arghh cant decide amd/nvidia

[YoungRogue]

well the 4870x2 I got off ebay didnt turn out to be the bargain I expected as lots of artifacts appeared on my bios screen so that will be going back next week. So I am looking at getting a brand new card as i dont like the idea of gambling to see if I get a good one just to save some moneys. I have seen here this http://overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-032-ZT but I have also seen (unfortunately elsewhere) the 5850 with 3 games bundled with it one of which modern warfare 2 which I want to buy anyways.

what would the good people here do? the 5850 is a bit cheaper and comes with some cool games or do i pay the £20-£30 more to get the gtx 470 from here? is it a great deal better than the 5850?

 

[YoungRogue]

I have a coolermaster 600 watt psu and a 22" monitor thats not 1080 and an amd phenom 465 and stock speeds for now only just built it. And I wont be looking at watercooling just yet it does interest me but I think byt he time I have all the kit something new will be out lol

 

[stulid]

the fact you can get three games with a 5850 makes it an easy answer, do you want the other two games? what are they?

 

[Mr. May]

i would say the 5850 with games is a no brainer coming from a NV fan boy but if you want physx and are considering going multi gpu at some pont i would go NV as sli 470's scale so well

 

[YoungRogue]

i think my board only supports crossfire, but yup i think i will order the 5850, aliens vs predator and assasins creed 2 are the games i think, and its the xfx card which is a 2yr warranty i believe

 

[Scania]

Nvidia for me, after my recent experiences with ATI and numerous issues, I'm back with Nvidia with most of my builds.

Whats the point of better performance if the drivers can't deliver stability? - Well, thats my experience in a nutshell.

 

[magicroundabout]

but remember for every person who has an error there are hundreds who carry on fine.

if it ALWAYS happens on your machine with ATI then i'd say it was a conflict between something else on yoursystem not just ATI.

But anyways.

The 5850 is the one to get. clock it upto 5870 + speeds and you'll have a faster card than the 470.

 

[The Running Man]

Nvidia for me, after my recent experiences with ATI and numerous issues, I'm back with Nvidia with most of my builds.

Whats the point of better performance if the drivers can't deliver stability? - Well, thats my experience in a nutshell.

this is why i got rid of my ati...ive never owned an ati product that did not cause me problems. and in my history of gfx cards i have even gone obscure like Kyro 3d II and down the 6800nu route and never had issues...

nv for me from now on.

 

[Mr. May]

could consider the 460gtx now its out ?

 

[Scania]

but remember for every person who has an error there are hundreds who carry on fine.

if it ALWAYS happens on your machine with ATI then i'd say it was a conflict between something else on yoursystem not just ATI.

But anyways.

The 5850 is the one to get. clock it upto 5870 + speeds and you'll have a faster card than the 470.

If I were a single user, sure, I'd be inclined to agree.

Alas, I build PC's on a part-time basis and I have ATI driver related headache after headache, remove offending card & replace with Nvidia and the "problem" went away too.

Reason enough as far as I'm concerned.

Typical example, for the umteenth time on Saturday night my daughters PC (X1950 Pro 512MB) dropped its drivers, and has been doing for weeks - but strangely not with a different pc I tried - anyway,bought an 8300GS from the MM for £10 in frustration and voila! Problem banished again!

Ati have the product but not the ability to deliver where it counts.


I'm expecting shouts of "Fanboy".......

 

[opethdisciple]

If I were a single user, sure, I'd be inclined to agree.

Alas, I build PC's on a part-time basis and I have ATI driver related headache after headache, remove offending card & replace with Nvidia and the "problem" went away too.

Reason enough as far as I'm concerned.

Typical example, for the umteenth time on Saturday night my daughters PC (X1950 Pro 512MB) dropped its drivers, and has been doing for weeks - but strangely not with a different pc I tried - anyway,bought an 8300GS from the MM for £10 in frustration and voila! Problem banished again!

Ati have the product but not the ability to deliver where it counts.


I'm expecting shouts of "Fanboy".......

Nah everyones had their experinces.

Iv had bad times with Nvidia GPUs, but never with ATI.

Back in 2006 when I had my 7950GX2 I had major driver issues, with black screens, new drivers not able to detect my graphics card etc etc etc....

But generally ATI seems to be a lot more reliable for me.

Of course I had issues with the 10.6 drivers last month, but Iv promised my self to never go crossfire or SLI again, so I guess its my fault!

I generally use ATI products. But thats pnly becuase ATI seem to make fmore sense. Their GPU model nu,mberings make sense, the drivers versions make sense, the pricing makes sense etc etc etc, at the moment Nvidia are loseing on all fronts.

This is typified by the fact that Nvidia shares are plumetting! They are in big trouble. Hopefully this should bring the prices for their GPU's down.

But then again, they spent so long manufaturing the cards, they cant afford to drop the prices.

 

[alex24]

It depends what you want.

I think ATI certainly represents better value for money, certainly performance-wise. However, I also believe the nvidia drivers to be superior and with less annoying issues, and better development for performance than ATI. If that bothers you, go nvidia, but you'll pay extra for it. Neither driver set is that good overall anyway, so swings and roundabouts really.

I've had ATI (Radeon 9600 Pro), nVidia (GeForce 8800 GTS 320 Mb), nVidia (GeForce GTX280) and about to go ATI (Radeon 5770 Crossfire).

I have no particular allegiance.