Nvidia vs ATI: Whats Different

So this is a question I have for the community. I have been a Nvidia man for all my life and never even glanced at Radeon. I recently looked at some Radeon cards and was in a state of shock for a minute as I looked at the specs, all of which were superior to Nvidia. The Radeon cards had a incredibly high number of "stream processing units" as compared to Nvidia's "stream processors" and the clocks were slightly higher as well on top of Radeon's DDR5 memory. Reality hit me then and I remembered that from all the comparisons of the two companies cards that for the most part they were on par with each being ahead and behind in certain aspects but at the surface it looks as though Radeon should blow Nvidia away but obviously this isn't true so my question is whats the truth. Is there a difference between "stream processing units" and "stream processors" and why is it with the specs of the Radeon cards are they on par with Nvidia. I'm sitting here thinking if Nvidia had those specs we would be blown away and then some. Any insight is greatly appreciated and please try to keep it unbiased.

Agreed on what xc0mmiex said. Benchmarks are the real deal when comparing
performance. Also, try to gather as much info as possible from different sources. That
is, compare benchmarks from different sites, check the CPU and MBs they use, etc.

In other words, benchmark the benchmarks

xc0mmiex hit it right on the nose. There is no way to compare the cards spces it comes down to testing them in the real world. Sometimes ATI wins and sometimes Nvidia wins.

Nvidia wins more often then ATI but ati always makes a very strong show and isn't usually to far behind but are always priced better. As I have stated on here many times before I think it is unreal that you can get 2 ati 4870 x2 cards for around the same price as 1 GTX 295.

The GDDR5 is a huge advantage for ATI, yes, but Nvidia makes up for it with the incredibly wide memory buses. As for stream processors, Nvidias are quite a bit more powerful (but also larger and more power hungry) than ATIs. On the whole though, the cards end up pretty comparable, with ATI having the better deal at most price points right now (though they don't have anything that can quite touch the 295 for the extreme high end).

Awesome, thanks guys, that helped out a bunch.

With the new 9.8 drivers, at least 1 or more of those games where the 295 won out is now no longer the case, and the 4890 in cf is the better solution
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/v [...] html#sect2
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/v [...] html#sect0

lets explain how ati an nvidia go bout making cards nvidia will build a limo an give it to you on the open road (bigger bus width slower memory moderate clocks) ati will will build you a ferrari an put you in traffic (smaller bus width faster memory an faster clocks) end of the day they end up covering the same distance but one is clearly slower an the other much faster but its those minor details wich change performance

Advantages of ATI:

-Adopting newer tech faster/on time and normally before NVIDIA does (normally ATI tried harder to be more innovative with newer tech or coming up with something new)
-normally offers decent/good performance cards at a lower price than NVIDIA (focus on best bang for buck or the sweet spot)
-offer high-end multiple GPU solution at cheaper price than NVIDIA
-Crossfire allows different card model to be crossfire
-normally has good marketing brand names and less confusing in respect to NVIDIA

Disadvantages of ATI:

-normally doesn't offer fastest high end card as a single GPU card but as a multi GPU solution, thus risking to have micro-stuttering effect issue
-normally has slightly slower single GPU card than NVIDIA
-drivers are buggy (based on what many people had mentioned but I am not quite sure)

Advantages of NVIDIA:

-supporting game developers with (TWIMTBP)
-having good drivers support
-normally offers the fastest single GPU card than ATI (but much more expensive than ATI)
-NVIDIA's high-end cards normally doesn't suffer from micro-stuttering effect since they are single GPU cards

Disadvantages of NVIDIA:

-adopting the newer tech slowly
-tends to/depended on overclocking the next-gen card instead of using new tech, thus ended up rebranding the old architecture cards (not being innovative enough)
-TWIMTBP program is sometimes for NVIDIA's political reason and could be seen as anti-competitive practice like refusing to adopt DX 10.1 in time or urging game devs to remove DX 10.1 from PC game Assassin's Creed to avoid rival ATI's DX 10.1 advantages.
-the price of some cards are sometimes too expensive and would rip your wallet or doesn't have a good price/performance offer maybe due to failing to die shrinking the GPU.
-confusing brand names that could mislead customers

These are some informations I normally heard but I don't guarantee how legitimate the informations I posted are. You are welcome to correct me if you think that I am wrong. I tried to be unbiased too....