ATI ‘cheating’ benchmarks and degrading game quality, says NVIDIA

Justin Robinson of Atomic: MPC writes "From our testing it's clear that ATI's implementation FP16 Demotion does affect image quality in games as challenged by NVIDIA. However, the extent and prevalence of it is not universal - from four games, only one showed any real visible influence. On the other side of the coin are performance improvements, which are plentiful in two games from four: boosting performance by 17 per cent at high resolutions, and a still-impressive 10 per cent at lower resolutions."

[jack who]

this like m$ saying sony is a 2 face lair....oh wait

[zootang]

Would it not be more like, Sony PS3(Nvidia) calling Microsoft Xbox360(ATI)

[golsilva]

so which one is the best out the two, ati or nvidia in terms of sales and/or quality?

[nnotdead]

Nvidia tends to be the bigger sellers. both companys have quality though. ATI tends to give you the better bang for the buck, but Nvidia better overall performance. this is of course not always the case. much better idea to start with a price you want to spend, and then go look up reviews for cards in that price range.

[Snakefist30]

To me ATI is the best.

[Pandamobile]

Both are good. Don't let someone tell you that one or the other is better. Take it on a case by case basis.

[nycredude]

For the price I'd say ATI is a better value.

[NYC_Gamer]

ATI is better in my opinion

[likedamaster]

Nvidia has consistently delivered much more stable cards, although ATI have always been cheaper. Nvidia gets my money most times.

[peowpeow]

The 5xxx series are VERY efficient, and great in terms of price/performance. 5770 was the best budget card, but now the GTX 460 kills the 5770 especially when SLI'd with another. I'm glad I was able to get one =)

[XxZxX]

I was a ATI fan since Radeon 8500 until recently I bought an Intel motherboard from ASUS that constantly fail whatever ATI card throw at it. Was using 2850, has random hung issues also but not that much. Then I tried 4870, random hung on Mass Effec everytime, so I went gtx 260, pretty good. Recently just upgraded to 5870, random hung on Starcraft II... FAILED again, went back to GTX 260. I'm gonna stick with Nvidia for now. I haven't bought an NVIDIA since geforce 6800, but Nvidia seem to be more stable to me. Happy with 260gtx, looking to upgrade the next 4 series.

[jack_burt0n]

nvidia for me purevideo etc has always been more reliable for me.

[i_like_ff7]

nvidia has better drivers but ati is cheaper

[crck]

Historically true. But right now at this moment I think the GTX 460 and GTX 470(if you can put up with the heat and power req) are the best bang for the buck cards. Since they usually come with 1 or 2 games you can flip for $25 to $35. But this could change soon when more info is available about Ati's 6xxx series.

[mittwaffen]

I have used the 5850/GTX 470.

If you can afford it, and want to sit on an amazing card get the 470. Its hot, a little loud but it has the most consistent framerates i've ever seen from a card. Minimum framerates are amazingly stable on the 470.

My only problem is ATI sucks at DX11 drastically, I'd rather a card I can hold onto for a year or two down the road. I ended up trading the cooler/quieter 5850 in for the faster/newer 470.

Its a trade off, but at the end of the day I buy a video card for performance/upgrade.

[ProjectVulcan]

Nvidia have been the market leader for years, and offer different features, such as physx. Ati have just recently though have had better offerings when it comes to price/performance, and the cards themselves have had heat and power consumption advantages.

This is a bit of cheek really, because nvidia themselves are not above misleading benchmarks. For example, unigine tesselation benchmark used by nvidia to make Ati cards look very slow, when in actual real world the difference in games performance is minimal with tesselation enabled and doesnt impact overall performance nearly as much as the very specific benchmark would suggest.

This isnt new though. They have both been arguing about performance benches for years

[likedamaster]

You make a good point. However, real world tests still prove current Nvidia cards are more powerful and get higher frames with tessellation compared to the most powerful AMD cards.

http://www.hardwareheaven.c...

[ProjectVulcan]

My point being with unigine nvidia tried to show that GTX480 was nearly twice as fast as a 5870 on the synthetic benchmark. Whereas in DX11 games with tesselation enabled, the advantage is minor, arguably not even related to tesselation performance in some games. GTX480 is a massive GPU, much much larger than 5870, but its size does not correlate to the same increase in performance advantage. Synth benches are not to be trusted, especially wielded by the designers of the hardware themselves....

