Graphic cards. There was always hottest battles between their manufacturers. Since AMD bought ATI, ATI popularity fall down, but, in other hand, they are making revolutionary processor called Fusion, which is announced in 2009. This processor contains both graphic and main procesor in one microchip. Theorically speed in games will be amazing. Nvidia. Graphic giant, and leading graphic chips manufacturer. Most of us had seen those words on game box or in intro 'It's Nvidia meant to be played'. Nvidia pay for game developers, so they make games optimized for Nvidia cards. That's dirty business actually. It's consumer manipulation. Intel is going to create new graphic chips, which would be able to compete with AMD, and it's possible one day we'll see 3rd serious player in high-brand graphic cards battle. I personally prefer Nvidia, bcos... I always had it
I buy ATI and AMD because they are cheap and I'm poor though I am looking forward to the new AMD quadcore and the Fusion chip too but from what I know the later is going to be laptop only at the start and is just a way to reduce price and power costs in laptops.
Well, ATI manipulates game developers too, just perhaps not as openly. For example, all of my Orange Box games are optimized for ATI cards. Anyway, I don't mind the practice, it means more money for developers, or at least, better graphics without other tradeoffs.
Well, I'm not sure why Intel is up there, they don't produce video cards. But they do produce integrated chipsets, of which I am a big proponent. I don't like extra and unnecessary hardware in any computer, especially in a laptop which is so space-starved. But anyway, Intel in general has a much higher standard of quality than AMD, and should always be preffered. I've seen a number of AMD processors go out while still in warranty or just after it has ended, resulting in disaster. It's not a pretty sight. However, I have yet to see an Intel processor or chipset fry before another component. The motherboard, video card, hard drive, power supply, anything but the processor will go. I've seen parts be replaced twice without ever replacing the processor. Like I said, I have yet to see an Intel processor go haywire. Anyway, regarding video cards, Nvidia certainly has an edge in performance and quality, but the price difference usually makes it worth it to go with the ATI cards as the difference in price outweighs the difference in performance. I often suggest ATI unless you have an unlimited budget. They're also a little better at cooling their cards, which results in better performance anyway.
