Getting a new video card

[Sabas]

Nvidia and Ati approach the problem of graphics differently.

Ati shoves as much cheap crap into the card as possible. Nvidia uses the bleeding nose edge, which also includes physx engine (stuff that explodes or interacts with you or a vehicle works out easier), then Nvidia shoves the CUDA system under the hood (ATI has their own varient from what I understand Cyprus or something like that).

In a nutshell CUDA stacks tasks instead of a linear set of programs you are using, it limits resources being spent. CUDA also repairs soft data, the sun over time damages data and CUDA actively repairs it.


ATI and Nvidia love pulling off the standard rebranding trick but upping the model a bit and saying tada, more money please!

Currently anything over a 280 GTX or the 4990 ATI series are overkill unless you want to count beads of sweat; at the 60fps mark your eyes detect absolutely no difference, so there is no point beyond that mark.


For processors, if you want to not replace your chipset for the next few years get a quad, or you can get a triple core from AMD to save money. Games only recently reached a point where they can take advantage of multi core units and the Core i series 7 and over is complete overkill, so you are proofing for little reason.

Hope that helps.

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