I'm not sure about ATI, but nVidia does not make their own cards. You can go check it yourself at Newegg: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...&Submit=ENE&DEPA=0&Description=nvidia&Ntk=all Or start from the main page, choose nVida as a keyword, and select video cards as the category. Or check my screenshot. Problem is, some places sell generic video cards from undeclared manufacturers (AKA white box), and they list those cards as "NVidia"s. NVidia even has a standard design for a card that they distribute with their chipsets - and many manufacturers follow that design, so many cards look the same.
quote from Adobian I think you guys can end this going back and forth with whether ATi or Nvidia makes their own cards under their own name by providing a URL of some sort ,,,,,,,,,, this is on NVIDIA from wikipedia: "PRODUCTS" "......In many respects, NVIDIA is similar to its arch-rival ATI, in the sense that both companies began with a focus in the PC market, but later expanded their businesses into chips for non-PC applications. NVIDIA does not sell graphics boards into the retail market, instead focusing on the development and manufacturing of GPU chips. As part of their operations, both ATI and NVIDIA do create "reference designs" (board schematics) and provide manufacturing samples to their board partners such as Asus." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NVIDIA#Original_Equipment_Manufacturers This is what Ive been saying about "NVIDIA video cards"!
Curiously enough, the July issue of Computer Shopper landed in my mailbox this afternoon, and included a comparison between an ATI card (Radeon x1800 GTO) and an nVidia one (7600 GT). I believe the article is posted on cnet.com. Anyway, it said this: Couldn't find it on cnet.com, and the July articles are not yet posted to Computer Shoppers web site. But it's on page 30 at the top of the right-hand column in an article "Midrange-Graphics Matchup" by Rich Brown. The article concludes that the nVidia is the better buy. So the last three posts outta put that controversy to rest.
FWIW, on the Chaintech implementation of one of the previous high end Geforce chipsets, Chaintech used an El Cheapo fan that burned out quickly. Frequently people wouldn't find out until their board burned out as well. I replaced that darn thing three times under warrenty cuz the darn fan stopped working. The first time my board fried. The next time I kept an eye on it, and called them as soon as it stopped. The third one I sold as new on eBay. It was a well known problem. I think it was the second gen Geforce.
quote from TGreg FWIW, on the Chaintech implementation of one of the previous high end Geforce chipsets, Chaintech used an El Cheapo fan that burned out quickly. Frequently people wouldn't find out until their board burned out as well. if you read that article by wikipedia I provided the link for you'll see that NVIDEA Get Force GPUs were running hot and inneficiently cause MS sort of sabotaged them...not 'till the 7000 series of Get Force products was NVIDEA out of the woods...During this time ATI''s graphic cards were apparantly superior - now I understand NVIDEA is back in the game..