You have deep pockets, yearn for the best experience in the game and still confused as to which graphics card to buy? Had it been a Monopoly in the graphics card business, then there wouldn't be so many problems. But, two graphic cards companies namely ATI and NVIDIA are continuously churning out new cards just to outdo each other in terms of performance. Before, we discuss about the current situation of high-end cards, let's just travel back in time and see the fight between these two companies, as it will help you get a better idea of which is a better company. Initially 3DFX was the king in the graphics accelerator business. But, the NVIDIA Riva TNT graphics card simply bashed the best offering from 3DFX then. And NVIDIA kept on churning out newer generations of graphics cards every six months and 3DFX was unable to keep pace with NVIDIA and finally just shut down and sold its business to NVIDIA. This was the time when NVIDIA's monopoly began. The NVIDIA dominance continued with the GeForce 256 and GeForce 2 GTS. That was the time most graphics card companies started shutting down. All but one, ATI. The only reason why ATI was still operational was because their workstation graphics cards were selling well and NVIDIA didn't have a workstation graphics card yet. When NVIDIA released GeForce 2 GTS, ATI unleashed the first Radeon card codenamed R100 and was eventually called the Radeon 7500. But, in terms of performance, it was a step behind NVIDIA's offering. Though ATI never had major success with the Radeon 7500, their R200 a.k.a. Radeon 8500 did started making a dent in NVIDIA's sales figures. During that time, NVIDIA released the GeForce 3 series, which boasted of DirectX 8.0 support and had never before seen features. ATI Radeon 8500 was one step ahead of the GeForce 3 in terms of features like the support for DirectX 8.1 and Trueform, but lacked in performance. But the performance difference was marginal and people started accepting the Radeon 8500 for getting the extra features and more importantly the superior image quality, which was ATI's forte. But, during that time Quake 3 was considered the benchmark for the graphics card. The company, which scored the most in Quake 3 was considered the ultimate winner. ATI were not known for good performance in OpenGL-based games. And since Quake 3 was an OpenGL-based game, ATI had to do something or else they would have lost the battle. Obviously making a new graphics card at that time was not possible. Here's when a new era dawned, which is known as Driver Optimization. The graphics card drivers were specially optimized for a particular game, which made the game run faster, but at the same sacrificed on some features such as image quality. ATI suddenly took the performance crown from NVIDIA and upon investigation; it was found that ATI was cheating with its drivers. There was huge outcry and ATI had to pull back the drivers. So, the performance king was still NVIDIA. Then NVIDIA released the next generation graphic card GeForce 4 Ti, which was basically a small upgrade to GeForce 3 series. This widened the performance gap a little more in favor of NVIDIA, but their success was short lived. ATI released a graphics card codenamed R300 four months after the GeForce 4 Ti. This graphics card is none other than the Radeon 9700, and in terms of performance, it was giving double the scores of the GeForce 4 Ti in certain benchmarks. NVIDIA for the first time lost the performance crown officially.
You have deep pockets, yearn for the best experience in the game and still confused as to which graphics card to buy? Had it been a Monopoly in the graphics card business, then there wouldn't be so many problems. But, two graphic cards companies namely ATI and NVIDIA are continuously churning out new cards just to outdo each other in terms of performance. Before, we discuss about the current situation of high-end cards, let's just travel back in time and see the fight between these two companies, as it will help you get a better idea of which is a better company. Initially 3DFX was the king in the graphics accelerator business. But, the NVIDIA Riva TNT graphics card simply bashed the best offering from 3DFX then. And NVIDIA kept on churning out newer generations of graphics cards every six months and 3DFX was unable to keep pace with NVIDIA and finally just shut down and sold its business to NVIDIA. This was the time