the best gaming video cards?

Miiikey

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hey guys. what is the best gaming video card.? is it nVidia, ATI or?:)
 
That's one of the most loaded questions on the entire internet...


60% of the people will be fans of a brand
20% will favor what card THEY use
10% will go by reviews
10% Don't care as long as it plays 1 game that they want they'll consider it the best :-P


of course there are the hybrids obviously (my card had the best #'s on this game combinations)

you will not get a definate "THIS" is the best card.


FPS? Detail? power consumption? Dual or Single Slot? Budget or bill gates owes you money?

Would you rather use Havok or PhysX? What other system specs do you have? Does the SIZE of the card matter?


see my point? :-P



P.S Someone might wanna keep an eye on the thread incase it becomes a huge endless argument... just throwing that out there...
 
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Just look at some benchmarks first of all, then go off that -- maybe one gets a little less fps than X but is a lot cheaper etc.

Really, it's just what card it is, not what brand.
 
No brand ALWAYS has the best video cards.
The strongest performing video card right now is the GTX 295, depends how much you want to spend and what you can run on your rig.
 
lol tough question. I'm a nvidia fanboy but there are some beast ati cards, like the 4870 and such. But overall I think nvidia has better cards and more "bang for your buck". My 9800gt runs all source engine games at cap frames (max) usually 60 on most games like tf2 and cs and its retail price is 90. It also runs other engines smoothly too like the unreal engine. I also play ut3 super smooth and everything turned up. Though the 4770 is pretty much a 9800 gtx+ but 60 bucks cheaper. It all depends on your taste.

I think green and black looks cooler :laugh:
 
NVIDIA is very good graphics but ATI is more technical So if your not a techy kind of guy like me get a NVIDIA if you are get a ATI
 
0.1% will buy on impluse...

If you are one of those 0.1%, Im sorry...


No brand is better. ATI have more processing power but cost a lot more. While NVIDIA is cheaper but not as much processing power. Now one brand plays certain games than the other and vice versa.

I favor both Nvidia, one because its cheaper and two because Ive been using them for a while reliable, as well as ATI because of their processing power and ease to overclock and adjust the fan speed.

So research the card you want, compare, read buyer reviews. tomshardware.com is probably the best for video card comparisons and benchmarks.

Ive owned an:
NVIDIA GeForce FX5600, GeForce 7900GT, GeForce 9600GT
ATI Radeon 9000, Radeon HD 4870

None have failed to this day (well the 7900GT got a surge of power and was partially fried, but lasted for 6 months afterwards).
 
NVIDIA is very good graphics but ATI is more technical So if your not a techy kind of guy like me get a NVIDIA if you are get a ATI

what do you mean by technical? Are you saying tech people shouldn't buy Nvidia? This is making no sense.
 
really the thing you need to give us blue, is how much money you are willing to spend on a card.

-Blue
 
Really can't go wrong with either card.

The best "bang for buck" card on the market is likely still the 4870 1 gig as it is priced very well for its performance.

The "best" (loaded word, some games other cards are better but this is more of an average) is most of the time a 280 card.

The above is of course single card single GPU setups, if you want X-fire / SLI setups or cards, it's a totally different ballgame.

I've had my 4870 512 meg for about a year now and I have yet to run into a game (crysis excluded) that I am not able to max @ 1680 x 1050 and maintain very playable FPS, TF with all the eye candy (24x edge detect AA and all the in game settings maxed) averages well into the triple digit FPS.

So ya, can't go wrong with either brand, if you don't care either way, I'd do some research on your MB and find out which GPU's tend to work better with it as compatibility can be an issue with some setups.
 
what do you mean by technical? Are you saying tech people shouldn't buy Nvidia? This is making no sense.

Nah, I'm guessing by what he meant is that its a bit more complicated with ATi thats all. Which i agree with. With nVidia you just get the card, install drivers, and your ready to play games at max gfx :D
 
hey guys. what is the best gaming video card.? is it nVidia, ATI or?:)

There will never be a definite answer for a answer for a question like this.
ATI has there highs and their lows, and so does Nvidia.
If you where to ask this exact question about a year ago most would probably say Nvidia because ATI wasn't doing the hottest but now they are both doing pretty good. ATI came out with their 4000 series cards which really boosted their reputation, and Nvidia has been in crazy production mode to top them and then you get good ole competition that keeps things somewhat equaled out.

Thats my 2 cents.
 
all i know is theres a BFG GeForce GTX 250 OC 512MB card at one of my local stores for like $160...but my 12 volt rail on my current PSU is only 25 amps...and any card that is better than my current one requires 26+. so i won't be upgrading vid cards until i can upgrade PSU. and if im gonna upgrade my PSU im gonna upgrade my processor. However to upgrade my processor i need to upgrade my mobo.
So im gonna build my own rig in the near future...but with the vid card battle it also depends what res you wanna run. what is the highest gaming res usually, the 2560xsomething or whatever, from all the reviews i've seen (haven't looked at the 295 recently) ATI cards are always better on those types of resolutions due to the 2 GB cards you can grab from them
 
The hands down most powerful card on the market right now in terms of fps is the nvidia N295GTX. However the ATI 4870X2 does have a slight advantage at really high resolutions. The 4870X2 also has pretty large advantages when antisotropic and antialiasing are on. Best two cards from each company. The 4870X2 is probably better performance/price ratio but the 295GTX is definitely more powerful.

it really depends on your current hardware configuration, what games you play, and how much you can spend on a new card. unless you supply that information its rather a silly question to ask.

-Blue
 
The hands down most powerful card on the market right now in terms of fps is the nvidia N295GTX. However the ATI 4870X2 does have a slight advantage at really high resolutions. The 4870X2 also has pretty large advantages when antisotropic and antialiasing are on. Best two cards from each company. The 4870X2 is probably better performance/price ratio but the 295GTX is definitely more powerful.

it really depends on your current hardware configuration, what games you play, and how much you can spend on a new card. unless you supply that information its rather a silly question to ask.

-Blue

All true, however to add to that, I would strongly suggest not buying a current duel GPU single card setup if you don't run an extremely high resolution. The next gen of cards should be on the market late this year and will be vastly superior for less than you would pay for one of the duel GPU cards now.

Of course if you've got the cash go for it, but from a economic standpoint, if you dont play on a 40"+ screen, there should be no need to spend so much on a card. The 4870 or 260 are very nice options for less than half the price ;)

*Edit. Btw Blue, very nice rig. If I hadn't built this one just 6 months before i7's came out I would have gone a very similar setup.
 
Of course if you've got the cash go for it, but from a economic standpoint, if you dont play on a 40"+ screen, there should be no need to spend so much on a card.

Size of the monitor has nothing to do with the performance. It's only resolution that matters.
 
Size of the monitor has nothing to do with the performance. It's only resolution that matters.

Yeh... well that's a given. I assumed everyone would pick up on the fact that you won't be likely running a 40" screen at anything less than a very large resolution.

Large screen most often = large resolution.

I'll be more clear next time.
 

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