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[Total Members Voted:]

AMD/ATI (single)

12 (7.5%)

AMD/ATI CrossFire

2 (1.3%)

nVidia (single)

20 (12.5%)

nVidia (SLI)

17 (10.6%)

Other (built in)

1 (0.6%)

Total Members Voted: 43

[Black Viper]

Which graphics card platform will you choose in your next system?
Take things into consideration, such as
1) Performance
2) Heat
3) Power use
4) Price

No flaming others for their opinion, but constructive complements and criticism is welcome.

[tonster]

Here we go again, BV...I like ATI.  My last card was a Radeon 8500.  Now I have a 7600 GS.  The quality on ATI's is better.  That said, I think that with the 8800GT out, there is NO QUESTION of which company to go for (if you can get one in stock).  That said, I won't be ugrading for awhile, but if I do, it'll probably be an 8800GT when prices come down, or a next gen DX10 card. 
My sticking point is always price.  I have a hard time giving up 2 days wages for a card, but it has to be done these days.  So what do I do?  I wait patiently for the card I earmark...usually a cutting edge card that has been out awhile (6 mo to a year). 
Heat is not an issue with me.  Fans are cheap, and taking the case off is always an option during the summer. 
Power use?  What are we, hippies?    I could care less how much power it uses as long as my PSU supports it, or figure a new PSU as an added cost.
I guess to sum it up, I'm into the price for performance market usually....around the 100 to 150 range (USD).  More than that is hard to justify for me, because a 200 dolla card means working almost 2 days to get it.

[Spawn]

I like them both.  I can't honestly say that I have witnessed one outperforming the other, but I am not a gamer.

Just personal preference?  Nvidia.

Spawn

[Warthog]

I have had ATIs and NVidia's and to be honest I think they are just about on equal ground. One is better in AMD oriented games, and the other in NVida optimized ones.
The best thing is that they run games now and you don't have to upgrade your hardware every day. The bad news is Video cards are now getting more and more expensive, larger, and consume enough power to justify a small generator.

[tonster]

Hey wart....I totally agree that pricing is outta control.  Of course that is what drives innovation, but I a cheapskate and upgrading is really spendy

The voodoo 2 was my best buy.  I spent $250.00, but didn't upgrade for 3-1/2 years, without any real performance issues in games.  Woop, woop.  The 8800GT is going to be like the 6600GT, price won't come below 200 for a LONG time, I bet.

I do t think that the iterations are coming much faster, which means your card is outta date faster   Also, with regards to Nvidia vs ATI, Nvidia is much faster right now, especially in DX10 games and price/performance with the introduction of the 8800GT.  Nvidia had the upper hand before that, but the disparity wasn't as glaring as it is now. 

I think that most ppl think "If the game runs, then the card is good"....whereas people that game often don't feel that way.  For instance, I can "feel" the difference between 50 fps and 100 fps.  It makes a difference somehow, and I can play betta.  I know it's not in my head, because when I get a faster video card for a game, I actually get higher scores.  Anyway, all that is to say that from all the benchmarking I've seen, Nvidia is on top right now. 
Tony Out

[Warthog]

One of the reasons for that is because ping is framrate dependant. For fast twich games like Battlefiled, Quake, etc that microsecond is the difference between you dying and him dying.

I know personally on some servers in competitive play (TWL or CAL) homefield advantage sometimes makes a huge difference.

[Rain]

I've always used Nvidia and I am happy with the performance etc

I just installed a new card, it's the evga 8600GT 512mb and it's great!

[tonster]

Wart...CONGRATS BUDDY!  You have stumbled upon a concept that many that game all the time can't understand.  LOL.  You are absolutely correct about ping being affected by framerate. 
I used to have a web site devoted to what "Lag" really is and it's components...of course that was back in 98, and it's long since gone, but the info still holds true. 
Anyway, thanks for understanding lag to a degree that most FPS gamers don't

[Vulcan]

Over the years I have had both ATI and Nvida cards with great success. I choice my video card by what brand offers the best bang for the buck at the time.....My old PIV system used an ATI 9800 Pro that was an excellent card but prior to that I used an Nvida GeForce 2 in my XP1800. With my new Intel Quad Core I am running a Nvida 8800 GTS card...very happy with it playing Call of Duty 4.

[johnsal914]

I would say nVidia. I have been using nVidia since my first custom built PC with a Ti-4600 card (that's taking it back at least 6 years ago). I have never used an ATI card so I can't say anything bad about them. nVidia even though they have top of the line stuff there prices are less to be desired. By the time a card's price gets into the reasonable range ($200-$300) you are about 2 generations behind.

I love the SLI feature for nVidia based cards and motherboards and it's very stable. I definately notice a huge performance increase with it enabled.

I am definately a nVidia customer for life!

Let's face it...NASA picked nVidia for the graphic processors on the Mars rovers. That saids something about their product...THE BEST!!!!

[grandpa]

being a retired programmer (this year) i can't afford
to switch card too often any more.

to day i'm using a nvidia 8800 gts. my previous card
was an ati all-in-wonder something.

i couldn't see any differences between them when testing
one of my own wideos, but that's mostly because i only
have two cheap 19" viewsonic 8ms screens.

being a programmer not a hardcore gamer, i count money
not fps. i will stick with nvidia for some time now.

[KtheC]

I'm an Nvidia fan.  Have been for years.  I had a serious issue when I went to ATI years ago.
I bought a 9600 Radeon.  It was supposed to be the bees knees when it came out.  So it
worked really well for quite a while. 
Then..I bought Unreal Tournament 2004 and things changed.  While the game blatantly stated
in a splash screen, plays best with Nvidia, things were fine until the first patch.
When I installed it caused some of feedback loop with the card.  I could play for about 5 minutes
then total lock up, reboot try again.  This UT2004 patch also caused issues with other games.
Same thing would happen in BF1942.
Tried uninstalling many times.  Took forever to tack down that it was the UT patch that
caused to card to have problems.  Got rid of it and went back Nvidia.
Currently run SLI with 2 7900GT 256mb EVGA cards!!!

[Tiga]

I'm not a fan of anything, performance vs cost = Sensible buying
I currently own a nvidia 8800gts and at the time of purchase it was great as it was just as fast overclocked as the gtx version but cost a lot less.
My last card I had was an ati 850xt pe with custom cooling and needless to say at the time of purchase it was the fastest thing going.
It's still actually going as my boys have it in their pc now (plus that madly overclocked opty) and still runs 90% of games well. (No dx10 or sm3)


Tiggs

[Clownhoes]

I've always gone for the nvidia cards as I was told many moons ago they were the best ( same goes for AMD ).  I've just upgraded my PC but due to cost of mobo, cpu and ram I decided to get the ATI2600.  Well I was suprised, it plays BF2 with graphis setting high and Crysis with most of the settings up high.  I was going to get the 8800 early next year but it looks like I'll be going for another ATI.

[Volt]

Right now, you have to give the nod to Nvidia. Their 8800 series cards can't be beat. I used to run SLI, but soon realized that the performance/cost ratio wasn't worth the extra cash for the second card, waterblock, etc. Run a single Ultra now.