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Nvidia all the way, but I don't bash ATI. ATI has come into the market of home theater and nVidia has come into gaming.

They're both awesome at what they do.

Im a ATi Fanboy , guess you can tell by my sig I started out with a ATi Rage 128 16 MB AGP Card then moved up to a Geforce 2MX 200 32 MB. I went back to my ATi roots with a 9200SE and did some real freaky over clocking with that card, wich died soon after. My next upgrade was a 9600XT in 2004 which to this day I still have works well with most modern games, I can play CoD 4 on max settings @ 800 X 600 and crysis on low at the same res. I now have a X1950 Pro and this thing eats every game alive except crysis. I think my next purchase will be a HIS 3870 iceq turbo 3 looks like a good card, a bit too expensive though.

Im a ATi Fanboy , guess you can tell by my sig I started out with a ATi Rage 128 16 MB AGP Card then moved up to a Geforce 2MX 200 32 MB. I went back to my ATi roots with a 9200SE and did some real freaky over clocking with that card, wich died soon after. My next upgrade was a 9600XT in 2004 which to this day I still have works well with most modern games, I can play CoD 4 on max settings @ 800 X 600 and crysis on low at the same res. I now have a X1950 Pro and this thing eats every game alive except crysis. I think my next purchase will be a HIS 3870 iceq turbo 3 looks like a good card, a bit too expensive though.

OMG Sorry for the double post! not my fault, browser issue.

Even if you are an ATi fan boy, don't get the 3870, cuz for a lower price you can get a 9600GT which is on par with the 3870 and in some games it's even better so i suggest you buy a 9600GT.

The HD 3870 was faster on average than the 9600 GT in every review I've seen. Not by much (5-10%), but still ...

Even if they were the same performance, I'd probably get the HD 3870 just because its fan is much less annoying.

I agree with that last post. not to not to mention it runs cooler than the 9600 GT and I have a mATX case so a dual slot card would be the better choice to keep all the hot air out of the system

Wrong, read this:
Performance versus the Radeon HD 3870

The BFGTech GeForce 9600 GT OC’s gaming performance is very interesting. The first thing to note is that in all three games tested the 9600 GT was in fact faster than AMD’s fastest single GPU video card, the ATI Radeon HD 3870. At this price point of $169-$189, the 9600 GT competes more with the Radeon HD 3850, but lo and behold, it was besting the 3870 in our game testing. In Crysis it simply had faster shader performance which allowed several in-game settings to be set at “High” versus “Medium” on the 3870.

You have here a 64 streaming processor GPU (9600 GT) beating a 320 streaming processor GPU (3870). This goes a long way to prove that there are major architectural differences between both GPUs that a simple glance at a spec sheet will not explain. The picture is painted even prettier in favor of the 9600 GT when you look back on the previous page and note that the BFGTech GeForce 9600 GT OC is pulling this kind of performance with cooler temperatures and lower full-load power draw of all the video cards tested here.

Source: http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.h ... VzaWFzdA==

The BFG 9600GT OC runs almost stock (stock: 650/1800/1625 ; BFG OC: 675/1800/1700) so it still beats the HD3870, not to mention that if you overclock it to 740/1975/1800-1900 you get almost 8800GT performance and we all know that the 8800GT beats the HD3870 by a very big margin.

nVidia FTW 7800GTX rocks with most of the games I have

BrontoX wrote:Wrong, read this:
Performance versus the Radeon HD 3870

The BFGTech GeForce 9600 GT OC’s gaming performance is very interesting. The first thing to note is that in all three games tested the 9600 GT was in fact faster than AMD’s fastest single GPU video card, the ATI Radeon HD 3870. At this price point of $169-$189, the 9600 GT competes more with the Radeon HD 3850, but lo and behold, it was besting the 3870 in our game testing. In Crysis it simply had faster shader performance which allowed several in-game settings to be set at “High” versus “Medium” on the 3870.

You have here a 64 streaming processor GPU (9600 GT) beating a 320 streaming processor GPU (3870). This goes a long way to prove that there are major architectural differences between both GPUs that a simple glance at a spec sheet will not explain. The picture is painted even prettier in favor of the 9600 GT when you look back on the previous page and note that the BFGTech GeForce 9600 GT OC is pulling this kind of performance with cooler temperatures and lower full-load power draw of all the video cards tested here.

