Want to buy an ATI card, but having doubts

[MarkJC]

I'm planning to build a new computer soon, and i'm having an awfully hard time deciding between the two graphic card brands.

I've been a long time user of nVidia cards, having 5-6 of them over the last two decades. I never had any problem whatsoever with them. However, the two times that I have become daring and purchased ATI cards, they have both had horrible problems which promptly got them returned. As you can guess, this makes me wary of ATI cards, even though I know it's anecdotal evidence.

Problem is, ATI cards are currently the only ones in my $100-$150 budget range (HD 5750 and HD 5770) that support DirectX 11. I think DX11 has a decent chance of taking off within the next five years, so for future proofing, i'd really like to buy one of those DX11 cards.

Even bigger problem is that according to newegg reviews, both the 5750 and 5770 have horrible driver problems on Win 7 64-bit, with crashes galore. I'm deathly afraid of crashes - I would go to terrible lengths to have a crash-proof PC like the one i've currently had for 6 years. And there lies my difficult decision between ATI or nVidia once again. Any advice to sway me one way or the other? (PS: the nVidia card i'm considering is the GTS 250.)

 

[CurseTheSky]

Nvidia is not without problems either.

But, to put it simply, I'll say this:

Depending on how long it will be until your next upgrade, whatever features the card you buy now has (DX11) may be insignificant later. For example, with a 5750 (and perhaps even 5770), by the time the new DX11 titles come out, you may find that the card isn't capable of playing the game at high settings anyway. If you're the type that upgrades decently often (every year or so), this isn't a problem. If you're planning to buy this card and use it for several years to come, this is an issue.

Perhaps you can post your full system specs, budget, and planned upgrade cycle to help us recommend something for you.

 

[Hey Zeus]

I'm planning to build a new computer soon, and i'm having an awfully hard time deciding between the two graphic card brands.

I've been a long time user of nVidia cards, having 5-6 of them over the last two decades. I never had any problem whatsoever with them. However, the two times that I have become daring and purchased ATI cards, they have both had horrible problems which promptly got them returned. As you can guess, this makes me wary of ATI cards, even though I know it's anecdotal evidence.

Problem is, ATI cards are currently the only ones in my $100-$150 budget range (HD 5750 and HD 5770) that support DirectX 11. I think DX11 has a decent chance of taking off within the next five years, so for future proofing, i'd really like to buy one of those DX11 cards.

Even bigger problem is that according to newegg reviews, both the 5750 and 5770 have horrible driver problems on Win 7 64-bit, with crashes galore. I'm deathly afraid of crashes - I would go to terrible lengths to have a crash-proof PC like the one i've currently had for 6 years. And there lies my difficult decision between ATI or nVidia once again. Any advice to sway me one way or the other? (PS: the nVidia card i'm considering is the GTS 250.)

Windows 7 wouldn't even allow me to run SLI so it's not just ati

 

[Clinkster]

Don't be afraid to go ATI. It's pure luck. Each company has their share of defects and shortcomings.

 

[MarkJC]

For example, with a 5750 (and perhaps even 5770), by the time the new DX11 titles come out, you may find that the card isn't capable of playing the game at high settings anyway ..... Perhaps you can post your full system specs, budget, and planned upgrade cycle to help us recommend something for you.

Thanks, that's something I hadn't considered. DX11 is more demanding on the video card than DX10, isn't it. So I would get more mileage out of running a card in DX10 at similar settings in theory.

I'm hoping to not have to upgrade the video card for at least 4-5 years. I should mention that I don't do a great deal of gaming on the computer, just a game or two a year. These are the specs of the prospective computer I intend to build. I'd like to stay in the $100-$150 range in the graphics card.

AMD Phenom II X4 955, 4GB DDR3 1600 RAM, 550W OCZ PSU with +12V1 @ 25A and +12V2 @ 25A, Gigabit GA-MA790GPT-UD3H Mobo, and Win7 64-bit as mentioned.

 

[race2]

I'm running a 5870 on Win7 64-bit and haven't had any problems. If I were you, I'd wait and see what Fermi does to 5850 prices. If you can splurge a bit on the graphics card now, I think a DX11 card more powerful than a 5750 or 5770 would come in handy later on, given that you want to keep your card for quite a while.

