I have tried both graphics card and I like ATI better because I have an AMD processor. My computer freezes when I use nVidia on my AMD setup but it works OK on the Intel setup. With the arrival of Cataclysm, which graphic card do you think will perform better?

Considering you can max out cataclysm on a mid range card and system..... ATI

In all but the highest end cards ATI out perfm Nvidia pound for pound, the 5870 is still the best value for money card on the market in terms of performance per pound.  ATI are killing Nvidia because of this simple realisation, "The vast majority of PC gamers are on a mid range system that costs about £1000 not a stupidly high end one where the graphcis card alone is worth £500" so Ati focus their efforts at this area.  Hence the release of the 6000 series cards (which are technically inferior to the 5800 series).

ATI cant compete at the very top end with Nvidias vast RnD but at every other price point, they can outpeform the Nvidia equivalent, the fact that to get an Nvidia card that performs as well as the 5870 you have to spend an extra £120 says it all really.

I prefer ATI because i also run AMD setup. Moreover, ATI graphic cards gives you best bang for your buck performance wise. I would suggest wait for couple of weeks and get the new ATI 6000 series. You can't beat the price:performance ratio.

ATI gives you gaming performance, but nothing else. 

Its a good way to go if you are on a budget with an AMD platform because there is optimization between chipsets. However, that is how far AMD/ATI goes. Run any AMD card (I've tested this many times) outside an AMD platform and you lose between 2% - 11% of the performance the card offers. Nvidia cards scale on the hardware as well...and since they are Independent cards, there aren't any dependent optimizations. In short they don't lose performance because it scales to the hardware you have. 

Nvidia however is another Gem altogether. ATI focuses on one thing, Nvidia focuses on everything. Nvidia has a lot of integration (including audio now.) You see, Nvidia is independent from Intel and AMD. Rather than having to buy a specific platform to maximize the hardware, the card itself has a lot of technology integrated into it. This allows you to on the driver maintain independence. 

I use Nvidia because I run on Linux and windows, with ATI having horrible Linux Drivers. Gaming Performance to older games are better on Linux + Wine. Once you get over 60FPS on Linux, there is no longer any reason to use Windows for playing the same game. Out of the box Linux gives you more options and killer things for gaming,

I would have said ATI 4 - 5 years ago, but today...

"The best card to run Cataclysm will be Nvidia and the OS of choice will be Linux" 

Originally posted by Shinami

ATI gives you gaming performance, but nothing else. 

 

Its a good way to go if you are on a budget with an AMD platform because there is optimization between chipsets. However, that is how far AMD/ATI goes. Run any AMD card (I've tested this many times) outside an AMD platform and you lose between 2% - 11% of the performance the card offers. Nvidia cards scale on the hardware as well...and since they are Independent cards, there aren't any dependent optimizations. In short they don't lose performance because it scales to the hardware you have. 

 

Nvidia however is another Gem altogether. ATI focuses on one thing, Nvidia focuses on everything. Nvidia has a lot of integration (including audio now.) You see, Nvidia is independent from Intel and AMD. Rather than having to buy a specific platform to maximize the hardware, the card itself has a lot of technology integrated into it. This allows you to on the driver maintain independence. 

 

I use Nvidia because I run on Linux and windows, with ATI having horrible Linux Drivers. Gaming Performance to older games are better on Linux + Wine. Once you get over 60FPS on Linux, there is no longer any reason to use Windows for playing the same game. Out of the box Linux gives you more options and killer things for gaming,

 

I would have said ATI 4 - 5 years ago, but today...

 

"The best card to run Cataclysm will be Nvidia and the OS of choice will be Linux" 

And that is what a gamer needs. The performance for gaming.

@OP.  Like rest of the people suggested go for ATI, best performance you can get.

Originally posted by Jeroboam

I have tried both graphics card and I like ATI better because I have an AMD processor. My computer freezes when I use nVidia on my AMD setup but it works OK on the Intel setup. With the arrival of Cataclysm, which graphic card do you think will perform better?

From my perspective, you have already answered your own question.  If an nVidia card causes sporadic freezing, there is no reason to stick with one.

