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Hardware; nVIDIA vs Ati
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RPGDot Forums > Absolutely Off Topic

What do you prefer
nVIDIA
53%
 53%  [ 8 ]
Ati
46%
 46%  [ 7 ]
Total Votes : 15

Author Thread
Patriot
Small Tiger
Small Tiger




Joined: 31 May 2004
Posts: 1421
Location: Athens,Greece
Hardware; nVIDIA vs Ati
   

Hi guys I just want to inform you about 2 cards,Ati and nVIDIA.I want to know your opinion about those 2.This info is from the general websites of the cards and my conclusion.We are in 2004 and there’s a big competition between Ati and nVIDIA.

Past and Present
The 2 last years weren’t the best for nVIDIA.Not only ati managed with the R300[randeon 9500-9700] to “win” in every test geforce4 but increased it’s sails in the market and many people who were supporting nVIDIA changed their minds and started to support Ati.Then nVIDIA tried to gain it’s power back but it also failed again due to some problems in the quality of the picture.
That was 4 years ago.With the name NV40 the new core of nVIDIA looks great.In it’s hurt were 222millions of transistors, with 16 pixel pipelines and 6 vertex shaders 32 bit {3 generation DIRECTX9C}, who can give 600 millions of polygons every second ,trilinear filtering and anisotropic filterings to 16x..(3 types of NV40:Geforce 6800 ultra and 6800 GT and 6800).You can also notice that the new generation of cards of nVIDIA doesn’t bare the fx name which shows that the company wants to forget the 2 last years.6800 ultra looks great but it has it’s problems.A big system that keeps the card’s temperature in good level brings bad memories for the big PCB,while the 2 molex connectors proves that the card needs too much energy.(480 Watt).The big cheep of 222 millions of transistors needs high recuirments to work.The other 2 cards 6800 gt and 6800 are more attractive(don’t need too much power like 6800ultra…)
On the other hand Ati showed the R420.It’s an improvement of the r300 and the new thing is the support of the normal map compression or 3Dc.The new core isn’t as big as nVIDIA’s ultra(it’s 160 millions transistors) but it’s better in some tests also it doesn’t need all those recuirments .All this makes X800 XT to work in a mini PC with 250 watt.
Problems…
The new R420 doesn’t make real trilinear filtering but something between bilinear and trilinear.
On the other hand nVIDIA has problems of construction .In the begging the giants of 222millions of transistors were made by IBM and the difficulties forces nVIDIA to return to TSMC.
Market
There aren’t many cards that you can find in the stores and we don’t know when there’ll be the full production.Many pieces have already been bought and there aren’t much to be found but the companies promise that they’ll bring more in the stores.So that another problem.
Price
The prices of the 2 cards are the same(I think there are 150-200 euro).I’ll keep you informed when I make some tests on this 2 cards.
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Last edited by Patriot on Wed Aug 04, 2004 4:05 pm; edited 1 time in total
Post Wed Aug 04, 2004 12:59 pm
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Mercenary
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I own nVIDIA's GeForce 4 .. and it works for me Ati makes good cards but I am satisfied with nVIDIA and i'll stick with them for now. Future is uncertain.
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Post Wed Aug 04, 2004 4:00 pm
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Beliarsclew
Victim Of The Greed
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Joined: 15 May 2004
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Location: Jordan-Middle East
   

I have Nvidia- Gefore-4- , but i think that vodoo better than the both!
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Post Wed Aug 04, 2004 4:35 pm
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Korplem
Swashbuckler
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Joined: 23 Dec 2002
Posts: 853
Location: Pearl Harbor, HI
   

ATi is my preference.
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Post Wed Aug 04, 2004 4:55 pm
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Mercenary
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Location: Chromanin
   

Voodoo is an old graphic card and both nVIDIA and ATI make better cards. (3DFX made Voodoo but was later bought by nVIDIA - not sure about this)
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Post Wed Aug 04, 2004 4:57 pm
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Chekote
Where’s my Banana?!?!
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Joined: 08 Mar 2002
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Location: Dont know, looks kind of green
   

I think that currently nVidia have the edge, with their 6800 cards that fully support DirectX 9.0b and allow you to join two cards into one single monster, they definately own the performance crown.

The 6800 came out tops in almost every test with the new Doom 3 engine.

I personaly have been an ATI man for a few years now, but if ATI doesnt bring something impressive out by the time my next upgrade comes around, I will be picking up a pair of nVidia 6800 Ultra's.

I have no loyalty to either company. Whoever gives me the best bang for my buck gets my money.
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Post Wed Aug 04, 2004 5:11 pm
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Bartacus
Il Buono
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Joined: 24 May 2003
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Location: Belgium Flemmish part
   

I want to hear what a real videocard can do. Between Nvidia and Ati there's almost no difference, but some people call those cards not professional cards. I wonder what a professional card could do. (and what the price is )
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Post Wed Aug 04, 2004 5:26 pm
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Chekote
Where’s my Banana?!?!
Where’s my Banana?!?!




Joined: 08 Mar 2002
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Location: Dont know, looks kind of green
   

Professional cards are made by ATI and nVidia also, but they are not for games. They do not use Direct3D for acceleration.

They are used for workstations and are specificaly optimized for OpenGL rendering.

I have seen some high end nVidia OpenGL cards for about $1600.

if you go to either www.ati.com or www.nvidia.com and look at the workstation section under products you will see some of their cards.

