Nvidia 5900 Ultra or Ati 9800 Pro?

[Player0]

Cast your pick for the top 256m card!

[Drake]

Scince nVidia already bad-mouthed their card before it was released, I'm gunna have to stick with ATI for now.

Though I doubt I'll ever get to use either of these cards :rolleyes:

[Player0]

Nvidia badmouthed the 5900 Ultra?

In most benchmarks, the 5900 Ultra does outperform the Ati, including Doom3, Unreal2003 and Quake3. And for the same price as the ATI, its really hard for me to take ATIs side, especially with their weak drivers which still plague the radeons.

[Drake]

Yes, the Futuremark scandal. And Doom ]|[ shouldn't be counted yet as nVidia was the only one with optimized drivers for the game.

Granted the 5900 Ultra is a better card... it's just that nVidia has left me with a sour taste in my mouth for now.

[mdzcpa]

The driver issues with ATI is history (generally speaking). I used to be the number one critic of ATI's drivers just one short year ago. I would not have been caught dead with an ATI card in any of my builds. All that has really changed. Every rig I've built using ATI since the R300 and unified CAT drivers came out has been nothing but successful. That has to be well over 20 machines by now. At this point, ATI/Nvidia are about equal on the driver front....and I think that, aside from the diehard Nvidia fans, that is now the general consensus among hands on users today.

As far as the benches....I do beleive the 5900 Ultra is the faster card. However, it is not as fast as Nvidia would like us to beleive.

The 9800 Pro now beats the 5900 Ultra in 3DMark2003 after Futuremark released it's anti cheat patch. In addition, the DOOM III benches are a complete farce. It makes no sense to compare a 5900 with DOOM III optimisations against the 9800 which lacks optimisiation...knowing full well that ATI will have thier own optimisations out soon. Bottom line is that Nvidia either bought or promised favors to the DOOM III development team in order to get the drop on ATI.

But, like I said, even competeing on a level playing field, the 5900 is the faster card.

But...that's just pure speed and ignores IQ. That's were the 9800 has the advantage. I've yet to read a single reputable review of the 5900 vs 9800 where better image quality is not awarded to the 9800. It seems that the 9800 unanimously wins the 2D IQ, and also wins under 3D when AA and AF are enabled. Does the 5900 look like shit...I doubt it. It probably looks awesome sitting in front of the monitor. But, head to head, ATI does edge it out in IQ.

Then theres still the noise and 2 slot deal with the 5900. Not that those are serious problems....it's just that the 9800 deos not need to be noisy and use two slots to deliver equal performance.

So, taking it all into perspective, I see it as two cards with equal driver support, one a bit faster on raw speed...and the other a bit better in the IQ department. So it depends on what you might be looking for on a personal level. I tend to lean towards IQ and sacrifice a few FPS myself.

Last, issue. Given the performance of these cards is so close, I cannot help but be turned off by Nvidia's overly aggressive launch campaign. The bogus apples to oranges DOOM III comparsions, the 24% gains in 3DMark2003 at the expense of visual quality has left me with a bad taste in my mouth. The 5900 is a great card in it's own right. But...do to the flop of the 5800...it looks like Nvidia was willing to do whatever it had to to win back the crown....unscrupulously or not. I feel that I cannot reward their tactics with my money.

edited for bad spelling:doh:

[Player0]

I really disagree with the driver thing. I beleive Nvidia drivers are still far superior to ATIs. Don't get me wrong, I like ATI cards these days, and all of my video cards are ATI right now! Which is why I can say with all honesty that Catalyst drivers aer awful, but a step in the right direction. No doubt that ATI has made strides in improving driver quality.

However, my AIW 9700 Pro would NOT run properly in my dually Xeon board for months! It took Cat 3.2 to make it partially stable, and Cat 3.4 seems to have made it solid. MMC crashes more than a wetnap after a bbq. Luckily you dont have to use MMC though, but your stuck with Catalyst.

Cats probably work with most mainstream platforms, but my point is, they still dont work with everything yet. I can take Detonators, put them on modern server or a p233 and they will work great. ATI does probably work okay on mainstream boxes, but I dont think that they have the same broad level of support. And, as a matter of opinion, ATI control panels are hideous compared to Nvidia. Trying to adjust monitor levels for some serious graphic work on the ATI is just tedious, while the Nividia, partially in thanks to it's workstation line of products, is really more customizable.

Regarding Doom III optimizations, I'm sure your right there. It's too early to say. However, I dont beleive for a second that Carmack would sell out to Nvidia. I really don't think thats the case. In fact i just read an interview from him where he does a surprisingly excellent job of explaining the whole situation.

