Nvida vs ATI

[Wrenbird]

Ok, 8500GT IS supported. http://forum.insanelymac.com/index.php?showtopic=78980

 

get that. it'll pwn the 7300gt and the 8400gs. just make sure to get the 256mb version.

[(MoC)]

They both are good card makers but nVidia has better support on OSx86!

[vbetts]

In my opinion, Nvidia is better than ATI. Nvidia's high-end cards like the top-end 8800 series cards, (GT, GTX, and Ultra) are much better than their evenly priced ATI equivalents. Although ATI released their new X2 dual-GPU graphics cards, which perform better than the GTX in most benchmarks, which gives ATI a slight upper hand, the X2 cards as of now do not support Crossfire, and thus cannot compete with Nvidia in terms of scalability and performance when it comes to SLi configurations of Nvidia's high-end cards. The new X2 cards, also do NOT support PCI Express 2.0, a new architecture that allows for approximately double the bandwidth and performance of regular PCI-Express, as offered in Nvidia's more recent cards like the 8800GT. Nvidia has also developed Tri-SLi, which increases performance up to 2.8x a single card by using 3 graphics cards at once. This has further increased Nvidia's lead in terms of scalability. Nvidia is progressing quite nicely with its GeForce 8-series graphics cards, leaving behind the older GeForce 7-series line of cards and replacing them with well priced, well performing DirectX 10 compatible cards like those from the GeForce 8500 and 8600 series. Nvidia's launch of its GeForce 8800GT graphics cards, which utilizes PCI-Express 2.0, has further increased the lead over ATI in terms of affordable high-end performance. ATI has yet to offer a similar card that occupies only one slot that competes with the 8800GT in terms of price and performance.

Leaving the high-end side of life, we come to the mid-range selection of cards. Here, I think Nvidia still has the upper hand with its GeForce 8600 line of cards, which consistently perform better than evenly priced ATI equivalents. Thanks to this, users can now get good DirectX 10 performance without paying too high a price. Furthermore, Nvidia will eventually release its GeForce 9 series of cards, that much is certain. And when that happens, Nvidia will most certainly dominate the high-end side of life as it did before the release of ATI's X2 cards.

I have listed the reasons for why I think Nvidia's CARDS are better than ATI's, but if you want to know who is better in terms of an actual company, you'll have to ask someone well versed in both companies' business practices to get an appropriate opinion if that's what you mean by "Which is better, Nvidia or ATI?".

 

Driver wise, the 3 8800's are supported, but in most applications, it's not fully supported. Hell, even just regular SLI is barely supported in apps. tri, or quad sli is not written in most apps.

 

Also apprently, AMD/ATI released that the new R770 is suppose to be 50% faster than the Geforce 9 series. Now can I say this is something I truely beleive after seeing the R600? No, they said the R600 would trample everything, but it didn't make it out so well...

[Alessandro17]

well acording to that... i should get a 6800 ultra cause that will do better in gameing then a 7300 gt...... I think i might just get a 7600 or 7900gt.... it should be worth the extra performance.... and isn't that much more...

 

In my main hackintosh I have a XFX 7900GT. Great card, both in terms of performance and compatibility/drivers.

The price should be reasonable as well.

[goofy]

If we compare 8800GT/GTS G92 vs. HD3870 for Hackintosh use, which one is better?

 

Since the Release of 10.5.2 both Cards are supported, but both seems to have problems.

 

Which one runs better, which should i buy?

-fully compatible to any App

-without glitches and full Acc.(QE...)

-with EFI Strings Sleep and good Power managment (f.ex. HD370 ,may, run at full core speed all the time)

 

What about the HD3870 X2, anyone knows anythings OSX related?

[JestaGeek]

Here's my on the whole issue : http://wiki.osx86project.org/wiki/index.ph...5.1#PCI_Expresshttp://www23.tomshardware.com/graphics_2007.html

