Which video card is better depends upon what you are using it for.
The ATI Radeon is better if you plan on doing video editing and playback--ATI excells at this.
The Nvidia Geforce2 Ultra is better for 3D gaming.
For creating your own 3D animations, the rest of your systems performance is probably more important with these cards. You would probably be better off with a professional high end 3D card that would take some of the animation work off your processor--if you can afford it.
go with nvidia quatro, forget ATI, the cards are only for home use - they do not work with professional 3d software. (the ATI opengl driver is for gaming only).
a gf2 will be also fine for your work, but you will not get special drivers (from elsa).
I would like to point out that the comparison is not very fair. The GeForce2 Ultra is the newest sepreme high end GPU while the Radeon is made to comptete with the GF2 GTS. Actually I have a Radeon 32 DDR, and after looking at Tom's numbers, the 32MB version is almost on par with the 64MB for around half the cost (after $50 rebate from CompuUSA). The Radeon 32MB DDR is a great deal, so don't let the GeForce mania (anyone remember Voodoo mania?) get you to just go with the flow.
"you've got to be close to nuts buying a Pentium 4 system."
GTS2 ultra for sure.
the GTS2 ultra ready for all kind of 3D operation and supported by solid driver while Radeon is just for gamers only,
(BTW, IMO ATI's software engineers don't know how to write better driver for their very good hardware...)
<font color=orange>What do you think? </font color=orange>
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