Every year or two, ATI and nVidia leapfrog over the other in terms of what is the best video card.  Unless you are going to pick up the very best video card possible (usually not recommended because the price jumps up very quickly for smaller and smaller performance gains), either card will be very acceptable.  If you want to look at specific benchmarks, check out Tom's Hardware and pick up a card (ATI in your case) that meets your price-performance needs best.  http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/2010-gaming-graphics-charts-high-quality/benchmarks,114.html

The difference between ATI and nVidia is the dumb core verse the slightly smarter core.  ATI utilizes many dumb cores while nVidia uses fewer slightly smarter cores.  The difference is some applications don't require sophistication, they require massive redundancy.  This is where the ATI architecture thrives.  This means in data storage and graphics, and ATI GPU will perform magnificently due to the sheer amount of dumb operations it can do with 1600 cores.  On the other hand nVidia GPUs can also do slightly more sophisticated operations because they have smarter cores.  Even though they have at most 512 cores, they can be utilized to take operations off the CPU if programed correctly.

With that in mind on architecture, there is very little reason to buy any nVidia product at this moment.  Even though nVidia can do more sophisticated applications, the usage of CUDA has been limited to what can be accomplished in OpenCL and DirectCompute.  Ontop of this many software engineers have not gotten savvy enough to perform GPGPU functions and GPU functions on the same card.  This is necessary to start selling these aspects of the card.  I am pretty sure moving forward, programmers are going to opt to divide things into smart and dumb operations making the slightly smarter part of nVidia's cores moot.  There is no point in targeting 30% of the market segment when you can target 100% with other methods.

I mentioned this because right now nVidia is not a good buy.  They bogged down their card with closed languages, smarter cores that are not of use, and lack of chipset support.  They failed to make a GPU that excels at graphics.  Thats why they are not going to be a good pick over the next couple of years.

Ihave an AMD processor and a Nvidia, card, no problems there. And this is frankly the first time I heard of any issues, and I built at least 50 computers for myself and people I know.

I prefer Nvidia myself, main reason for that is better coded drivers. But I always get a high end card, people who want a low end get more for their money from a ATI card, while mid range cards perform pretty equal, better in some games and tests and worse in others.

Also, Nvidia card tend to generate more heat (funny enough have AMD processors the same problem), not an issue for me with a huge tower but it matters for people who want to upgrade in a small case or who just have very little space to have the computer. But a large case is better no matter what card you have, and some fans wont hurt either.

Anyways, both Nvidia and ATI are pretty good. Since Matrox more or less withered away are there no one making bad cards even though you get what you pay for.

Originally posted by unbound55

From my perspective, you have already answered your own question.  If an nVidia card causes sporadic freezing, there is no reason to stick with one.

Actually, question is why it did freeze. I had 10 Nvidia cards, a few ATI, 2 DFX and 1 Matrox card, the only card that had any issues like that was one I kinda overclocked a bit too much (it was time to get an new one anyways).

Usually are stuff like that not the hardwares fault. Sounds either like a software problem, IRQ issue or a memory problem (on ram, GFX card or cash) to me.

Originally posted by Cleffy

The difference between ATI and nVidia is the dumb core verse the slightly smarter core.  ATI utilizes many dumb cores while nVidia uses fewer slightly smarter cores.  The difference is some applications don't require sophistication, they require massive redundancy.  This is where the ATI architecture thrives.  This means in data storage and graphics, and ATI GPU will perform magnificently due to the sheer amount of dumb operations it can do with 1600 cores.  On the other hand nVidia GPUs can also do slightly more sophisticated operations because they have smarter cores.  Even though they have at most 512 cores, they can be utilized to take operations off the CPU if programed correctly.

With that in mind on architecture, there is very little reason to buy any nVidia product at this moment.  Even though nVidia can do more sophisticated applications, the usage of CUDA has been limited to what can be accomplished in OpenCL and DirectCompute.  Ontop of this many software engineers have not gotten savvy enough to perform GPGPU functions and GPU functions on the same card.  This is necessary to start selling these aspects of the card.  I am pretty sure moving forward, programmers are going to opt to divide things into smart and dumb operations making the slightly smarter part of nVidia's cores moot.  There is no point in targeting 30% of the market segment when you can target 100% with other methods.

