meljor wrote:

I had both ati/amd and nvidia cards and i simply buy what's best for my budget. I found that Nvidia was a bit limited everytime […]
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I had both ati/amd and nvidia cards and i simply buy what's best for my budget. I found that Nvidia was a bit limited everytime a new generation of games came out, and that way imo the ati cards ''lasted longer''.
For example: the 7900gtx was about equal when compared to the x1900xtx. Much later the x1900xtx was still going strong in a lot of games where the 7900gtx became to slow for my needs.

Everything changed when the 8800 series came out. It is amazing what these cards can do (even today, but at low settings). Same thing with the 5870, very strong card.

Today i am running an amd R290, tomorrow i don't know... cards are pretty even the last few years and it all depends on the games you play. I go for the most fps within my budget (as always).

Last 2 cards i bought used as i don't play games as much as i did and i am happy with 1080p. I had a used gtx660 for cheap and since a lot of miners gave up i got the R290 for less than half (2 months old when i bought it).

well alot of that has to do with the G70 was originally called NV47 aka it is just an improved Geforce 6, where as the R500 cards where built from the ground up. Two diffrent approaches, Nvidia saved money on RnD for DX10, while ATI had to redesign as they lacked SM3 and Epic annouced the UT3 engine would require SM3 to work. It meant ATI had no choice. Nvidia was also able to get out of the gate first, and when the x1800 arrived defeat it with a tweak 7800GTX, yes the x1900XTX out did it, but the G70/G71 aka NV40 was never designed to have independent shader units.