I cant believe i waste so much time reading these big debated threads thinking something is going to change right now.. Its not!... AMD fans like myself should get over the fact that our little company got SMOKED the last 2 years! I know AMD is not as fast is the big blue and everyone else in the amd camp should admit it too.. Get over it guys.. I love AMD and I really want an Intel platform!  Last 5years its been a back and forth cycle.. Us AMD fans can just only pray that there will be another slugfest!  
 

Try telling that to "tunderman".
 
He may hit you with his battered cod once you have finished.

this is really an unnecessary thread surely? you could just have posted this viewpoint on any of the aforementioned hotly debated threads

 
 
Why is that?  We "all of us" are beating this dead horse so much that it looks like a pile of beans!

so why make it worse?

It doesnt affect my life that your intel is better than my amd. To others it really does.. We should be helping each other not bashing each other
 

LEAVE AMD ALONE!
 
(Everytime he says "Britney" replace it with "AMD" )
 
(No, seriously, watch it the entire way through and replace all the Britney references with AMD, you can so picture fanboys at their homes doing this)
 

ACTUALY: looking at via for the next cpu i buy.
 
http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/arti [...] VzaWFzdA==
 
just kidding.(or am I?)

wouldnt that be nice to see a 3rd player !

Personally I have no commitment to either. I will buy whatever is fastest.  Who cares who makes it.  I certainly don't wish AMD any bad will, just make a faster chip and you have my business....same with ATI.  But I sure as hell won't pretend that AMD or ATI is faster than Intel and Nvidia at the moment. Fanboy of speed.  Only

ATI actually isn't doing too bad.  They're not better than nVidia, but they have a couple of really good cards that do compete on the same level.  If I was building a new rig I would probably lean toward the Radeon 3850 if the price was good, which they currently are.
 
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 000+series

 
Now, you're showing yourself to be a fanboy and not a factboy. AMD is almost as bad as you say and Intel is the best CPU tech, but there's no way that anyone can say that ATI is not better than Nvidia. When more than just a few fps in Crysis are considered, ATI is better than Nvidia.
 
ATI has better image quality and has been consistent over the last few generations since the 8500. It has had really competitive cards since the 9800 Pro.
 
ATI has Avivo, which generally beats Pure Cinema. It comes with the cards and does not cost an extra fifty bucks or so. Nvidia is ripping people off charging for Pure Cinema.
 
ATI's drivers are genuinely good. They don't have access to the code that Nvidia pays for through it's "Nvidia, the way it's meant to be bribed" program (something similar was done by Intel with their OEM rebate deals keeping AMD down to a smaller market share). Yet, they catch up and perform just as well, or better, overall.
 
ATI and Nvidia leapfrog the top spot in each generation, but Nvidia shows that they only care about the enthusiast gamer, despite their willingness to put out a few low end cards for the clueless who hear that the $600 Nvidia card. is number one so the lower end cards must be better too.
 
As a graphics card, ATI is on top. As a gaming card, ATI is neck and neck. I'd say they are better than Nvidia and will only get better since the merger. Once AMD goes to 45nm Swift for notebooks and perhaps even triple hybrid Crossfire (ie CPU core + 780G + discrete low end graphics) for entry level and HTPC.
 
Maybe Nvidia will buy Via, but I doubt they'll get AMD. Their own partners don't want that, because they like the competition too. Nvidia won't have a CPU to compete against Intel and AMD in later generations unless they buy one or develop their own. Unless they only want to be a high end enthusiast company that only gives a few extra fps in a demanding FPS, they will lose much of the market share.  
 
Though the 7600gs I have isn't that bad a card, the motherboard I bought with it turned out to be a lousy product and I'll never buy another Nvidia motherboard again. I'll stick with the AMD platform as an act of charity towards AMD CPU's but it won't be charity towards what are essentially ATI chipsets and graphics cards. Those are top notch.
 
I give Nvidia three stars for their enthusiast cards, but ATI four stars for overall performance in every sector where graphics matters: the first decent gaming and TV card (AIW Radeon 8500 128), the best graphics card of it's generation (9800XT and the AIW 9800 Pro), the improvement and victory of the X1950 Pro, the first decent IGP (690G) following a good effort (X200). Hybrid Crossfire and promises of Swift.
 
If you mention the 2900XT, then I'll mention the FX 5200. Which is worse? A mid range card that matches it's competitor (the 8800gts 320) or a card that every Nvidiot on a budget bought because it wasn't ATI? I had a friend stuck with one of those. Now his newest Dell has an 8600gt! Yay Nvidia at the low end!
 
The 2600 was never a gaming card it was an HD card. The 3850, 3870 and 3870x2 are gaming cards and HD cards. All that is missing for me is an All in Wonder version for our upcoming HTPC.
 
I finally got talked into going 3870x2. Can't wait to order it this Friday!

 
Ummm...
 
Link to a benchmark that shows an ATI card doing better than an 8800 Ultra.
 
You can start by looking here:
 
http://www23.tomshardware.com/graphics.html
 
 
 
And re-read my comment, it was actually a positive one for ATI, not negative.

 
Link.

You're all nuts. What the heck is a CPU and why would I want one??

Yes ATI have woken up , but why does it take 2 of ATI GPU's to slighty beat 8800 Ultra eh!.. imangine when Nvidia start putting quad GPUs on a single card !!

 
the 2 cards are better than one!
 
/added a bit of sarcasm or something along those lines...

Be that as it may, the fact is a nice 790FX mobo and an X2 6000+ or one of the BE's make for a solid performing machine.
 
Also, methinks you invest too much energy and emotion into which company has the "best" processor. Best for what? Best at running benchmarks? Best at websurfing? Best at forwarding those stupid-a$s email jokes.  
 
Oh yeah, one last thing, as a self proclaimed AMD fanboy, if you ever buy an Intel platform, the Green Machine will send the Goon Squad to your house and take away your secret decoder ring!  

 
Thank you.
 
As others have said, that's two 3870's against one 8800 Ultra; it does best it by a few frames per second, none-the-less.
 
Other benchmarks put a single 3870 somewhat close to a 8800, which at the right price would be enough to entice me to buy a (single) 3870.