For every ATI card that appears to "work" on the HCL, I'm baffled to see how many people are having trouble. Personally, I'm hoping to have dual-monitor support (normal 19-22" monitors) with 2x DVI. Based on the HCL, I was going to go with some model of Sapphire Radeon 2600 XT or Pro, and had same on my "wishlist" with several comments from people with a lot more experience to the effect: "If it's in the new Macs, it should work." However, the models sold with Macs have Mac firmware and the firmware isn't Hackintosh compatible, if we were to download Apple's firmware update, right? I've seen how many people were having troubles with ATI 2600's... and maybe that info is now a bit dated (?) but I'm strongly leaning back toward a silent heat-sink version of Geforce 8600, the:XFX GeForce 8600 GT Fatal1ty, 256MB GDDR3, 2x DVI, TV-out, PCIe (PV-T84J-U1D4) (XFX Product page)which is no longer carried on NewEgg... but it seems from comments (about 8600GT cards in general) by several experienced members here, it should be relatively simple to get operable... Edit: Hmmmph... then again, I'm having trouble now figuring out what people have used for it... and am finding a number of threads from people who did have troubles with 8600GT. I can buy this card in Germany for a bit less than 100 euros, so it's "in my budget" as long as it really works. It got a great review on Amazon Germany, from a guy who tested it against a few other cards and it has good ratings on Geizhals (German/Austrian price search engine).Do any of you InsanelyMac geeks, legends, wiz's, gurus, extraordinaires have any feedback on this choice of card? From all the headaches it looks like people have with the ATI 2xxx cards, I'm thinking I may just want to change my wishlist (again... sigh).Thanks, in advance, for any card-related tips you can offer this n00b. I'm really hoping to find a headache-free, almost working out-of-box, dual DVI card. Some of the options had lots of "runs very hot" or "very loud fan" comments. (I'd consider an 8800-model, but I've seen a lot of such comments, plus that it seems to be very power-hungry!) Other cards I've seen experienced members here are using are shockingly pricey. I'm not a gamer, so would just want a decent, reasonably future-proof card for normal use (i.e. browsing, some image-editing, web development, coding, etc).--JestaN00b

In my main hackintosh I have a XFX 7900GT. Great card, both in terms of performance and compatibility/drivers.The price should be reasonable as well.

On NewEgg, the only XFX 7900GT models I can find are no longer available. I was thinking that if it really was reasonably priced, I might have the card sent to a friend of mine's family there so he can come back to EU with it in a coupla weeks. The best price I can find for any of the XFX 7900 GT models on the local German search engine is 226 euros and the only comment on it was that it's very LOUD. Is there some mid-weight dual-DVI model that's not too complicated to get running and will run dual-monitor with CI/QE... that isn't too power-hungry, hot or loud? I can't believe how long I've been looking into this and how I keep thinking I've found good news in the HCL, only to see many people reporting issues getting "x or y" to work.I'd really love to hear from someone who can give me a bit of pre-purchase guidance here.--JestaN00b

[thespottedelf]

Well, if you are planning to use kalyway (as am i) i would suggest this: http://www.newegg.com/product/product.asp?...N82E16814127310

 

it is reported to work "out of the box" with a kalyway install, using the nivject or w/e it is... happy hacking :censored2:

[vbetts]

If you're a professional CGI artist, Nvidia has a lot better support for OpenGL than ATI does any day, as well as the best mid-ranged cards right now. Right now, Nvidia is a better choice than AIT(Only the 8 a 96 series). The 9800 is an overclocked pushed version of the 8800 GTX which is not worth it imo, Nvidia still does not have GX2 working like it should(They should have learned from the 7950GX2). ATIs problem, is they are still using a core that is based off the R600, which did not work out so well. So what do they do? They slap 2 gpus on one card to solve the problem. However, they seem to have it with this one, but crossfire the HD3870X2, and it's no good when it's 2 cards. Something that Ati should have done that asus is doing now, is releasing an HD3850X3. Now, this card is using 3 MXM HD3850 cards which are made for laptops, so this means that you don't get a full desktop experience right now from this card. As well as no crossfire besides the 3 HD3850s onboard, and water cooling only? What the hell is that? They better have a version that comes with the liquid and the pump and everything.(Though probably a higher price)

[Max_Berlin]

There is no pint in this kind of discussion. The reason is very simple! Nvidia is specialized to Intel (like microsoft-windows ) they have all a strategic alliance, e.i. hardware, and much more important, the software is specially made for all this different components to work at best to eachother ( that is the reason for apple to decide for intel, microsoft saved apple buying around 15 to 20% of the company, and because microsoft and intel have this strategic alliance, now is also apple in it.

For this reason, amd took ati to do the same thing.

Both processors and grafic cards have plus and minus points, the most important point of all still the software.

 

I have three computers 2 amds and one intel .... the best you cab do ... if you like one type, then get all from one side(intel-nvidia) or (amd-ati) ...

[Zaap]

Intel and Nvidia aren't an alliance, they compete with each other in both chipsets and GPU hardware. If they were truly in alliance (which probably wouldn't be a bad thing) you'd see Intel chipset-based boards that were SLI compatible. And there's still much ongoing speculation if Intel will pull the rug out from under Nvidia for SLI support with Nehalem CPUs.