Best Video Card

[billybobmoronicloser]

First of all, nVIDIA is better than Radeon. Second, the best cards would be the 7900GT for about $300, a 7900GTX for about $500, and a 7950GX2 for $600+...

 

These are the benefits of the GeForce 7 series cards...

 

Next-Generation Superscalar GPU Architecture

Delivers over 2x the shading power of previous generation products taking gaming performance to extreme levels.

 

Full Microsoft® DirectX® 9.0 Shader Model 3.0 Support

The standard for today's PCs and next-generation consoles enables stunning and complex effects for cinematic realism. NVIDIA GPUs offer the most complete implementation of the Shader Model 3.0 feature set-including vertex texture fetch (VTF)-to ensure top-notch compatibility and performance for all DirectX 9 applications.

 

NVIDIA® CineFX® 4.0 Engine

Delivers advanced visual effects at unimaginable speeds. Full support for Microsoft® DirectX® 9.0 Shader Model 3.0 enables stunning and complex special effects. Next-generation shader architecture with new texture unit design streamlines texture processing for faster and smoother gameplay.

» more information

 

NVIDIA® SLI™ Technology1

NVIDIA SLI* technology is a revolutionary platform innovation that allows users to intelligently scale graphics performance by combining multiple NVIDIA graphics solutions in a single system with an NVIDIA nForce SLI MCP. The must-have feature for performance PCI Express® graphics, SLI dramatically scales performance on today's hottest games.

» more information

 

*SLI support for the GeForce 7950 GX2 will be provided through a future NVIDIA ForceWare driver release. See www.slizone.com for details.

 

NVIDIA® Intellisample™ 4.0 Technology

The industry's fastest antialiasing delivers ultra-realistic visuals, with no jagged edges, at lightning-fast speeds. Visual quality is taken to new heights through a new rotated grid sampling pattern, advanced 128 tap sample coverage, 16x anisotropic filtering, and support for transparent supersampling and multisampling.

» more information

 

True High Dynamic-Range (HDR) Rendering Support

The ultimate lighting effects bring environments to life for a truly immersive, ultra-realistic experience. Based on the OpenEXR technology from Industrial Light & Magic (http://www.openexr.com/), NVIDIA's 64-bit texture implementation delivers state-of-the-art high dynamic-range (HDR) visual effects through floating point capabilities in shading, filtering, texturing, and blending.

 

HDCP Capable3

Allows playback of HD DVD, Blu-ray Disc, and other protected content at full HD resolutions with integrated High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP) support.

 

NVIDIA® PureVideo™ Technology2

The combination of high-definition video processors and decoder software delivers unprecedented picture clarity, smooth video, accurate color, and precise image scaling for all video content to turn your PC into a high-end home theater.

» more information

 

Programmable Video Processor2

PureVideo's programmable technology adapts to new video formats as they are developed to provide a future-proof video solution.

 

Hardware Decode Acceleration2

Provides ultra-smooth playback of H.264, WMV, and MPEG-2 HD and SD videos with minimal CPU usage.

 

Spatial Temporal De-Interlacing2

Sharpens high definition and standard definition interlaced content on progressive displays, delivering a crisp, clear picture that rivals high-end home-theater systems.

 

High-Quality Scaling

Enlarges lower resolution videos and movies to fit your display, while maintaining a clear, clean image. Also provides downscaling of videos, including high-definition, while preserving image detail.

 

Video Color Correction2

Corrects differences in color characteristics of RGB monitors and TV monitors and ensures videos are not too dark, overly bright, or washed out regardless of the video format or display.

 

Integrated SD and HD TV Output

Connects to your standard definition or high-definition TV via Composite, S-Video, Component, or DVI connections.

 

NVIDIA® UltraShadow™ II Technology

Enhances the performance of bleeding-edge games, like id Software's DOOM 3, that feature complex scenes with multiple light sources and objects.

» more information

 

128-Bit Studio-Precision Computation

128-bit studio-precision computation through the entire pipeline prevents image defects due to low precision and ensures the best image quality for even the most demanding applications.