 

[thilanliyan]

Do it..do it.

 

[Udgnim]

if you want DX11 support and sticking to the 100-150 price bracket, ATI is your only choice

Nvidia won't have a DX11 card in that price segment for a while

 

[dguy6789]

ATI being prone to excessive problems or problems in general is a myth. An extremely tiny minority of people ever have problems at all, and they aren't any more numerous than the number of people who have problems with Nvidia products. There's a chance you'll encounter some kind of problem, but it's extremely small, no different than what you would expect from an Nvidia card.

 

[CurseTheSky]

Seeing that you're only upgrading every 4-5 years and you don't do heavy gaming, an HD 5770 is my recommendation. It fits perfectly into your price range, and it will be DX11 capable in case there's a game in the next few years that REQUIRES DX11 (or at least looks horrible without it). Otherwise I'd say shop for an HD 4890 or GTX 260.

Any card you buy today will be feeling its age in 2 years. You'd might as well get one that's capable of the "latest" technology now rather than buying something that's already outdated as soon as it gets to your door.

 

[Seero]

I'm planning to build a new computer soon, and i'm having an awfully hard time deciding between the two graphic card brands.

I've been a long time user of nVidia cards, having 5-6 of them over the last two decades. I never had any problem whatsoever with them. However, the two times that I have become daring and purchased ATI cards, they have both had horrible problems which promptly got them returned. As you can guess, this makes me wary of ATI cards, even though I know it's anecdotal evidence.

Problem is, ATI cards are currently the only ones in my $100-$150 budget range (HD 5750 and HD 5770) that support DirectX 11. I think DX11 has a decent chance of taking off within the next five years, so for future proofing, i'd really like to buy one of those DX11 cards.

Even bigger problem is that according to newegg reviews, both the 5750 and 5770 have horrible driver problems on Win 7 64-bit, with crashes galore. I'm deathly afraid of crashes - I would go to terrible lengths to have a crash-proof PC like the one i've currently had for 6 years. And there lies my difficult decision between ATI or nVidia once again. Any advice to sway me one way or the other? (PS: the nVidia card i'm considering is the GTS 250.)

Nvidia, more expensive, more features.
ATI, cheaper.

If cost is a factor, or you ain't going to invest too much in graphics, go for ATI as you will more or less miss PhysX only, which isn't ground breaking.

As for stability, ATI will be a better option IMO as the new Fermi series has just re-engineered their CPU. Unfortunately, that means buggy. If you ain't in a hurry, wait a bit until GT100 is out, then you will know if it is buggy. The price of video cards will be adjusted for GT100 too.

 

[bossqueen]

With DX11 and in your buget, ATI seems to be the only choice. As my friends' experience, the drivers of 5750 or 5770 is fine. Dont worry too much.
BTW ATI is cheaper. Give them a shot XD

 

[soccerballtux]

ATI being prone to excessive problems or problems in general is a myth. An extremely tiny minority of people ever have problems at all, and they aren't any more numerous than the number of people who have problems with Nvidia products. There's a chance you'll encounter some kind of problem, but it's extremely small, no different than what you would expect from an Nvidia card.

What you see here could Nvidia's marketing team employing "Focus Group Members" and other under-the-table tricks to give normal computer users the misconception that ATI cards have more issues _in general_.

This is why tolerating such practices is so horrible and why I am so adamant about squashing lies and other mis-information (Wreckage posting that the GTX 260 won last gen "hands down" comes to mind, when we all know the GTX 260-216 shader was forced out of Nvidia by ATI's 4870 (which did beat the standard GTX 260), and even then it was a tossup depending on the game).

 

[MarkJC]

Wow, there seems to be almost unanimous support for ATI here. That's comforting. I'm still feeling unsettled by the HD 5750 reviews on newegg. The bad reviews on it seem recent as well. Check these out:

SAPPHIRE 100284L Radeon HD 5750 1GB
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102859&cm_re=HD_5750-_-14-102-859-_-Product

XFX HD-575X-ZNFC Radeon HD 5750
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150448&cm_re=HD_5750-_-14-150-448-_-Product

Holy mackerel. 24% gave the Sapphire a 1-2 rating, and 31% gave the XFX 1-2. That's almost 1 in 3 people.

