Hi !

I don't know if this topic is relevant to this forum. But I need the information. Hence the following questions:-
=> I have an integrated Geforce2 GPU on an Asus A7N266VM mb. I need to upgrade to play Doom 3 and other upcoming games based on DX9 and shaders support.
=> What card should i choose? I am looking for a budget card ie. Nvidia GeforceFX 5600 or ATI Radeon 9600 Pro. Which of these two cards is better for me?

I would like some advice and your views about the cards mentioned.

Thanks.

Niteen

the nVidia card.

Doom 3 was really built to take advantage of the nVidia chipset and driver set.

I played around with D3 on an ATI all in wonder 9800 pro and my geforce 5700 card played better in the same machine.

Finally... I have a personal problem with ati because their drivers are never quite perfect. They also don't have much support for older cards forcing you to upgrade.

Personal problams asside, geforce was still the better card.

My 9600 PRO plays Doom III near flawless. Not a single crash yet (and I've played it a lot).

ATI drivers are silly, but they're actually fairly stable now. They support cards as far back as the 7x series in some updates and personally, I never saw an update for my GF2 card even in the early 4x Detonators...pretty much was stuck there.

On another note, yes nVidia is owning Doom III, but ATI is owning HL2 as well. The Source Engine plays beautifully with my card as I played the beta and benchmark. On very, very high settings I still maintained 27.6 FPS on the benchmark.

Online with settings of around 2/4 I maintained 42-60 FPS.

One final word, I know the integrated GF2 isn't so great, but neither is a PCI GF2. I have played Far Cry with a PCI GF2 and it ran great (but very ugly).

A prime example of favorism.

Oh and its well-known the 9600 PRO can whip a 5600 Ultra anyday...on most benchmarks it whips the 5700 Ultra as well...but you have to realize, more than likely you won't be playing only Doom III and HL2 - you'll be playing other games, too probably. 2005 will hopefully pick up the pace with games, so that's something else to consider.

It's also well-known the FX series was a flop in performance...Doom III just makes them look good ;)

My opinion overall? Don't get either one. They're already 2-3 cards behind the last generation, also a couple behind in the current line of cards. Personally, I am looking forward to ATIs next few cards so the prices drop and eventually I will probably get an X800.

benchmarks.. hmmm... I don't want to get into that debate. To me, comparing benchmarks of video cards is like comparing AMD and Intel. They both perform well depending on their intended application suite.

You also can't say the FX series was a flop since it handles DX9 better than ATI... as it was intended to do. ATI was not built to rule the DX9 set.

Any points after that is bias. I am quite guilty of biased myself... pro nvidia.

Specifically, I meant benchmarks like in-game demos, etc. which is what I usually look at, but yea of course you are correct though.

As far as the FX series, I said they were a flop because they didn't really do what they were intended to do - turn a profit higher than their competitors.

ATI is like the raw power, get-it-done people. nVidia is the fancy, done-with-flare people. Take your pick - the price tag reflects it.

I used to be pro nVidia, still am for the 6x00 generation. To be honest, I'm pro ATI as well.

To sum it all up, it all comes down to: Do you like red or green?

hehe. I have had lots of issues with ATI drivers and XP. Go with the NVidia.

Don't mean to string it along, but I have to give credit to the other side of that...I mean...

on the contrary, i have never had a problem with ati drivers on xp since version 3.4 -- they've really picked up!

I don't have any experience with Nvidea but I run a 9800 Pro at XT speeds with catalyst 4.3 (might be 4.5 can't remember) drivers and haven't had any problems with it. I played Doom3 in high quality mode the whole game although it paused slightly at room loads. Everything else plays fine at maxe detail without any problems. The only issue was when CoD first came out I had to update my drivers once for the fix that caused the game to crash to desktop. I am pretty happy with it though.