I think a lot of professional rendering studios use proprietry hardware aswell. I think Pixar has its own hardware. (Not 100% certain though)
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Post Wed Aug 04, 2004 5:30 pm
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Patriot
Small Tiger
Small Tiger




Joined: 31 May 2004
Posts: 1421
Location: Athens,Greece
   

I've been watcing the hardware for 2 years now and I know much about hardware.If you read my firsts posr more carefully and manage to andestand
it you see that Ati has more advantages.Allthoagh R420 has only 160 millions of transistors has more advantages in the games than the R300(6800 ultra).Also it doesn't need 480 watt and doesn't have many recuirments.So O prefer ATI.I'm telling you that cause I've seen many tests and I'm satisfied from the creators work.So if you want to buy one of this 2 cards(not exactly,it has many types) you should buy Ati.

@Mercenery:Yes it was bought by nVIDIA.
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Post Wed Aug 04, 2004 8:37 pm
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Chekote
Where’s my Banana?!?!
Where’s my Banana?!?!




Joined: 08 Mar 2002
Posts: 1540
Location: Dont know, looks kind of green
   

But something you fail to mention (Which was mentioned in my post) is that none of the new ATI cards support DirectX 9.0b features, while the nVidia 6800 supports all of them.
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Post Wed Aug 04, 2004 8:49 pm
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cfmdobbie
High Emperor
High Emperor




Joined: 01 Jul 2002
Posts: 1859
Location: London, England
   

Patriot, well, that's your opinion!

Me, I'm sticking with NVIDIA for a good while yet. Why? OpenGL support. ATI's OpenGL aupport has been a little dodgy for a while, in fact they've just announced that they're rewriting their drivers from scratch. Decent OpenGL support matters to me: I need a graphics card that I can trust. NVIDIA provides me with this.

Add to that the fact that NVIDIA are currently whipping ATI in Doom3 benchmarks, and there's really no question.
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Post Wed Aug 04, 2004 8:55 pm
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Patriot
Small Tiger
Small Tiger




Joined: 31 May 2004
Posts: 1421
Location: Athens,Greece
   

Yes you are right ckekote.

For now nVIDIA and Ati managed with those cards ultra and X800Xt to impress us all.But those 2 cards are very expensive.As for nVIDIA 6800 ultra is better than x800 pro (the first have 16 pipelines and the second 12.)The big victory for nVIDIA wa acheived due to "small hehe " Geforce 6800 which costs athe same as RANDEON 9800 xt.The first's better than the second.I don't know if ati has plans to sell X800(not powerfull) but if she doesn't do it ,it's sure that that'll loose many money and nVIDIA'll sell more.
Also the nVIDIA uses shader 3,0 and ati uses 2,0 but the differnces aren't many(I would say none)but ATI doesn't need too many recuirments.Also nVIDIA'll sell first and the prices'll be 300-400 euros since she won't have any competition.So you've to wait a little if you want to buy nVIDIA's card .
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Post Wed Aug 04, 2004 9:19 pm
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Toaster
Bread Alert
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Joined: 27 Jan 2003
Posts: 5475
Location: Sweden
   

I've been following these cards very carefully at hardware sites, and I must say that even though I like ATI better, nVidia probably wins slightly. They have SLI (you buy two cards, oni them together, and they perform about 80% better than a single card), much better OpenGL performance, Shader Model 3.0 (which DO make a difference, both in picture quality and performance), slightly better drivers, such things. And they've lowered the power supply demand for 6800 Ultra from 480W to about 350W, but then you will need a high quality able to deliver much current on 12V.

But if we only look to Direct3D games, which are far more common than OpenGL games, Radeon X800 XT and GF 6800 Ultra are very, very close in performance, and also expensive, over 400€ for both of them here. But if we look at the second best cards from both nVidia and ATI, the GF 6800 GT, which has 16 pixel pipelines just as the Ultra, the only differnce is clock speed, does clearly better than the X800 Pro, which has 12 pipelines compared to the XT's 16, and this is easy to see in performance tests. Because of this, I think the GF 6800 GT is the best buy of the new top-of-the-line cards.

Oh, as a sidenote, I don't the it's a con for the Radeons they don't use true trilinear filtering, since their method increases performance WITHOUT noticably affecting image quality.
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Post Thu Aug 05, 2004 10:09 pm
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Danicek
The Old One
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Joined: 15 Dec 2001
Posts: 5922
Location: Czech Republic
   

@Whole company strategy:
I think ATI is a little bit better. Usually sticking more with clever technologies than with brutal power. However latest types of cards managed to blur this line.

@Newest cards
My opinion is that ATI was leader, but NVIDIA managed to overtake this position. Of course differences are very small, both NVIDIA and ATI cards are very good...
Post Fri Aug 06, 2004 8:03 am
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cfmdobbie
High Emperor
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Joined: 01 Jul 2002
Posts: 1859
Location: London, England
   

Please remember that technologies like bilinear/trilinear filtering and FSAA are only stopgaps to be used until the core rendering pipeline becomes more performant and resources become more plentiful. As of the current generation of cards, FSAA is now pretty much irrelevant, and the various filtering systems are not making a significant improvement to visual quality.

And I have to agree that Shader Model 3.0 makes a big difference - amongst other things it allows two-sided lighting to be handled in one pass (with the back-face register), increasing instruction counts to 64K will allow for much more complex algorithms, changing interpolative colour models from 8-bit int to 32-bit float will make everything that much more vibrant, and best of all is texture support in vertex shaders, so finally we can perform displacement mapping in hardware! Fantastic!
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Post Sat Aug 07, 2004 11:37 am
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