Which is the better graphics card?

[monstertodd]

Nvidia Geforce GT 130 512mb

or

ATI Radeon HD 4850 512mb

This would be on an IMAC. I want to edit video, play some video games, run window's in addition to snow leopard, use programs like aperture, final cut, and logic express.

[rynando]

Unless you're playing games or something I don't think you're going to notice a difference with either of them. I think the 4850 might be cheaper . . . The NVIDIA card has NVIDIA's CUDA feature which might be helpful with your video editing software although I don't know if any Mac software is making use of it yet. I'm sure it's just a matter of time however.

R

[bigmike82]

I'm an nVidia whore myself.

I *hate* the default Catalyst install, and that has carried over into my overall opinion of the cards themselves.

I'd get the GT130. You might be able to find a 200 series card for around 100 if you look around.

[rynando]

I *hate* the default Catalyst install, and that has carried over into my overall opinion of the cards themselves.

Yes, Catalyst is quite painful (throw Vista x64 into the mix and it gets even worse for some reason). As the OP is on a Mac though I wonder if he'll have to go through any of that? Does ATI even have something like Catalyst for Apple users?

Anyway, I doubt he'll notice a difference between the two cards. If I was him I'd get something quiet rather then something optimized for gaming/3D.

R

[Technical Ted]

Wait a couple of weeks. The iMac is due for an update soon.

[IsaacGlass]

Nvidia all the way! No drivers conflict. I built two Home Theater PC with them and they played my Blu-Ray and HD-DVD Great

[monstertodd]

Wait a couple of weeks. The iMac is due for an update soon.

Rea hee heallllllly?..........What kind of updates?

[locosway]

I've been gaming for a while now. I remember why Nvidia was always touted as being better than ATI.

For the longest time Nvidia had better driver support than ATI. ATI would never release new drivers after their initial launch and this was terrible in a rapidly developing area such as computer games. Nvidia was on top of things with constant updates and patches for games.

In today's market they both excel at different tasks. Both are good, and you can't go wrong with a high end card. Driver support is a non-issue any more as both companies do the right thing and keep on top of drivers.

Now, if you've never gamed on a 3dFX card like the Voodoo cards you really missed out. I've never seen graphics and colors like that in my life.

[Technical Ted]

Rea hee heallllllly?..........What kind of updates?

Nothing certain, but Apple has a pattern of announcing new "models" about every six months. Last one for the iMac was in April.

20 months ago, before I was made aware of this pattern, I ordered an 8 core Mac Pro. 15 days later they released an updated model with faster processors and larger hard drives for the same price. I found out that Apple's return and exchange policy was 14 days.

[locosway]

Oh, you're buying a new computer?

With the money you save buying a PC you could get another gun...

With the money you save using Open Source Software you could buy yet another gun.

Now, I'm not dissin' the Mac so don't get all uppity on me... I just know the truth..

[monstertodd]

Oh, you're buying a new computer?

With the money you save buying a PC you could get another gun...

With the money you save using Open Source Software you could buy yet another gun.

Now, I'm not dissin' the Mac so don't get all uppity on me... I just know the truth..

Ha ha, yea, you got me. I'm "looking" at a new computer. I bought my last desktop in 2005, and am ready to upgrade. All I've ever owned are PC's, and wanted to try something new. The Imac is very eye catching.

I'll probably take my old desktop and convert into a living room media PC.

[locosway]

Ha ha, yea, you got me. I'm "looking" at a new computer. I bought my last desktop in 2005, and am ready to upgrade. All I've ever owned are PC's, and wanted to try something new. The Imac is very eye catching.

I'll probably take my old desktop and convert into a living room media PC.

The OS is done well on the Mac. When their architecture was so different (PowerPC) I could see the pricing being more. Now they're using Intel chips just like most everyone else. So why pay more? For the image?

Technically you can run OSX on a PC, and you can run Windows on a Mac. You can also run Linux on both. So I really don't see the need for spending the extra money unless you're looking at laptops, which I don't think you are.

For me, I'd buy the hardware and build my own PC. If you don't know how, invite a friend over who does and go from there. It's much more rewarding and fun to do it yourself. You'll also save a ton of money and not get locked into proprietary hardware.

[IsaacGlass]

What you want is a Hackintosh

http://lifehacker.com/software/hack-attack/build-a-hackintosh-mac-for-under-800-321913.php

[sfwdiy]

What you want is a Hackintosh

http://lifehacker.com/software/hack-...800-321913.php

For a desktop, yes. My media center computer is a Hackintosh. It's hooked up to my HDTV and plays HD videos quite well. I'm very pleased with it.

--B

[hellonfrank]

Hi,
Right now i am using XFX ATI Radeon HD 4850 512mb.It has following features,
1) TeraScale Graphics Engine
2) Unified Superscalar Shader Architecture
3) DDR3 Memory
4) Accelerated Video Tra
5) DirectX 10.1 Support
Thanks for sharing this information.