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| Sunday, 22 August 2004 |
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With Ranga Kamaladasa The Battle of the 3D Cards : Geforce Vs Radeon For most Sri Lankans, 'working' on a personal computer is equivalent to listening to music or playing computer games. (It's not that we don't know how to use the other applications, it's just that we're so good at the other two!) That is why a 3D supported video card is as essential to the user as a mouse or keyboard. The problem is, with the ever changing world of Graphics Processing Architecture it's hard to cope up with, even for the most freaked out computer gamer. The fact that the NVIDIA Company released more than 5 GPUs since the beginning of this year maybe overwhelming for most of us, but the fact that they all range above Rs. 25,000 is unbearable. Of course when buying a PC the average person would go for an unsophisticated card such as a TNT or GeForce2 or just plain built-in Intel Graphics card. But when it comes to a buyer with an attitude towards the newest technology, they inevitably go for the best. But when it comes to saying who the best is, frankly I don't know. The market is dominated by two main Super companies. ATI technologies Inc., and the NVIDIA corporation. And when it comes to throwing away money on research these guys don't seem to know the meaning of being conservative. The GeForce FX family The 3D technological evolution all started with the introduction of 8x AGP motherboards. And along came GeForce3 and GeForce4. But the real excitement came when NVIDIA unleashed the FX family of cards. From FX 5200 to 5900 Ultra NVIDIA guaranteed that they were making a breakthrough in Graphics Card design. They also named their cooling system "Flow FX". Definitely a chip consisting of roughly 125 million transistors produces a respectable amount of thermal energy. But to assign a name for it; is just a trick of the trade. And also the company has made a pact with the state-of-the art game developers, to put a NVIDIA "The way it's meant to be played" seal at the beginnings of their hardcore graphical games. It may be just to show off, but it has definitely made an impact on the market battle between ATI. But the thing is regarding performance the FX family lacked the breakthrough that NVIDIA was talking about. It just merely conquered the Radeon 9700 pro and was still comparable to the 9800 pro. The GeForce PCX Family Then came the collaboration with Intel to build the new PCX technology family of cards which were able to run twice as fast as 8x AGP. It delieved over 4 GB per second in both upstream and downstream data transfers. But still the GeForce cards were not able to make an impression. Though NVIDIA contributed a lot in making the PCI Express Technology available, ATI got the most of it. ATI's X600 card is said to surpass most of the GeForce PCX cards. The GeForce 6800 Family The newest addition to the Family of GeForce cards, it includes 6800, 6800GT, and 6800 Ultra. (Rumors are also spreading that a 6800XT card is yet to be unleashed) This family of cards is said to be capable of giving you your moneys worth. But with the release of ATI's Radeon X800 it's still hard to say which is the best. To conclude it all, it's best to say that the war between ATI and NVIDIA is close as it gets to World War III. However it's always best to take a look at the prices as well. A GeForce FX 5600 will be close to Rs19,000, and Radeon 9800 Pro would be close to Rs50,000. So if you're upgrading or thinking of buying a card it would be wise to think the matter over considerably and buy one which you won't have to upgrade in another 3 months! |
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