when NVIDIA's monopoly began. The NVIDIA dominance continued with the GeForce 256 and GeForce 2 GTS. That was the time most graphics card companies started shutting down. All but one, ATI. The only reason why ATI was still operational was because their workstation graphics cards were selling well and NVIDIA didn't have a workstation graphics card yet. When NVIDIA released GeForce 2 GTS, ATI unleashed the first Radeon card codenamed R100 and was eventually called the Radeon 7500. But, in terms of performance, it was a step behind NVIDIA's offering. Though ATI never had major success with the Radeon 7500, their R200 a.k.a. Radeon 8500 did started making a dent in NVIDIA's sales figures. During that time, NVIDIA released the GeForce 3 series, which boasted of DirectX 8.0 support and had never before seen features. ATI Radeon 8500 was one step ahead of the GeForce 3 in terms of features like the support for DirectX 8.1 and Trueform, but lacked in performance. But the performance difference was marginal and people started accepting the Radeon 8500 for getting the extra features and more importantly the superior image quality, which was ATI's forte. But, during that time Quake 3 was considered the benchmark for the graphics card. The company, which scored the most in Quake 3 was considered the ultimate winner. ATI were not known for good performance in OpenGL-based games. And since Quake 3 was an OpenGL-based game, ATI had to do something or else they would have lost the battle. Obviously making a new graphics card at that time was not possible. Here's when a new era dawned, which is known as Driver Optimization. The graphics card drivers were specially optimized for a particular game, which made the game run faster, but at the same sacrificed on some features such as image quality. ATI suddenly took the performance crown from NVIDIA and upon investigation; it was found that ATI was cheating with its drivers. There was huge outcry and ATI had to pull back the drivers. So, the performance king was still NVIDIA. Then NVIDIA released the next generation graphic card GeForce 4 Ti, which was basically a small upgrade to GeForce 3 series. This widened the performance gap a little more in favor of NVIDIA, but their success was short lived. ATI released a graphics card codenamed R300 four months after the GeForce 4 Ti. This graphics card is none other than the Radeon 9700, and in terms of performance, it was giving double the scores of the GeForce 4 Ti in certain benchmarks. NVIDIA for the first time lost the performance crown officially.
In reply, NVIDIA had no other option but to get a newer graphics card out. Till that happened, NVIDIA also started playing the same old dirty trick, drivers optimization in order to boost the performance of the GeForce 4 Ti series up to acceptable levels. But still Radeon 9700 was the performance king. NVIDIA in a hurry released a graphics card codenamed NV30 also known as GeForce FX 5800. But the card had a lot of problems such as overheating and large amount of noise emitted by the fan. Also, the graphics card had a two slot design, which many people didn't appreciate it. In terms of performance it was on par with the Radeon 9700 series. So it made more sense to buy ATI's solution as it didn't face the problems NVIDIA had. NVIDIA quickly released the GeForce FX 5900 which removed most of the problems. But ATI also got a newer card in the market, the Radeon 9800 whose performance was on par with the GeForce FX 5900. The rivalry continued with newer cards coming from both the stables, ATI's 9800 XT and NVIDIA's GeForce FX 5950 Ultra. NVIDIA lost a huge market share at that time and ATI's position as a graphics card manufacturer got stronger. At the beginning of 2004, both the companies were ready for a new battle, but this time the table turned. Both the companies were going to release their graphics card simultaneously with no details emerging on their specifications. When the specifications were out, ATI's high-end card had 12 pipelines, where as NVIDIA's high-end card had 16 pipelines. ATI knew on paper itself that they had lost and quickly made a 16 pipeline card. The most powerful AGP card from ATI is the Radeon X800 XT, which has the 16 pipelines whereas the Radeon X800 Pro has 12 pipelines. In NVIDIA's case, the GeForce 6800 Ultra has 16 pipelines and the GeForce 6800 GT also has 16 pipeline but with lower clock speed.
