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Question: ATI vs Nvidia card cost...

EffBee

EffBee

EffBee

Associate
Joined
9 Dec 2006
Posts
1,323
I've just had a quick look through the OC shop and I noticed the most expensive ATI card I could see was well less than £200 whereas the Nvidia cards prices went up to about £500.

I stopped folowing the details of the graphics cards wars years ago so I am completely out of touch.

Why the difference in prices please. Are ATI just low end now?
 
Becuse NVIDIA know how to rip people off.
Becuse NVIDIA Like to try and rip people off with there underhanded sneaky tactics.
Becuse NVIDIA phsyx tech is a load of crap

well basicly NVIDIA sucks, can you tell i dont like NVIDIA the last card i had from nvidia was 8800GTX and never again will i buy from them, there underhanded sneakyness and overprice gouging has hit the nail on the head for me.

Stick with ATI mate ATI are more future worthy than NVIDIA, just look at there prices and specs and there new cards.
 
Nope, Nvidia's high end GTX295 is the fastest single slot card out right now, BUT you pay a massive premium. 2 4890s which cost £250 for the pair are just as fast!

ATI have new cards out very soon also. Nvidia cards are good, but they dont half charge for em,and for the last few months, unless you're either anti-ATI or pro-nvidia its been a pretty tough decision to buy one.

As a guide:
4850/9800GTX
4870/GTX260
4890/GTX275
GTX285
4890 (1Ghz core variant)
4870x2
GTX295

The new 5 series cards due out in the next few weeks are reputedly anywhere between 1.5-2x as fast as the current range with similar pricepoints, better overall power consumption and better multiple monitor use (see Eyefinity threads), but we shall see with those.
 
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Because ATi's fastest card, the HD4870X2, is EOL and no longer being sold so Nvidia are free to charge what they like for their fastest card.
 
Thanks for the prompt replies :)

The reason I am asking is that I am going to put together a new machine for myself in a month or so.

From my sig you can see that it is well overdue.

I have a fairly decent screen which I don't want to change just now. Therefore I will be playing games at 1680x1050 for a while to come.

It is a nightmare trying to get a grip of the current market and work out what card to buy. Leaving aside the new cards due out soon, I THINK I need something with the power of a '260 or '4870. If I went the ATI route I see no reason not to go for a '4890 as things stand now.

I play a lot of old games so backwards compatibility is important. For this reason I will avoid crossfire, sli, dual board solutions and dual GPU solutions to be safe.

Lots more research to do yet .

Having used both ATI and Nvidia (older) cards I prefer the colours of ATI but nvidia seem a bit sharper to me somehow.
 
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IMO if you are going to buy now its either the 260GTX or the 4890 - no other cards are worth buying - unless you can find a 275 at the same price as the 260.
 
The "£500" NV cards are also watercooled and as such do cost a fortune in comparison. The cheapest 295 on here is £340 which to be honest isn't that bad for the fastest single card out. Hell I paid that for my 280 over a year ago. However if you can wait you might want to hang on for the 5870 and see how it performs.
 
Well if you aint buying for a month the prices of the 4890 may have come down with the imminent release of the 58xx series so i would wait before deciding :)
 
Thanks for the advice.

I've mentally pencilled in about £170 for one of the Sapphire Vapor-X 4890 1GB cards since I want something fairly quiet. I know there is a boot problem world-wide with a particular batch of these at present.

Now to see what the new 5xxx cards look like in the few weeks :)
 
Seeing how the market can only respond by lowering the prices of current cards when the new ones hit the shelves in a few weeks, especially since ATI is not (currently) known to overprice their new lines ridiculously the wisest thing would be to sit back and chill for a few weeks.

It is entirely feasible that you could be looking at a noticeably better card from the new line for the same money since they are releasing a number of flavours across multiple price ranges.

Generally though if not for the imminent release the 4890 is a very solid bet. However, you haven't upgraded for quite a while and I'm sensing a few more weeks change nothing. Besides, although not nearly as decisive/drastic as the switch from 9 to 10, the new dx 11 cards will be well future-proof.

- Shijeer
 
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I think they sit above the 4890 until the lower spec cards are out,as i think it will be 5870/50 at launch and the lower models out a bit later but it is just a guess.
 
260 gtx, love mine :)

Got it because of the drivers abilities and for the games i play that seem to work best according to people who have used both brands. Plus physx while useless now might be in a game i enjoy later.
 
SkeeterPSA said:
260 gtx, love mine :)

Got it because of the drivers abilities and for the games i play that seem to work best according to people who have used both brands. Plus physx while useless now might be in a game i enjoy later.
Click to expand...

The driver's abilities? :confused:

Do other drivers of other hardware have no abilities or something... :p

'Better drivers' is the largest steamer going with graphics cards.

A driver is a driver it just makes the hardware run, you shouldn't ever have a preference for drivers.

To get what's the best value makes the most sense to anyone.

Currently that's a 4870 1GB.
 
Yeah like clamp to lod, which removes some oh whats the word oh yeah shimmering on textures in some games. Nvidia has a good profile system where when i was on ati not long ago didnt have as good profile system. Nvidia has a 3d glasses setup thing too even for cheap red and cyan specs whereas i dont recall ati having this.
 
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