ATI vs. Nvidia: Which one should you choose?

[Linus Javelson]

That's right! We're going semi-old school this time, guys! Which manufacturer had the best graphics card on the market before AMD bought Array Technology Incorporated on October 25, 2006? And which one should I choose for my new gaming rig?

If my research is correct, this will effectively be a comparison between the ATI Radeon X1950 Pro and the Nvidia GeForce 7900 GTO (or possibly the Quadro FX 4700 X2 if you go that route). If these aren't the best cards, I hope someone will correct me down below.

Besides raw performance, I think it might be interesting to consider factors (both contemporary and current) such as price, availability, driver performance, operating system compatibility, raytracing power consumption, etc.

[Tomi Montana]

I would have skipped 1 generation forward straight to the 8 series. From what I know, NVIDIA was similiar to Radeon during the Geforce 6 and 7 days. Anything before that would have been a different case, especially the Geforce 5 (FX) series, as NVIDIA was at it's all time low then.

[Carlsberg]

Originally posted by Tomi Montana:

I would have skipped 1 generation forward straight to the 8 series. From what I know, NVIDIA was similiar to Radeon during the Geforce 6 and 7 days. Anything before that would have been a different case, especially the Geforce 5 (FX) series, as NVIDIA was at it's all time low then.

I think their all time low was earlier than that, Nvidia almost went bust until saved by the Riva 128, Riva TNT range many years ago.

[smokerob79]

all i will say is i miss my ALL IN WONDER card with the HD TV tuner built for windows media center.....when it hit you could game on it and record TV shows.....oh the good old days.....

[The_Abortionator]

You could honestly buy either back then for the most part. People weren't fighting over arbitrary ♥♥♥♥ like they do now (talking about CUDA is worthless when neither the OP asking about hardware nor the responder will ever use CUDA) but instead they fought over real world nonsense like whose betta at AA vs whose better at AF?

And Nvidia was only just trying to have a "hey look at this gimmick you MUST HAVE US!" thing (♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ Splintercell shadows).

It wouldn't be till after they bought Ageia that things got stupid.

All in all I'd say number one is buying what ever gamed best on your dollar. They both ran fine even with ATI's shady Quake3 "optimizations". I'd still go Nvidia back then though if I had the scratch as they not only had a better lokkin driver program but they also supported transparent Windows UI elements, a but load of other features and I believe even virtual desktops if I recall.