video card for new pc: ati or nvidia?

[spazzkid]

im seriously looking at ATI 7500 or a GF2 GTS Titanium for my new christmas rig.

I do gaming and do some web designing on the side... would that card fit in to my category. i would luv sharper pictures, intense 3d gaming, and smooth DVD/VCD playback. is the ATI a good choice?

[Über~PhLuBB]

I'm an nVidia fan till death, I wont ever purchase ATI, because, frankly, their products aren't as powerful as nVidia, and as such, dont deserve my money. They never have been, and I believe they never will be top of the line.

Biases aside, that's not to say that ATI is crap. No, sir, ATI has many excellent features that nVidia doesn't, such as DVD playback, excellent 2D image representation, and, of course, price.

Of those 2 cards you listed, ATI is clearly the better choice. It will be about the same price, but you will have better 3D performance, as well as better 2D performance.

Check www.pricewatch.com for the best prices, but whoever you end up buying from, be certain to check out their rating at www.resellerratings.com , you dont want to end up getting stiffed, or having a return refused.

ATI has the advantage in the price and quality catagories. Price because they want to take nVidia fans for themselves, so they charge far less. Quality because each card is made by ATI, ensuring the same quality from card to card, as opposed to nVidia, who has other companies build their cards (There are a few companies to watch out for when buying nVidia chipsets. The main ones that come to mind are eVGA, PowerColor, and PNY. All three are known to have shoddy cards and other customer-relations problems. Most other companies are legit.).

[Maximus Nickus]

For that prive the Nvidia card will offer better performance.
And the new 22.xx drivers really improve 2d quality, and DVD playback is better to.

[funnyperson1]

if you really dont care about fuzzy 2D then the Gainward geforce2Pro is slightly better (4ns ram), but at stock settings the ATI would trump the geforce2 Ti, especially if you watch dvd on your comp.....Personally i would go with the 7500....

[It_The_Cow]

For what you want, the ATi 7500 would fit your bill. Its DVD playback is still unsurpassed, and its pictures are good as well. From the gaming standpoint, you may be happier with the framerates the Titanium offers, though. The 7500 has better image quality, but at the cost of framerates

[funnyperson1]

actually at default settings the games run faster on the ATI as well...

[Maximus Nickus]

Here we go again.:(
until the ATi card uses its features and is stable you can't compare its performance to the G3.

[Cisco Kid]

Originally posted by nick_cw
For that prive the Nvidia card will offer better performance.
And the new 22.xx drivers really improve 2d quality, and DVD playback is better to.


What are you taking about??

The 7500 is the better choice for what he needs it to do. You can not compare 2D Video/clarity of the nvidia card to ATI . ATI is simply superior in that area and you will only know this when you have owned both brands as I have. DVD playback is another feature ATI is superior at. That you will find in all reviews

The 3D gaming ability of the 7500 is plenty to play all games currently out, hell if you lookk at my sig my Radeon 64 DDR vivo can play everything and will be able to for quite a while. Another nice feature of the 7500 is Dual Monitor support which reviews have said works fantastically. It also has TV out which I am sure the nvidia card has as well.

Bottom line price/performance the ATI card wins hands down. If you read the recent review at www.anandtech.com regarding the ATI drivers released Nov14th you will see that in the next few beta driver releases the 8500 will eventually walk over the Ti500. As far as the 7500 beating the Ti200 in frames probably not but a diff off 15 fps really is not noticed once you are over 60 anyways.

do yourself the favor and buy an ATI card and see what they are all about. Till then you got know idea what you are talking about...

My 2 cents worth

Cisco Kid:D

[Cisco Kid]

Originally posted by nick_cw
Here we go again.:(
until the ATi card uses its features and is stable you can't compare its performance to the G3.

Nick,

you can not compare the 7500 to a G3. Yess it beats the Radeon in fps, but loses in 2D quality, dvd playback and price by far.

Compare the 7500 to the Ti200
8500 to the Ti500

you gotta compare apples to apples as these cards above are the newest releases by both companies. Soon you will see the 8500 walk over the Ti500 ATI has promised regualr beta driver releases on a frequent basis , now we just got to wait and see whether these drivers unleash the full potential of the 8500 and I am sure they will.

Cisco Kid;)

[Maximus Nickus]

I was comparing the 8500 to a ti500.
AND so what if you've owned the two cards? LOADS OF PEOPLE HAVE AND THEY SAY:
Put them side by side and the image quality is near identical you can't tell them apart.
ALSO the Hercules Ti200 is guarrented to hit 500Mhz mem, so beat that for $200.

My 2 cents worth

:D

[funnyperson1]

yeah but you fail to look at the performance boost that the ATI will get because it can get to 300/600 without a problem, and the performance shouod be about the same when overclocked because of the huge lead that the 8500 starts out with and Cisco, youre being optimistic about the 7500...
7500 competes with Geforce2 Ti
8500 competes with Ti500......

[mx-6*]

Didn't he say that?

[Zuck Gou :)]

My vote is to compare by price.

If your planning to buy something under $100, ATi wins with the Radeon.

If you want to spend less than $200, I'd say the Ti200 wins.

Over $200, I'd go with the 8500 because it'll be faster and last longer in the long run.

My 2 pennies.

[Cisco Kid]

Originally posted by nick_cw
I was comparing the 8500 to a ti500.
AND so what if you've owned the two cards? LOADS OF PEOPLE HAVE AND THEY SAY:
Put them side by side and the image quality is near identical you can't tell them apart.
ALSO the Hercules Ti200 is guarrented to hit 500Mhz mem, so beat that for $200.

My 2 cents worth

:D


Nick the bottom line is you can tell the difference in 2D video quality when you place the ATI card next to the nvidia card. Any reviews give whatever edge there may be to the Radeon.

Second a 7500 will hit 500 and an overclocked SE Radeon 64 DDR vivo can hit 500 and will be stable and you can find it for $135 - 145US. Mine is at 234/468 now with stock cooling, once I slap my lapped blue orb on and ramsinks I am sure 500 is possible at the cards max limit, and another board member, Quizno has his with better cooling is at 246/492 and said it will do 500 but he runs it just under for longevity of the card.

Funnyperson 1 , I was being optimistic cause I know that the 7500 gets flat out beat by the Ti200.

But as far as price to performance goes the ATI cards are a better buy.

Cisco Kid:cool:

[Ritteri&Bubbles]

Go with a Geforce2 Ultra if you can find one, I dont like the 7500 at all, great for dvd, 2d apps, but not for gaming, gaming you want Geforce2 Ultra, as its insane for fps, good 2d quality etc. The best bang for the buck, otherwise the 8500 may now be the best bang.their new drivers for XP that came out are showing me the light finally.

[Cisco Kid]

Originally posted by Ritteri&Bubbles
Go with a Geforce2 Ultra if you can find one, I dont like the 7500 at all, great for dvd, 2d apps, but not for gaming, gaming you want Geforce2 Ultra, as its insane for fps, good 2d quality etc. The best bang for the buck, otherwise the 8500 may now be the best bang.their new drivers for XP that came out are showing me the light finally.


Ritteri&Bubbles, why do you not like the 7500, what are the specific reasons given its cheap price. Although I know it loses to the Ti200. Gaming must be pretty decent cause my 64 ddr vivo plays all games quite well

Cisco Kid:burn:

[matt_ramsey]

If games were your top concern, you'd be wasting your money to get a Radeon 7500 over a GeForce 2. But for what you listed as your needs (DVD and 2D), the Radeon 7500 seems like the best choice.