Registered: Oct 2001
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Posts: 237

The following is a discussion I had with the Technical Editor at Maximum PC magazine. Please let me know how you stand on this very important issue, which video card is better when you only spend $200.

From: Philip Hannum [mailto:PHannum@mwgl.org]
Sent: Wednesday, January 21, 2004 10:28 AM
To: Will Smith
Subject: Best of the Best - 01/2004

Will,

Thanks for the advice about the BFG Asylum GeForce FX 5700 Ultra video cards, I can't wait to get one and slap that baby into my gaming rig
and spread the frags all over the place.

However, the problem is availability. You can't find the darn things anywhere. CompUSA, Best Buy and Circuit City are always out of them. Could you possibly propose an alternate card that is jut as good but as more available to the public? You media guys get to play with all of the best toys and the rest of us can only read about it. :-(

Keep up the good work on the best PC magazine out there.

Sincerely,

Philip "Mojo_Jojo" Hannum


-----Original Message-----
From: Will Smith
To: "'Philip Hannum'" <PHannum@mwgl.org>
Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2004 10:39:15 -0800
Subject: RE: Best of the Best - 01/2004

Hi Philip,

For the most part, the 5700 boards are the same. The BFG card has a better fan, but that shouldn't impact performance at all. I also like the Radeon 9600 XT boards. nVidia and ATI are extremely close at the $200 price point.

///Will Smith

--
Technical Editor
Maximum PC


-----Original Message-----
From: Philip Hannum [mailto:PHannum@mwgl.org]
Sent: Wednesday, January 21, 2004 1:27 PM
To: Will Smith
Subject: RE: Best of the Best - 01/2004


Will,

So why the big recommendation for the nVidia based boards? You
mentioned the fan quality, I have seen the numbers in your magazine, but I still don't understand the final decision maker between ATI and nVidia cards. What is the final determining factor that beats out one over another? Can you enlighten my mind about this before I drop $200 for a better card? Please.

Sincerely,

Philip "Mojo_Jojo" Hannum


-----Original Message-----
From: Will Smith
To: "'Philip Hannum'" <PHannum@mwgl.org>
Date: 01/21/2004 03:41 PM
Subject: RE: Best of the Best - 01/2004

The nVidia cards are slightly faster than the ATI cards in most benchmarks, which is why they're recommended over the 9600 Pro . The difference is usually less than 8% and never more than 5fps though* . BFG uses high quality ball bearing fans, but some of the generic nvidia boards you see on www.pricewatch.com use fans that crap out after a short time.

If you're more concerned with image quality than raw performance, get the ATI card. It looks better, especially if you turn on anisotropic filtering and anti-aliasing.

//Will

--
Technical Editor
Maximum PC

*Please be advised that Will is making this statement without using the latest device drivers. Some updated drivers affect the overall performance of the video cards so performace may vary based upon driver version

****** END ***********

So, what do you all think. Where do you stand on this. I would love to hear what you all think

Later,

__________________
Philip "Mojo Jojo" Hannum
phannum@mwgl.org
www.mojogamingpc.com

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Nvidia has gotten better but, I still consider Radeon Cards to be better. Selection has Nvidia as far as price is concerned as the number one reason they sell better. They tailor to the bargain shoppers and the preformance buyers based on the variety of cards they offer. The Radeon series have added new lines to compete in this area. You can find the 9600XT's and the 9200SE's to be a good buy for the price. There's The FX-5200 and the FX-5600 cards that Nvidia puts out in comparison. The FX-5700 and FX-5900 are Nvidia's challenge to the 9700 and 9800 series from Radeon cards. My niche is in driver availability. Nvidia seems to be slower in putting out new driver updates while Radeon has put some solid updates out.

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I just bought my 5900 and got a full copy of Call To Duty for $184 off of newegg.com. The ATIs are better with DirectX 9, but for the price they want to charge for their stuff I don't think so.

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Registered: Oct 2001
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From a game playing standpoint, I think the cards go back and forth on which is better that if you claim one is today you'll just be wrong tomorrow (there are new cards seem to be coming out every day after all). For my money though I go with ATI. The non-gaming features seem to always be better with them. Add this to the fact that I am going to school for graphics and multimedia and it's just better for my money.

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I finally switched to ATI on my current card I just got, a Radeon 9800 pro (sapphire 128).

As far as cost goes they seem pretty similar although I'm still disappointed by Nvidia being shady in the benchmark tests, not because I take it personally, but my last card was sure promoted better than it was.

I agree with Burn, it does go back and forth as time goes on, but unless Nvidia gets its act together on being more clear about the cards names I'm gonna probably get another ATI in a couple of years when this one is too slow.

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Both sides already have their next core revisions taped out so it'll be interesting to see if we just get some increased frequency or some actual feature improvements in the next batch (sometime April / May hopefully).

The whole driver conspiracy thing didn't phase me, ATI went through the trials of that first (Quake III) - just gives more reason to give the finger to "synthetic" benches.

The one reason I like nVidia over ATI is their drivers - whenever a new game launched, I never had a single issue due to anything in the drivers - that vs ATI, with my 9600XT, I couldn't play Call of Duty until they released a Catalyst patch to fix the issue. That being said, I surprisingly like the 9600XT - it's a fast little card and puts out so much less heat than my Ti4600. I still wouldn't mind getting an MSI 5950 Ultra nVidia card when the budget allows though ...

In my book, you can't go wrong either way - with the next revisions due out a little later this year, prices are sure to continue in a downward spin. If you plan on sticking with nVidia, I wouldn't get anything slower than a 5700 Ultra. On the ATI side, you can get some pretty good deals now on a 9800Pro - a lot cheaper than the 9800XT.

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I've only got a radeon 9000, but in my current (newly built) system, it's awesome, and more than adequet for playing UT2k3 seamlessly at default settings.

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