Graohics card advice please: ATi or Nvidia

[quyeno]

Hi,

I'm building a new system soon and would like to know what everyone's experiences were with Ati and Geforce gmaing cards? I know gaming cards aren't certified but I can't afford the insane prices of Quadro and FireGL. I'm thinking of getting either the ati 4870 or the GTX260 '216'.

If you are using these cards or similar, what's mud's performance like? any bugs in the menus, viewports,e tc..?

thanks guys
Quyeno

[steelsky]

Hey Quyeno... lol think we have spoken in a few places before ;) not sure if ya remember me.

Most people here prefer the Nvidia cards. Ive always stuck with them and dont have to many issues... more vista lol. On the cheaper side a 9800 series card can be had for a good price. I use a cheap 9800gt just to get me by for now. It only has 512mb of onboard ram but it is still more than usable. Most people here will advise at least 1GB of onboard ram if ya can stretch to it. Wayne uses 9800GT with 1gb onboard, and gets on well with it. Id assume a GTX260 would give you even more performance - some people have the occasional driver issue with the 280 cards... Im sure someone with more experience of the 260 / 280 will add some more info ;)

Newer Nvidia cards also have the benefit of CUDA support. Not so relevant to mudbox but good for some other apps.

Dunno if that helps ;)... speak later

[quyeno]

Hi mate,

yeah i think we spoke on another forum. seems like Ati have improved their OGl support with 2.1 and they are a little cheaper than the gtx. The Ati also has 1 gig ram whereas the GTx has 860 i think, but then again Ati drivers aren;t as good as Nvidiia. Both have pros and cons but i guess it maybe pretty much of a muchness.

[steelsky]

Im not an ATI person so i dont know loooads about it... but altho the ATI cards are awsome value for gaming, Ive heard some horror storys with regard to 3D apps... particularly maya. Performance was really really bad apparently... but again thats not from my own personal experiences.. I think there will be others with more examples good or bad etc.

What card are you using now? and system spec?.... and what are you going to upgrade to?

[irobert]

I have jumped back and forth for years between ATI and NV, NV's seem to be "slower" but more reliable and compatible. If you are doing 3D, don't bother with ATI right now.

[Hulahuga]

I've actually heard that ATI is better for lightning and shading. But Nvidia is better for textures. This is in games.

[quyeno]

yeah, i think i'll stick with what i know and that'll be nvidia. currently using a dell precision 650 with dual xeon 2.8ghz and 2 gig ram and a cr@ppy geforce 7300gt, there are better AGP cards out there but the psu is not powerful enough so its going to be a new build. thinking of core2 duo q6600, 4 gig ram and maybe a gtx260 '216'.

[steelsky]

Hey mate... wise choice on the Nvidia card for this sort of stuff - Deffo keep yer other system for a render slave ;)

Yeah prebuilds arent wise to faff with.. especially dells as they sometimes fiddle with the connectors so if ya upgrade something ya cud fry it lol.

I have the Q6600 and its a pucka chip... altho mine is a newer model and wont overclock much at all without silly temps.. even with a good cooler. Get 8 gig of DDR2 mate if ya can stretch... at todays prices its a wise longer term choice. My 9800GT is cool but i get a smidge more lag when at high subdivision levels that id like to use... its not a problem cos selections sets can be used to be efficient... but i think the 260 would just give me what i needed... as a ballence to the system.. so I think its a good choice. What res do you have your screen at?... because that will all impact on the GFX cards performance.

[irobert]

If you going to build a new computer, make sure your on a 64 bit OS, and go with 8 gigs of ram. 8 gigs of DDR2 is so cheap there is really no reason not to have it. I have 8 and I use it all up all the time making me wish I had more :).

[quyeno]

i guess i could stretch to 8gigs of ram but i don't want to use vista. was thinking of xp64 but i hear that its also cr@p? is it just like xp pro but 64bits? does anyone know of issues like drivers, software compatibility, etc..?

[steelsky]

Vista64 has several annoying things ... usually down to the aero back either been on or off... but they are more silly niggels than anything. Most friends use XP64, if i could go back id probably stick with XP64. Deffo go with the 8gigs if you can, it will give your comp a lot longer life.

[irobert]

Vista does start off being complete hell. Once you fine tune it, it can be a very stable and secure OS. It does require a new computer to have the performance of your machine not take a hit from the OS overhead. I use Vista on my renderfarm and after tuning it, I get fast boots and 500 mb of ram usage with nothing open. There is also some good programs out there to even install a "lite" versions of Vista. Apps such as Adobe CS4 and I Tunes only supports Vista (in 64 bit). I'm currently using windows 7 on my main machine and laptop. Once it is out of beta and release it will be a welcomed replacement for Vista. One of the main reasons Vista got such a bad wrap is they didn't let people develop drivers for the software until it was released, causing a huge amount of trouble for many users.