ATI or nVidia for 40inch 1080p LCD?

[fatalcure]

Well, i was considering the nvidia 7950gt, but since im purchasing the aw9d-max, i thought i'd look into ati cards if i ever decide to run crossfire...since sli is only possible w/ hacked drivers.

but anyway, my question is, which one is preferred for HD content? nVidia has their purevideo technology but what about ati?
The video card will be attached to a 1080p lcd and probably used for mild gaming but mostly surfing and hd content.
Which of the 2 would u recommend?

 

[Cookie Monster]

Whats the budget?

 

[fatalcure]

$400 or so max, i mean the only reason i would need the 8800 right now would be to play games at 1080p resolutions....i was thinkin more in terms of 7950 or 1950....although i could actually buy the 8800gts, but then i'd want a cheaper mobo b/c i wont be doing much OCing (a little) or doing SLI/Crossfire...maybe a 965 board w/ 1 pcie x16 slot.

 

[Nightmare225]

ATI's VIVO is more capable than the decoding engines used on the 7 series chips. However, G80 solidly beats both.

 

[SpeedZealot369]

Originally posted by: Nightmare225
ATI's VIVO is more capable than the decoding engines used on the 7 series chips. However, G80 solidly beats both.

QFT

 

[Insidious]

I have the ASUS version of the 7950GT running my Samsung 1080p and am very happy with it so far (46")

I have never seen onboard VIVO work worth cr7p on any brand of video card. ATI has a better spec. sheet, but their software is unstable junk.

I've had much better luck with a seperate capture card (presently using Hauppauge PVR 250)

It is only my opinion (YMMV), but I prefer the Nvidia (purevideo) solution for DVD playback.

-Sid

 

[fatalcure]

which ATI card is the equivalent of the nvidia 7950GT 512MB?

Also the article on the front page thats talking about HDCP cards...for mpeg2 compression CPU usage is close to 40%...so what are these cards doing? If it's this high for mpeg2, what will cpu usage be for h264 compression?

I guess its not worth buying a card based on how well it handles HD content since its all pretty close to 40% cpu usage, as later cards will take off more of a load.