Here is the GTS 250 in comparison:
PNY VCGGTS2501XPB GeForce GTS 250 1GB
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814133266&cm_re=gts_250-_-14-133-266-_-Producthttp://detonator.dynamitedata.com/c...14133266&cm_re=GTS_250-_-14-133-266-_-Product

With only 5% giving it a 1-2. It's a similar story for the XFX card as well at 6%.
Any thoughts?

 

[a123456]

Eh, Newegg reviews aren't that great of a basis for measuring things although I am a bit guilty of looking at general percentages there from time to time.

From my personal experience with ATI cards, generally ATI was a little slow at releasing drivers on the very newest cards on release date but they get themselves sorted out within a driver release or two. Worse case, you could use the drivers on the CD that come with the card until newer drivers show up on their web site.

I haven't really had video card problems with ATI or Nvidia and have purchased tons of cards from both companies. I'd be more inclined with purchasing more based on price/performance/features than brand name at this juncture but that's just me.

 

[Bull Dog]

Well I've had a Radeon 5870 since launch and have been running Windows 7 x64 since it came out (October) and I haven't had any problems related to drivers.

Edit: Happy customer here. So I'd say do it. Also worth of mentioning is that people are generally far more likely to review a product if they have had a problem with it. At least I'm a case in point. I haven't had a problem with my 5870 and I also haven't reviewed it on Newegg either....

 

[Borealis7]

i've had 3 ATI cards and 2 nVidia cards, only 1 nVidia card died on me.
and the fact that you called the thread "want to go ATI, having doubts" just pull out all the ATI supporters from the shadows so no wonder most responses say go with ATI.

both companies make good products, go with the one that suits your budget.
looks like 5770 is the card for you.

 

[dguy6789]

Wow, there seems to be almost unanimous support for ATI here. That's comforting. I'm still feeling unsettled by the HD 5750 reviews on newegg. The bad reviews on it seem recent as well. Check these out:

SAPPHIRE 100284L Radeon HD 5750 1GB
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-859-_-Product

XFX HD-575X-ZNFC Radeon HD 5750
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-448-_-Product

Holy mackerel. 24% gave the Sapphire a 1-2 rating, and 31% gave the XFX 1-2. That's almost 1 in 3 people.

Here is the GTS 250 in comparison:
PNY VCGGTS2501XPB GeForce GTS 250 1GB
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...66-_-Product"]

With only 5% giving it a 1-2. It's a similar story for the XFX card as well at 6%.
Any thoughts?

I'd argue that more often than not, any problem a user experiences on their computer at all is their fault and has nothing to do with their hardware; user error. Either something is configured incorrectly, or they have junk/viruses/malware on their PC that is causing issues. There are a lot of people out there who think it is normal for a computer to crash. A problem that may surface when installing a video card may not be caused by the video card either. The user could have a power supply that isn't capable of supporting the newly introduced hardware into the system. The user could have had an unstable machine to begin with and the drivers never installed properly. The entire Windows install could be wonky and when the video card doesn't install properly, they would blame the card even though it's not at fault.

There is a very large group of people out there who don't really know how to set up a computer that buy and try to install hardware and have success or failure seemingly randomly.

 

[Dribble]

imo there is a huge price drop on the horizon (say the Summer) due to both increased competition and TMSC sorting out it's yields (meaning chips cost less to make and nvidia/ati will have lots to sell). If you buy a 5770 now you'll be thinking I could have had a 5850, if you buy a 5850 you'll be thinking for a few $$$ more I could have had a GTX 360.

Personally I think the biggest disappointment would be a 57xx card as it just won't be fast enough. If you buy a 5850 sure you'll have missed out on some performance for your $$$ but at least you'll still be able to play all the new games with all the DX11 effects turned on.

 

[solofly]

I'm planning to build a new computer soon, and i'm having an awfully hard time deciding between the two graphic card brands.

