streaming processors

I am going to upgrade my graphics but I am not sure which to go with,
Nvidia or ATI.
My main question is the streaming processors. It seems that ati uses many
more on their high end cards than nvidia. So how important are the
processors
in the card or is it just hype. I haven't used a ati card since my old
rage128.
I am looking at a 9800gtx or the HD 4850 they are about the same price.

TIA

BigJim wrote:
I am going to upgrade my graphics but I am not sure which to go with,
Nvidia or ATI.
My main question is the streaming processors. It seems that ati uses many
more on their high end cards than nvidia. So how important are the
processors
in the card or is it just hype. I haven't used a ati card since my old
rage128.
I am looking at a 9800gtx or the HD 4850 they are about the same price.

TIA



You can't compare stream processors on GPU's like MHZ on CPU's, at least
not yet. Each company has radically different chip 'marchitectures'
that produce the same results. Image quality differences are
essentially imperceptible these days, and feature wise they both work in
much the same way. Don't listen to marketing. Ever.

The way most enthusiasts and myself are is that we buy what we can at
the time that's considered the best for the money. For some of us with
more money, benchmarks and bragging rights are important, so you buy the
fastest whatever and often switch between brands depending on which is
faster at the time.

Fortunately you can't go wrong overall, even though at some point a
driver bug will **** you off, or a new game will glitch, no matter who
you go with.

The 9800GTX+ is a good match for the 4850. The regular 9800GTX falls a
bit behind. The 4850 is sometimes much faster in games you wouldn't
expect (Crysis, ETQW), but slower in others. The 9800GTX+ has a good
cooler and power consumption and Physx, but also takes 2 slots.