Source: http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.h ... VzaWFzdA==

The BFG 9600GT OC runs almost stock (stock: 650/1800/1625 ; BFG OC: 675/1800/1700) so it still beats the HD3870, not to mention that if you overclock it to 740/1975/1800-1900 you get almost 8800GT performance and we all know that the 8800GT beats the HD3870 by a very big margin.

Based on 3 games in 1 review that doesn't even use a scientifically valid testing method ...

Anandtech did 12 tests over 9 games and the HD 3870 was slightly faster on average.
Tom's Hardware did 9 tests and the HD 3870 again was slightly faster on average.
Guru3D tested a bunch of games and the 9600 GT came out slightly faster on average.
HWBot puts the HD 3870 slightly ahead of the 9600 GT.
Legit Reviews put the 9600 GT slightly ahead of the HD 3870 (comparing an OCed 9600 GT to non-OCed HD 3870).
X-Bit Labs puts the 9600 GT ahead at low resolutions (1280) and puts the HD 3870 on top at high resolutions (1920).
Hardwarezone put the HD 3870 ahead of the 9600 GT.

Overall, most reviews put the HD 3870 slightly ahead ...

Unlike all the sites you just said, this one uses real-world gameplay benchmark method, not those in-game benchmarks.

http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.h ... RodXNpYXN0

Read that article and you will see that that site is the most accurate of all sites.

I'm familiar w/ HardOCP ... And if you could please tell me how it would be possible to 100% accurately repeat the same gameplay and action from one benchmark to the next using HardOCP's method, I'd love to hear it ... In addition, basing your opinion off just 1 website is not a good practice. You never know if the information is biased or not (not saying HardOCP is, but I can't say for sure that they're not). I take HardOCP's findings into account alongside all the other hardware review sites.

I base my opinions off: 1) Personal Experience (if available), 2) Reviews from a wide variety of websites, 3) User reviews from a wide variety of websites (Newegg, forums, etc.)

Personal experience is most important to me. You can take into account many things that you won't find in reviews and you don't have to guess if there's any bias or not.

Hardware reviews are the next most important to me. Again, from a wide variety of sites. Not only does this mean that I get results from a wide variety of different systems, but it also means that it averages out any biases.

User reviews give a good idea about any reliability issues the product might have. You'll never find this information in hardware reviews and you may not experience it yourself.

IMO, that's a better method than using 1 review site that tested using 1 system on 3 games as the only reference ...

I have Nvidia GeForce. And it's awesome.

You did not have to revive the thread for that post.
If you would like to tell us about your pc hardware use the appropriate "post your system specs" topic.

I have an ATI Radeon. Pre AMD takeover so it isnt garbage.

Now It seems Nvidia is where its at if you need stuff. Shame. I love ATI. The color Red over green ftw!

korge wrote:I have an ATI Radeon. Pre AMD takeover so it isnt garbage.

Now It seems Nvidia is where its at if you need stuff. Shame. I love ATI. The color Red over green ftw!

I think you have it backwards.
Ati dominates in every price range now.

True, especially for power for the buck, but I read (i never experienced this) that there customer support and drivers went to crap lately.

I want an HD 1xxx card.

lol... don't waste your money. 9600GT is a good mid-low range gaming card that runs current games on high, and if $140 AUD is too rich for you then 8600GTs are decent and can be had for like $70. Yes, Nvidia... however, if you were looking at a 9800 or higher, I believe ATI offers more with it's similarly priced 4 series.

Im considering the 9600GT just so I can ditch my 4 year old card and actually play some games again. Fallout 3 is no fun at 800x600 windowed with all settings on low.. My card is BELOW minimum spec for FO3.

Fallout 3 runs nicely @ 1080p I don't think it's quite at high, maybe it is, but can go above medium and looks as good if not better than Oblivion maxxed at those lower settings.

Currently, Radeon is the smart choice.

