Nvidia discrete TDMS transmitters

[housecat]

I'm looking at the Geforce 6 series, and have my eye on the usual suspects: BFG, Evga, Leadtek.
I have an old Leadtek card right now, and it powers my Dell 2005FPW@1680x1050 wonderfully. I dont want to get stuck with that integrated DVI transmitter. I'm sure its fine for all practical purposes.. but if I'm going to be spending the money why not get the best card right?

Thanks in advance.

Note: I have heard rumors of a BFG 6800 card bought by a member here at AT that wouldnt even do 1680x1050 at all. So I'm most leary of BFG, even though they have a pretty good reputation. I believe Ackmed is the one with that in his possession.

 

[otispunkmeyer]

i think i read somewhere that ATI had the one up on nvidia when it came to DVI outputs, think its on Toms hardware

way i understand it is, ATI use intehgrated on chip transmitters and nvidia use a transmitter that is off the die, ATI won in all cases

 

[VirtualLarry]

I think that the consumer-level cards from both mfgs use integrated on-die TMDS transmitters, although the ones on the 6800 weren't quite up to the same level of signal-quality as the ATI ones. Workstation-level cards that require dual-link or dual single-link DVI contain at least one discrete TMDS transmitter, possibly two.

 

[Peter]

otispunkmeyer, not quite. ATI's integrated TMDS transmitter consistently outputs solid signal quality, while NVidia's isn't up to the job. Both ATI and NVidia chips can be combined with discrete TMDS transmitter chips - it's only that with ATI cards, there's no need to do that unless you want to build a dual-DVI card; on NVidia cards discrete transmitters are found even on single-DVI cards whose developpers did care about the signal quality, and left the integrated transmitter unconnected.

 

[housecat]

so anyone have any experience with individual 6800 cards using DVI? Or what of the brands is the best at this? im assuming in real-world 2d performance they are all just fine because no one complains.. and even my old GF4 looks great@1680x1050.

Because theres no way I'd actually buy a ATI card with its poor driver support and abysmal OGL performance. Good old trusty Nvidia.