ATI or Nvidia?

[mnstr_trd_sd]

I need the fastest video card I can get for a Dual 1.4 Quicksilver 2002 with 133bus. If money was no option, which would you buy?

Keep in mind it's for 3D Animation(not gaming), Multimedia(Linear Editing), Graphic Design and Web.

Are there any new cards I should wait for?

I posted something like this before but didn't get much response. Thanks for any help.

 

[thegivenone]

ATI...No Question

I would definetly opt for the ATI Radeon 9800 Pro Retail Edition (http://www.ati.com/products/radeon9800/radeon9800prome/index.html) This will run on the AGP 4X slot of your Quicksilver. The Radeon 9800 is simple one of the best cards on the market for both PC and MAC (infact it IS the most powerful card on the Mac to date). It performs extremely well in gaming AND in graphics and video. I dont own one directly, however, I have used it a lot for both applications, so you can trust my opinion.
Forget Nvidia. Their Mac drivers are rubbish, as well as their support. ATI is simply the best option on the Mac.

If you are looking for something a little less pricey, take a look at the Radeon 9600. A fairly powerful card. I use applications as you, and I have the 9600, however, the extra speed and memory of the 9800 will blow you away!

Regards

-Ollie

 

[Darwin]

I would go with an ATi card, I notice that even in older graphics cards the ATis seem to run better and faster then the Nvidia ones in the same class

 

[invaLPsion]

ATi is much more friendly to the mac market. If you are waiting for new cards the only ones I know of are the Radeon 9800pro MacSE with 256mb of ram and the Radeon 9200 PCI Mac Edition (128mb). So you're really not missing out on much.

If you're going to get the 9800pro get it from Buy.com. They have the cheapest price by FAR.

 

[topicolo]

If you can wait another week or two, NVIDIA will be announcing their new NV40 graphics chip. This baby is supposed to be much faster than the radeon 9800 (over 2 times as fast) and faster than ATi's R420 chip, which is probably going to be announced a week after. The Nvidia chip will have 16 pipelines compared to the R420's 12 and the radeon 9800's 8. This thing will rock. Basically I wouldn't buy until the new products get announced

 

[furrina]

for g5, BTO? ATI 9600 or 9800

They offer the standard NVidia card, and the ATI 9600 ($50) and the ATI 9800 ($350). Personally I'd rather not spend 350, but I'll spend the 50 if it's better than the standard. I do some video editing.

Is it worth it to get the ATI 9600?
thanks

 

[bousozoku]

ATI, all the way, right now.

The Radeon 9600 is basically the same hardware as the 9700/9800, but the firmware keeps it from exploiting all of the hardware's functionality. It's most definitely worth it.

 

[crazzyeddie]

They offer the standard NVidia card, and the ATI 9600 ($50) and the ATI 9800 ($350). Personally I'd rather not spend 350, but I'll spend the 50 if it's better than the standard. I do some video editing.

Is it worth it to get the ATI 9600?
thanks

Get the 9600... it will do the 3D modeling just fine, since most of that is CPU anyway.

 

[mnstr_trd_sd]

If you can wait another week or two, NVIDIA will be announcing their new NV40 graphics chip. This baby is supposed to be much faster than the radeon 9800 (over 2 times as fast) and faster than ATi's R420 chip, which is probably going to be announced a week after. The Nvidia chip will have 16 pipelines compared to the R420's 12 and the radeon 9800's 8. This thing will rock. Basically I wouldn't buy until the new products get announced

From what I heard so far ATI's 9800pro is my best bet, but the new nvidea graphics chip sounds really apealing. does anyone know where i could read more about the ne nv40 graphics chips? and maybe the price when released.

 

[invaLPsion]

If you can wait another week or two, NVIDIA will be announcing their new NV40 graphics chip. This baby is supposed to be much faster than the radeon 9800 (over 2 times as fast) and faster than ATi's R420 chip, which is probably going to be announced a week after. The Nvidia chip will have 16 pipelines compared to the R420's 12 and the radeon 9800's 8. This thing will rock. Basically I wouldn't buy until the new products get announced

Both of the new chips will not be shipping until mid-late summer.

 

[topicolo]

Both of the new chips will not be shipping until mid-late summer.

I would be worth the wait to get at least twice the performance. In any case, the prices of the current top-of-the-line cards will drop to accomodate the new products

 

[naodx]

One of the problems you will run into with the nvidia chipsets, is that you will have to wait for Apple to make a card using this newer chipset, as there are no 3rd party vendors that make nvidia base cards for the mac.

If there is any truth to the rumors (and a press release that ATI put out about 3 weeks ago), the next generation cards will be based off of PCI-Express (not to be confused with PCI-X), not AGP.

The only option (new) for your QS is the ATI 9800pro, as the 9600 is a G5 option only. Granted there have been some people who have modified this card to work in a G4, but you run the risk of destroying the card if you don't do it right.

