I'm going to be building myself a new desktop soon (as soon as I get enough money saved up) and I'm faling back to this old debate on whether or not to get a Nvidia or ATi graphics card. Which would you recommend for a high-end machine? I haven't been following hardware updates as much as I want to, so I have no idea what the current product range is or anything - my current computer is running an old nVidia 9500GT. I'm looking for a high-end card that's fairly good pricing for the specs (country for pricing is no issue, I can find equivalent deals). Most of my usage is around multimedia production, game production and actual gaming, if that helps at all. Even if you don't have a recommendation: Which brand do you tend to prefer? Why?
Well, on my computer I have an Nvidia graphics card, and that's what I prefer because it runs the games better in my opinion. My brother has a computer with Ati and it just didn't have the same options that the Nvidia card has as far as settings are concerned. I think Nvidia is better also because they use the Tegra 3 processor for tablet gaming. Ati is no where to be found in the tablet market, which leads me to believe Nvidia is more of a trusted name with games.
I'd advise against buying a graphics card based solely on its name/brand. Instead, you could try and read reviews about any cards that fit your budget, and I bet you can find something that will most definitely satisfy your gaming and multimedia production needs. Since you asked for a high-end card, the GeForce GTX 560 Ti 448 is one of the most popular ones at the moment, and its price is around 270-280$ USD. It's pretty good for gaming, and multimedia production alike. However, it has only 1.25 GB of memory. If you're looking for something that features more memory, ATI Radeon HD 7950 has 3.0 GB of it. But it also has a higher price tag, specifically, around 360-370$ USD, which is pretty steep. But since we don't get to buy computer parts every day, investing in something more future-proof is a better option, in my opinion. Best of luck with it, regardless of what your choice may be.
Thanks for the reply! My budget should cover the steeper price of the 7950, so I might look into that. I wasn't planning on purchasing purely on the brand, but I figured it was a good starting point.
When it comes to graphics card, I would say that AMD has the best graphics and stable hd video viewing, streaming , gaming ever made. I own an nVidia graphics card but I would recommend ATI since AMD is the owner and developer of this card and when it comes to video graphics and all that AMD beats intel by a notch. Feel free to search it in the internet and I'm sure you would find the same suggestion.
I definitely prefer nVidia, since ATi has only caused me problems with their drivers. Maybe it changed over the years, but simply for the fact that I have had such bad experience with ATi, I'm not getting another card from them again for quite a while.
I used to use AMD/Ati cards and processors for more than 10 years. I thought, that AMD is the best one, nVidia, that AMD has never lied, that AMD is cheaper just because of their kindness. But once I saw very nice black-yellow nvidia card and it was love at first sight , so I bought it and discovered, that I was throwing my money to the bin for last ten years, because AMD/ATI was total bullsh*t. I discovered, that nVidia has got a lot better drivers and now they can increase game performance about 10-20 % in some games, just with drivers.