The radeon 68xx series will still be smaller than GTX480, and if its not faster across the board in games despite being on 40nm still (6870) i'll eat my shoes. AMD are on a roll, and have major architectural advantages regards die size and efficiency versus Nvidia's designs. Smaller die = cheaper to produce.

This is obvious even looking closely at the midrange, where the GTS450 cannot comprehensively defeat a radeon 5750, despite having a die size 30 percent larger. 5750 isnt even the fastest chip based on that die, 5770 is which soundly beats the GTS450 despite being far smaller. This is a huge advantage for AMD, because they can price parts for profit far below what nvidia could to only break even.

This sort of benchmark fudging has gone back years, recent examples often cited as physx score in 3Dmark favouring nvidia. Going waaaay back even more, i recall accusations being flung about 3D Mark 2003 and how the FX series results were being manipulated by nvidia.

[z1ck]

ATI is the best choice , better price/performance , low power consumption ( means less heat and more space for overclock ) and now even in drives is better . nvidia still have the most powerfull single core cards but they very expensive and run too hot . if you plan on buying a new card wait for the ati 6000 series or until nvidia drop prices ( but wating for the 6000 series is recommended )

[nycredude]

Really no need to buy the 6000 series now since they will cost an arm and leg now. Better waiting until 6000 series releases, then buy a late 5000 series for cheap. They can handle pretty much any games out at highest settings and will last a while. Spend the money you save on games.

[jakethesnake]

Thats what I'm planning on doing. Wait til the 6000s come out and the 5000 prices go down, and then getting a good deal on a 5000 series! .The only hard part is being patient!

[peowpeow]

You can say that again. The hardest part is waiting for the price drop xD

[joydestroy]

like the guys have said, ATI is better bang for your buck.
i personally prefer Nvidia, though. you have PhysX in Nvidia cards.
i run off of 2 MSI GTX 460's

[Trroy]

If you're looking for the best performance first, and looking to save money as well, ATI is usually better.

If you're looking for the best performance, period, or the best performance in a low- or mid-range card, nVidia is better. nVidia really only overcharges for the high-end of the moment.

[jerethdagryphon]

@below it does indeed depend

on a game using physx api nvidia gives a huge advantage because of cuda, in games not running physx theres less difference

bang for buck ati puts more cores in a chip and are lower priced

optimazation and proformence in some areas is better with nvidia at a price

most review list same generation cards as very similar usually less then 10fps from one to another

of corse some games are different and nvidia shows ati up o nthem but there few

my 100£ 5770 runs the games i want at max spec and gives me a 3400 score on the ff14 benchmark

[rexus12345]

As of right this moment, AMD leads the market (ATI does not exist), but nvidia is gaining market with their new gtx 460 series

[magnifier]

Nvidia

[Sarcasm]

ATI is a better value and a lot of their cards run cooler.

As far as raw power, the high end Nvidia's is pretty hot stuff that cant be denied.

Once they roll out either a GTX 490 or maybe even the 500 series, ATI/AMD will have a lot on their hands.

Personally, the best value card in the entire market at least at this point is the GTX 460.

[AwesomeJizz]

ATI sucks because half of the games that come out don't support them, but overall they are a better company than NVIDIA IMO. I mean their products are a lot cheaper than NVIDIA's.

Btw, I thought AMD dropped the name ATI. What happened?

[nycredude]

I don't know what games you are playing or what ati card you use but I have like over 30 steam games and they all run on my 5870.

[z1ck]

really half the games ? can you name one ? because i dont remember a single one that dont work on ati . there was the saboteur but that easy fixed .

[AwesomeJizz]

That's not what I meant..
I know that games get fixed, but it takes some time for ATI to fix them.

[4cough]

Nvidia sound just like sony, Bitter and sour when thier hardware is actully put to the test it just doesnt live up to the hype.

[Seijoru]

What the... Have you seen God of War 3, Uncharted 2, GT5, Killzone 2???????

[evrfighter]

Are you serious.? Gow3 is all smoke and mirrors outside of kratos everything else is a blurry low res texture mess. Kz2 the land of crappy textures, low fps, and jaggies. Never played uc2 or gt5.

You are talking to pc gamers here. We expect quality across the board. Smoke and mirrors don't work on us.

[wicko]

Here comes a flood of kids who have no idea what they're talking about.