Regarding 3dMark, well...I still dont think thats fair. The futuremark patch removes ALL nvidia optimizations. However, some optimizations ARE actually okay for drivers to plan for, and I beleive that 3dMark isn't a fair representation of either card at the moment. Drivers need to have SOME tweaks for certain application, just not a brand new pixel shader. Its clear that benchmarks are simply pointless, and I look at real game performance.

Regarding image quality, I simply dont know. In terms of games like HalfLife2 and Doom3 coming out, having extreme graphics horsepower will again become critical. I do NOT want to be playing Doom3 on my 9700 Pro at 25FPS! The developers are catching up to the PC hardware fast, and every FPS is going to be critical on these upcoming games. So that makes me lean towards 5900.

However, in older games, the Radeon has better AA. I think Nvidia has a new AF routine in its drivers which I hear is really good, so I can't give that advantage to 9800 yet. Regarding 2D quality of Nvidia vs ATI, I've never seen it honestly. That opinion has been played for years, and I've never seen a difference in 2D quality, except on the cheaper 3rd party nvidia cards.

I leave the marketing to the sales guys. Im not affected by the driver cheating or how aggressive or overblown their ad campaigns are. Nvidia is playing catchup, so this kind of thing is to be expected. I dont think the 5900 is going to blow the 9800 out of the wake...it will probably be a stalemate. What will be going in my new P4 rig? I still dont know.

[mdzcpa]

A few points:

I think a vast majority of hands-on users will say that ATI has indeed made great strides in the driver area. If ATI has indeed improved things driver wise for the mainstream market as you say, then they have really done what they needed to do for the most part. The mainstream is, by it's very definition, the majority of the market. So good driver support which makes this market happy accomplishes a great deal which is hard to ignore.

As far as DOOM III, I don't think Carmack sold out in any way. However, it is quite obvious that Nvidia had the optimizations developed well before ATI. Nvidia is, after all, a DOOM III launch partner. But, I am not naive enough to beleive that some sort of back scratching did not happen. Frankly, I could care less about Nvidia being a launch partner, or getting to put their logo on the DOOM III game (heck, ATI is doing the same with Half Life 2). But, it's the ridiculuous "see...our card is better than their card running DOOM III" that is quite offensive. No...this wasn't some website kicking out some pre NDA benches. Nope...what we had here was Nvidia releasing an official press package surrounding the 5900 and it's benches in DOOM III which compared scores to the 9800 knowing that ATI did not have a compatible driver...let alone any optimizations. What made me really sick was all the hoopla Nvidia created to support the apples to oranges comparison. Nivida used it's relationship with DOOM III to publish some extemely misleading benchmarks...and it's obvious that the intent was to indeed mislead. That's what I have issue with.

And this isn't some "holier than thou" thing either. This kinda crap effects me personally. I build a good number of gaming rigs each month, and I do not need some client, whose sole knowledge of the PC comes from PC Gamer, to demand the 5900 Ultra for their new build, only to come back and bitch when it comes to light that the 5900 isn't really any faster once ATI get's their drivers out. Or, heaven forbid, brings up the image quality issue. I do my best to inform these people as best as I can, but it becomes aweful tough when the intent of the hardware maker is to mislead and deceive. I'm the one who ends up paying the price.

Last point. When it comes to image quality between the two, don't take my word. Check out all the reviews of the 5900 vs the 9800 and draw your own conclusion. The results will be very clear which card prevails in that department.

All of this sounds like I am a Nvidia hater....but that is not true. I've had Nvidia cards for a long long time....and stuck with them due to the superioir performance and driver support. As far as the card itself is concerned, the 5900 is a sweet card. But, I cannot condone blatant intentional deception....regardless of how good the card is. They would have done much better releasing the card and saying "well...it's marginally better than the 9800...and that makes it the fastest card in the world". Cheating and deception is not the way.

[Jokester]

Originally posted by Drake
Yes, the Futuremark scandal. And Doom ]|[ shouldn't be counted yet as nVidia was the only one with optimized drivers for the game.

Granted the 5900 Ultra is a better card... it's just that nVidia has left me with a sour taste in my mouth for now.

not true ATi also had optimized drivers but at a less extent..

Nvidia didnt do it on purpose how could they there not in the developement of the program...

[mdzcpa]

Originally posted by Jokester
not true ATi also had optimized drivers but at a less extent..

Nvidia didnt do it on purpose how could they there not in the developement of the program...

True, ATI also had optmised drivers. But I wouldn't characterize it to be "at a less extent". It more like a much much much much less extent. ATI scores dropped 2%. Nvidia scores dropped 24%. That's not quite the same kind of optimizations in my book.

