Slashdot Mirror
ATI vs. Nvidia in a Video Shootout
ThinSkin writes "ATI and Nvidia are well known for hailing their products as leaders in 3D apps and games, but little is known that both companies are trying to stake their claim in the video market as well. ExtremeTech is featuring an article that tests cards from ATI and Nvidia to determine who takes the cake in video quality and performance. Using CPU utilization scores and visual quality comparisons during video and DVD clips, the author concludes that ATI's latest generation of GPUs have an edge over Nvidia, particularly in DVD playback and with video acceleration."
Oh, right, TFA.
... remember Moore's Law.
Surprisingly, the prices of these two cards are very close: ATI's X1800 XT & Nvidia's 7800 GTX.
I'm guessing that they used an X1800 XT with 512MB of GDDR3 while most 7800 GTXs only have 256MB GDDR3. They come to be about the same price but I attribute their release dates
Newegg has a great datasheet regarding all mainstream cards.
My work here is dung.
I like NVidia products, & have been using them in the GeForce III, GeForce IV Ti-4600, & lately, a GeForce 6800 GT OC by BFG.
I am AGP 8x limited here, & cannot comment on newer vidcards than AGP type (i.e. - no PCI Express stuff has ever been tested by myself, first hand, to make judgements on them - I can only read many reviews & make judgements based on their findings, "vicariously" so-to-speak)).
On NVidia:
Overall? I am partial to them, because I am a regular 'fanboy' of IDSoftware's games (and, I'll 'admit that' right now), & they (Mr. Carmack our fellow slashdotter has stated it himself in fact) favor NVidia cards + drivers because they use OpenGL display methods which NVidia typically does better in than ATI.
Don't get me wrong - I used an ATI 9800 XT here thru 2003, just to see "how the other 1/2 lives" & it was a decent card, & ATI has 'cleaned up their act' in terms of OpenGL performance & also driver quality.
(E.G.-> For years, I noted that it was a "rumor/urban legend" that ATI drivers sucked, & they may have @ one point - in this industry + "Art & Science" in general with all of its API calls & hardware platform mixes of diff. componentry AND Operating System PLUS software mix permutation possibles? It's just a fact of life, & amazes me how WELL things tend to run, overall (even with the mad influx of malware/spyware/virus etc. in there as well, complicating things even more)).
One thing I have personally noted that ATI does FAR BETTER? Even though you may call me an NVidia fanboy??
2d display & refresh rates!
E.G. - The NVidia GeForce 6800 PCI slot GT OC by BFG I use here can pull off 75hz refresh rates (anything over 70hz iirc, is decent enough for your eyes vs. eyestrain etc.) @ 1600x1200 resolution using Full Color/32-bit color settings.
HOWEVER:
The older ATI 9800 XT I had? At those SAME resolutions & color ranges?? It could put out WELL over 100hz here on the same monitor & PC setup.
APK
P.S.=> There's really NO "perfect/best/overall better" piece of hardware out there of any kind (same with OS & softwares as well for the most part imo @ least really)... there's just ones that lend themselves to particular tasks better/more efficiently-effectively! apk
2 things:
1.) Get VLC. Comes with almost every codec on earth installed, and is lightweight, and doesn't look like the abortion that is windows media player. Yes, this includes DVD codecs. The first rule of fight club is...
2.) 2 months ago, Maximum PC concluded the opposite - that ATI's graphics, which everyone had always assumed looked better, in fact looked bad. I'm sure this conclusion about which is better changes monthly.
~W
sig?
http://www.extremetech.com/print_article2/0,1217,a =170327,00.asp
REM Old programmers don't die. They just GOSUB without RETURN.
Russian web-site www.ixbt.com has monthly 3d video report featuring the newest NVidia and ATI cards as well as the newest drivers. See here. Although the text is in Russian you can still read the diagrams (like this) which they provide. They compare quality in games (provide screenshots showing bugs), performance and price.
In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is. - Yogi Berra
the author concludes that ATI's latest generation of GPUs have an edge over Nvidia
ATI having better quality video has been the case for the last 10 years. Even when they sucked at drivers when it came to games, their video was unmatched, both quality-wise and performance-wise (HW acceleration since 1997 with Rage Pro).
For non-gamer video enthousiasts there was never any doubt as to what card to get.
ATi radeon 7000 through 9200 have excellent 2D and almost excellent 3D support from the open source DRI drivers. Any of the newer cards from ATi are lacking 3D accelleration under these drivers but have good 2D, although the driver that will enable 3D in these newer cards in under development and making rapid progress. nVidia cards have excellent 2D support from the opensource nv driver, but are completely lacking 3D support unless nVidia's ( not open source ) drivers are installed. When the nvidia drivers are installed, 3D accelleration will work perfectly. IMHO, ATi's drivers are not nearly as stable or powerful as nVidia's. nVidia has definitly got it won if you don't mind using non-free drivers, but if non-free drivers are a problem for you, you should probably go with an older ATi card.
There is a Korean player called GomPlayer which organizes all the codecs together and auto detects and installs new codecs...
Of course that would be too easy.
