I am trying to decide what video card to buy that is 8X AGP. I currently have a Vision Tek GeForce 4 Ti 4600 4X AGP. I want to get an 8X AGP video card because I am going to be purchasing a new motherboard that has an 8X AGP slot on it. I think it would be a waste to use a 4X AGP card when you have an 8X AGP slot. I am trying to decide between the ATI Radeon 9700 Pro, Radeon 9800 Pro, GeForce FX 5800, and/or GeForce FX 5900 Ultra? I have heard that the GeForce FX 5900 Ultra is the best overall out of these cards, but also by far most expensive.
One of my friends told me that he heard that ATI or one of their supporters cheated when doing bench marks with their card against their competitors cards to make their bench mark scores higher than they really are. Another one of my friends told me that it was NVIDIA who did this and not ATI. Can anyone confirm this who knows the real truth about this? If this is true with ATI, is the Radeon 9700 Pro and 9800 Pro still better than the GeForce 4 Ti 4600 8X AGP?
What about driver issues with each one of these cards? I am looking for the card that I won't have to tinker with the drivers very much to get optimal performance for gaming? I heard that ATI had some issues with some of their drivers on certain cards. I had experience with this with one of their older cards Rage 128 Pro. That is the only ATI card I have ever owned. So is this a thing of the past with ATI, or is it current to now even though their newer cards have beaten NVIDIA's newer ones with the exception of the GeForce FX 5900 Ultra? I have heard that NVIDIA has had some driver issues recently too that I have actually experienced with my GeForce 4.
What about the fact that NVIDIA does not make their own cards and only makes their own chipset and sells it to other manufacturers that put NVIDIA's chipset in their own cards? Does this make it worse to buy a card with an NVIDIA chipset and is NVIDIA giving themselves a bad name because of this? Would ATI cards also perform better because they probably make drivers specific to their own card, while NVIDIA only makes reference drivers for their chipsets as NVIDIA doesn't make their own cards?
One of my friends told me that he heard that ATI or one of their supporters cheated when doing bench marks with their card against their competitors cards to make their bench mark scores higher than they really are. Another one of my friends told me that it was NVIDIA who did this and not ATI. Can anyone confirm this who knows the real truth about this? If this is true with ATI, is the Radeon 9700 Pro and 9800 Pro still better than the GeForce 4 Ti 4600 8X AGP?
What about driver issues with each one of these cards? I am looking for the card that I won't have to tinker with the drivers very much to get optimal performance for gaming? I heard that ATI had some issues with some of their drivers on certain cards. I had experience with this with one of their older cards Rage 128 Pro. That is the only ATI card I have ever owned. So is this a thing of the past with ATI, or is it current to now even though their newer cards have beaten NVIDIA's newer ones with the exception of the GeForce FX 5900 Ultra? I have heard that NVIDIA has had some driver issues recently too that I have actually experienced with my GeForce 4.
What about the fact that NVIDIA does not make their own cards and only makes their own chipset and sells it to other manufacturers that put NVIDIA's chipset in their own cards? Does this make it worse to buy a card with an NVIDIA chipset and is NVIDIA giving themselves a bad name because of this? Would ATI cards also perform better because they probably make drivers specific to their own card, while NVIDIA only makes reference drivers for their chipsets as NVIDIA doesn't make their own cards?
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