Finally! Decent ATI video cards to compete on the DX10 level

[Lionking]

http://ati.amd.com/products/radeonhd3800/index.html

Getting good reviews. The 3850 blows away the Nvidia 8600 series for price and performance. The 3870 comes close to matching the 8800 series on performance and beats it on price. I'm no fanboi either way, but I wanted some DX10 competition for Nvidia.

[Lyion]

ATI. Wouldn't touch em. Don't like em. Wouldn't recommend em.

No sir ee bob!

Do yourself a favor and stick to NVIDIA.You'll be happier in the long run.

[Tossica]

Fuck Nvidia! They killed my beloved 3DFX!

[Lyion]

I have a 16 Meg Voodoo2 Card in my basement I'd be glad to sell cheap cheap!

[Tossica]

I have a 16 Meg Voodoo2 Card in my basement I'd be glad to sell cheap cheap!

Slap that bad boy in your Pentium 133 and fire up some QuakeGL!

[Martrae]

NVIDIA sucks much ass. I'll never have another NVIDIA card in my puter.

[Tikker]

have fun always turning down all the effects in every game you play from now on then!

[10sun]

I've had three ATI cards, one in a laptop (Mobility chipset, kinda sucked, but it played games better than most at the time), one in a HTPC I built for my office (9800 All-In-Wonder, rocked the house), & the third being my x850 Pro (still going strong after how many years?).

I haven't had issues with any of these cards aside from the fan on my x850 getting clogged with animal hair... and even when that happened, it ran alright for having nothing but passive heat dispersion. I've played Crysis, not on the lowest settings & I've played just about every other game out there. I have not had any issues with it & as a result I am reluctant to stray away from ATI in the future given the stability & quality of products I've purchased, especially compared to the Nvidia cards I purchased in the past... the only NVidia card that I ever found myself to be truly happy with at the time was my TNT2 Ultra 32MB card which happened to rock the house.

-Adam

[Harrison]

They didn't kill 3dfx, they absorbed it.

[Lyion]

My Voodoo 3dfx card was awesome and the cutting edge beginning of 3D gaming in 1996.

My current 8800GT owns everything and has been kicking ass in my gaming rig for over a year. I've had 4 NVIDIA cards in between, all great. No issues.

I've had 3 ATI cards. They were slower than the NVIDIA ones, 2 of them died, and their drivers were woeful, as they still are to this day.

NVIDIA owns ATI, even moreso now that ATI is part of AMD and getting run down.

[Harrison]

I've never had an Nvidia card die on me, but countless ATI cards have died all around the house.

[Gypsiyee]

I've had 3 ATI cards. They were slower than the NVIDIA ones, 2 of them died, and their drivers were woeful, as they still are to this day.

a-freakin-men.

I hate ATI, never had anything but trouble with them.

[Martrae]

It's been the exact opposite for me. Every NVIDIA card I ever had has been nothing but a headache. My ATIs work like a dream.

As for turning down my graphics....the only game I play that would be relevant to is EQ2 and I don't have issues with the graphics in that game.

[Evermore]

NEver had any issues with either of them, except for a card failure. I have an ATI in my system now. works great. My wife is using an NVIDIA, also works great.

[Tikker]

in general, nvidia has wtfpwned ati

the only real exception was when the ati 9800 series was out

that was a fantastic card for a LONG ass time

that being said, I've had a couple of ati. my old laptop is built around an old ati card, and it's fantastic

most of my desktops have been nvidia and have been rock solid

my laptop has been thru 4 nvidia cards, but I suspect really that only 1 of them went bad, and the other 3 were dell support fuckups, heh


for HTPC style stuff, nvidia absolutely dominates ati

[Lyion]

It's been the exact opposite for me. Every NVIDIA card I ever had has been nothing but a headache. My ATIs work like a dream.

As for turning down my graphics....the only game I play that would be relevant to is EQ2 and I don't have issues with the graphics in that game.

I've had a 9800, X700, and X1950 Pro. The latter two died on me.

As I said, all three were also slower than their NVIDIA counterparts, and today the gap between the 8800 series which is over a year old and the ATI cards is huge, as is the quality of these cards.

This isn't even discussing how horribly, terribly bad the current ATI drivers are. That alone is reason to go with NVIDIA, not discounting the 8800 kicks much ass.

Which NVIDIA cards have you had? I was under the impression you have never had a new or semi new one. Which card do you currently use?

[Martrae]

I'm currently running the sapphire x1950xt. Had it over a year.

The card before that was one of the 8850 series NVIDIA and it sucked complete ass. I had nothing but issues with it from the day I installed it. I got rid of it within 2 weeks.

Before that I ran a sapphire 9800 for a long ass time with absolutely no problems at all.

[Tikker]

methinks you're full of shit, or don't know what you're talking about

no such thing (yet) as an 8850

[Lyion]

methinks you're full of shit, or don't know what you're talking about

no such thing (yet) as an 8850

More likely she just forgot the nomenclature.

Easy enough mistake with the amount of numbers and names tossed around.

I should add I loved my 9800Pro, also. However, my bad experiences with the later X series has really turned me off to ATI.

My 8800 makes me hoppy, hoppy.

[Martrae]

Yeah I screwed that up hardcore...it was the 7600.

Somehow I mixed it up with the x850 ATI and came up with 8850 (don't ask me how....I really couldn't begin to tell you.)

[Tikker]

7600 was a shit card for gaming

it was more of a highend HTPC style card

[Martrae]

Might have been my problem. I hated the friggin thing, it was worse than my 9800 so I switched back. I'd probably still be using the 9800 if my power supply hadn't gone haywire and fried everything.

[Evermore]

imo ATI's biggest issue was that they cant write drivers for shit

[Tikker]

Might have been my problem. I hated the friggin thing, it was worse than my 9800 so I switched back. I'd probably still be using the 9800 if my power supply hadn't gone haywire and fried everything.

yup, the 7600 as a gaming card, was a step down from the 6800 series of cards (which was nvidia's equivalent of the ati 9800)

the 7600 is one of the best MCE cards out there tho

[Naethyn]

What this thread seems to be missing is that multiple manufacturers can make the same model of video cards. This does not mean they have to use the same materials or the same cooling techniques. That is why you can see an EVGA card for 400 and the exact same ASUS card for 600.

Nvidia and ATI can compete for eternity on graphic card specs and it will not matter. Reliability comes down to the materials used and the design each manufacturer uses.