Video cards: ATI and Nvidia compared

[Nalyk]

I'm looking to compile this generations GPU's into a somewhat reliable comparison between products. In order from least powerful/pricy to most.

Nvidia
8600's GTX, GTO etc $50-60

8800 GTX etc ???

9500 GT etc ???

9600 GT etc ???

9800 GTX+/250 etc ~$150-170

260 core 216 ~170-200

275 ????

280 ????

285 ???

295 ???


ATI Note: any corrections/suggestions here would be helpful. I'm not very familar with ATI's cards. Worse case scenario I'll look it up later on newegg. Same goes for the rest of the Nvidia cards.

4670

4770

4890

4890 X2


I figure this will give a decent base line for people looking to purchase a GPU assuming I get folk to give feedback. It'd be even more helpful I think if we could pair Nvidia and ATI across the line, assuming performance is equal for similar priced cards.



We do have a CPU forum if you guys wish to discuss things of that nature. This thread went off track, it doesn't look like the OP has anything further to add, and things are getting pretty heated, in any case...

AmberClad
Video Moderator

 

[waffleironhead]

Why try to reinvent the wheel

http://www.tomshardware.com/re...e-graphics,2296-6.html

 

[toyota]

sounds like a lot of work for basically nothing. also what cpu and platform are you going to use because that can have a large impact on results?

 

[happy medium]

I did this a year or two ago and it went quite well.
I'll see if I can find it.

 

[Nalyk]

Originally posted by: waffleironhead
Why try to reinvent the wheel

http://www.tomshardware.com/re...e-graphics,2296-6.html

Awesome this is almost exactly what I as hoping to do. Granted it's minus the price quotes but I suppose that varies from vendor to vendor. Thanks =D

 

[Scali]

Originally posted by: Nalyk
Awesome this is almost exactly what I as hoping to do. Granted it's minus the price quotes but I suppose that varies from vendor to vendor. Thanks =D

Not to mention from day to day
Many of today's cards have been on the market for quite a while, and their prices have dropped considerably since they were first introduced.
So price/performance is really just a 'snapshot'.
Eg, I think the GeForce GTX260 was originally $300 at introduction.
You can now get them at $150 or so. In fact, you don't even get the same card, but it's now 55 nm instead of 65 nm, it has 216 stream processors enabled instead of 192, and the clockspeed is higher.
So over time it's become a faster card at a much lower price.

 

[Keysplayr]

GTX260's debut was 399.00 or 449.00. I can't remember which. GTX280 was 599.00.

 

[dguy6789]

Originally posted by: Keysplayr
GTX260's debut was 399.00 or 449.00. I can't remember which. GTX280 was 599.00.

Pretty sure it was over $400 for the GTX 260. When I built this machine, the first card I looked at buying(had been out of the loop for a while) was the GTX 280 and the 260. The prices were too high. I specifically recall the GTX 260 being over $400(Was like $430 or 450). I looked and saw the ATI flagship being only $300 so I looked up some reviews on it. Looked like a great buy for the money so I got it.

 

[Nalyk]

Hehe, I'm kind of depressed honestly. I recently upgraded (December or so I think of '08) into an EVGA 9800GTX+ from an 8600 GT, and it was like $180 or so. And now they're running for $100 and the 260's have dropped down to 150ish. I don't regret the purchase I just wish I'd had the money, and the foreknowledge to utilize EVGA's step up program, but I was silly and registered it the day that I purchased it from newegg instead of the day that I received it and by then the prices had dropped, and my 90 day upgrade had expired =(. Ah well I love the card to death it's a staunch upgrade from the 8600 by far. It's just kind of difficult to not want something new and fancier than what you already have I suppose

 

[toyota]

Originally posted by: Nalyk
Hehe, I'm kind of depressed honestly. I recently upgraded (December or so I think of '08) into an EVGA 9800GTX+ from an 8600 GT, and it was like $180 or so. And now they're running for $100 and the 260's have dropped down to 150ish. I don't regret the purchase I just wish I'd had the money, and the foreknowledge to utilize EVGA's step up program, but I was silly and registered it the day that I purchased it from newegg instead of the day that I received it and by then the prices had dropped, and my 90 day upgrade had expired =(. Ah well I love the card to death it's a staunch upgrade from the 8600 by far. It's just kind of difficult to not want something new and fancier than what you already have I suppose

yeah it sucks when prices drop like that. I only paid $165 for my gtx260 back in November though. it was $190 but newegg credited me 25 bucks because it didnt come with some game like it was supposed too. with that cpu you arent even fully pushing that 9800gtx so a gtx260 would really be a waste for you anyway.