[Motorola]

Dont bother hes only saying that because an NVIDIA card is in the PS3. i think....

[RememberThe357]

He's just trying to piss people off.

[Shackdaddy836]

I like how you say that even though its a fact that ps3 hardware is slightly better than the 360s. Everyone knew that since they first came out.

BTW, Im not one of those ps3 fanboys. I dont even own a PS3. I just dont like it when people say their stuff performs better when it really doesnt.

[Zinc]

I've owned cards from both companies. The TNT2 series lasted a long time and was very competitive. The Radeon X850 was a beast. I currently have a Nvidia 8800GTS 512 (G92) and it still kicks a good amount of ass, even to this day. I'm overall very happy with Nvidia, but both solutions have their positives.

[cliffbo]

here people are deciding on who is best... and how do you know that? oh yeah, the title of the article

[koehler83]

I find both perform exactly the same, except AMD doesn't rape my wallet so bad.

[Trroy]

3Dfx used to go on and on about how 16-bit color buffers were what mattered for serious gaming, and "thus" nVidia's better 32-bit performance "didn't matter". We know how that turned out.

I liked 3Dfx, back in the day, but in my book, ATI has always kinda stunk. The last two ATI cards I bought, a X1650 Pro and a HD 2600 Pro, both advertised themselves as being comparable to nVidia's lineup of the day (the 7600 GT and 8600 GT, respectively), but in truth neither one can outperform a 7600 GS, or even my old 6800.

I haven't bought an ATI card since, and never will again, most likely. Dollar for dollar, people say ATI performance is better, but I've fought that's ONLY true at the very high end. nVidia kicks ATIs tail in the mid- and low- price ranges. I'm an *actual* budget gamer.. not one who is looking for a high-end "budget" deal -- seems ironic to me. nVidia's low- and mid-range cards are actually reasonably comparable in performance to their high-end cards of the same line. ATIs are just... not.

ATI is a ripoff unless you're looking for top-notch class performance. If the card doesn't have a model number ending in 750 or greater, it basically sucks, and isn't worth the investment.

[Checkmate]

i have an ati sapphire radeon 5850 and i love it. runs like a dream and can handle any game i throw at it. waiting for a price drop when the 6000 series comes out so i can crossfire this bad boy :)

[Demonsdown]

Meh.

[LiquifiedArt]

I have hated ati since i had the "All-in-Wonder" cards. Terrible bloatware, terrible drivers, just plain terrible. I always desired nVidia back then.

Now I buy Nvidia exclusively and their cards have been solid.

[Fadetoblack69]

I go with what I need. I've been running ATI for the last couple years but just built a new box for FFXIV. Did a lot of research and checked performance comparison charts and this time, for the price range and performance I was after, I went with Nvidia. Just figure out what you want and do your research.

Ffxiv is running smooth for me and I got the price and performance I wanted and that's all I care about.

[Saryk]

In my experience with the systems I have built (I have built them since the 80’s). Nvidia is the better of the two as an average.

Now with CPUs I would go AMD all the way, I never had a problem with them and I have had problems with Intel. However on the video card market and my games I prefer Nvidia.

[Trroy]

I agree completely. AMD CPUs are great. AMD (ATI) video cards... not so much.

[Sarcasm]

AMD CPU's are a great value and in real world situations is absolutely perfect for most people. I have a phenom 965BE OC'd to 3.7ghz (stock cooler) and couldn't ask for more.

However, if you have more money then you simply cant deny the awesome performance of intel CPUs.

[JsonHenry]

Well they could be screwing people over with PHYSX being purposefully coded to run like frozen crap uphill... but wait, that is you Nvidia. Isn't it?

Come back and bitch about bad business practices affecting the consumer when you fix your own companies dirty business practices.

[lolzers]

I've had cards from both companies, and really over the last ten years I couldn't tell you which company was better. They've each had cards out that were better than the other depending on the time the card was released. This is just some company chest beating.

[Zinc]

That's just it. Depending on the generation at the time you are purchasing, this will indicate which is better for you, based on price to performance ratio. Some cards have much better longevity, as well. Sometimes that card is an Nvidia card and sometimes it's an ATI card. It depends on the price at the time and what it can do for its price point.

Just like Intel Vs. AMD

I've owned both chips at various times in my life and sometimes Intel is the better deal for price to performance, but sometimes AMD's solution is best. But, see that can change based on the generation of tech.