After reading this article, I think I may just have to go with an ATI card for my next video card. This hack the engineers put together gives a 30% increase in performance for Doom 3, and 16% in Chronicles of Riddick/Serious Sam 2.

With the AA tweak posted earlier, plus the increased performance in OpenGL applications, plus already better performance in Direct3d applications, it looks like ATI may again claim the top spot in video cards/drivers. I'm really curious to see how this will play out.

[Edit] I love how the last couple of paragraphs in the article discuss how the software drivers the two companies have don't yet release the full potential of the hardware. It's pretty funny to me how the two race to release new hardware when neither has drivers that take full advantage of what already exists.

in case ther article forgets this little biut of info.... it's only for X1K series

Its not really a hack. The X1xxx series have fully programmable memory controllers. They just recoded it to make it more effecient. They are currently planning to do a similar tweak on the x8xx series as well, but they only have partially programmable MC's.

I think the X1800 is going to destroy the 7800, but we'll see. I hope ATi comes out on top again--keep things interesting. But at this point, I think 6800 has gotten too ingrained into everyone's head for them to change, and they'll probably all become nV fanboys.

If I get a new video card within the next year-ish, it'll be an X1800XT most likely.

I'm looking back towards nVidia for my next purchase, which probably won't be until next summer. I just don't really like ATI's software. Not just the drivers, but the lack of a decent software suite is kind of annoying. Although I'll give that Ray guy props, ATI Tray Tools is awesome. I used to hate the lack of tweaking applications for ATI cards. RivaTuner was, and probably still is, the best thing for nVidia cards.

ATi still has more stable drivers, more frequent driver updates, and is better known for adding features and listening to their customers than nVidia.

I'd post my ATI rant, but you've all already heard it.

In any case, I'm still quite happy with my 6800 GT

Why, because they had a paper launch and then had a manufacturing problem and couldn't give the supply they promise which in turn screwed them anyways? Trust me, we know, but it's not something they're going to repeat, and it shows with the X1800 (announced a week before released, and it actually got released)

Yeah, that. I realize that there wasn't anything they could do about it; there was some shortage in the type of memory it used, or something like that, if I remember correctly. But it's still the company's problem, not the customer's. I'm sure I'm not the only one who was a bit angry that they ordered a card and it never came in.

Also, there was the fact that for years, I could never get the drivers for the ATI 7000 in my family computer to work right. (STFU, I don't want to hear about how the drivers are better now. They sucked *** back then, and that's when it affected me). As a company, ATI has just left a pretty bad taste in my mouth. Their policy of "screw something up, then fix it the next year after pissing a bunch of people off"... well, I don't particularily like it.

Although, no complaints about my ATI TV-Wonder card. Other than the fact that it has to interface with the sound card externally (seriously, wtf), it works great.

That's not their policy at all. If they screw something up (I never had problems with my 7500LE btw, and yeah, there was a time when the drivers sucked but there was also a time when nVidia was Voodoo. So try to look to more recent issues), they try to fix it, and if they can't, they make sure that with the next launch goes perfectly. Like I said, they showed it to be true with this launch.

And Kyle, it WAS your fault. I waited a month, when no X800XT's were in yet, I cancelled my order and got a 6800GT. You waited a number of months that you really didn't have to on the hope that they'd come in. And you blame ATi for making you wait that long. Maybe it's their fault that they didn't give you the card, but it's your fault for not taking the hint after a long enough time.

EDIT: Never mind, I will not be held responsible for inciting another ATI/nVidia flamewar