The graphics card business extended from sub $400 to sub $500. The high-end card from both these companies now cost nearly $500. In terms of performance, the Radeon X800 XT and GeForce 6800 Ultra were quite evenly matched. But in the second best category i.e. Radeon X800 Pro and GeForce 6800 GT, the GeForce 6800 GT beats X800 Pro in most benchmarks hands down. Then when DOOM 3 was released, the performance of NVIDIA's cards was noticeably better than the ATI cards, mainly because the game was quite heavily optimized for their cards. But in the mean time, ATI also played by the same rules and got Half-Life 2 benchmark scores in their favor. NVIDIA made several presentations about how X800 technology is outdated when compared to theirs like the feature of Pixel Shader 3.0, which is absent on X800 cards. It's just tit for tat; ATI did the same during the Radeon 9800 and GeForce FX 5800 days. The rivalry still continues, but in the end, games getting optimized for specific cards is what is hurting the end user. The message given by the companies was clear, if you want to play DOOM 3, get NVIDIA's cards and if you want to play Half-Life 2, get ATI's cards. But at the end of the day, if you play DOOM 3 on ATI's high-end card, you still will be able to play on full graphics and very smoothly. Same goes for Half-Life 2 on NVIDIA's card. It is just that one card gives better frames than the other in that particular game. So, as of now, which is the best graphic card to buy? We have run benchmarks on such types of graphics cards over the past few months. It seemed like ATI's X800 series would excel in Direct 3D-based games and NVIDIA cards would shine in OpenGL games. In OpenGL-based games such as Call of Duty, the Asus 6800 256 MB V9999 GE beat the X800 Pro by a score of 154.8 FPS to 150.2 FPS in 4x AA/8xAF (Anti-Aliasing/ Anisotropic Filtering) at 1280 x 1024 resolution. The funny part is that the Asus 6800 256 MB V9999 GE is based on GeForce 6800 core with only 12 pipelines and 5 vertex shaders. The actual competitor to the X800 Pro is supposed to be the GeForce 6800 GT, which has 16 pipelines and 6 vertex shaders. NVIDIA's cards showed their power in OpenGL-based games. But when it came to Direct 3D, ATI still continued to lose against the NVIDIA solution. In the Far Cry Benchmark, the Asus 6800 V9999 GE scored an average of 54.09 FPS in 4xAA/8xAF in 1024 x 768 modes, where as ATI's X800 Pro managed a score of 46.32 FPS. In the same benchmark Gainward's 6800 GT scored 61.4 FPS. Don't forget that even Far Cry runs better on NVIDIA cards due to support of Pixel Shader 3.0, which is not at all present in the ATI cards. But the true strength of ATI's card is seen in the 3D Mark 2003 and 3D Mark 2005 benchmark. The Asus X800 Pro scores 4584 in 3D Mark 2005, whereas NVIDIA's chip based XFX 6800 GT scores 4433. When we move up to the most high-end cards such as Radeon X800 XT and GeForce 6800 Ultra both of these cards are evenly matched. But, since most of the games are based on Direct 3D than OpenGL, ATI edges ahead on points, however the 6800 Ultra isn't too far behind. But in games such as Far Cry and DOOM 3, it takes the honors. This is our own list of cards in terms of performance. Please keep in mind the Radeon X800 XT and the GeForce 6800 Ultra are very difficult to find in India. 1. ATI Radeon X800XT 2. NVIDIA Geforce 6800 Ultra 3. NVIDIA Geforce 6800 GT 4. ATI Radeon X800 Pro 5. NVIDIA Geforce 6800
Now the other major factor determining which graphics card to buy is the cost and the availability. As I already mentioned, the Radeon X800 XT and the GeForce 6800 Ultra are very difficult to find in India. So the next best graphics chipset that comes to mind is the NVIDIA 6800 GT. Now the prime companies dealing in that chipset and in India are Asus, XFX and Gainward. In terms of cost, the XFX 6800 GT is the cheapest at Rs. 25,000. However, the Gainward 6800 GT Golden sample is not only a great performer, but also the most overclockable having the capability of reaching 6800 Ultra speeds and beyond and that too for just Rs. 2,500 more. And considering the fact that the 6800 Ultra and ATI X800 XT cards, the performance of which it matches and even exceeds at times, sell for over Rs. 37,000, it makes the Gainward card an amazing deal. So we term the Gainward 6800 GT Golden Sample as the Best Buy amongst the high-end cards currently available here.
Now the other major factor determining which graphics card to buy is the cost and the availability. As I already mentioned, the Radeon X800 XT and the GeForce 6800 Ultra are very difficult to find in India. So the next best graphics chipset that comes to mind is the NVIDIA 6800 GT. Now the prime companies dealing in that chipset and in India are Asus, XFX and Gainward. In terms of cost, the XFX 6800 GT is the cheapest at Rs. 25,000. However, the Gainward 6800 GT Golden sample is not only a great performer, but also the most overclockable having the capability of reaching 6800 Ultra speeds and beyond and that too for just Rs. 2,500 more. And considering the fact that the 6800 Ultra and ATI X800 XT cards, the performance of which it matches and even exceeds at times, sell for over Rs. 37,000, it makes the Gainward card an amazing deal. So we term the Gainward 6800 GT Golden Sample as the Best Buy amongst the high-end cards currently available here.
No comments:
Post a Comment