Ok, I have something to say about this issue. I have been a PC tech and building gaming rigs before the new Milena started. Thus from building gaming rigs, my specialty was graphic cards. ATI was around before Nvidia started and it was basically Creative Labs and 3DFX that were the 2 big boys around town. Creative Labs put out the first 3d card ever, the Voodoo 2. ATI was around, but their top end card was the the rage pro and they absolutely stunk. Soon after Creative Labs put out the first 3d card, 3DFX quickly followed suit and later on ATI decided to get into the mix. ATI's cards were still the bottom of the barrel and Creative Labs and 3DFX battled it out. When along came Nvidia. Nvidia quickly became a power house and forced Creative Labs out of the graphic card industry even though their Annihilator card was considered the cream of the crop. It was then 3DFX, Nvidia and ATI and again ATI was still a joke.
3DFX was known for decent cards at this point with stable drivers and Nvidia was known for their better and faster cards but mostly piss poor unstable drivers. One of 3DFX's big releases was their Voodoo 5 card. I had that card on pre-order for the longest time only to find out after 2 weeks of owning the card, that 3DFX folded and was bought out by Nvidia. Nvidia then fucked all of the Voodoo 5 owners (including myself) by stating that even though they bought out 3DFX and took their techs, that they were no longer going to support the Voodoo 5 and or write new drivers for it. A choice which I would have despised them for if Circuit City did not let me exchange their card for a new Nvidia one. Nvidia was then the king of the graphic card industry for years to follow with ATI constantly putting out crap card after crap card. This was the staple till one day, ATI released the 9700 and the PC mags and techs went ape shit(I believe that was the model that saved their company). Not only did this card blow away the very best that Nvidia had to offer at the time, but was a fraction of the price of Nvidia's top card and thus a new graphic card war was born. Since then, it has been a constant battle back and forth for the longest time with both sides at times claiming the graphic card king title. I have thus not been as active in the industry as of late but after all these years of dealing with both companies I tend to side with Nvidia.
I do flip flop from time to time because ATI as they have in the past, manages to top Nvidia every once in a while. Since ATI merged with AMD their tech seems to have gotten even better, but this is the way I see it. Nvidia will always have a slightly better and faster card than ATI with ATI from time to do out doing them. So Nvidia is the way to go if you want the best tech possible. Keep in mind though, you are going to pay a premium for that. Where ATI's cards will be slightly below Nvida's but their price will reflect that. So it's really a matter of personal choice and finance. If you want the best tech possible, go with Nvidia, but be ready to pay through the nose. If you want a really good card, save a lot of money, but not have the best, go with ATI. You really can't make a bad decision going with either company, but there is one other choice to consider. That being what type of proc. you have in your system. Since ATI IS A PART OF AMD, it's prob going to function a hell of a lot better with an ATI card then an Nvidia card in your system. The same can be said if you have an Intel proc. I would recommend putting an Nvida card into your system since Intel seems to be more partial to Nvidia. I have in the past used ATI cards while running Intel processors without an issue and vice versa, but keep in mind that this was BEFORE ATI merged with AMD. Once again, the choice is yours. The best tech at a premium price or a less powerful card at sometimes half the cost. No matter what company you chose, you made a good decision. Oh and Crowder was partially right, the newest card out by Nvidia is the 480 GTX (the 460 is the slower model) and ATI does not currently have any card that can match it.
