I need a new video card. Is there any advantage to having an Nvidia card over an ATI card, or are they pretty much about the same as far as 3d editing goes?

ATI seems to have more driver issues with 3D apps.

Nvidia. I had ATI for a while, and didn't have issues really. But Nvidia seems to be supported moreso with things like PhysX and also they updated their drivers once a month with performance increases in games and other fixes.

These days. Go with the best deal. Their performance and ability are so close.

I was hoping that in this day and age that we wouldn't have to worry about one brand versus another, but I do think Nvidia is, overall, a little more friendly for 3d content creation.

I got an ATI card a few months ago because they had the edge on price and performance. It's been great for games, but I've not really been able to get CGFX shaders to work (yea, I know it's supposed to be an Nvidia thing), and have had other rendering artifacts when trying to preview stuff in real-time that I was able to do with my ancient Nvidia card. It's not a total deal-breaker, and it hasn't stopped me from doing most of what I want to do, but I probably would have waited for the recent Nvidia cards if I were to do it over again.

what id say, totally dependant on cpu:
ati+amd = GOOD!
nvidia+amd = EWWWWW! no, please dont!
nvidia + intel = GOOD!
ati + intel = meh ... it works... somehow

Have had a HD5850 for half a year now or so, no driver problems with this one, and this is on windows7 64bit.

ATI really jumped ahead of nvidia with that series, extremely fast, and much cheaper than the nvidia equalents.


ATI has redeemed themselves nowadays, and are equal with nvidia, and have much stable drivers nowadays.

I just got the GTX 250. I know this card isn't all that great, but all you Starcraft players bought all the cards from the local stores so I was desperate and got this. It''s okay so far. Slightly better than my 9800 GT.

You can fry eggs on Nvidia's. I would know, I've been doing that for years.

Originally Posted by jeramy79

I just got the GTX 250. I know this card isn't all that great, but all you Starcraft players bought all the cards from the local stores so I was desperate and got this. It''s okay so far. Slightly better than my 9800 GT.

iirc the GTX 250 is a rebranded 9800GTX so it's probably not too much better :P

I fucking hate not having an Nvidia card with all the CUDA and PhysX stuff. It especially irks me when I can't utilize some really good GPU rendering applications and a few plugins with Maya.

Right now I own a 4870, but you can bet your ass I'm going Nvidia next time I buy a new system.

I'd love to support ATI cards since they're cheaper and perform just as well if not better than their Nvidia counterparts but I've read so many driver issues with 3D apps and games, my friend has a 4870 if I recall correctly and he's had issues with pretty much every game he's played lately. Plus Nvidia has PhysX, CUDA and all that shit.

erm ati supports opencl
which is simmilar to cuda

Dont know how you guys are getting driver issues...had ATI for the longest time and havent had a single problem. The only thing I was longing for was EVGA or XFX to come over to ATI and now that it has been or was done, Im glad. Now the critical decision of 68xx series cards or 58xx cards...mhhmmmm

I got a 5770 for FREE, which should be a bit faster than my 8800GT, and well... Its in the HTPC as i couldn't rely on it to be stable in a dev machine. =)

I really like what's going on with the new 400 series cards. The Fermi chip architecture gives options for some really neat stuff.

Though, as I speak now I've had to switch out to an older card, as the only drivers available for my GTX 460 cause a lock up at windows start up that I can not work around yet.

i bought a 5770 for a old machine i use to play games (i can play l4d2 and all the games at 1080p, with all the settings to the max, crysis in high quality). It's a cool graphic videocard, but too many problems with drivers, i was sick of so many "grey banded screens" that frozens the computer. With the newest drivers, In modo it's a shit for selections, ages to select a few polygons in a typical model of mine. With the vendor driver i had crashes, windows restarts, blue screens and grey screens all the time, and just moving the mouse.

For work, it's better a nvidia (although is more expensive). Better drivers and better perfomance in apps. With nvidia we can have things like octane renderer, an unbiased renderer similar to Maxwell but in almost realtime.

The 5xxx series have too many issues with drivers, just check out http://blogs.amd.com/play/ and read the comments. I'm very dissapointed with Ati, but i can't complain, i bought a cheap videocard with good perfomance, for 1/3 of what i needed to pay for a nvidia. With catalyst 10.5 i'm fine but i wish to have the perfomance of the vendor driver without crashes.

It's a pity all the thing about ati drivers.

Originally Posted by arrangemonk

what id say, totally dependant on cpu:
ati+amd = GOOD!
nvidia+amd = EWWWWW! no, please dont!
nvidia + intel = GOOD!
ati + intel = meh ... it works... somehow

this is what i have noticed over the years

In general people feel that nVidia is the safer bet, better compatibility with apps. Then again, I haven't had any issues with my HD4870 in modo or mudbox.

Autocon & arrangemonk:
I just have to ask: based on what? It doesn't matter if you run AMD+ATI, Intel+AMD, Intel+nVidia or AMD+nVidia. The combinations aren't important.

The thing that is important, is how well CPUs compare with each other and same with GPU. Then you pick the best from both categories. "Oh I have Intel, I can't get ATI GPU now". I don't see how it has any relevance. This is some sort of a misconception that has been going on for a long time it seems.

I haven't used any Nvidia but yea, if I was making a separate box for work and then games I'd have Nvidia consumer card in there. Tends to work better with Maya/Max etc. I mention consumer though cuz if you have the money, the professional cards from ATI work just as well as the Nvidia counterparts for quite a bit cheaper if I remember correctly.

BTW, I've only had a few problems with ATI drivers, nothing that'd get me to switch in a gaming rig. My 4870 works 100% for what I need so far.

The new ATI 5xxx series are really stable, I've never encountered any problems with it using Softimage.

Short version:
All hardware is unreliable shit but at least ATI is cheaper.

Long version:
I've always gone with Nvidia but after they fried my card with shitty drivers that completely broke the auto-fan control so it was permanently set to 40% fan speed (which I still can't get to work to this day so I have to use a separate program just to boost the fan speed) I'm probably going to switch to ATI next time. ATI cards may have lots of annoying little problems but at least if I have to replace one it's $150 instead of $300.

I thought ATI fixed their OpenGL issues some time last year?

OpenCL will be nice when its stable, but I think for now the only art related GPGPU project that isnt using CUDA is the realtime Luxrender spinoff.

I'd try ATI again if I didn't have to pay for it. Nvidia has never caused me a problem and always done what I've asked with minimal fuss, I can't say the same for ATI.

Nvidia all the way.

The cards are fast, they get driver updates very regularly, Physx is native and Cuda is much more mature than OpenCL and supported by more programs.
Easy choice for me