 

[HumblePie]

The toms link is somewhat helpful, but toms always leans a bit more nvidia/intel in their reviews and "opinions" on hardware. So typically you can move a few things in the ATI category up a bit higher than what is shown.

Unless of course you only play Nvidia biased games.

 

[darkrisen2003]

Originally posted by: HumblePie
The toms link is somewhat helpful, but toms always leans a bit more nvidia/intel in their reviews and "opinions" on hardware. So typically you can move a few things in the ATI category up a bit higher than what is shown.

Unless of course you only play Nvidia biased games.

or unless you prefer Nvidia/Intel over AMD/ATI. Tom's is a crappy resource to me anyways. Im an Intel/Nvidia person myself but this is something I will never understand. Why is it when you post on this site that you are looking to buy parts from Intel/Nvidia it never fails that someone starts preaching AMD/ATI and acting like you are dumb to have a preferance for Nvidia/Intel?

I may have my preferances but I will never trash talk AMD/ATI to one of there fans. I give credit where credit is due but I still keep my choice.

 

[dguy6789]

That's because it is dumb to have a preference to either company. People should use their head and think when buying or building a computer. Get what is better for the price range. Don't get something inferior just because it is your favorite brand.

 

[Scali]

Originally posted by: darkrisen2003
Why is it when you post on this site that you are looking to buy parts from Intel/Nvidia it never fails that someone starts preaching AMD/ATI and acting like you are dumb to have a preferance for Nvidia/Intel?

Rooting for the underdog and getting carried away in the process, I guess.
Somehow Intel and nVidia aren't 'cool', so people don't support them. No need anyway, since they're very strong brands and even people who don't know much about computers will generally associate these brands with good products.
I see the same happening with linux. Because linux is relatively unknown, people seem to totally go overboard in telling people how much better it is than Windows (and indeed, often they will say you're dumb if you use Windows).
You rarely hear anyone talk about how good they think Windows is (not very 'cool'), yet over 90% of all computers run Windows.

 

[HumblePie]

I wasn't bashing any brand. I was bashing Toms hardware because they've been known to "fudge" tests and numbers to make one company look better on a "review" compared to another company. As such, I don't use them anymore as I want unbiased and equal testing methods used in reviews. Anandtech has typically done this, although sometimes they don't always go as thorough as I like.

As a perfect example, I still remember the P4 versus A64 debacle that toms hardware did as a review. They showed the P4 when it first came out better in all regards compared to the A64 when every other site on the net had the opposite reviews. Turns out, toms fudged their test and later made an apology about it. They were using slower ram, worse timings, and many other things to skew the numbers to show Intel in a more favorable light at the time.

So I was pointing out that while that chart on tomshardware is okay, it's not exactly correct. My best answer would be to look at that chart and see the general heirarchy of the video cards in respect to each brand. then look up a price on newegg or something similar as well as look up a review from a site of better repute.

Personally, I play no brand favorites. I have several machines at home. Intel q9450 and e8400. AMD opteron 165 and phenom 2 940. For nvidia cards I have bought many and still own a few including 6600 GT, 8800 GT, 8800 GTX ultra OC, and a GTX 285. I also currently have the ATI 4870x2, a few 4850's, and a x1950xtx. I have owned many from everyone. I go for bang for the buck most of the time except when I am building a performance crown king machine.

 

[Zap]

Originally posted by: toyota
yeah it sucks when prices drop like that.

Would you rather have prices NOT drop?

 

[Spike]

Originally posted by: Zap

Originally posted by: toyota
yeah it sucks when prices drop like that.

Would you rather have prices NOT drop?

I'm sure thats a "no", he, like me, just prefers that the big price drops occur BEFORE buying the card, not after. I still can't believe I paid $350 for a 8800GTS 512...

 

[toyota]

Originally posted by: Zap

Originally posted by: toyota
yeah it sucks when prices drop like that.

Would you rather have prices NOT drop?

now surely you knew what I meant by that. I think Spike got it though...

 

[Nemesis 1]

Originally posted by: HumblePie
I wasn't bashing any brand. I was bashing Toms hardware because they've been known to "fudge" tests and numbers to make one company look better on a "review" compared to another company. As such, I don't use them anymore as I want unbiased and equal testing methods used in reviews. Anandtech has typically done this, although sometimes they don't always go as thorough as I like.

