Forum Pakistan

First of all welcome to the forum.

There are two main graphic card manufacturers available in our market one is Nvidia and other is ATI.
So i have got some info on both for you to look (from a reliable source i.e. CNET Revirews)

In my opinion Nvidia is better but the choice of course is yours so do go ahead and give it a read.

Allah Hafiz
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Nvidia blew a hole in the high-end graphics card ceiling late last year when it introduced its dual 3D-card SLI setup. Of course, to build an SLI config, you need a supporting motherboard, a high-voltage power supply, and a pair of identical SLI graphics cards. If you haven't taken System Building 101, or if you simply want to make a straightforward, less costly, single-card upgrade to your current PC, then we have the guide for you.

We've run down ATI's and Nvidia's product families, taking a look at representative cards from each vendor's high-end, midrange, and budget lines. In the process, we reviewed three new cards (featured on the right side of this page) and retested the older cards with updated drivers. We then ran the results through our handy price/performance calculator to find out which card is the most cost-effective way to spend your gaming dollar at each price level.
Come hell or high frame rates SLI aside, a single graphics card can still help you achieve 3D nirvana. Better yet, you might actually be able to afford it. If you're after the most screaming 3D performance, either ATI's Radeon X850 XT Platinum Edition or Nvidia's GeForce 6800 Ultra card will serve you well. No matter which card you choose, however, you'll have to pony up $500 or more.

For all but the most serious gamers, we feel your dollars go further one notch below the top cards. We recommend ATI's new $300 Radeon X800 XL card. With the best price/performance ratio of the nine graphics cards we tested, it earns our Editors' Choice award. The Radeon X800 XL costs $100 less than Nvidia's competing GeForce 6800 GT (our former Editors' Choice winner), and it outperformed the supposedly higher-end GeForce 6800 Ultra on all of our Far Cry tests and on our 1,024x768-resolution Half-Life 2 test. (Nvidia still owns the Doom 3 performance trophy.) Unless you absolutely must have the fastest 3D frame rates, the 256MB ATI Radeon X800 XL is the high-end graphics card most deserving of your money.

High-end graphics cards' price/performance ratings
(Longer bars indicate a better rating)
ATI Radeon X800 XL
7.5
Nvidia GeForce 6800 GT
5.8
Nvidia GeForce 6800 Ultra
5.1
ATI Radeon X850 XT PE
4.8


Stuck in the middle
While most of us would like to play our games as fast and as pretty as possible, we might not be willing to drop half a grand for the privilege. Fortunately, you can still find a 3D card that will tackle the current crop of demanding 3D games for less than $200. Nvidia's GeForce 6600 GT is the best option in this price range. You should be able to find it for around $199 from one of Nvidia's various resellers. You can expect the GeForce 6600 GT to play every game out there right now at a decent frame rate at 1,024x768 resolution. You even have some room to play with advanced detail settings such as antialiasing.
We reviewed ATI's Radeon X700 XT a few months back. It's no longer available, but you can find the X700 Pro (the main difference is slightly slower clock speeds than on the X700 XT) for around $150. We recommend spending the extra $50 on the GeForce 6600 GT. The added money is worth the extra power that you get with Nvidia's midrange offering.


Midrange graphics cards' price/performance ratings
(Longer bars indicate a better rating)
Nvidia GeForce 6600 GT
6.6
ATI Radeon X700 XT
3.9
Get low
Dig down to the bottom of the barrel, and you'll find the budget cards. If you have any urge to play games, we highly suggest you spend a bit more for a midrange card. At the budget level you have two choices: $100 cards that will let you play some games or $75 cards that pretty much won't play anything.
That's not to say that cards in this price range are worthless. If your PC uses an integrated graphics chip, it borrows from the system's main memory to handle graphics tasks--to the detriment of day-to-day performance. You'll find a similar situation with ATI's Radeon X300 SE HyperMemory cards and Nvidia's GeForce 6200 TurboCache equivalents, which often use the word effective on the packaging before the listed 128MB of memory. It means that they too share system memory, although not as much as an onboard graphics chip. These cards, which you can find for $60 to $75, give you a cheap way to add dual-monitor support.

While you might think you'd be better off with a budget card that has a full 128MB of memory to call its own, you'd be mistaken. The X300 SE beats both versions of the 6200 on Half-Life 2 and Far Cry, which, despite ATI's dominance in those tests, we found surprising given the X300 SE's shared memory. The dedicated memory GeForce 6200 did prevail in our 800x600 resolution Doom 3 test, but at only 40.3 frames per second, it skirts the edges of playability. The Radeon X300 is less of a factor, since ATI no longer makes it.


Budget graphics cards' price/performance ratings
(Longer bars indicate a better rating)
ATI Radeon X300 SE
2.4
Nvidia GeForce 6200
2.3
ATI Radeon X300
2.3
Nvidia GeForce 6200 TurboCache
1.5

ATI driver used: Catalyst 5.2 (WHQL)
Nvidia driver used: ForceWare 71.84 (WHQL)


Graphics card test bed
Intel 3.46GHz P4 Extreme Edition CPU; 1,024MB Kingston Technology HyperX DDR2 memory running at 533MHz; Intel D925XCV motherboard; Intel 925X chip set; Maxtor 250GB 7B250S0 SATA hard drive; Microsoft Windows XP Professional SP2.