Second, of course Nvidia did it on purpose. Why else do you have "optimized" 3DMark drivers if not to improve the score? Just because they were not on the development team does not mean they cannot easily break down the code and develop an optimization.

[Drake]

The major difference between nVidia and ATI is that there was a degradation of image quality in nVidia's drivers, ATI was identical.

[mdzcpa]

Originally posted by Drake
The major difference between nVidia and ATI is that there was a degradation of image quality in nVidia's drivers

yeah...like missing dragon's and stuff.....real nice:)

[Amoeba Assassin]

if i had the money, id get a 5900

[Nomad64]

I always have been and probably always will be an ATi fan. Right now, I am running a 9500 modded to a 9700 and O/Ced to 304/304. It runs well, and beats most of the highend nVidia cards out there in speed. :D

[GACBassPlayer]

First and foremost, i'd like to state that the newer Radeon drivers are simply amazing. I have yet to have a problem with them. Lastly, the 5900 may beat out the 9800 in speed, but once the Anti-Aliasing is enabled, you see where the 9800 shows its stuff, beating out the 5900. I'll always stick with ATI, and i'll be adding the 9800 to my system in september, when Half Life 2 comes out.:D Can't wait to shot me some fast, high-quality aliens:2guns:

[Drake]

:D:DWELCOME:D:D to Liquid Ninjas, GACBassPlayer

I'm awaiting HL2 as well :)

[notoriousformula]

me too. me too, me too, ready to kick some alien scum....:2guns: :2guns: :2guns: :2guns: :2guns:


notor:P

[darksaint]

I like ati.
End of storie.

Doom 3 yay!

[rijp]

First, I must qualify myself by agreeing with another user who said ".. anti-ATI user... wouldn't be caught dead with an ATI in any of his builds...". That's classic. I myself HATED ATI, to the degree that if I had a client with ATI on their machine, before I would even work on it, I would absolutely insist on them removing it, or they could find another Tech person. Believe it or not, I am highly recommended, so the clients usually complied, and it was a non-issue. But anyway, since then, I have changed my tune about ATI. Let me also say that I have been an Nvidia fan for years. But, like everything else in this world, people, technology, and ideology changes. The only thing that remains constant is change. I don't pretend to be an expert when it comes to video, but I just really wanted to say, that of the many sites I visited (among them Toms hardware) I found this 1 forum a stand out. This the most concise, informative site regarding the ATI vs Nvidia thing. No fights, no b.s., and no bias.. Its refreshing to see you can be objective, when even a few of you are obviously slanted toward the other side. Personally, I have 2 machines. I have an ATI 8500 card. Yes, old.. but without question this has been THE best card I have EVER owned/used. Its not the fastest, but the quality of drivers I have had (and believe me, I am an MCSE, have been doing computer upgrades/installs for 10 or more years, so I have been exposed to many, many configurations) and I have never seen a better quality, meets requirements video card, in all my years. I don't have the fastest machine (AMD 1800+ 512 MB Ram) but I find this card does everything I need. I run 1280 x 1024 2D/3D. I have many games, demos.. not unreal but Warcraft III, and a few others. This card has just been fantastic. i am not setting you up to slam nvidia, I am just offering my opinion as an outsider, to say that in my opinion, it seems ATI finally has their #$#! together. My other machine has a 5200 nvidia, and I tried the 5200 in my machine. The performance, was not anywhere near the ATI. Granted, this is 1 machine, 1 game, 1 configuration but for my uses, the ATI does a much better job.. But, on that other machine, the 5200 is a fantastic card.. no games, but the drivers are cool.. transparency for the task bar is my fav option.. I wish ATI had something like that, but then again, I have windows blinds.. so I could change it.

Anyway, I say all of this to say, I for one, appreciate a forum like this, with pictures and tech info to back up with facts, and not let your opinions cloud judegement. I just want to say, thanks. My vote is still for ATI, but only from first hand experience. My other machine is great with the 5200 card.. so as another user stated, each card has their merit. My gaming machine seems to like my ATI 8500 @ 4X AGP (highest my board can handle.. ) haven't tried games on the other machine, to see if the Asus board for 8x AGP would be better performance. In any case, this 1 forum inspires me to respect others opinions even when it seems their side isn't necessarily winning. I am looking forward to following this forum in the future, and hopefully can contribute.

One final question.. Games.. Anyone here play Warcraft? Let me know..

[jimmyang]

I for one own an nVidia. The Ti series seems to work better dfor dx8, but now with directx9, Ati kicks nVidia's *** all over the place.

Yeah, with raw speed, the FX has the edge but who wants to play a game without AA or AF?
Especially since all the new games are all focused more on graphical and gameplay.

People tend to judge from looks, so will I.