Windows 7 - ATi or Nvidia - need help deciding

Getting ready to upgrade me and my girlfriends video cards this weekend and in an effort to avoid the ever so popular 15% restocking fees I was wondering which drivers are less botched up on Windows 7 64-bit at present?

We both have 9600 GT's (G94) at the moment but I'm leaning towards ATI since we just upgraded our motherboards and it has the 780G chipset. No intrest in hybrid crossfire, just vaguely remember hearing nvidia and ATi don't mesh well together. Not rulling out Nvidia all together on that alone though.

The 9600GT's we have are both 512 DDR3 with cheap stock reference coolers. From what I heard it's better to have a higher amount (1GB) of slower (DDR2) memory with larger monitors than less (512mb) of faster (DDR3) memory. Is this true?

Here's the two cards Im looking at,

SPARKLE Calibre Series 9600GT:
Newegg.com - SPARKLE Calibre Series P960GGBOX GeForce 9600 GT 1GB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card - Desktop Graphics / Video Cards

MSI Radeon HD 4850:
Newegg.com - MSI R4850-T2D512 Radeon HD 4850 512MB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFire Supported Video Card - Desktop Graphics / Video Cards

i would recommend ati

I would say, what ever you can get the best deal on. I personally like Nvidia. I have used ATI in the past, and didn't have the best of luck with them. Nvidia is probably the best option for the money. The card I'm currently using, is the 8800 GTS 512 G92. It works really well, and should be a good price now. If you are looking for the best, get the GTX295

Maybe if I was single Buying everything two at a time gets expensive quick. Hoping to stay in the 150-200 dollar range (per card). My main concern is sticking an Nvidia card ontop of the ATi chipset and the driver compatibility with Windows 7. After reading through the forums some more last night they both seem to have their equal share of problems.

i have suffered 0 compatibility issues with nvidia drivers on x64 W7000, i cant speak to the ATI drivers as i ''personally'' have no experience, just what i hear......it goes with out saying nvidia's drivers are more stable, ATI do have issues with certain component configs, but they have a new driver out i currently know nothing about...

well you'll struggle to find any GFX card with DDR2 now days.....

im not really sure what your saying here....but more RAM is beneficial to a higher resolution, (bus width permitting)

well, the 4850 is the faster of the 2, the 1gb version of the 9600GT is a gimmick, the 256bit bus width limits ''useable'' access to 512mb, it shows NO gains over its little brother... save the cash


if your working with 1680x1050 or above i would recommend at least a 9800GT, this is more comparable to the 4850..

im a nvidia fanboy so i dont want to just preach about ''team green''

if someone chucked the 4850 & the 9800GT on a table & said ''choose'' i'd probably take the 4850, given that its slightly faster than the 9800 & i have a CFX mobo....

but don't let your motherboard capability be the only deciding factor, i have a CFX board & all my nvidia cards have run flawlessly.....





SK

Thanks that was just the info I was looking for. Sorry if that question wasn't clear about the size vs speed, was falling asleep when I posted the thread, you got the gist of what I was trying to ask though.. is 1Gb DDR2 better than 512MB DDR3 for larger resolutions?

I was curious because last time I was in Bestbuy the salesman tried to sell me this BFG 9500GT 1GB DDR2 claiming more DDR2 was better than less DDR3. Never trusting a salesman I didn't buy it.

Found this while I was grabbing the link above, think I may just get a couple of these and be done with it. BFG 9800GT OC 1GB GDDR3

again the 9800GT with 1gb of VRAM is pointless, just grab the 512mb version

the G92 or G94 with 1gb of RAM was just a pointless refresh for nvidia, im sure they just had buckets of RAM ICs lying around & thought they'd produce another card

the 9800s are super cards though...... they will still get close to MAX settings on most games @ 1680x1050.... & there's a plethora of drivers for them...

oh & the 9500GT is a POS you should march back down there & abuse him for trying to offer you that over a 9600GT...lol





SK

Sadly that's the only 9800GT they have, they do have 512mb 9800 GTX+ for $220 or a 9600 GSO for $99, everything else in my price range isn't in stock, no Ati cards either except for the 4870 X2 for $550.

Meh, not going to let bestbuy suck me in, I can wait a week on shipping for a better deal. This one looks perfect.
XFX HD 4850 512MB

great choice..... XFX have recently taken on ATI cards to everyone's delight, they're a GREAT company, & its got a lovely non reference dual slot cooler to keep the temps down...


enjoy the cards...



SK

I switched from ATI some time ago because I was having endless problems with their drivers and now I'm having similar problems with nVidia. Are you saying ATI/AMD is now better?