For high end that is...
Low-med - Nvidia 9600GT is a brilliant card that will do well on high settings at 1080p for those that can't afford cutting edge technology... like me. I have a e2180 dual core, 2gb of DDR 667 RAM, random gigabyte mobo, 9600GT 512mb.. and I run Far Cry 2 nicely @1080p, all very high but shadows and shaders on high, no AA, but it's 1080p, NFS Undercover on max. Tech is at a stage where it is far ahead of the games being made for it... and a low end PC like mine (Under $500 AUD) will be able to run many current games on high. Even Fallout 3 is on high and the only thing I don't have on high in Crysis is shadows and shaders! It still looks brilliant.

Spend 2k and you're laughing.

I wouldn't really consider a 9600GT 'High end'...I've had it. I couldn't even get Crysis to run all that smoothly at all high and I had mine OCed to 800/1925/1010 stable from it's stock with no volt mods but a MSI dualslot cooler. FC2 and NFS Undercover (Though the visuals, game, and crappy framerate problem blow) aren't hard to run, nor is Fallout 3, so I would expect it, But I doubt you're running Crysis 30+ fps at most of the time...Cause I couldn't pull it at 1280x1024 when I had my CRT monitor and my E4600@3.24 with 2GB DDR2 800@ 1000MHz....

I would honestly suggest you to:

A) Get a 8800GTS G92 512MB from eVga Bstock
B) Get a HD4850
C) If you're pockets are deep enough, a GTX260 (192/216) or a HD4870

Those cards will run games at high, at high res with AA. Especially the ATi cards that handle AA much better than the nVidia ones atm.

Did u just read what I wrote? I said my PC was low end. Have you seen my specs? What am I going to do with a HD4870? It'll be bottlenecked. There is nothing wrong with the set-up I have, and it does the job nicely, and the games even look good!

I've got Crysis to be playable at 1080p, no AA, all high apart from shaders and shadows on med. I think it still looks good... good enough to not spoil the experience.

Option A: My 9600GT is cheaper, a friend has that card and he's running close to the same settings as me anyway. I don't notice a difference. He runs max AA, I run at 1080p instead and don't really notice that many jaggies because of the small pixels. + it's a big card....

Option B: $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

Option C: $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

I know how to build a PC. I'm broke because all my cash is going to uni... and going out... Bought my new monitor and the 9600 to cope with current gen... HDDs are from old one (4 yrs) that died, had to get new mobo, RAM, CPU and an 8600GT (cheap from friend) for less than $300... then I got a new PSU. The parts in there now total to less than $500...

I need a new mobo to upgrade this one. It's not worth it though unless it fails catastrophically. I'll be content with merely high settings for now, until I can save some money to get me a new one that maxxes everything coming out.

About FC2 and F3 not being hard to run...

Tech is at a stage where it is far ahead of the games being made for it...

If those new games with great visuals and all are that easy to run... then I'm saying u don't need an uber rig for a good gaming experience.

Ok, Honestly, my opinion was on the 9600GT itself and not your rig, so your specs don't really matter to me. Second, The options were for Korge, so I don't really care what you would do with a HD4870. Maybe I should have said 'you' as in Korge, maybe it would have come across better. Third,....I wasn't even talking to you! But then again, that's my fault, I was just thinking since Korge was the one in need of assistance, that you wouldn't think I was talking to you.

And I never said you didn't know how to build a PC. Noone did matter of fact, dunno why you brought that up...lot's of people can build a PC, it's basically like legos lol.

And FC2 and F3 aren't heavily tech related games. They have effects seen in other games. They just happen to be some of the few PC games properly optimized while being on other gaming platforms other than PC. Just like FEAR2. I can max it out with 4xAA and run it in 1920x1080 resolution without having a quad core or a GTX295, why? Cause it's wonderfully optimized. Just think about it, FEAR was the benchmarker of all benchmarkers when it came out and at the time not many PCs and setups could max the game out and get 60+fps whilst being at high resolutions.

Reading some reviews and checking some benchmarks I found out that 2 HD-4850s crossfired are awesome. Great even for 2560x1600 resolution (If ever buy a 30" screen. Do you think they'll (30"screens) get any cheaper...ever?) and in some cases they produce more than twice as much fps than one and in most cases more than a gtx-280. Now that's impressive, eh? When games won't run smoothly on highest settings, I'll probably buy another HD-4850. Or when I buy a bigger screen. Now I've got a 19" one with 1280x1024 resolution.