As a perfect example, I still remember the P4 versus A64 debacle that toms hardware did as a review. They showed the P4 when it first came out better in all regards compared to the A64 when every other site on the net had the opposite reviews. Turns out, toms fudged their test and later made an apology about it. They were using slower ram, worse timings, and many other things to skew the numbers to show Intel in a more favorable light at the time.

So I was pointing out that while that chart on tomshardware is okay, it's not exactly correct. My best answer would be to look at that chart and see the general heirarchy of the video cards in respect to each brand. then look up a price on newegg or something similar as well as look up a review from a site of better repute.

Personally, I play no brand favorites. I have several machines at home. Intel q9450 and e8400. AMD opteron 165 and phenom 2 940. For nvidia cards I have bought many and still own a few including 6600 GT, 8800 GT, 8800 GTX ultra OC, and a GTX 285. I also currently have the ATI 4870x2, a few 4850's, and a x1950xtx. I have owned many from everyone. I go for bang for the buck most of the time except when I am building a performance crown king machine.

Well your right about Toms. OK . Best Example read his recent Super computer review using DO.

Also your facts on P4 are Fussy. P4 was faster than hammer to start with. P4 was befor hammer. It battled XP. AMD finally got house inorder and AMD was faster at single threads . But AMD never dominated till X2 . FACTS.

I would give anything to see Northwood shrunk to 32nm. With Todays HT. AND IMC on die . DDR3 . It would be a trip. Easy 10ghz.

 

[dguy6789]

I Disagree. I recall that from launch, Hammer beat the P4. The Athlon 64 won in every socket it had vs everything Intel had single or dual core until the Core 2 Duo came out.

 

[Gikaseixas]

Originally posted by: dguy6789
I Disagree. I recall that from launch, Hammer beat the P4. The Athlon 64 won in every socket it had vs everything Intel had single or dual core until the Core 2 Duo came out.

same here, i remeber very well that P4 was better than XP but when A64 entered the scene it was a beating specially in games. Intel did have a few advantages at encoding but things only got worse for Intel once X2 arrived.

well, back to the topic, Anandtech is doing something similar for cpu's (beta stages)

www.anandtech.com\bench

hopefully they'll have a gpu one

 

[zerogear]

I miss my TNT.

 

[Scali]

Originally posted by: Gikaseixas

Originally posted by: dguy6789
I Disagree. I recall that from launch, Hammer beat the P4. The Athlon 64 won in every socket it had vs everything Intel had single or dual core until the Core 2 Duo came out.

same here, i remeber very well that P4 was better than XP but when A64 entered the scene it was a beating specially in games. Intel did have a few advantages at encoding but things only got worse for Intel once X2 arrived.

What I find funny is that people still bring up Athlon vs Pentium 4/D comparisons in discussions VERY often. You don't hear people about Core2 vs Athlon/Phenom or Core i7 vs Phenom II, even though the performance differences between those are larger than they ever were between Pentium 4/D and Athlon.
Pentium 4/D is ancient history, I don't see why people still care.

 

[MrK6]

Originally posted by: ScaliWhat I find funny is that people still bring up Athlon vs Pentium 4/D comparisons in discussions VERY often. You don't hear people about Core2 vs Athlon/Phenom or Core i7 vs Phenom II, even though the performance differences between those are larger than they ever were between Pentium 4/D and Athlon.
Pentium 4/D is ancient history, I don't see why people still care.

It's probably in reference to some "AMD is always getting owned by Intel" comment. The positions change, always. P4-C was awesome, then P4-D got owned by Athlon 64, then Core 2 was a revolution, etc. Some people just don't realize that.

 

[HumblePie]

no the big problem was that at the time the p4 was released, Intel was spending major bucks into review sites to get them to fudge numbers and MANY people took what was listed on those sites as facts from the bible. Which is why it is still brought up.

Oh and if you don't think Intel does or is capable of those practices ask Europe as they slapped Intel for a 6B fine for doing EXACTLY THAT.

The problem was tomshardware (TH) was a fairly large site and to a certain point still very reputable. I used to use toms and started about the same time I used anands. Actually I think toms site predates anand but don't quote me on this because it's been about 12 years or so at least since I was using both sites.

Anyhow, they lost all credit with me when they pulled a stunt like that and not just once, MULTIPLE times. They did it with nvidia and later intel products as both of them paid TH to do a biased reviews.

I still glance at it from time to time, as people tend to put up links like the one earlier in this thread. I still feel the site slants its reviews still to a degree so I typically go with many sites for reviews.