High-end 3D cards
Doom 3, Far Cry, and Half-Life 2 benchmark results for the top four graphics cards from ATI and Nvidia.
Doom 3 custom demo (in fps)
(Longer bars indicate better performance)

1,600x1,200 with 4X antialiasing and 8X anisotropic filtering
1,280x1,024 with 4X antialiasing and 8X anisotropic filtering
1,024x768 with 4X antialiasing and 8X anisotropic filtering

Nvidia GeForce 6800 Ultra
41.2
56
81.4

Nvidia GeForce 6800 GT
37.3
50.5
73.4

ATI Radeon X850 XT PE
34.9
48.2
68.7

ATI Radeon X800 XL
27.5
38.3
55.1


Far Cry custom demo (in fps)
(Longer bars indicate better performance)

1,600x1,200 with 4X antialiasing and 8X anisotropic filtering
1,280x1,024 with 4X antialiasing and 8X anisotropic filtering
1,024x768 with 4X antialiasing and 8X anisotropic filtering

ATI Radeon X850 XT PE
64.2
81.6
91.9

ATI Radeon X800 XL
51.8
67.5
84.7

Nvidia GeForce 6800 Ultra
47.2
63.1
83.5

Nvidia GeForce 6800 GT
41.9
57.2
77.6



Half-Life 2 custom demo (in fps)
(Longer bars indicate better performance)

1,600x1,200 with 4X antialiasing and 8X anisotropic filtering
1,280x1,024 with 4X antialiasing and 8X anisotropic filtering
1,024x768 with 4X antialiasing and 8X anisotropic filtering

ATI Radeon X850 XT PE
60.1
79.3
100.9

Nvidia GeForce 6800 Ultra
60.1
78.2
91.6


ATI Radeon X800 XL
53
71.9
97.1

Nvidia GeForce 6800 GT
52.9
69.8
87.4



Midrange 3D cards
Benchmark results for the two midrange graphics cards.
Doom 3 custom demo (in fps)
(Longer bars indicate better performance)

1,600x1,200 with 4X antialiasing and 8X anisotropic filtering
1,280x1,024 with 4X antialiasing and 8X anisotropic filtering
1,024x768 with 4X antialiasing and 8X anisotropic filtering

Nvidia GeForce 6600 GT
17.5
25.9
40.1

ATI Radeon X700 XT
14.1
20.8
31

Far Cry custom demo (in fps)
(Longer bars indicate better performance)

1,600x1,200 with 4X antialiasing and 8X anisotropic filtering
1,280x1,024 with 4X antialiasing and 8X anisotropic filtering
1,024x768 with 4X antialiasing and 8X anisotropic filtering

Nvidia GeForce 6600 GT
21
35.6
50.9

ATI Radeon X700 XT
28.3
36.4


Half-Life 2 custom demo (in fps)
(Longer bars indicate better performance)

1,600x1,200 with 4X antialiasing and 8X anisotropic filtering
1,280x1,024 with 4X antialiasing and 8X anisotropic filtering
1,024x768 with 4X antialiasing and 8X anisotropic filtering

Nvidia GeForce 6600 GT
27.7
41.8
68.8

ATI Radeon X700 XT
25.6
38.8
57.9



Low-end 3D cards
Benchmark scores for the four cards on the low end of ATI's and Nvidia's product families.
Doom 3 custom demo (in fps) (Longer bars indicate better performance)

1,600x1,200 with 4X Antialiasing and 8X Anisotropic filtering
1,280x1,024 with 4X Antialiasing and 8X Anisotropic filtering
1,024x768 with 4X Antialiasing and 8X Anisotropic filtering
800x600 with no Antialiasing and no Anisotropic filtering *

Nvidia GeForce 6200
3.5
5.3
8.7
40.3

ATI Radeon X300
3.0
5.8
8.4
28.4

ATI Radeon X300 SE
1.9
7.3
23.0

Nvidia GeForce 6200 TurboCache
1.8
3.0
17.6

Note: * 800x600 tests run at Medium Quality setting
Far Cry custom demo (in fps) (Longer bars indicate better performance)

1,280x1,024 with 4X Antialiasing and 8X Anisotropic filtering
1,024x768 with 4X Antialiasing and 8X Anisotropic filtering
800x600 with no Antialiasing and no Anisotropic filtering *

ATI Radeon X300
11.0
15.4
55.0

Nvidia GeForce 6200
7.3
12.0
46.4

ATI Radeon X300 SE
4.5
6.2
49.3

Nvidia GeForce 6200 TurboCache
6.9
32.7

Note: * 800x600 tests run at High setting
Half-Life 2 custom demo (in fps) (Longer bars indicate better performance)

1,600x1,200 with 4X Antialiasing and 8X Anisotropic filtering
1,280x1,024 with 4X Antialiasing and 8X Anisotropic filtering
1,024x768 with 4X Antialiasing and 8X Anisotropic filtering
800x600 with no Antialiasing and no Anisotropic filtering *

ATI Radeon X300
8.6
15.6
23.1
68.4

Nvidia GeForce 6200
7.1
9.8
16.3
54.0

Nvidia GeForce 6200 TurboCache
3.1
6.3
10.4
46.9

ATI Radeon X300 SE
2.9
7.1
15.0
62.3
Note: * 800x600 tests run with Water Detail set to Reflect World