 

Full-Speed 32-Bit Color Precision

Delivers increased image quality with no performance compromise.

 

NVIDIA® ForceWare® Unified Driver Architecture (UDA)

Delivers a proven record of compatibility, reliability, and stability with the widest range of games and applications. ForceWare ensures the best out-of-box experience for every user and delivers continuous performance and feature updates over the life of NVIDIA GeForce GPUs.

» more information

 

OpenGL® 2.0 Optimizations and Support

Ensures top-notch compatibility and performance for OpenGL applications.

 

NVIDIA® Digital Vibrance Control® 3.0 Technology

Allows the user to adjust color controls digitally to compensate for the lighting conditions of their workspace, in order to achieve accurate, bright colors in all conditions.

» more information

 

PCI Express® Support

Designed to run perfectly with the next-generation PCI Express bus architecture. This new bus doubles the bandwidth of AGP 8X delivering over 4 GB/sec. in both upstream and downstream data transfers.

» more information

 

Dual 400MHz RAMDACs

Blazing-fast RAMDACs support dual QXGA displays with ultra-high, ergonomic refresh rates-up to 2048x1536@85Hz.

 

Dual Dual-Link DVI Support

Able to drive two of the industry's largest and highest resolution flat-panel displays up to 2560x1600.

 

90nm Process Technology

Delivers higher performance through blazing clock rates.

 

Built for Microsoft® Windows Vista™

NVIDIA's third-generation GPU architecture built for Windows Vista gives users the best possible experience with the 3D graphical user interface in the upcoming operating system (OS) from Microsoft.

 

1 NVIDIA SLI certified versions of GeForce PCI Express GPUs only.

2 Feature requires supported video software. Features may vary by product.

3 Requires other compatible components that are also HDCP capable.

[Vagrant0]

First of all, nVIDIA is better than Radeon. Second, the best cards would be the 7900GT for about $300, a 7900GTX for about $500, and a 7950GX2 for $600+...

 

These are the benefits of the GeForce 7 series cards...

 

Next-Generation Superscalar GPU Architecture

Delivers over 2x the shading power of previous generation products...

 

...are also HDCP capable.

 

You work for nVidia don't you? Atleast own stock? That's an aweful lot of onesided info. You're also assuming that he has a PCI express slot to use instead of an AGP. No sense in him going out and buying a $600+ card that he can't verywell install.

[assassin no1]

yes nvidea cards are the best, i have a 7800gs 256mb agp card, and it flys, with max sample rates, as you can see my specs underneath. :D

[Guest]

yes nvidea cards are the best, i have a 7800gs 256mb agp card, and it flys, with max sample rates, as you can see my specs underneath. :D

I beg to differ... It all depends on your personal preferences and your computer. If you have an AGP card slot, then yes, Nvidia's 7800GS is the best card out there. If you have the more modern PCI-Express slot, you have a much wider choice. Assuming you have lots of money to spend, I would take Nvidia's 7950GX2. It combines two cores to work as one. It is, in fact, simply two graphic cards molded into one. It even has two separate PCBs and heatsinks. Also, I personally prefer Nvidia's Forceware drivers to ATI's Catalyst drivers. It is much more user friendly in my opinion. However, lets look at ATI's X1900XTX. It is currently the world's fastest single core graphic card. It has the highest number of pipelines (put simply, pipelines are basically what calculates everything), and it also has the highest clockspeeds for both the core and memory. I would personally choose the X1900XTX because of stability issues. the 7950GX2, as fast as it may be, still suffers from various stability issues.

[Russki Bear]

Err...."put simply, pipelines are basically what calculates everything"....is simply wrong.

 

The 'pipeline' is logical. The GPU calculates everything sequentially in x amount of phases (or pipelines). It all depends on how far the FDE cycle can be broken down.

[TOPSTER]

Hi,

 

Just thought I would add that I have just swapped out my Nvidia 7800GT 512Mb card as it was chugging along on the outdoor sections of the world. I did not want to turn down the settings and loose the experiance of playing the game in it's full glory so I bought a 7900GTX and it runs how the game should be played.