 

[Bigheadache]

If you can wait another week or two, NVIDIA will be announcing their new NV40 graphics chip. This baby is supposed to be much faster than the radeon 9800 (over 2 times as fast) and faster than ATi's R420 chip, which is probably going to be announced a week after. The Nvidia chip will have 16 pipelines compared to the R420's 12 and the radeon 9800's 8. This thing will rock. Basically I wouldn't buy until the new products get announced

Latest info from hardocp, anandtech, xbitlabs, and the register is that r420 will be 16 pipelines.

 

[topicolo]

Latest info from hardocp, anandtech, xbitlabs, and the register is that r420 will be 16 pipelines.

Yeah, Ati seems to have a couple more surprises in stock. The real test will be the benchmarks tho. Still, the R420 doesn't support pixel and vertex shaders 3.0 so that's probably going to be a feature nVidia will be promoting

 

[Bigheadache]

Yeah, Ati seems to have a couple more surprises in stock. The real test will be the benchmarks tho. Still, the R420 doesn't support pixel and vertex shaders 3.0 so that's probably going to be a feature nVidia will be promoting

Shader 3.0 is a DirectX feature so I doubt that will have a big influence on the Mac.

 

[topicolo]

Shader 3.0 is a DirectX feature so I doubt that will have a big influence on the Mac.

It will once games start using it 18 months from now. The new openGL specs will add support for similar features so it WILL have a big influence on the Mac.

Edit: The NV40 (Geforce 6800) benchmarks are out! this card destroys the current generation of vid cards (including the Radeon 9800XT) by up to 250%!!!!
http://www.tomshardware.com/graphic/20040414/geforce_6800-27.html

 

[Counterfit]

Edit: The NV40 (Geforce 6800) benchmarks are out! this card destroys the current generation of vid cards (including the Radeon 9800XT) by up to 250%!!!!
http://www.tomshardware.com/graphic/20040414/geforce_6800-27.html

HO-LEE ****!

 

[bousozoku]

It will once games start using it 18 months from now. The new openGL specs will add support for similar features so it WILL have a big influence on the Mac.

Edit: The NV40 (Geforce 6800) benchmarks are out! this card destroys the current generation of vid cards (including the Radeon 9800XT) by up to 250%!!!!
http://www.tomshardware.com/graphic/20040414/geforce_6800-27.html

If it's true. Remember the last time we saw nVidia results before they were generally available?

 

[absolut_mac]

Definitely ATI!!!

I need the fastest video card I can get for a Dual 1.4 Quicksilver 2002 with 133bus. If money was no option, which would you buy?

I would go with ATI even if the nVidia card were slightly better.

Why?

My experience with nVidia has been lousy customer support and they don't seem to upgrade their drivers as often as ATI.

Related to nVidia's poor support is the fact that they only make the chip, while ATI makes the complete card. Although ATI do sell their chips to others, so that indepenents can make an ATI based card.

Lastly, my experience with nVidia is that even if two cards do use the same identical chip and configuration, there can be quite a drastic difference in quality between the different makers.

Go ATI for consistency, quality, reliability and customer support

 

[Dippo]

If it's true. Remember the last time we saw nVidia results before they were generally available?

I remember...Nvidia had screwed with their drivers to produce inflated results. When the cards were released, it was found that they weren't all they were cracked up to be.

Also, Nvidia always sacrifices quailty for speed so that they will get higher FPS. Just compare the images from an Nvidia and an ATI, and you will see that the Nvidia produces poorer image quality.

Both ATI and Nvidia are releasing new cards soon, but when they will be ready for the Mac is beyond me...

 

[topicolo]

I would go with ATI even if the nVidia card were slightly better.

Why?

My experience with nVidia has been lousy customer support and they don't seem to upgrade their drivers as often as ATI.

Related to nVidia's poor support is the fact that they only make the chip, while ATI makes the complete card. Although ATI do sell their chips to others, so that indepenents can make an ATI based card.

Lastly, my experience with nVidia is that even if two cards do use the same identical chip and configuration, there can be quite a drastic difference in quality between the different makers.

Go ATI for consistency, quality, reliability and customer support

That's true, although the GF6800 has significantly better image quality than nVidia's old NV3x line of cards. Under most tests, the 6800 at least matches ati's IQ and in some cases, it exceeds them. One problem is probably the crappier shader IQ compared to the ATi, but the 6800 being over 2x as fast might make up for it. Besides, all the previews out right now are just that PREVIEWS with beta drivers. We probably expect the final product to be quite a bit more mature than the current previews.

One thing about the upcoming ATi cards is that there are rumors that they may actually be slightly faster than the nVidia cards but minus the pixel and vertex shader 3.0 support and without the dedicated video processor.