ok im building a new system and im wondering what kind of graphics card should i get should i go with the ati hd 2000 series or the geforce 8 series and of course this will determine my motherboard because i will be going crossfire or sli so what do you guys think and if anyone knows does the hd 2000 series have problems with blender just like the rest of atis products
nVidia. No worthwhile alternative.
well thank you for your opinion but i was hoping more or less for a reason why i should choose one over the other
I have an ATI card, it’s not that bad, but be prepared for some display and openGL problems with Blender. In hindsight, and my next machine, I will be using NVIDIA…just my opinion…
that is one of the biggest things that i was considering because i have an ati card and it is no fun with the massive lag in blender and i just found out that the geforce 8 series supports hdr lighting and anti-aliasing
They had a bit of a setback when Microsoft screwed them up, but they’ve recovered from that. They actually have the highest quality products available. Also, if you ever consider Linux, nVidia is a MUST. ATi has terrible drivers.
ATI cards aren’t bad, it just depends on what you want to do with them.
nVidia cards have significantly better OpenGL support IMHO, and as such Blender especially runs much more smoothly on them, without any workarounds. Blender can run smoothly on ATI cards, I used one for years with blender before my current computer (which has nVidia), and outside of some driver swapping/workarounds its pretty much the same experience as with nVidia (though a couple of things drew slower no matter what I did).
ATI is more likely to support DirectX type things better than the OpenGL (though they do support OpenGL obviously, but I can’t say for sure if nVidia does directX better or not) just because of the way ATI is. For gaming a lot of people use ATI (because a lot of games are DirectX), but I would say nVidia has definitely become top dog in the past couple of years for serious gamers. ATI doesn’t seem to be moving its line forward with a lot of innovation (or at least they haven’t been publicizing it near as well as nVidia has their line).
All in all, I’d say probably stick with nVidia, especially if your going to be doing things with say Linux (or even Windows/Mac), if not because nVidia has better drivers, a better community, or a better reputation, simply because Blender runs better :p.
OpenGL support for the G80 (8800) is nearly shot. So far I’ve seen about 10 cases of OpenGL problems from the G80 series. I just barely have it running correctly on my system.
Cheers,
John
Plus you can run the Gelato renderer on Nvidia
Have a look at this chart for a general guideline:
There’s no alternative to an 8800gts if you can afford the $250.
I personally don’t need that much horsepower, so I went for the higher end of the 7 series.
Anyway, you’ll see that the only HD 2xxx that is worth its salt is the 2900 XT, which is just not worth the price…
well im going to be ordering my system on monday and im going to be getting a geforce 8600 and when i get a little bit more money upgrade and put the 8600 in the physics port thanks guys for the help on deciding between the two
Take in mind that a 7900gt or a 7900gs overclocked will give you better performance than an 8600 for less money. the only 8600 with better performance than the same number 7 series is the 8600gts. Even the 8600gts is only as powerful as a stock 7900gs which runs at 450mhz. And you can safely overclock a 7900gs to 600mhz and higher if you get an aftermarket cooler.
Just so you know.
one of the main reasons im getting a series 8 is because of the unified shader architecture and because it is only about 30$ more than a 7600
I guess you’re going for the 8600gt then? When it comes to raw performance, even with it’s unified shader architecture, a 7600gt will equal the power of an 8600gt in most graphics applications.
Check out this Doom 3 bench. The stock 7900gs comes in at 50 fps, the 8600gts comes in at 36fps, and the 8600gt is only 30fps. the 7600gt with 33fps beats the 8600gt. The 7600gt has actually been proven to be more powerful than the 8600gt in several benchmarks. Just google 8600gt vs 7600gt.
That’s the problem with the 8 series, is that newer doesn’t always mean better. The 8800 is amazing, but anything less than that is pretty standard.
I’m just saying it from experience, as I had to choose a card myself when I built my system and ended up going for a 7900gs, which is a good overclocker, even on stock cooling, you can get it to 550mhz or higher.
It’s up to you, just wanted to make sure that you know the 8600 is not necessarily the fastest card for the price. For a very similar price, the 7900gs is definitely more powerful. The only thing you sacrifice is dx10 compatibility. So if you need dx10, then I suppose go for the 8600.
Edit: There are some cases where the 8600 does have a significant improvement, like in the elder scrolls oblivion benchmark, so I guess you’ll have to judge what you’ll be using it for in the end. Perhaps some of the newer games will take advantage more of the 8 series chip. But for Blender and most games, you won’t get much benefit.
The overall games fps chart is also pretty interesting.
Nvidia all the way. I’m considering buying a new PC from CyberpowerPC.com with a 8600GTS.(Mostly so i can play Oblivion)
ATi hardware isn’t bad, but their software (drivers) is hell.
I used to be an NVIDIA user, am currently an ATi user, and I’m really longing for the time when I’ll be an NVIDIA user again.
Don’t make the same mistake I made. If you would like to use Blender without issues (weird screen redrawing, slowness, odd behavior, primitives that shouldn’t be there), go for NVIDIA.
If you ever want to try linux, go with Nvidia… ATI drivers are total crap in linux
Buy 8800GT. It is the best choice, it will be released next monday.
Just look at the benchmarks. It beats 8800GTS 640mb. And it is going to be significantly cheaper.
And if you gonna go SLI, it will give you alot of gpu-power. I will buy the 512mb version, if I upgrade (along with a Q6600).
Well. I thought, why building a new system if i can boost my old one:
I updated my AGP System with a dirt cheap ATI X1950. This is a cheap, but mighty card which beats the 7600GT in any respect. I got both cards, so i can tell.
If you buy a 7600GT you also risk to become deceived, cause they also sell 7600 GT cards with GDDR2 instead of GDDR3. This does make a difference cause the memory bus on the 7600 is only 128-bit, emphasizing the need for speed/ clock rate.
The X1950GT has GDDR3 AND 256-bit memory bus. Designed for pure power, straight and clear. My recommendation for AGP systems at the moment.
I think it’s an alternative for games and the Blender game engine. They are mainly limited by the GPU not CPU.
So i’m better off investing in graphics instead of CPU power.
Just my two xxx (insert the name of the lowest unit for your local currency).
But if you plan a brutal system using more than one card you need to make use of PCIe (and ndivia cards). SLI seems to have superior efficency ( acc. web compared to crossfire).
I believe nvidia is coming out with new cards soon (if they haven’t already) which should drop the price of their current cards, if that sways your decision any