I'm not sure how many people here know a lot about computers but I'll give this a try.

So anyway, I'm probably not exactly too up on computers myself but I have a few questions I was wondering about

First, which company is making the best video cards at the moment? I know nvidia is coming out with the new series this November or so but how much of an improvement will that be and is ATI releasing anything soon?

Are there going to be any issues with the heat the new cards generate? I've heard from some people that the most recent cards produce a lot of heat, but I assume that's just from overclocking or running two cards together.

Anyway, thanks to anyone who can answer these questions.

I was hoping someone more knowledgable than me would chip in, but I guess I'll have to do. From what I understand, Nvidia is currently the market leader, but ATI is probably pretty comparable. Unlike me, you probably should go for a card that is Direct X 10 compatible so you can play any new game coming out in the forseeable future. For Nvidia, the 8000 series is Direct X 10 compatible, but I'm not as familiar with ATI. I believe most of the newer cards usually come with 256MB memory, which should be fine. Some of the older models have 512MB of memory, but Direct X 10 compatibility is more important than the memory. I do wish Sun Devil or some other computer savvy duder would post in the thread.

Thanks. I too was hoping for a bit better turnout but it doesn't look like many people visit this section. I don't know much about ATI either, but I'm pretty much focusing on nvidia anyway, unless ATI pulls something out of their sleeve in the near future, so that doesn't matter. I've heard a bit about directx 10 and I'll probably get that. I don't know any games I want right now that use it but like you said it's probably good for any future games.

Anyway I did a bit of searching after making this thread and did find some discussion on some matters at other forums. If anyone is interested in anything relating to computers you should check it out. The site is for a benchmarking product but the forum has sections for hardware. I'm not sure how it really rates compared to other forums as I don't really know many devoted to the topic but it seems helpful once you understand some of the terminology.


http://futuremark.yougamers.com/forum/

There are always 3d video cards on sale on slickdeals.net.

Thanks for the tip.

it all depends on what you use it for. ATI's grafics cards are generally better for games but nvidia can lots of different type of video processing personaly i like nvidia but thats just me

I had heard that ATIs recent acquisitions and dabling in (was it sound?) have decreased their quality and that Nvidia is pretty clearly the market leader. Of course such a thing is a high subjective matter, but this is the claim of one dispasionate observer in the business/tech community.

I'll guess I'll leave a little update from what I've found out.

Nvidia has the best performing cards out now (the 8800 series).
ATI is playing catch-up.
The 8800 series has been out for almost a year now and it doesn't look like Nvidia will be releasing any new high performance cards until ATI gives them reason to.
However, rumor is Nvidia will be releasing a new mid-range card later this year (november?)


I was hoping something newer would come out to bump down the price of the expensive cards, but it doesn't look like there will be anything more advance than what is out already for a while.