I mentioned this because right now nVidia is not a good buy.  They bogged down their card with closed languages, smarter cores that are not of use, and lack of chipset support.  They failed to make a GPU that excels at graphics.  Thats why they are not going to be a good pick over the next couple of years.

You are right ^_^ 

ATI thrives so well that a GTX 285 still destroys a 5870 and a 6870 in roughly every single area outside of gaming, where it counts. If you love to PLAY games and MAKE meshes too..I remember my framerate tests..

My Latest Tests: 

GTX 285: Dynamic Lightning, Physics, High-Level Detail Texture, Mid-Level Polygon Count. Texture Resolution 1024x1024 with maximum level of mipmaps + AAx2, AFx4 with the Window Operating at 1280x720 + FOV 85.1212, 25 - 31 FPS. It was enough to sustain a playable developers framerate. 

6870: Dynamic Lightning, High Level Detail Texture (Force-Physics Disabled), MLAA overlay (Something Nvidia doesn't have) Mid-Level Polygon Count on the mesh, Texture Resolution 1024x1024. Maximum Mipmaps was not supported, but it did offer something nice. It can go between three levels seamlessly, Good for better graphics while far away, worse for graphics up close.....AFx4, Viewport operating at 1280x720,FOV 85.1212 FPS: 9 - 13. 15 - 16 FPS if MLAA is disabled. 

A GTX 480 (and 580) both provided 60 - 90 FPS under the same settings. I managed to use extreme settings that dropped my FPS to between 30 - 60. The Guarantee that in each generation of graphic cards I can program the mid and high end graphics and retain a framerate of 30 on a sole card is amazing. The fact that Audio Processing is now included only helps a lot more. 

Its true games run at 60 FPS, but seldom do programmers ever use all 60 Frames on one part. I work a lot with Quake Engines and Unreal Engines. Unreal Engine 2.0 interesting enough had its games programmed to cap at 85 FPS but that caused some synchronization problems. I am in the middle of working on a fantasy shooter with RPG elements, based of one of the darkest stories I've ever put together.  

Developing with ATI is a nightmare. I've tried many times again. Development programs cause a system to heat up and one of the reasons Nvidia Cores have a high temp threshold is to withstand the stress of rendering and development. I've broken 98C on a 480 GTX under the most intense of situations. 480 GTX cards have a 105C threshold for a reason and its a reason why they cost more too. ATI cards heat up just as much but the program usually crashes or freezes before it even gets to its threshold. 

The ones who failed to deliver a well-rounded product was ATI. Its a good thing because they are able to save tons on the cost of a card and sell a card that is aimed at the pure gaming end-user with the bare minimums and some algorithms to help optimize gaming. This is a very smart thing and I am happy they did that. No one should have to pay for what they don't use, but how much do you really save when one factors in what they don't have when they want everything and buy into the hype? 

I like 6870s, but only for games due to testing MLAA (so far its been over 50 hours of MLAA testing) but I only recommend it if you are a person who all he does is Windows Gaming and nothing more. If you do anything else which significantly needs graphic cards, Go Nvidia as the framerate within games go neck and neck between ATI and Nvidia and all current games out are highly playable on both. 

Hmm , if i am using graphics but not playing games, then which one is better?

Used to like ati cards back 7 years ago with my 9700 but since then I've only had issues with them (gonna blame the drivers).  So far nvidia hasn't disappointed me aside from the price for performance.

Still sticking with amd cpus for the moment but that might change as well.

I constantly switch between ATI and Nvidia, since they compete well with each other I usually buy the best price/performance cards. The war they're having now is driving down the GTX 460 to insanely low prices, although I imagine Nvidia isn't making much money on them.

You don't choose between a generic AMD card and a generic Nvidia card.  You only buy particular cards.  The features, performance, and price of particular cards can vary considerably.  It's easily possible for an AMD card to make more sense in one situation and an Nvidia card to make more sense in another--even if the only difference is the budget.

gtx460 is 160 on newegg. Sadly i spend 260 before the price drop. It has the best bang for the buck at the moment.

