As a computer retail parts store, I'm required to know everything. Or at least find out all I can.
I've been watching the Radeon vs Geforce for a long time now, and everything I've read shows ATI has a superior hardware platform, while nVidia has superior software support.
Basically, if ATI had driver support as good as nVidia, they would easily dominate the market for sheer graphics strength. However, since nVidia has this "nasty" habbit of increasing performance with every new driver release, they are far from out of the game.
As a side note, there was much contraversy, even on Tom's Hardware, concering the new 3dmark 2003 benchmark. It is designed as "the gamer's benchmark" even though it's centered around directX 9 (who's only current purely supported cards are the radeon 9700 and geforce FX). Clearly ATI has an advantage in this test. The way Tom's hardware explains it is as follows: nVidia's core has the capability to be faster than ATI, if given nVidia optimized code to process. Unreal tournament 2003, for example, is optimized for nVidia's platform (hence the logo at game launch). Even 3d mark 2001 included instructions to eek out every bit of performance out of both, ATI and nVidia cards. The contraversy comes in when nVidia claims their card is faster, <given proprietary code>, and 3dmark 2003 is written in generic, platform independant code. The result- ATI can process generic code much faster than nVidia, but if nVidia can get enough developers to focus on it's platform, beautiful things can happen for them.
Link Here.
Now, I've been running an All in Wonder 9700pro for the past 2 months or so, and all I've had was problems with a kt400 chipset based motherboard. About 2 weeks ago, I began testing with an nForce II based motherboard, and haven't had a single problem to date. With the nForce board, everything is clear, smooth, and pretty, and stable. I'll stick with this card until I see something worth the price/performance increase (I ended up with this card for dirt cheap through a series of events). At this point, neither the Geforce FX or 9800 look appetizing to me.