is that it really does not make that much difference either way. If you can't come up with a better reason not to buy nvidia than 'they lied on their drivers a while back', do you really expect to win anyone over? Don't you think you would be better off debating the technical issues with the existing products that actually affect the purchaser?