[simpits-tech] Radeon vs. GeForce

[Matt Bailey]

Well, keep in mind how the FX5200 and 9600 might compare in their respective 
product lines. Ido mentioned the 9600 is a bit higher in the ATI line than 
the FX5200 is in nVidia. That said, it seems ATI has taken the lead recently 
as far as raw speed is concerned, although I believe the ATI's run a bit 
higher in price, no?

I need to upgrade my video card soon (still using a GeForce 2!!!) not sure if 
I will go with ATI or nVidia. It used to be hands-down nVidia but the ATI's 
are looking more attractive nowadays. Still, nVidia has a considerably better 
track record as far as driver quality is concerned, and historically have 
been faster.....it will be interesting to see if they catch up to ATI in a 
bit. nVidia also has excellent Linux support (a Big Deal for me). Hmmmm......

	-Matt Bailey

On Wednesday 17 December 2003 04:02 am, you wrote:
> Wow, that's the only opinion I have about it. Wow.
>
> Background. My new machine has a kickass chip (Athlon XP 2800+ Barton),
> scads of RAM (A gig of PC2700), a huge HDD (160g UATA133), and an nForce2
> chipset. Not to mention the 4x DVD±RW :) However, the GeForce4 MX 400 with
> shared RAM sucked. It would lock up if I did anything that involved massive
> amounts of video. XP would just go away. So I headed over to Breast Buy and
> their very liberal return policies to pick up Unreal II and a new card:
>
> PNY GeForce FX5200 8x AGP 128m Twinhead TV-Out (doesn't that make it a
> trihead?)
> 640x480  45.62 FPS
> 1024x768  29.64 FPS
> 1280x1024  19.60 FPS
>
> Not astronomical, but playable in 1280x1024 with only a few choppy
> sections. Generally my rule is 30 FPS minimum so I stuck with 1024x768.
> Then I decided to see what kind of improvement I could get by jumping off
> the nVidia ship in favor of:
>
> ATI Radeon 9600SE 8x AGP 128m Twinhead TV-Out (see above, only this one has
> a DVI in place of the 2nd VGA)
>
> Ready for this?
>
> 640x480  63.20 FPS
> 1024x768  41.29 FPS
> 1280x1024  27.01 FPS
>
> That's roughly 37% faster across the board on a test that slams the 3D
> system pretty damned hard. I have a funny feeling that I'll still be
> yanking this thing out and replacing it with a 9800Pro, though. Christmas
> money and all that ;)
>
> Thanks to those that pushed me to going from PC133 to PC2700 RAM, those
> that pushed me to an nForce chipset, and those that recommended a Radeon.
> This machine ROCKS now. And it'll... uh... "backup" a DVD in half an hour
> ;) I gotta make sure it's not illegal to have a Netflix account and a DVD
> burner ;)