ATI Catalyst 5.6 Released

[Evil Avatar]

ATI owners (Mr. T voice, "I pity the fool.") will want to check out the new ATI CATALYST 5.6 drivers (www.ati.com) in a vain hope to finally match the performance of the GeForce 6800.

[The Radical Cleric]

Groan. :rolleyes:

[Tyrant]

Them's be fightin' words!

Wait...no, that's just trolling.

[Evil Avatar]

Them's be fightin' words!

Wait...no, that's just trolling.

No, I'm not trolling. Now get out from under my bridge before I push you into the river.

[carneconcarne]

you should have an alt when you post shit like this evil. You could call him something original, like flamebait.

[joruussuun]

The last few computers I've built have all had ATI video cards, and I recommend them to friends/family, and I've never had any problems.
I've been a big fan of ATI for years, and haven't been dissapointed yet.

[Mrbunchypants]

Going to wait and see if there is a proformance increase or not.

[zipR]

There's supposed to be some small performance increases.

ATI's also been crowing about a recent study that 'proved' that ATI's drivers are more stable than NVIDIA's.

I love my 9800pro. It's getting a little long in the tooth, but so is my whole system.

[bapenguin]

hahaha...here's the article zipR is referring to: source (http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/050609/nyth059.html?.v=10).

That's pretty lame.

[Grimgrock]

ok, I'll bite on this one. How is it lame to have an independent test to find out the answers to questions?

[Grimgrock]

ok, I'll bite on this one. How is it lame to have an independent test to find out the answers to questions?

[Ernst_Jager]

Not another my shit doesn't stink debate. Both sides have pros and cons but I don't think anyone can clearly claim superiority over one another.

[zyzyx]

I run a 6800GT but X800XL is what I'm speccing performance machines out with at the minute. It's the current price:performance king.

[Mason]

What?

Unless there's some magic source of info I'm missing, the X850 is cheaper and more powerful than the 6800 Ultra. Or at least that's what NewEgg and the reviews I've read say. But then any high-end card you bought in the past few years should keep you happy.

Dedication to a brand is idiocy, the saccharine lies of marketing rotting away the reasonable parts of the brain. Buy whatever is the most cost-effective whenever you're shopping. If the next product cycle puts another company's product in the lead, that doesn't make your purchasing decision any less wise, since old graphics cards aren't infused with power whenever their makers put out a new quality product.

[Evil Avatar]

ok, I'll bite on this one. How is it lame to have an independent test to find out the answers to questions?

It isn't really lame, but I think that most people know that ATI's drivers aren't nearly as compatible or as stable as NVIDIA's drivers. I've owned both cards, my last ATI card was a nice Radeon 9700 Pro and every time I turned around I was finding games that weren't compatible (or had graphical glitches) on the ATI card and no problems at all on NVIDIA products.

After the whole problem with Call of Duty not working on ATI cards (CoD has problems with ATI cards running on nForce/nForce 2 motherboards... Activision was aware of the issue and refused to patch it or even inform the developer), I switched over to NVIDIA and I don't plan on going back.

When NVIDIA releases their next $400.00 video card, I'll be standing in line to get one. (I've got to upgrade for Spore.)

[Varsity]

Got any links to a list? I can't find one, and ATi cards not working on nVida mobos isn't exactly shocking. :p

[Rirath]

I love my 6600GT, the 3rd Nvidia card in a row I've owned (Geforce 256, Geforce 3, Geforce 6600GT), but news posts like this make me wonder sometimes. Funny, yes... but eesh. A bit much.

[chechenepiphany]

eh, im getting an x800 xl and waiting for crossfire. for those of you who dont know what im talking about, its like sli for ati, only 6 months later and compatible with all games. plus its got a handful of other goodies like the ability to use different cards in tandem, instead of two of the same.

[PIPBoy3000]

I was a long-time NVIDIA owner (since the Voodoo 2 days) and have been quite happy with my NVIDIA cards. A couple years ago I bought a 9800Pro and have been extremely happy with it. Odds are that within the year I'll do a computer upgrade and evaluate the choices.

For me, that's what it's all about - having the choice between vendor to see what card has the best performance for the money I'm willing to spend. Hopefully both companies will be around for a long time to come. Competition is good.

[51|RandoM]

I've got cards from both camps, ATI is in the lead everywhere except opengl performance.

ATI's major driver issues are a thing of the past. This is coming from somebody who wouldn't touch their products for quite some time just because of their lackluster drivers, and support thereof.

My main rig just happens to be an ATI card on an nforce4 chipset mobo, and it works just peachy.

[netcraazzy]

I really don't try to stay in one camp or the other but it seems like most of my video cards end up being Nvidia cards. They just always seem to have the best performace in my price range when I'm ready to upgrade. Right now I have a 6600 GT that I bought almost a year ago. Before that it was the Ti4200, and before that I had a Geforce 2MX. I have a Radeon 9000 Pro that I picked up used several years ago and it's been a good card too but the Linux support for ATI just isn't as strong as it is for Nvidia. I tried to use my 9000 Pro in a MythTV box and found out that upgrading ATI's drivers in Linux is a lot harder than Nvidia. I think this is one area where ATI still has quite a bit of ground to cover before they catch up to Nvidia.

