I choose based on performance / price. I have a tendency to prefer ATI because of two things: (1) ATI Tray Tools (2) ATI has traditionally been the underdog, and I like to see the underdog win.
I will probably wait till Fermi, comes out to upgrade again, but then again I've pretty much already set my sights on the HD5870 as ATI's performance in DX11 will be much better than Nvidia's till their DX11 drivers mature, as by time Fermi releases ATI's 5xxx series will have already been on the market for close to 7 months. But then at the same time I may be skipping this generation (both sides) altogether with me being in school, and needing my money for that.
LoL my build is like a lightyears apart I went from Riva TNT 2 - GF Mx 440 - FX5700 ------------- 4890 When I want to buy the last card, GTX 275 and 4890 was my options. I went to 4890 simply because availability reason. Both cards, in my point of view, offers similar performance at similar price. Future upgrade? Personaly I keep on oberseving the competition. Usualy Nvidia will have a strongest single card solution with absulotely HIGH price. While ATI will compete with the second strongest card from Nvidia with a really nice price/performance ratio. I love the "sweet spot" marketing strategy that ATI implement right now. Because we, as a gamer, defenitely benefit from this. I think this competition is really good for us. It makes the price lower and also keep both sides being innovative and offer more features for us.
Less voice coil squealing problems and I've never really have had trouble with the drivers (few times a complete uninstall of driver + a program like driver sweeper. Rendering errors have been unusual, last time it was the water in Mass Effect, which Ati fixed).
You wanna know why i went ATI this time....Cause i got Tired of the lack of performance per card with Nvidia....there 5 series....7...series and 9...series are the worst performance priced cards i have ever seen at the time of Market introduction...not to include the problems i had with there 3-waySLI...Drivers...Bugs..Glitches....the 9800GTX suffered badly from memory problems..with its 256bit 512 dd3 setup... Ati has also had there share of bad memorys as well! "not chip memory" And dont get me wrong i like Nvidia...but the last setup i had got me very frustrated...i have never seen anything that bad in the comp industry..and before that it was a 7950GX2... Nvidia should give people there money back for non working products as it is a crime and a shame for them to not do nothing about the people that spent well over 600 dollars for tech that has MANY problems; damn lemons.. I was Fearful at first with ATI and going CrossfireX 5870....So instead of buying online...I went to Frys Electronics...even more fearful there becuase there quality control, but hey! they were new...so i bought them and was majorly impressed in a big way..No glitching, No problems with newer drivers, And performance very much so impressed me with every game to date.. I hope Nvidia can do the same in the future...there starting to remind me of 3DFX...
I buy mostly based on local store availability. With my HD4850, I made an exception and ordered the card through a local pc shop. Most retailers around here keep good stock of nV cards, and a minimal stock of ATI cards. In this case, with my HTPC going together....features are my main concern, price being secondary....but still hold to my "brick and mortar store" requirement. I refuse to order a graphics card online. HD4650 offers onboard audio...which the GT220 does as well....but the HD4650 also provides better performance and a higher price tag. If no BFG GT220's on the shelf come friday....my HTPC will get ATI. Screw brand loyalty, I refuse to overpay, or settle on features based on brand. I want a graphics card with onboard audio...and either nVidia will deliver (or BFG in this case, as the GT220 does have onboard audio...just no BFG cards in stock), or I'll stick to ATI for my HTPC. I think I'd steer away from a card labeled "worst GPU ever made" personally....just seems like a warning as to it's impending failure...
Yes same as me actually the point is always buy what is best at the moment. I think brand fanbois are some kind of kids....uke2:
I have been flipping between the two since my old 64mb GF4...lol. I chose my cards based on price and performance but with a difference........ In my opinion, ATI offers a slightly lower raw performance than Nvidia but the IQ is better, and if the card can deliver a performance that is suitable (ie 60fps+ on a game at my res), I would play the IQ + FPS over a higher FPS anyday. I am no m'fer fanboi, though I have my preferred brands (BFG, Asus, eVga etc)
I buy what is the best for my money atm...don't understand why people still say ATI drivers are bad.....my old ATI performed really good
i think its mainly people who just bought the newest vidcard which is just released or they dont even have a ati card to start with. im with you , their drivers are pretty good. i did have problems with 9.9 though, but it was the first time i had though
Last Nvidia card i had was a 8800GT, I have always bought ATI since. better image quality IMO. Plus AF is better for my needs.
I would like to see you buy a ATI 5870 with no money. I would only say NVIDIA is better for gaming on “The way its meant to be played” titles which the only reason these titles are slower on ATI is because I reckon they are sabotaged to play better on NVIDIA but games with out the “The way its meant to be played” logo games run faster on ATI. Plus I think this time may be interesting to see which one out of the two will be better if NVIDIA can actually bring a DX11 card out.