I've been a long time user of nVidia cards, having 5-6 of them over the last two decades. I never had any problem whatsoever with them. However, the two times that I have become daring and purchased ATI cards, they have both had horrible problems which promptly got them returned. As you can guess, this makes me wary of ATI cards, even though I know it's anecdotal evidence.

Problem is, ATI cards are currently the only ones in my $100-$150 budget range (HD 5750 and HD 5770) that support DirectX 11. I think DX11 has a decent chance of taking off within the next five years, so for future proofing, i'd really like to buy one of those DX11 cards.

Even bigger problem is that according to newegg reviews, both the 5750 and 5770 have horrible driver problems on Win 7 64-bit, with crashes galore. I'm deathly afraid of crashes - I would go to terrible lengths to have a crash-proof PC like the one i've currently had for 6 years. And there lies my difficult decision between ATI or nVidia once again. Any advice to sway me one way or the other? (PS: the nVidia card i'm considering is the GTS 250.)

I've used nvidia for over a decate myself, 9800GT being my last. I slammed ATI every chance I had. Drivers sucked, this sucked, that sucked and so on. Nvidia was God to me...

Enough said, look at my sig today...(had my first real PC all the way back in 1983 so I've been around)

PS
BTW I go through 5-6 cards in a period of 1 to 2 years, not decates... (I'm not saying this because Im bragging [cause in reality I am a poor man] but to show you that I had a lot of firsthand experience)

 

[Shilohen]

Nvidia, more expensive, more features.
ATI, cheaper.

If cost is a factor, or you ain't going to invest too much in graphics, go for ATI as you will more or less miss PhysX only, which isn't ground breaking.

As for stability, ATI will be a better option IMO as the new Fermi series has just re-engineered their CPU. Unfortunately, that means buggy. If you ain't in a hurry, wait a bit until GT100 is out, then you will know if it is buggy. The price of video cards will be adjusted for GT100 too.

^ That. I actually agree with 100% of what Seero wrote, color me surprised. Well, until Fermi is out, ATI does have it two additional features, namely DX11 and Eyefinity, but so will Fermi. Anyway, like Seero and other mentioned, if you can wait for Fermi release, there might be price pressure on the 5xxx cards, potentially allowing you to fetch a better card for the same budget (5830 maybe? it should be out by then as well). If you cannot wait, 5770 should do.

 

[NoQuarter]

I'm using a 5770 in Win7 64-bit, haven't had a single issue with drivers if that helps any. I actually used it in 3 different installs/versions of Win 7 also while I got my OS install and key straightened out.

I picked up the Sapphire 5770 for $155 from newegg, which was only like $10 more than a 5750 so great deal. I usually like XFX for their great warranty but couldn't pass up the price, and came with a free 4GB USB drive

 

[pmv]

I've used both ATI and nvidia cards, depending on what was best in my price range at the time, and never had trouble with either. I had a voodoo3 that had what turned out to be a horrible hardware fault that drove me mad (because I thought it was a software issue), but no trouble at all with either ATI or nvidia.

If I _were_ upgrading from my 8800gt, which I'm not because nothing seems good enough to be worth it, I'd go for the 5770. As well as the performance I like its very modest power requirements, and the gts250, the only nvidia card with equally modest demands, is just a higher clocked version of the card I already have.

 

[x3sphere]

Been dealing with GPUs for over ten years and I've personally had issues on the driver and hardware side with both Nvidia and ATI. As others have said, it's all luck of the draw.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I'd argue that more often than not, any problem a user experiences on their computer at all is their fault and has nothing to do with their hardware; user error. Either something is configured incorrectly, or they have junk/viruses/malware on their PC that is causing issues. There are a lot of people out there who think it is normal for a computer to crash. A problem that may surface when installing a video card may not be caused by the video card either. The user could have a power supply that isn't capable of supporting the newly introduced hardware into the system. The user could have had an unstable machine to begin with and the drivers never installed properly. The entire Windows install could be wonky and when the video card doesn't install properly, they would blame the card even though it's not at fault.

There is a very large group of people out there who don't really know how to set up a computer that buy and try to install hardware and have success or failure seemingly randomly.

Then again, you can have computer experts attempting to install an ATI AGP card, on a dual-core S939 system. Bad Mojo. Even worse, ATI drivers.