i know a fair bit about nvidia and all that concerns them. My knowledge on ati is restricted to uhhh... they make pc stuff whats there to know about ati cards and how do they compare to nvidia.
They're nVidia's current competition Right now, their Radeon X1900's are pitted against the GeForce 7900's. The X1900XTX is the fastest single GPU card out there. The X1600's are comparable to the GeForce 6600's. On the high-end, right now, ATi has it made. The mid-range is owned by nVidia.
BB's pretty much right on but the GeForce 7950GX2 is a good bit faster than the the X1900XTX, concidering it's two 7900GTX's essentually. Either way ATI has been nipping at nVidia's heels for awhile and a bit ago ATI really had outdone them in the midrange and highend market. But with the ho hum performance of the ATI radeon 1600 series nvidia has reclaimed the midrange groud with great cards like the 7600GT and 6800GS. nVidia is currently doing pretty well in the lowend market too compared to ATI. The 7300GT is a good deal faster than the X1300 series. Time will tell how ATI's next crop turns out as we'll be seeing big bad DX 10 capable cards from the two graphics giants this fall.
I think you are not exactly mean what you wrote - X1600's are compatible with 7600's, don't they? The ATi is play over with it graphic cards this year, so there nVidia can dictate it own prices on market. I think in 4 quarter Ati can response with something new.
No. I do mean the X1600's are more in the same league with the 6600's. The X1600 is more of a rehashed X700, which competes with the 6600. The X1600's aren't that impressive for a midrange card, especially considering the 6600GT can be had for just over $100 online, which is in the same price range as the 6600GT's---which also perform a bit better. This isn't to say you can't work with that kind of performance---I run a 6600GT myself and it's a great card---but ATi doesn't have a midrange card to compete with the 7600GT. The 7600GS is more or less the same performance level as a 6600GT from the benchmarks I've run across, but the 7600GT is the main midrange card from nVidia. ATi's achilles heel in the past has been awful driver support, and for the most part, they've really come out of that crap--unless you're in Linux. What they need is a strong mid-range contender. True, the GeForce 7950GX is the fastest card on the market, but that's only because it's got 2 GPU's SLI'd together. ATi has the fastest single GPU on the market with the X1900XTX.
Oh I got you man, yeah for a single card solution it's the XTX, though concidering the 7950GX2 is less than a $100 more I'd say they're in the same category.
