Nvidia or ATI

[Hans]

I am looking into putting together a new rig. This time I want to go with dual videocards and lot's of ram.
I have not been following the hardware developments as closely as I used to, but I was thinking of going with 2 x 5850 and a 850 Watt Corsair PSU to power them up.
Or should I go with a couple of Nvidia cards? Higher PSU Wattage?

[Upper Decker]

Ive had the pleasure of 2x5850s, but wouldnt recommend something like taht unless you plan on gaming @ resolutions higher than 1920 x 1200 . Otherwise id go with a single card solution. Ive also owned 2 x 5770s and a 5870. All of which were great. I currently cant speak for nvidias offerings until next week when my GTX 480 thats backordered comes in, but the GTX 460s are in sli are really damn good apparently as I was going for that solution myself. As for the power supply, id just go all out and get an HX1000w, damn fine psu.

Do I smell a newly updated 3dmark thread soon?

[Dixie_Normous]

Ahh the old Radeon & Nvidia debate ... everyone has their preference and they're pretty much neck and neck in terms of specs.

Overall functionality however may be a different story. I've used Radeon for the last 3+ years now but before that it was a series of Nvidia cards. A lot of games are specifically written with an Nvidia card in the testing box so being a programmer it's safe to say the functionality will be a tad better with Nvidia. Just my opinion. When 3 out of the 5 games I'm playing have the Nvidia media sequence in the startup screens it is safe to assume that since it was designed with the Nvidia chips in mind it will perform a little better. (even if it's just a hair).

I did order a new laptop recently and Radeon was the only choice. I'm definitely not unhappy with the performance at all but if given the choice I would have more than likely went with Nvidia.

Years ago you used to be able to see this disparity a lot more. Even though they were similar performing cards the Radeon still had a few glitches in games compared to a similar Nvidia.

I'll also agree with the 1000w PSU, don't skimp on that. You already knew that.

I'm looking forward to your next benchmarking thread Hans.

Cheers

[Upper Decker]

I only went with a GTX 480 this time around because I got for an insanely good price, and didnt want to use hacked drivers for physx. Otherwise Im on neither side of the fence, i go with whoever has the best performance for the dollar.

[Hans]

There's a couple of extra things that come to my mind when making a choice of gpu.

- Nvidia does have better driver support for Linux. I will partially be using this machine to run virtual machines.
- I get the impression from reading various articles that the current series of Nvidia cards run a bit hotter than the equivalent ATI cards. When running dual cards you have to take that into consideration because both cards tend to be close together on the MB.

I have always been happy with both Nvidia and ATI cards, and it does seem to be dependent on which benchmark you run to determine who comes out ahead of the game. In the end I think it's a wash when it comes to numbers.

[Dixie_Normous]

I only went with a GTX 480 this time around because I got for an insanely good price, and didnt want to use hacked drivers for physx. Otherwise Im on neither side of the fence, i go with whoever has the best performance for the dollar.

I hear ya, that's the reason I went back to Radeon a few years back, I was scoring a few deals on their cards which caused me to switch from Nvidia (I was ATI before that string of Nvidia as well, before that Nvidia ... etc etc).

It's cyclic for me.

It is a wash in the end when it comes to numbers.

[filthy]

I'd go with 2x GTX 460s in SLi, even if you get one now and one later on. Tons of power and it's always nice to have 2 video cards in case one craps out and needs to be RMA'd.

Wow, great price right now, a bunch for free games and $40 USD in MIR to boot!!

http://www.ncix.com/products/index.p...r&promoid=1223

[Hans]

I added those to my basket earlier, as early tests indicate they scale really well in SLI.

[Upper Decker]

So....

What did you end up getting lol?

[Lance1]

Hans how much would you sell your E6750 at 3.52 Gig
XFX Radeon HD 4870 XXX 775MHZ 1GB 3.8GHZ
G.Skill F2-8500CL5D 2x2 GB
Samsung 2443BW + HP W22
Corsair TX750W
For?

[Ultra54]

This question is more difficult today than at any other time I have seen with the new 6900 ATI's and the 5000 series Nvidia. One consideration for me is going to the ATI 6950 or the 6970 wouldn't require me to get a new power supply.