ATI vs. NVidia

Ahhhhh yes.... the never-ending battle, the eternal struggle..... I have linked to two of the higher end video cards available, one from each of the two vendors. They have very similar prices, and the specs are close, but in one case, it seems that ATI just freekin' DESTROYS nVidia. The nVidia card has a mere 64 stream processors compared to a massive 320 on the ATI card. How is this explained? Are they different things on each card? With all other things being equal, why would someone go with the lower number of stream processors? Besides, the ATI card has faster clock and memory speeds so the choice here is clear, isn't it?
Radeon HD3870 512mb PCIe (model RX3870-T2D512E OC by MSI) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127315&Tpk=RX3870-T2D512E+OC
Geforce 9600GT 512mb PCIe (model NE/960TSX0252 by Palit) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814261001&Tpk=NE%2f960TSX0252

 

The Geforce 8800GTX ULTRA/HTDP 768Mo DDR3 PCI-E is the TOP card NOT the 9600GT.

It's destroyed the radeon HD3870......

 

I didn't say that either of those two cards are the top of the line. What I said was:

I merely said they are two of the higher end cards, which they are. Yes, there are other cards that will destroy both of them, but not in the same price range.
Regardless, none of this answers my question, and it was not about which card is better. My question is about the number of stream processors and why they are so different on the two cards, and what this means to the performance of the card, and if maybe nVidia's stream processors are somehow "different" than the ATI stream processors, and if they are the same, how can one card possibly compete with the other with such a large difference in the number of stream processors.

 

http://www.techspot.com/articles-info/88/bench/Crysis_01.png

http://www.techspot.com/articles-info/88/bench/Crysis_02.png

DESTROYS isnt the words i would use

 

When I said destroys, I was only referring to the number of stream processors: THAT'S ALL. All I said was that the ATI has way more stream processors than the nVidia card. It does. I wasn't saying that one card was better than the other. And still, none of this answers my original questions:
From my first post:

From my second post:

However, thank you for the graphs. They are very informative and show that both cards are about equal in performance; maybe the nVidia has an edge with Vista and DX10. Now, hopefully someone can explain this thing about the stream processors, what they are, and how the nVidia card can have equal or better performance while running one-fifth of the stream processors that ATI has.

 

ATI was forced to add more stream/univiersal shaders to compensate for there drivers "inefficient" use of them. Has something to do with Nvidia holding a patent to a rather large stream/universal shader driver optimization if I remember correctly. As for what card to get, I'd go with the 9600.

 

Thanks ACE.... that is some information I can use. This thread was NOT about which card was better, but it was more about how the two cards could be so close performance-wise with such a large gap in the number of stream processors. Thanks again for tackling my original question.

 

so.....nvidia comes out on top?

 

It depends... using the graph submitted above by peanut182, it shows that with SLI vs. Crossfire in WinXP (DX9) that nVidia does indeed come out ahead; when running single cards they are almost exactly even.
SLI vs. Crossfire in Vista (DX10) shows the ATI pair to be slightly ahead, but when running single cards in DX10, nVidia comes out ahead of the ATI by roughly 10% (if I did my math right it's about 10%)...
The quote that accompanies the graphs pretty much sums it up (thanks peanut!)

 

All in all the 3870 is a bit weaker as a single card but shines when in crossfire holding the 3Dmark 06 record on air cooling. The 9600GT is faster as a single card but doesn't show much of a performance boost in SLI (incomplete SLI drivers?). Take a look here for a good comparison. Its a review of a 9600 but the benchmark charts include a 3870 and the 3870 X2.