Which GPUs do you prefer in graphic cards and why?

[Badbonji]

Brand loyalty is stupid, You should look at them and get the card which suits your needs (or the fastest etc) rather than sticking with ATi or Nvidia...

I got a GTX295 as it was the fastest card, and had the money for it. I also managed to get another 27% boost from overclocking it, which made it more value for money

This time around, I might get ATi depending on how the GTX380 is, but at the moment the GTX380 sounds like a beast... More than twice the sp's of a GTX285, should put it to 50%+ faster in games and past the HD5870 by quite a margin. As long as the price remains competitive though...

[mercyground]

i wouldnt put its performance to be more than 20% over current NV cards. most of the extra transisters are for double precision which games do not use.

GT300 is not a gaming card. Its a hybrid CPU / number cruncher. Hence the science focus to NV;s last conferance.

NV have screwed up. Too much power, too big a die, too expensive a chip. They are already EOL'ing their top end cards as they cannot make the cards for the prices they are selling them at. The 295's are in extremely short supply (and stupidly expensive) so rather than selling them at a huge loss they are winding them up and hopeing Fermi will be on time and people will wait for it. (My estimation is late Q1 of 2010 if not Q2).

The 40nm deployment for NV was a clusterfsck. point in case? the pathetic gt210 cards wont even out do a 9600gt. Hell my 8500gt is almost as powerful as them. these are pure OEM or home theatre pc use only. Stupid thing is? ATI's 4650's beat them on price and power. 6months ago these cards might have sold. Today? there is zero reason to get one.

NV has a gap in their schedule and its growing. Unless the Fermi release goes as planned? It will get bigger and leave ATI with a clear field. Lets hope NV dont screw up anymore.

[R_N_B]

Brand loyalty for the sake of brand loyalty is crazy and can prove very costly to the wallet in my view. It has to be all about the relationship between price/performance for me.

Currently I am running ATi cards on all my machine simply because they offer the best bang for bucks at present - for my needs. That means I have two HD48550 low profile cards in my two media systems and a single HD4870 IGB card in my game rig. I paid £104 for the HD4870 a few months ago and have been very happy with it.

Just to put things in perspective. Prior to April I was running a nVidia based 9800GTX on my gaming rig, sold that for pretty much what I paid for it and upgraded. Prior to that I had a nVidia 8800GT 320MB. Currently I am watching the pricing of the new HD58x0 generation of cards and will hopefully pick up a bargin in the new year. And so the process goes on. If nVidia come up with a card that is worth the money then I shall go that route. My wallet has no room for fanboy'ism so I completely passed on the 280GTX and 285GTX cycle due to the price factor.

Whoever makes the best card within a affordable price range is who gets my money.

[ETNiES]

Although the Nvidia drivers are a lot better the ATi cards are always amazing, and overclock quite well also, like someone else said previously the constant re-badging of the same old cards with Nvidia is becoming a joke they are just ripping people off like their prices aren't already bad enough.

[sabrefresco]

NVIDIA FTW!!!!

My first NV card was the Geforce GO 7300(Not the best), but now I've got the GTX 480. It rocks

[Dark Mantis]

Personally at the moment I prefer the ATI 5xxx series as they give the best "Bang per Buck" and I also like the eyefinity aspect. That doesn't mean that I would stick with ATI whatever but while I am getting more for my money then I will stay. I also don't like the heat and power draining issues that the big nVidia cards have, especially their flagship model. It is even outside the ATX standard because of it's power needs and size. So for now ATI Rules

[Dark Mantis]

Actually my first graphics cards didn't even run 3D, 2D only. When the first 3D games etc came along I bought a Matrox Millenium that had to be used alongside my 2D card. Then there was the Voodoo series that were a great leap forward.

[Sadah]

im on green side Nvidia > It's meant to be played 
except once i was always using Nvidia cards and i never,ever have any kind of trouble with them..
so if Nvidia does the job i  am paying for to do and it worth it,  in my point of view there is no reason to go with ati..
 

[geekyadz]

For my desktop I currently use Nvidia.

In my laptop I made sure that the laptop had  ATi graphics due to the problems I heard about on a different forum.

The only reason why I went Nvidia with my desktop is due to some people recommending Nvidia cards to run with Linux Ubuntu. However, recently I decided to try and run Ubuntu on my laptop and it worked fine, so I might just change my mind if I get a new board. More importantly right now I need a decent monitor

[Wonderwrench]

I just went to view results. I buy whatevers best at the time and whats within my budget. My overclocked 8800GTX still does me fine

You took the words right out of my mouth. "best at the time and whats within my budget"
BTW I did not vote as the needed third choice is missing.

Bill

[pcb-plus]

nvidia anytime

 after trying a 5870 eyefinity 6 2 Gb version and getting lower framerates in games than my gtx 285

 i think a GTX 580 is next on my shopping list as nvidia's drivers are much better to date we will have to see what the ccc rewrite is like when it is released

[Dark Mantis]

The beta Preview version is available now. I haven't tried it personally but I have had good reports from others who are using it.

[Niffler]

AMD, as they are now, just work. Maybe I have been lucky but they have never given me a problem in both Windows and Linux. The latest crop of Nvidia are certainly hotter and more power hungry. (In my box anyway). However each to their own and competition is good.

[JohnCox]

I'm not biased towards any brand or company, I personally just buy the best bang for buck that I can afford.

[Dark Mantis]

Well I have just purchased a AMD Radeon 6970 and while it may not match up to the nVidia GTX 580 for brute strength it is a lot cheaper and well matches the GTX 570 whilst cooler and quieter.  I also suspect that once the drivers are optimised it will increase it's standing in the ratings.