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IGP image quality better than dedicated card?

Marekj

Marekj

Marekj

Associate
Joined
19 Jan 2009
Posts
34
I've just sold a GTX 260 on Ebay in anticipation of my GTX 460 arriving in the next day or two. In the meantime I've had to use the on-board ATI 3200 GPU through a DVI connection, and I've noticed that the image quality is noticeably better than the dedicated Nvidia card. Text is much clear, with less "fuzz" around dark images on a white background. Colours seem richer without being over-saturated. My Benq VA monitor has never displayed such a great image.


Obviously the 3D performance is abysmal, but can it be right that a on-board chip can produce a better image than (what was) a £200 dedicated card?
 
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I've calibrated it using various onine tools and Windows, yes. But I did the same with the 260. It normally takes me a good two weeks to find an image that I'm happy with. Could it be the ATI calibration/setup software is better than Nvidia's?
 
AMD/ATI cards do have better image quality than NV cards. Actual image output is better, like you say the colours are more vibrant without being over saturated. If you try to get colours the same on an NV card it just gets over saturated. Whites are also whiter/brighter. I also have professional colour calibration hardware + software and this wont fix the problem either.
If i was to describe it in the most basic way it's as if AMD cards put out more colours, even though on paper they can do the same amount. With NV's 2xx series the image improved a little, but it still dont match AMD. It's especially noticable when you have high-end IPS monitors like i do that can do a billion colours.

It's the main reason i choose AMD over NV even when NV have a more powerful card which is what i used to go for regardless of anything else, but i need the image quality for my work.
 
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Which drivers were you using on the 260? some around 178.xx ish and 195/196 had somewhat questionable image quality but on the good drivers like 191.xx, 250+, etc. it should look fine, tho it sounds to me like you have digital vibrance ramped up.
 
It was a well known fact that in terms of image quality, and by that I mean actual signal quality, clarity and voltage outputs from the card outputs nvidia were the worst by a long way. ATI were better, and Matrox wiped the floor with them both. I didn't realise this was still the case? I thought nvidia had cleaned their outputs up a little?
 
NV did improve image quality with there 2xx series. 9xxx and older are very bad. I used to compare each of there cards as i've had literally everything.

lt's not digital vibrance as other have mentioned, as i mentioned above it's with all AMD cards, it's the hardware itself, and it seems to be the same with there IGP's too. AMD simply have better image quality and no amount of tinkering will get an NV card looking as good even with my £250 worth of colour calibration hardware. Often you cant noticed this difference though unless you have a remotely good monitor/TV, which means no cheap TN based LCD panels.

BTW Marekj i had a GTX 480 and this problem also exists with that as well so i'm sure the GTX 460 will also look worse than the AMD IGP.
I wish NV would fix this so i can go back to them and not have to put up with AMD's constantly bad drivers each month.
 
I think you need to learn how to use your calibration software/hardware tbh, granted ATI/AMD tend to be somewhat more vibrant out the box and even probably a little richer color wise after calibration but I've got a GTX260 and 470 powering the monitors on my desk and quick whirl with spyder 3 and they look great, good colors and saturation, nice whites and deep blacks with crisp text I doubt you'd even tell the difference from an ATI/AMD card in blind testing switching between sources on the same monitor. The "GTX260m" (basically a 9800GT) on my laptop was a little harder but they aren't "very bad" either.
 
Rroff said:
I think you need to learn how to use your calibration software/hardware tbh.
Click to expand...

:rolleyes:
I'm a graphic designer, i've been using professional software and colour calibration hardware for 15+ years. I have and use the best monitors available. I've also had nearly every single high-end card from both companies. AMD have better image quality and it's not debatable. Yes you can get an NV card looking much better with Spyder 3 or an i1 Display but it wont ever be as good as an AMD card. You cannot get an NV card looking as good no matter how long you spend messing around with it, believe me i've tried, from the ancient Geforce 2 Ti through every generation all the way up to the GTX 480. The hardware is not capable of it.

Matrox have better image quality than either AMD or NV though. For some reason people bizarrely think that all graphics cards are somehow exactly equal with image output quality.
 
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I can't find anything concrete, just many reviews and forums posts saying Matrox > Ati > Nvidia.

It basically boils down to the RAMDACs and filters, like in audio, a clean, well regulated signal sounds better than a signal that wavers and overshoots etc.. But I would have thought with everything being DVI these days these sort of DAC problems would have gone.
 
I had digital vibrance on 2 or 3% above default. I was using some variant of the 265 driver.

I'm in no way saying that I was unsatisfied with the image quality on the 260 (nor the 880GT before that), or at least I wasn't before I tried the on-board ATI 3200, but the image I'm currently enjoying is great. the best way I can describe it is that it looks almost like I'm looking at an image that is printed on a piece of paper, rather than an obvious digital image. I had never thought about image quality when buying a card. I compared 3D performance and an overall value proposition.

I may cancel the 460 and look at a 6790 instead.
 
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