2.) 2 months ago, Maximum PC concluded the opposite - that ATI's graphics, which everyone had always assumed looked better, in fact looked bad. I'm sure this conclusion about which is better changes monthly.
...").
I recently upgraded from a Matrox G450 to an ATI Radeon 9250 (with a 20" Diamondtron display). I'd always heard that Matrox excelled at image quality, but I was never quite sure if this was true, or advertising, or urban legend, or rationalization ("it's lousy at 3d, so it must be good at
The speed of the ATI is very nice for 3d -- more than fast enough for anything I do. But the first time I played a DVD, I noticed that edges that used to look sharp, now looked fuzzy. It took me a moment to realize that the only thing I changed was the video card.
Of course, I'm certainly not going to go back to the Matrox -- the performance boost is too good. But I will consider buying a DVI flatpanel sooner.
Lightweight, eh? Took well over 2 hours to compile on gentoo.. and after that it didn't even work (segfaults, etc). heh..
It's a piece of shit. Don't use it.
Like the other person said, learn to use your compiler. Also consider compiling with -O2 instead of -O3. -O3 can produce broken code. Don't likle how long it takes to compile? Then don't use gentoo or buy a snappier machine. Simple as that.
"Your NVIDIA board has dual 400MHz RAMDACs, and that ATI card had dual 400MHz RAMDACs, so they have the same sync capabilities. If you can't push higher than you are, it's because your *monitor* can't sync at that frequency. Many monitors won't do 1600x1200 at over 75Hz." - by aaronl (43811) on Tuesday January 31, @05:31PM
Well, I can only tell you what my experience was here:
That (again) was the ATI 9800XT card & drivers I used did FASTER refresh rates (& faster than 75hz too, assuming I am recalling this right about my ATI & I am pretty sure I am, or I wouldn't have stated it here)
That was @ 32-bit/True Color on Windows Server 2003/XP/2000 (OS progression in reverse from now till the past years in 2003) vs. the GeForce 6800 GT OC by BFG I have now (both AGP 8x afaik etc.) @ 1600x1200 resolutions!
* BOTH using this 19" Trinitron I have here (SONY MultiScan 400PS) no less (some more exact info. for you, equipment-wise).
(Done via "overriding" the preset for a particular monitors defaults as to refresh rate on CRT types & unchecking the "hide refresh rates this monitor cannot display" in Windows display, advanced, Monitor screen for video properties adjustments).
NOW- Could it be drivers making the diff. here, especially regarding 2D (Windows Shell) display & refresh rates?
I am not sure, but I would say so... because I remember my ATI pulling off more than 75hz refresh rates on this monitor, @ 1600x1200 & also @ "True Color/32-bit Color" settings!
That IS what I saw for results, with all hardwares concerned, & also what mixes.
The driver versions varied over time on BOTH cards (my current NVidia GeForce 6800 GT OC by BFG, & past ATI 9800XT). I upgraded as I went constantly everytime they released new ones for BOTH cards, I usually do!
(& I only changed to this GeForce 6800 GT OC by BFG around, oh, 6-9 months ago, tops, iirc (vs. the ATI 9800XT I had & used here from, iirc, 2003 (lots this year iirc) - mid 2005 or so (using it only here & there in a 2nd rig I had etc. & finally selling it off))).
"It also wasn't urban legend about ATI's drivers being terrible. They still have issues today, though they is *much* better than before." - by aaronl (43811) on Tuesday January 31, @05:31PM
Oh, I agree, it probably WAS true, but things have gotten better.
(See, I really had NO trouble with the 9800XT I had in gaming, 2d display, or really anything - & it only got better, performance-wise usually, from the 'stock' oem drivers that came on the CD-Rom with my 9800XT by ATI, onwards to ones I updated to while I used it from online downloads of them from ATI imo & experience with ATI stuff in late 2003/mid 2005).
APK
But the latest drivers don't allow the usual Xserver confiruations to be read. If you want to do any cusomisations (even simple ones such as modelines) don't bother with the ATI drivers.
(BTW. For TV-out custom modelines are critical for a decent image, see if you can read between the lines).
O.
You don't have to use the Catalyst Control Center ... AFAIK you have all the same control with the normal one. Just, when you update your drivers, download the standalone driver install and the standalone Control Panel install.
Who doesn't like free music?
No longer true unfortunately. ATI's R300-based cards have a reverse-engeneered driver (for 3d) and it gets worse from there, ati is apparently unwilling to release _any_ documentation for the X1xxx cards, so not even a 2d driver will be available anytime soon (the modesetting etc. is supposed to be much different with that generation (avivo) so good luck with reverse-engeneering that). (Not to mention ATI's binary linux driver doesn't support them neither currently, stating in some interview support for them is a "couple of driver releases" away).
Two reasons to avoid ATI.
Drivers, or lack thereof. They've always been slow with new ones. I have a card now that they recommended I use two year old ones on since the current ones have issues with what I run. Apparently Radeons don't need optimized drivers on each chipset, they're interchangable...
Quality. The fans on two cards I had died in a year. A fan is a rather minor thing, but to me it's indicative of the overall quality.
Performance I won't get into, but even the older GeForce cards seem to render faster. Perhaps it has to do with the driver thing as well.
vi? Who's that?