i never owned a ATI so i can only say, glad that u leaved the dark side

the reasons why i never owned a ATI is damm simple, i readed and heared a lots of trouble with it and a noob like me doesn´t need that

The dark side?

Anyway, I do own both and have had problems with both. I re-encountered the most ugly a couple days ago as I was compiling a system from various components I have laying around. The first time I booted into Windows7 after the actual install I got a scrambled screen instead of a welcome screen . However I'm lucky to know that just like in Windows Vista there is an issue with factory overclocked nVidia 7xxx series graphics cards, so I took my other 7900GT, the one that is not factory overclocked and all is fine again. Anyway, this a LONG standing bug and nVidia seems not to care about their customers too.

So actually both nVidia and ATI/AMD have there share of issues, you just got to be unlucky to encounter them.

Actually. as far as I know and have seen in other communities and also with friends, the 7900 ( or the 7***) series from nVidia is prob a middle station card that was made and put out while waiting to impress with the 8xxx series. They seems to be full with annoying little bugs that pops up everywhere on many games and utillities.
I have had a 7 series card and I was not very happy with that. then I got the x1950 from ATI and was quite happy with that. Ran hot like hell, but after checking out the web, it was supposed to. 80 degrees was normal.
Then I bought the 8800 GTS and thats prob the best card I have ever owned. Runs cold again 50-55 degrees in summer with ambient 25 degrees. not bad.
Also performs on par with and goes beyond many 9xxx series cards.... Depending on what series card you get, and also the speed (or whatever you will call it) you might have superb cards on both sides of the light.

8800 means as far as i know, 8 (series nr) 800 (speed/quality) in an easy told way. 8800 is and should be better than 9500 even though never chip and so on. At least what I have seen and learned from trying and reading what the so called experts say This would then of course not mean that 6800 would outperform 9500 since that is very old, but closer series would go by that rule.

Wtf am I babbling about. this is Jarkkos thread about DVI plugs not working on his ATI card.
Bugger me I must not have much to do at work today.

Just to add my two penny I've only ever used ATI latest card HD4770 and never had a problem, run monitor through DVI, plug into TV with HDMI then unplug and strait back to monitor.

Never had problems with driver installation or anything, I suppose I could just be lucky, but then again you guys have seen me drive.........

I dont  notice much difference  with vga vs hdmi  .. the only reason i use hdmi was it was just one cable to connect to tv .. .. Not had probs with my 4870

Some have very sensible eyes then I bet if you did a 'blind test' that it would be very hard to detect which monitor is connected via DVI and which via VGA.

I'm thinking since some time to try my LCD TV on my game computer (HDMI connection), I'll let you know the result 

I've never really understood how vga and dvi are different. If there was such a difference in signal strength/quality/type then the adaptor wouldn't just be a simple plug thingy