I'd definetly look into other parts of your pc system if nvidia cards froze with amd processors.

I am my local tech guru or thats what they call me I advise about 30 gamers on what to upgrade/buy and when.

Now upto a couple of years ago even though most of the household and friends switched to core 2 then to intel q6600 we stuck to ati, 3870's and 3870x2's  but I started to see a disturbing trend where ATI started to refine there drivers more for the benchmarks and the games they knew reviewers tested there cards on than catering for Actual gamers and priority.

I believe they just got a little too focused on the finish line, so I advised even though alot of these people had crossfire platforms to switch to the  8800 gts 640mb and wierdly alot of peoples systems became alot more stable, yes the performance was less but the experience of gaming became more stable, crashes we blamed on games disapeared, fan noise was lower and break down of the cards became less.

Now most of us moved on to the Nvidia 260gtx revision 1 or 2, not the fastest card out there but cost effective and will run gta4/just cause 2/mass effect2 smoothly some moved onto nvidia 3d vision personally I won't for atleast another year, I just bought myself a 470gtx to evaluate and i'm impressed give it another 3-6 months and i'll start recommending it to friends.

Its really personal experience me and my friends lost confidence in ati and there support, as a gamer raw power doesn't matter to me, stability does, I have games that utilize the nvidia physx and friends who use cuda, ati may have raw power and eyefinity or whatever it is called but I see no practical real world use for a gamer to need more than a couple of screens

Heh this is going to turn into a flamewar in approximally 10 seconds...

Anyway, I'd say NVIDIA if you want 3d, with gear more affordable these days. Otherwise, ATI seems to be the cheaper and more powerful option... per dollar to ounce of strength that is.

Originally posted by calranthe

I am my local tech guru or thats what they call me I advise about 30 gamers on what to upgrade/buy and when.

Now upto a couple of years ago even though most of the household and friends switched to core 2 then to intel q6600 we stuck to ati, 3870's and 3870x2's  but I started to see a disturbing trend where ATI started to refine there drivers more for the benchmarks and the games they knew reviewers tested there cards on than catering for Actual gamers and priority.

So you advise 30 people on what to get for hardware without knowing the difference between a processor and a video card?  Right.  Well, I guess you didn't say you gave them good advice.

If the problem is that AMD drivers are optimized only for benchmarks but perform poorly in games, why doesn't some review site try testing games to demonstrate this?  Oh wait, they do--and find that AMD cards perform pretty well in games, too.  Perhaps a lot of sites just do game benchmarks, but Hard OCP plays real games and gets a subjective feel of how smooth the games run, in addition to reporting the frame rates at various settings.

For that matter, the currently famous cases of cards optimized for benchmarks are all on the Nvidia side.  Unigine Heaven is the most famous, but also the HAWX 2 benchmark for an unreleased game, artificially disabling AA on AMD cards in Batman: Arkham Asylum, and the PhysX part of 3DMark Vantage.  And then, for that matter, there's the mysterious refusal of PhysX to use SSE, lest it run too well on a CPU.  Sure, it's not that hard to toss those out as useless.  And both ATI and Nvidia have been caught cheating outright at benchmarks in the past.  Even Intel has been caught cheating at graphics benchmarks.

A lot of dual GPU cards have run too hot.  But claims of ATI cards being unstable are out of date.  I've had a Radeon HD 5850 for over a year, and in that time, my system has crashed exactly never.  No blue screens of death, no system lockups, no random shutdowns, none of that.  It's been through stress testing, firmware updates, power outages, and even flooding without a crash.

Originally posted by Quizzical

Originally posted by calranthe

I am my local tech guru or thats what they call me I advise about 30 gamers on what to upgrade/buy and when.

Now upto a couple of years ago even though most of the household and friends switched to core 2 then to intel q6600 we stuck to ati, 3870's and 3870x2's  but I started to see a disturbing trend where ATI started to refine there drivers more for the benchmarks and the games they knew reviewers tested there cards on than catering for Actual gamers and priority.

So you advise 30 people on what to get for hardware without knowing the difference between a processor and a video card?  Right.  Well, I guess you didn't say you gave them good advice.