 

The game does stutter occasionally now, but just to load the next section of scenery. My advice would be to sit tight and save the extra cash and go for a minimum of a 7900GTX or a 7950GX2.

 

Going dual core does not make alot of difference either, I upgraded from a 3700+ to a 4400+ X2 amd and only probably got an extra 5 FPS.

 

Oh, a 150GB 10,000 rpm WD raptor drive does make alot of difference aswell, reducing load times etc.

[TOPSTER]

Try the following link, it compares all the graphic cards in Oblivion

 

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=2746&p=4

[Jem 2]

Interesting, so the GeForce 7800GS it the best for AGP, i have found them for around £200 for the 256mb version. Is that the norm ?

[Guest Tessera]

I'm a certified hardware tech and avid computer builder... so let me dispell a few myths:

 

Currently, the two fastest video cards available to most gamers would be the following:

 

nVidia 7950-GTX Dual GPU SLI

 

RADEON X1950-XTX PCI-e Crossfire Edition

 

Neither card is superior to the other in benchmarks. The fact is, different games have optimized their engines for either one class of card or the other, thus the benchmarks are entirely subjective and depend enormously upon which game(s) the card was tested upon, which motherboard chipset was used, etc. etc., ad nauseum. For example, if you saw a review that showed the RADEON being faster than an nVidia card, you'll easily be able to find a different review that tested the same cards on another platform... and the results may very well be reversed.

 

However, in sheer raw 3D performance (using applications such as 3DSMax), the RADEON card has edged out the nVidia very slightly. This situation changes, however, once you load up and run an nVidia-optimized game on each of the two cards. Can you see what I'm driving at..?

 

So now that we know both cards are awsomely powerful, so far as their abilities to handle great globs of data at once, we're left with other factors to consider when choosing between them...

 

(1) RADEON cards do a better job of rendering subtle differences in most 3D textures. This is a subjective opinion, but one that seems to be shared by most enthusiasts. Also, RADEON cards currently support a combination of both HDR lighting effects *and* Anti-aliasing filters AT THE SAME TIME. At present, no nVidia cards support the enabling of both simultaneously, which is why Oblivion doesn't allow you to enable both in the options screen. You see, Oblivion is a game that was optimized for nVidia cards... get it..??? :P

 

(2) nVidia cards are still dominating the market, so far as their overall influence is concerned... which means that you'll find more games optimized for that type of video card than you will for a RADEON. One notable exception is Half-Life 2, which was optimized for RADEON cards and it shows... the game runs significantly faster and smoother on an X1950-XTX than it does on the nVidia 7950-GTX. It also looks much better on RADEON systems.

 

(3) The newest RADEON cards are HORRIBLY LOUD... whilst nVidia cards are substantially quieter. Aftermarket cooling fans (or water coolers) can remedy this issue, however... regardless of which card you own. I suspect that the reason the new ATI cards are so loud has to do with prior generations of RADEON cards, most of which were prone to overheating problems and occasional thermal breakdowns. ATI seems to have fixed this complaint by fitting their new RADEONS with a jet turbine engine fan... or at least, that's what it sounds like.

 

Kinda looks like neither card is any better than the other, eh..? Okay, so...

 

 

Boring techie spiel aside, the bottom line is this: your video card's main function is to render beautiful images on your screen and to do so at acceptable framerates. Benchmarks are nifty and they may impress your friends, but they tell you nothing about what the skintones in Oblivion will look like, nor do they describe how truly green the grass looks. In that context, neither card is better than the other, although the RADEON cards have been described as "prettier" by many users.

 

For the record, I own and use an nVidia 7950-GTX... just in case anyone thought I was an ATI fanboy. I'm just giving credit where it is due. :D

[Abramul]

I had thought Oblivion was optimized for ATI, and Morrowind for nVidia. But it may be the other way around...all I know is that it was due to whatever hardware the relevant X-Box was using.