ATI vs. Nvidia for gaming?

Gone from gaming for years and about to build a new machine for Crysis/DragonAge/CoD4/etc.

Awhile back I seem to recall some various differences/advantages between ATI and Nvidia GPUs, other than just framerate-power.

Like only Nividia GPUs offered "PHYSX", which some games were designed to take extra advantage of and look better...

Is that stuff still going on, and if so, does it matter?

I'm most interested in Crysis, CoD4/2, and Battlefield2 - do any of those titles go better w/ either GPU brand?

Thanks.

-C

There isn't really any major benefit in going with one particular company. I say decide on a budget and with the help of various benchmarks see which card (irrespective of brand) is the best performer for that particular budget.

id say this: what os are you running? vista or xp: nivida is the beter buy but they cost more. windows 7 ati has better offers for you my friend.

id say this: what os are you running? vista or xp: nivida is the beter buy but they cost more. windows 7 ati has better offers for you my friend.

ionusX

I'm running Vista Ultimate x64 and a HIS 4890 for the last 2 years and I haven't encountered any issues...it runs flawless. The operating system should not have any affect on which make video card one uses. Though, the operating system may have some effect on running older games on Vista and certain games may run better on an ATi or Nvidia card.

*+

Right now, ATI is the only game in town if you want DX11. Nvidia is coming out with Fermi, but there's no benchmarks yet on how fast it is and how hot it runs. There's also a question as to how expensive it'll be.

This thread will be fun. :)SparkyProtocol

omg its jabba :O

[QUOTE="ionusX"]

id say this: what os are you running? vista or xp: nivida is the beter buy but they cost more. windows 7 ati has better offers for you my friend.

DieselCat18

I'm running Vista Ultimate x64 and a HIS 4890 for the last 2 years and I haven't encountered any issues...it runs flawless. The operating system should not have any affect on which make video card one uses. Though, the operating system may have some effect on running older games on Vista and certain games may run better on an ATi or Nvidia card.

*+

Funny that the 4890 has be out for only a year now. But 2 years you say

I'm typing this on a machine with an nVidia card in it, but I will say that ATi is currently top dog at pretty much every price point.

I would *definitely* buy ATi if I were in the market for a new video card right now.

They are mostly equal in gaming performance, with the only differences being cost.

Gone from gaming for years and about to build a new machine for Crysis/DragonAge/CoD4/etc.

Awhile back I seem to recall some various differences/advantages between ATI and Nvidia GPUs, other than just framerate-power.

Like only Nividia GPUs offered "PHYSX", which some games were designed to take extra advantage of and look better...

Is that stuff still going on, and if so, does it matter?

I'm most interested in Crysis, CoD4/2, and Battlefield2 - do any of those titles go better w/ either GPU brand?

Thanks.

-C

CMChotmail

None of those titles employ Physx, and a DX11 card isn't necessary either at the moment. Between the ATI Radeon HD 4xxx series and the Nvidia Geforce GTX 2xx series, from a pure price vs. performance standpoint, ATI has the slight upper hand because they're cheaper. Otherwise, it doesn't really make a difference which brand you choose.

if you're a crt owner, stay away from ati's 58xx cards

nothin but trouble when it comes to refresh rates

there might finally be an unoffical fix for it by editing your monitors .inf file or something along those lines, but im not quite sure

but i do know that ati hasnt done **** about it within their multiple driver updates

in the first view it looks like ATI has the better offer for everything. But there are certain things that ATI still lags like physx, cuda, broodforce, profiles, 3d vision and supersampling and the upcoming features like 32aa, 3d vision souround and c++.

[QUOTE="DieselCat18"]

[QUOTE="ionusX"]

id say this: what os are you running? vista or xp: nivida is the beter buy but they cost more. windows 7 ati has better offers for you my friend.

Addict187

I'm running Vista Ultimate x64 and a HIS 4890 for the last 2 years and I haven't encountered any issues...it runs flawless. The operating system should not have any affect on which make video card one uses. Though, the operating system may have some effect on running older games on Vista and certain games may run better on an ATi or Nvidia card.

*+

Funny that the 4890 has be out for only a year now. But 2 years you say

It's been almost 2 years.

Gone from gaming for years and about to build a new machine for Crysis/DragonAge/CoD4/etc.

Awhile back I seem to recall some various differences/advantages between ATI and Nvidia GPUs, other than just framerate-power.

Like only Nividia GPUs offered "PHYSX", which some games were designed to take extra advantage of and look better...

Is that stuff still going on, and if so, does it matter?

I'm most interested in Crysis, CoD4/2, and Battlefield2 - do any of those titles go better w/ either GPU brand?

Thanks.

-C

CMChotmail

PhysX isn't dead yet, but it probably won't last a lot longer than any of the other attempts by the manufacturers to get a headlock on the market. Cryostasis: The Sleep of Reason came out Q2 2009, and Batman: Arkham Asylum in Q3, and both use it. I can run Batman (the demo), but Cryostasis kicks my computer's ass even with an nVidia GTX 280. Wikipedia has a list of PhysX games in its article. Dragon Age: Origins is on there.

[QUOTE="Addict187"]

[QUOTE="DieselCat18"]

I'm running Vista Ultimate x64 and a HIS 4890 for the last 2 years and I haven't encountered any issues...it runs flawless. The operating system should not have any affect on which make video card one uses. Though, the operating system may have some effect on running older games on Vista and certain games may run better on an ATi or Nvidia card.

*+

Phoenix534

Funny that the 4890 has be out for only a year now. But 2 years you say

It's been almost 2 years.

HD 4890 released 4/1/09. Just about 1 full year, almost there!

[QUOTE="DieselCat18"]

[QUOTE="ionusX"]

id say this: what os are you running? vista or xp: nivida is the beter buy but they cost more. windows 7 ati has better offers for you my friend.

Addict187

I'm running Vista Ultimate x64 and a HIS 4890 for the last 2 years and I haven't encountered any issues...it runs flawless. The operating system should not have any affect on which make video card one uses. Though, the operating system may have some effect on running older games on Vista and certain games may run better on an ATi or Nvidia card.

*+

Funny that the 4890 has be out for only a year now. But 2 years you say

I purchased a ASUS 4870 on 7/30/08 and upgraded that card to the HIS 4890 on 5/17/09...yes I have been running ATi cards on my current system for 1 year and 8 months with no issues. No I haven't had the 4890 for 2 years, but my system has been running ATi cards with Vista as the OS for that period of time with no, none, nada issues. The point I was making is that the performance of graphics card has nothing to do with the the OS being used. But that Vista does have problems with running certain older games.

*+