If the problem is that AMD drivers are optimized only for benchmarks but perform poorly in games, why doesn't some review site try testing games to demonstrate this?  Oh wait, they do--and find that AMD cards perform pretty well in games, too.  Perhaps a lot of sites just do game benchmarks, but Hard OCP plays real games and gets a subjective feel of how smooth the games run, in addition to reporting the frame rates at various settings.

For that matter, the currently famous cases of cards optimized for benchmarks are all on the Nvidia side.  Unigine Heaven is the most famous, but also the HAWX 2 benchmark for an unreleased game, artificially disabling AA on AMD cards in Batman: Arkham Asylum, and the PhysX part of 3DMark Vantage.  And then, for that matter, there's the mysterious refusal of PhysX to use SSE, lest it run too well on a CPU.  Sure, it's not that hard to toss those out as useless.  And both ATI and Nvidia have been caught cheating outright at benchmarks in the past.  Even Intel has been caught cheating at graphics benchmarks.

A lot of dual GPU cards have run too hot.  But claims of ATI cards being unstable are out of date.  I've had a Radeon HD 5850 for over a year, and in that time, my system has crashed exactly never.  No blue screens of death, no system lockups, no random shutdowns, none of that.  It's been through stress testing, firmware updates, power outages, and even flooding without a crash.

Hmm lets see yes I advise on hardware and software (32 years in the "business" 39 if you count the 7 years from 9-16 that I spent in at cauldon college learning about mini and mainframes with the tech support people my dad knew, the systime 500 mini given to me on my birthday (13) which I could actually fit most of my body inside while working on it and a 174 IQ with 98% problem solving ability, but lets not go there ).

You talk like an ATI/AMD fanboy but i'll give you the benefit of the doubt.

Anyone with an ounce of common sense would know when I said that i was talking about the move from amd cpu's to intel and I specifically pointed out we stuck with ATI cards as in graphics cards.

Its a fact that ati drivers are optimized for the benchmarks AND as I STATED the games that reviewers use to review the cards on, there is about 3-4 titles that are used 80% of the time by reviewers like tomshardware etc.

Maybe ATI cards have gotten better I am not chancing it and another fact you won't like to hear when most of those 30 people changed to Nvida cards there gaming experiences were improved, not one ever decided to or asked me about changing back to ati and yes if they had asked i'd have designed/built a system for them based around amd/ati.

AMD/ATI has taken its eye of the ball as far as I am concerned they rushed out there processors to try catch up with intel and flaws appeared they rushed out the 5800's etc and they have a slower windows speed than most cards before them (i'm talking 2d graphics processing)  there drivers are rushed if you don't believe me google the problems people have,

I was a defender of  AMD/ATI for a very long time hell it cost alot both in time and money to swap all the pc's in the house and to advice all friends to do the same to intel/nvidia and every six months I take another look at amd/ati but i'm still not impressed.

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Originally posted by calranthe

Its a fact that ati drivers are optimized for the benchmarks AND as I STATED the games that reviewers use to review the cards on, there is about 3-4 titles that are used 80% of the time by reviewers like tomshardware etc.
 

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Fact is, nVidia and ATI both optimize their drivers for specific games that are benchmarked consistently. nVidia especially has been 'caught' optimizing for pre-canned fly through benches, so their cards would run better during the benchmark fly through than it would in the actual game.

That's why I prefer sites like [H] and hardwarecanucks because they use in game playthroughs to bench instead of canned benches. Canned benches are not representative in most games. Dirt 2 is the only exception I can think of where the canned bench very closely reflects real world game benches.

All that said, the plus side of these cards being optimized for constantly benched games is that those game engines happen to be used in a *lot* of other games. Batman: AA runs Unreal Engine. Crysis runs CryEngine. L4D2 uses Source. Fallout 3 uses Gamebryo. Battlefield Bad Company 2 uses Frostbite. These are all engines we see over and over again in most the games we play. You can expect some optimizations in those games to be reflected somewhat in other games even if not specifically optimized for them.

I respect nVidia's drivers a lot, it is funny that you moved away from ATI as they got better though. There was a steady improvement starting with 3800 series. 4800 and 5800 series have been amazing cards.