Very simple, what will offer me the most upfront power and long-term benefits so I won't need to upgrade in a few months?
Feel free to cite specific cards, and their abilities when combined with specific processors or in SLI.
I have a friend who'll always give this advice.
ATI is more powerful.
Nvidia runs cooler.
I personally have a Nvidia GTX 570, which I'd recommend to anyone who has enough money for one.
I haven't run into any trouble trying to run anything yet.
ATI I think have the most "grunt" for the money, however they're pretty bad when it comes to drivers. I can't comment on overclocking for ATI cards.
Nvidia usually has fewer cores and less RAM than an ATI card in the same price range, but makes up for it with well optimised drivers. My 570s overclock like a beast too.
I use the term "grunt" instead of "power" above because even though Nvidia cards have fewer cores etc the actual output you get is on par or greater than an ATI card of the same price.
Plus with Nvidia you get the bonuses of PhysX and F@H.
As I said, I'm a Nvidia fanboy so I'm a little bias. Though I can't say I'd go back to ATI/AMD after I've had such good performance with my Nvidia/Intel combo.
If I'm wrong about any of this, please correct me.
Nvidia cards run at more stable framerates, but ATI cards get higher framerates. I like Nvidia better both because I prefer stability, and because Nvidia makes deals with tons of developers to put stuff in like PhysX water simulation and completely disable it on ATI cards, even though the ATI cards could still easily do it. The water looks like glass in Just Cause 2 if you have an ATI card, for instance. It's kind of annoying that Nvidia does that, but business is business.
Gotta disagree with at least one here and say you're underthinking this choice.
First decide if your processor will be an Intel or an AMD. From there, decide on a specific processor and the heatsink that best fits it... then decide on your motherboard chipset, dependent (of course) on which processor you choose. After that, if you chose Intel, find a card with an Nvidia GPU that is touted as compatible with both of your previous choices according to test system builds. If your choice was AMD, go with a card running an ATI(AMD) GPU based on the same guidelines.
After you have that research done, choose whatever other parts suit your wants and budget. If you get any of the first three wrong, though... you could wind up with a headache on your hands.
*edit*
as for which "brand" runs hotter or more powerful... neither. That is really up to the manufacturer of a given card, not the GPU they keep under the hood. Efficiency of clock cycles versus heat dissipation on the card is what matters, so it's really up to the engineers at XFX, EVGA, ASUS, et cetera to keep that in line. The base GPU they use has little and less to do with the end result there, unless you're comparing out of generation.
The big thing is games that are "developed" for Nvidia or ATI. Sometimes games like Dues Ex HR are mainly for ATI architecture and therefore theoretically run more efficiently on said cards. Also it didn't even bother to list the Nvidia equivalent under recommended specs. Nvidia has the stranglehold on the market with this and also their physics x engine which isn't a game breaker but still kinda nice.
ATI is actually just AMD now, I recommend them because they are the perpetual underdog and they need your money
But seriously look at what you get at your price range and then google reviews for those cards, there is no small number of sites that will test all the hardware extensively.
And yes it's true Nvidia puts money in alot of developers pockets to optimize for their cards so those games will run better and anything with PhysX is locked down exclusively to them... if this is important to you there really is not much choice.
Nvidia from my experience is just a better piece of equipment. Every ATI card I have had suffered from wierd little white spots showing up on the screen, especially on the edges of polygons. Nvidia cards haven't done that on me. Also at the moment Nvidia seems to have some awesome cards for decent prices, and they are reliable (got the GTX 560 ti for about $230 and it fucking kicks ass for the price!).
In my opinion it comes down to a choice of Better visuals or stable reliability.
Boils down to the fact AMD has better visuals when it gets right down to it. But theres that ever present concern that it can go out at any given time. You might not need to upgrade as much as you may need to replace a damaged card.
Nvidia takes hits as it relates to visual quality, but their cards typically last longer, but your more likely to have a need/desire to upgrade it. - Also Nvidia does have physX as well as the more universal HAVOC
Personally I am settled in pretty well on Intel mobo/processors from ASUS or ASrock and Nvidia GPUs from EVGA.
However in your situation I would suggest go with the Nvidia side as well. Not because of my personal taste but because you stated you dont want to have to upgrade in 2 years. Theres a massive chance that in 2 years the Nvidia card will still be working. I cant say I have the same confidence in an AMD card based on my experiences, and Personally I would rather upgrade a video card than to have to replace a fouled card. (which invariably means your guaranteed to have it go out at an inconvenient time)
My points to consider:
As for Xfire and SLI, honestly? I wouldnt bother with it. From what ive personally seen a high enough series card will sufficiently handle anything you might want. SLI is one of those ePeen sort of things, that does make a minor degree of improvement, but not worth essentially paying double, triple or quadruple for the video cards. Though I have never personally used a secondary card as a dedicated PhysX card. So it might help there. /shrug.
Also, personally what I find to be more practical than SLI or Xfire is using a secondary card in non SLI/Xfire configuration and run in at least a tri monitor configuration. Until you use a computer with multiple monitors you have no idea how much more productive a second, third or fourth monitor can help to make you. Also, for what ever reason, with two decent cards you can run a perfect 3 monitor display with the center monitor being native 3D support, and allow the secondary monitors to the left and right to wrap around in a faux form of peripheral vision on the games that support 3d stretching (Duke Nukem forever being one off hand that supports it) Let me tell you from experience... the sensation of peripheral vision is astounding for game experience immersion, and that immersion greatly outweighs any possible impact you could get from having slighly faster graphics originating from a multi gpu configuration.
Anyway best of luck.
EDIT: also to reinforce the point, Ill leave this here.
To be honest Nvidia's PhysX system is worth the purchase alone. Of course not every game has it, but the games that do are improved a LOT. I played Arkham Asylum with it both switched on and off, and the game's entire atmosphere changes. With PhysX off the world is bleak, empty and sterile. With PhysX on it comes alive, smoke rolls across the floor, cobwebs blow in the breeze, tiles and stones break and shatter under the impact of punches and falling bodies, it's SO much better and more atmospheric.
ATI 99% of the time will give you more powerful hardware for your money. I'm a big fan of XFX ATI cards. However, nvidia is often the "official" graphics card of new games. This translates to software getting deved on nvidia's shaders/architecture, but then made to work on ati's. Launch day usually involves a driver download and a bit more hassle with ATI. ATI's utility software, Catalyst is fine for most of it's functions but don't ever tell it to auto optimize anything, unless you like crash-restart loops.
Basically you will pay less for the same power from ati, but will save headache in tweaking with nvidia. Buying a good card though isn't so much about ati vs nvidia, as it is about the third party that made the card itself, not just the chipsets. My personal recommendation goes down for an XFX Card, nvidia based will be more headache free due to previously mentioned market practice. ATI card will be cheaper, probably alot cheaper, for the same, and sometimes higher actual vital stats.
If you want to read about the worst of ATI/AMD headaches before you buy, google "RAGE runs like shit on ATI" or something along those lines. Then again RAGE hardly ran at all on either hardware at launch. Sigh.... my wasted money.
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