nVidia or ATI graphics?

You really aren't asking questions that have any real answers. The speed that the parts run at can't be directly compared because the graphics cores are built on different architectures. It's the same thing with stream processors, as both companies count them differently.

Will you be running this card under linux? If so, I hardly see the point in getting one at all. Sure they are options for playing games under Linux, but, let's be honest here, they all suck. For one, even though ATi's Linux drivers have improved greatly in the last year, support from either company isn't that great. Secondly, projects such as WINE and Cedega have large drawbacks. When a new release comes out that make one game work, it often breaks compatibility for another one. If you're going to be gaming, you should just bite the bullet and pay for a Windows liscense, unless you want to spend more time troubleshooting than being productive or having some fun. But, hey, that might be why you use Linux in the first place. ;)

while rumour i heard 4870x2 = 500$ x2 for Crossfire less expensive but is it more powerfulli wonder :)
marcthpro

You're in Canada, so expect to pay more at launch.

I've got a dual-boot Windows XP/Mandriva setup, and I know how to set up the nVidia drivers in Linux. I'll use XP for gaming, but I still want to be able to play with WINE and Compiz. It seems I'm better off sticking to nVidia since I know how to set those cards up.WC1

Oh, it's good to see that you're not completely nuts. =D Yeah, if you're all-around familar with Nvidia cards under Linux, that's a decent reason to stick with them. Not to meation that they do have more-complete support that ATi does.

i still have faith as a Gamers nor a supportist for ati that HD4870X2 Crossfire X can run cryiss all very high 50fps. 1920x1200 by end of summer i go alway for the stronger it why in my life i never went ati
or surpass the frame rate of 90% Of game. VS nvidia 280GTX Tri-sli and it supposes to use less WATS it could
be the only chance for ati to rise is fame once more. since the famous 1900XT Crossfire.
in oblivion & half life 2 : since ati never being the same. always Second place But less expensive marcthpro

sorry :) saying. ATI never leaded market Ever before that nvidia & ati where on equal feet if nvidia was not beyond ati performancesmarcthpro

:|

http://www.techreport.com/articles.x/5797

Real-time high-dynamic-range lighting effects

Conclusions
Our evaluation of the GeForce FX 5950 Ultra is complicated greatly by the DirectX 9/Pixel Shader 2.0 performance problems outlined earlier in this article and demonstrated in several of our benchmarks, including ShaderMark. Image quality issues add another layer we haven't even explored yet with current drivers. Obviously, NVIDIA is working diligently to try to give gamers the best possible experience with GeForce FX cards, and I expect that effort will begin to bear fruit in the very near future. I have no doubt that Doom III will run comparatively well on NVIDIA cards, and I expect many developers of DirectX 9 titles will find ways to make their games perform well on GeForce FX cards without too many image quality compromises.

However, if I had to pick the best $499 video card at present, I'd still have to give the nod to the Radeon 9800 XT. Even with the 5950's hardware improvements and the updated compiler in the 52.16 driver, the Radeon 9800 XT leads in those things I want most from a video card that costs half a thousand dollars: high resolutions with edge and texture antialiasing maxed out, performance in newer games, and a degree of future-proofing. Life with a Radeon would probably be a little less complicated than life with a GeForce FX right now, as well.

http://www.techreport.com/articles.x/7679

Conclusions
The Radeon X800 XT Platinum Edition's performance has always been stellar, but the cards have been extremely hard to come by. If these new Radeon X850 cards can solve that problem, more power to them. As most of you know, I rarely recommend that anyone actually purchase a $549 video card like the Radeon X850 XT Platinum Edition, or even a $499 card like the X850 XT. That's a very high price to pay when there are better values to be had at $399 and below. However, if you want to have the fastest single graphics card available, the Radeon X850 XT Platinum Edition is it. The X850 XT PE came out on top in the majority of our tests, and it did especially well when 4X antialiasing and 8X anisotropic filtering were enabled.

http://www.techreport.com/articles.x/10615

The GeForce 7900 GTX and Radeon X1950 XTX are neck and neck here, while the Radeon X1900 XT 256MB continues to outperform the GeForce 7900 GT. I should mention, though, that there was a clear visual difference in this game between the 16X anisotropic texturing filtering modes offered by the two brands of cards. The Nvidia cards showed lots of high-frequency noise at certain mip levels and on mip-map boundaries, particularly in the cobblestone texture on the ground. The ATI cards did a much better job of presenting a sharp image without pixel shimmer, moire, or crawling. Frame rates also felt subjectively smoother on the ATI cards, especially during the first of our five runs through this sequence.

Conclusions
See, like I said, remixes can bring good things. In this case, we have a new top-end Radeon X1950 XTX that furthers ATI's claim on the title of the fastest single-GPU graphics card around, and does so without costing any more than the product it replaces. I'm not sure I can say definitively that the Radeon X1950 XTX is faster than the GeForce 7900 GTX—that depends on the situation. You will have to live with higher power consumption if you choose the Radeon, but ATI has worked to mitigate the worst effects of that fact with its new cooler. The X1950 XTX also has a few feature advantages in its corner, including the ability to handle floating-point texture filtering for high-dynamic-range rendering in concert with antialiasing and a superior default algorithm for anisotropic filtering. That's a pretty good combination.

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These benchmarks don't even show modern day games, where ATI's cards do a lot better then their Nvidia counterparts.

To say that ATI never lead the market before (G80) is a huge oversight, one that shows that you haven't been with PC gaming prior to the GeForce 8.

Also why do you think so many people were so dissapointed with R600, especially ATI fans? Would you be dissapointed if a weak product came from a weak company? No. You would be very dissapointed, however, if a flop of a product came from a historically good company.