GeoForce or Radeon

[Baron Munchausen]

ATI always seems to eek out slightly higher performance in each generation of hardware, but by all accounts their drivers suck badly. The nVidia drivers are much more compatible, consistent and reliable. What would you rather have, the best benchmark numbers, or the ability to actually play all of your fancy games without crashing? Something to think about while drooling over benchmark numbers...

[ June 05, 2004, 04:45: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]

[Phoenix-D]

ATI has been getting better and Nvidia worse with their drivers, though. A recent set of drivers broke Rise Of Nations, for example, and Nvidia has been disabling certain features (or forcing enabling of others) to create artifically high benchmark numbers.

[PeterD]

I've had at least 8 graphics cards in the Last
12 years and I've ended up with a Nvdia 5950
Ultra - and its great. Most have been Nvdia and
I've had very few problems.

Radeon did have a driver issue once but its been
sorted out now. You do find their cards smaller
and mostly quieter but there's not much in it.

[Aiken]

Ok, some benchmarking:


[ June 05, 2004, 10:26: Message edited by: aiken ]

[David E. Gervais]

Personally, I have always had problems with ATI. To the point where I wouldn't buy another ATI product if my life depended on it.

Imagine, buying an ATI and when I open the shrinkwrapped box and pull out the card, 2 resistors fall off the card. hmmm, not a good sign. Take it back to the store, and they graciously exchange it. it installed fine, about a month after the install, my computer would not boot. (I would only get 3 beeps from my PC speaker) hmmm, open up the case and look around,.. guess what. two resistors are sitting on the bottom of my case. (yup, from the ATI card) this time the store would not exchange it because of the amount of time that passes. I try to contact ATI support, and bark at the wind. The very idea that ATI has customer support is laughable. Since they had an office not far from where I live. I get a friend to drive me over. From the time I entered the building it took 2 hours of being given the runnarround before they finally agreed to fix (not replace) my ATI card. I signed a paper and left the card with them. They would send it to me by post. Not happy (but having little choice) I leave. I wait, I wait, 1 week, 2 weeks, (I call, but as usual no reply at the support line.) 4 weeks. I get my friend to drive me over again,.. They say they have no record of my card ever being left with them, and say something to the effect that 'they are not a repair service and it would be highly unlikely that they would accept a card for repair.' they say that they would refer me to the nearest repair shop. Ha! I pulled out my copy of the paper I signed when I left the card with them, they look at it and say just a moment,.. another man comes out and says that the person who signed this paper no longer works for ATI and they have no record of this transaction. Grrrrr, I ask "so what about my card? are you going to give me a replacement?" "Sorry we do not have stock here, this is just a sales office. All our orders are processed at the main office in Toronto." They basically say I should contact the head office, they give me a business card with the name and number of the person I should talk to. Guess what? Yup, no answer at that number either. $329 +tax down the drain.

Buy an ATI? Not if they had the only graphics card available the PC. I would at that point switch to Macintosh as my platform of choice.

But I hear they have changed, they are much better now. (btw this story took place 10 months ago.) When I was forced to buy a GForce 2 MX 400 to keep my computer running. nVidia is fantatsic. In the long run, I must thank ATI for letting me discover nVidia. I only paid $139 for my GForce (the GForce4 was the main seller at that time. and it was all I could afford at the time after loosing $329 to ATI)

So, Mac. Which Card do you think I'll recommend? LOL

Nuf said, Cheers!

P.S. the ATI card was a Raedom 9600 or something to that effect. (suposidly the best graphics card available at the time I spent the money.)

[ June 05, 2004, 11:26: Message edited by: David E. Gervais ]

[Karibu]

That is a sad story, David. However, you are entitled to compensation. I would go to them and threaten to contact police if they would not support you similar card. Propably they would give you another card if only to avoid bad attention. You could also tell them that you will post your story in several computer associated web forum if they would not help you.

I have heard similar stories about other persons difficulties with big companies and those who persuade their case strong enough, usually win their case, because big companies do not want to have bad reputation/overly big scene over few hundred dollars.

Oh yes, I have Radeon 8500 in my system. I have had problems with several games (ie. Ufo Aftermath and Homeworld 2 won't run) and sometimes with movies. Sometimes my computer crashes and throws warning that graphic card could not be connected. However, I am unable to say if my problems are because of graphic card, motherboard or bad IRQ's. I suspect my motherboard is crap one, so I have no exclusive evidence that Radeon 8500 would be bad card. However, I would propably go for Geforce now.

[ June 05, 2004, 12:25: Message edited by: Karibu ]

[Caduceus]

I have a GForce nVidia a couple generations old and have had no problems with it. I would recommend going to
http://www.cnet.com
and looking at their reviews of things. They explain all the bitz and perks fairly clearly.

Wildcard