Which is the better graphics card?

[TonyM]

If you're using a Mac and think you may want OpenCL support, you're much better off with an NVIDIA product.

NVIDIA is leading the way with OpenCL support and conformance with their software. There's tons of info about this out there if you google it, but here's one link showing how they are enabling developers to work better with regards to OpenCL:

http://www.tcmagazine.com/comments.php?shownews=29428&catid=3

If the developers have the tools with one solution, and they don't with another, who's hardware is going to be tested and listed as supported?

You can find GTX 2xx cards well under $200 now as well and they will give more performance if you need it.

[Flogger23m]

Going to write a novel, but here is my opinion:

I am not too fond of Nvidia video cards.

For one, a few years ago I upgrade from an X700Pro AGP to a BFG 7600GS. The 7600GS is of a newer generation. While it was faster, it lacked the 6x AA option. I was used to playing at 6x, but now I was forced to play at 4x (8x or higher killed performance too much). So my image quality was worse than what it was before my upgrade. I hated the jaggies I got at 4x. I liked the 6x option, because it is nice to have when you're really trying to choose your graphic/image quality settings in a game.

The other thing was drivers. When I got my 7600GS 512MB AGP, it was 8 months or so old. Even then, Nvidia still did not have official working drivers for the card. I forgot what the setting was, but you had to switch something in the control panel. One setting videos would not work, the other 3D graphics (games) would not work. So every time you wanted to switch between the two, you had to do this. Which is very annoying. I looked online, and a lot of others had the same issue.

Thankfully, guru3D.com made unofficial drivers that fixed the problem.


Fast forward to 8 months ago, I finally bought a new PC. It has an EVGA GTX260 Superclocked. Nice card, aside from the AA.

There is still no 6x option. For now, I can max all games out at 8x, but the card will eventually get old and I don't want to go all the way down to 4x.

But, even at 8x, while playing at 1680x1050 on a 19 inch widescreen monitor, I can still see jaggies. My brother has almost the exact same setup, but has an ATI HD 4870 and plays at 1280x1024 on a 19 inch normal monitor. At 8x, there are no jaggies.


Hard to compare with the different monitor sizes, but to me, the image quality/AA on ATI cards is seems superior.


Both have had their own driver issues. Since you're on a MAC, I am not sure how driver support and whatnot is.


I have never heard of the GT 130, and can't even find any benchmarks on it.

Looking online, it seems to be a renamed 9600 GSO. That card is slower than the HD 4850, which is faster than the Nvidia 8800/9800GT. So if you are playing games, get the 4850. If not, then the GT 130 will do fine.

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.

This. If you are buying a desktop with gaming in mind, go with a custom build Windows based computer.