[Nesta]

(Stoking the flames)

So I have to buy a video card for my new system, could you accurately and meticulously describe the pros and cons of each brand and which one is better and why?






j/k I have an ATI 9800pro and it's been super duper for me. Prior to that, it was an Nvidia card. I don't really make too fine of a distinction. When I am building a new system, which ever of the two company's top of the line cards there are out, I will just pick the cheaper of the two.

[bradlay]

More scenes from the stupidest argument since 'tastes great' 'less filling...

[Orphiuchus]

hey, my 9800 pro has been perfect, nothing could possoblay go wrong with it.


... thats the first thing thats ever gone wrong.

[Pumped'Up]

ATI owners (Mr. T voice, "I pity the fool.") will want to check out the new ATI CATALYST 5.6 drivers (www.ati.com) in a vain hope to finally match the performance of the GeForce 6800.
Obviously you're talking about the ATI Radeon 9800Pro.

[Phades]

I've had cards from both companies and never had any problems. I just always go for the best performing card out of the two for under $200 when I buy. I just can't get myself to buy a card for more than that. Currently I've got a 9800pro I picked up last year for $170 and I've been very happy with it. Still haven't played anything that's made me feel the need to upgrade. F.E.A.R. may change that though.

[bKangy]

I once had an GeForce 5200. I will never buy nVidia again, as a matter of principle :P

[Draft]

After the whole problem with Call of Duty not working on ATI cards (CoD has problems with ATI cards running on nForce/nForce 2 motherboards... Activision was aware of the issue and refused to patch it or even inform the developer), I switched over to NVIDIA and I don't plan on going back.Luckily for those capable of holding DEL while the PC boots, that problem was easily fixed by disabling fast writes (something you should all be doing anyway, whether you're an ATI fanboy or an Nvidiot.)

[funtownarcade]

I read that Battlefield 2 was having some issues that would be fixed with these, heres to never seeing them!

[baz]

My last four card upgrade have gone nVidia->nVidia->ATI->ATI, if I was to upgrade now I'd get a 6800 GT, but I'm holding out any upgrades till dual core becomes cheapish.

Never really noticed any difference in compatibility between any of my cards, most of the time games work (even CoD with FW on my 9700 pro :D )

[mulligan]

I once had an GeForce 5200. I will never buy nVidia again, as a matter of principle :P

well.. it is the lowest performing card offered by nvidia, what did you expect? :p now a Geforce 4 MX, its another thing

[zyzyx]

After the whole problem with Call of Duty not working on ATI cards (CoD has problems with ATI cards running on nForce/nForce 2 motherboards... Activision was aware of the issue and refused to patch it or even inform the developer), I switched over to NVIDIA and I don't plan on going back.
That was a very unique issue with a very simple fix for anyone bothered enough to look iirc. But still, I guess that's one way to look at it. There's the same sort of problems with nVidia cards around too. What'll happen when you run into one of those with your 6800GT? I hear them new Intel graphics chips can push a few thousand polys.

I'm very happy with my 6800gt as I said but bran loyalty right now in the graphics industry is just crazy. I'd barely even consider the two companies in 100% direct competition now I think about it.

[Liquidize105]

I just installed this. Bout time I did from 4.8.

[kid cabelgo]

I'll take my radeon 9500 non pro any day over you suckers. 70 dollar card and it runs hl2 silky smooth at 1024/full graphics

[TrackZero]

The last few computers I've built have all had ATI video cards, and I recommend them to friends/family, and I've never had any problems.
I've been a big fan of ATI for years, and haven't been dissapointed yet.

Agreed, I switched over to a Radeon 9600 XT I got for cheap ($100 Canadian a while back) from a GeForce 4200 Ti and have had zero problems with it. An excellent purchase for the price. I have little interest if a $600 (Canadian) card from Nvidia kicked the ass of an ATI one. I just stick with the properly priced video cards. Personally I think they're both great companies, I just go with whichever is the better purchase at my upgrade time.

[Heretic Machine]

As far as I'm concerned, Nvidia has proven that they cheat on benchmarks several times, and I'm inclined to believe that they pay developers to sabotage games as well. I refuse to buy from them on simple principal.

And the biggest problem I've ever experienced with my ATI card was the whole "pink in the dark" bug in CoH that has never been fixed. Just another reason to play WoW.

[Shifteh]

in a vain hope to finally match the performance of the GeForce 6800.

Or they released it to, you know, just work with their card. It might not occur to you (OMFG BRAND LOYALTY !1111) but people don't automatically buy the best performing card. I got a 9800pro because it was cheap, stable, and worked well. I wont, however, only buy ATI cards out of some bizarre hatred for anything I don't own brand-wise.

[KamenGamer]

NVIDIA's 6xxx series is Shader Model 3.0 hardware, whereas ATI still hasn't unveiled theirs yet, so on features alone, I would have to side with NVIDIA right now. No doubt XBox 360's ATI will be SM3.0+ but as far as consumer hardware is concerned, they are lacking at the moment.