Cygna Posted November 29, 2009 Share Posted November 29, 2009 Going to update my graphics card.I currently have an NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTX, and a friend suggested I upgrade to an ATI Radeon HD5850 or 5870. I would, to be quite honest, like to upgrade to another NVIDIA card because my motherboard chipset is also the NVIDIA nForce. Nothing against ATI or anything though, they make fine cards and I used a Radeon for 4ish years.Anyway, maybe a computer hardware guru could halp. What card should I upgrade to? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vinnie Lei Posted November 29, 2009 Share Posted November 29, 2009 Truth is, Radeons have a much better performance/price ratio then nVidia cards at this time. For the performance an nVidia card gives, you could get a similar ATi card for less.Anyhows. It really depends on what you want. SL does like nVidia cards better with default settings, but can be tweaked to perform well on ATi cards. ATi's 5000 series have DirectX 11, nVidia has PhysX. nVidia have (relatively) better Linux support(/stability) then ATi, etc.I'd go for an ATi solution myself since it gives more value for the same money, has more new tech onboard and with the current amount of 8000 nVidia cards dying due to poor design... yeah.The current nVidia cards are getting old and it's still uncertain when 'Fermi' will enter the scenes and how well it will perform. Good luck on finding ya new card :) Let us know what ya decision will be ;) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RazorFox Posted November 29, 2009 Share Posted November 29, 2009 I've been running a GeForce 9 series card for a year and a half now and it works fine with whatever. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tokeli Zabelin Posted November 29, 2009 Share Posted November 29, 2009 BUY A MAC LOLOLOLOLOLOL. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ribena Homewood Posted November 30, 2009 Share Posted November 30, 2009 BUY A MAC LOLOLOLOLOLOL.The top iMac has an overkilling graphics card built in and get 'grade up to 8gig. Dew it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cyphre Iredell Posted November 30, 2009 Share Posted November 30, 2009 Nvidia will always be an ideal solution due to drivers as near as I can tell, and price really can't be beat for the performance of even their 9800GTX, which is what I'm running now. No problems running Crysis or anything now! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kellervo Posted November 30, 2009 Share Posted November 30, 2009 I'm using an ASUS GTS250 1Gb, and it runs beautifully with a low power requirement compared to other cards of similar power. Nvidia drivers as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cygna Posted November 30, 2009 Author Share Posted November 30, 2009 I've narrowed it down to 2,EVGA NVIDIA GeForce GTX 285 1GB 512-bit DDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP ReadySAPPHIRE ATI Radeon HD 5850 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP ReadySo you guys don't think it matters that I'm running on an NVIDIA chipset? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scarlet Flaks Posted November 30, 2009 Share Posted November 30, 2009 (edited) My personal opinion is that you wouldn't see a significant boost in performance from the use of your nVidia chipset with a GTX285. Nor for that matter, would you see a lack of performance, should you chose the RadeonHD 5850.For as long as I've used computers, I've always taken a slight grudge against ATI, they seem to release inferior drivers, and cards that nVidia seems to out-do within a matter of months, (That is unfortunately not the case however with the GTX310 from nVidia). As far as I can tell, if you go with the ATI, it should be smooth sailing, But that decision is down to you.Also, Have some statistics while I'm at it.Quick little edit I wanted to add regarding Tokeli's comment:---Don't ever go with a Mac, Reason being even that 'brand new holycrap' iMac only has at best, a RadeonHD 4850 (this is listed on their website as the "27-inch model with dual-core processor").Enjoy your lower-end computing and outrageous prices. At best, Macs are only good for shiny UI's and nifty OS's, or just a joke, take your pick. :3 Edited November 30, 2009 by Scarlet Flaks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RazorFox Posted November 30, 2009 Share Posted November 30, 2009 Macs are for graphic designers and child-rapists. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vinnie Lei Posted November 30, 2009 Share Posted November 30, 2009 Yeah, ATi drivers have been quite poor in the past, and to a degree still are under the Linux, but they are getting better there as well (and in contrast to nVidia, they released sourcecode to let the community make opensourced drivers :D ).But since like already the HD3000 series their drivers have become just as stable and good as nVidia's to be honest. I've been hopping from nVidia to ATi and vice versa if one would give me better performance, etc.Thank god for standards, so no.. your nVidia chipset shouldn't make any difference with putting an ATi card in it (I would even call it hilarious irony ;p ). p.s. Macs are nice machines, but their price/performance ratio is quite poor. If I had the cash, I wouldn't mind getting a Power Mac, replace the videocard and put Windows on it :p Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
