Why do nVidia graphics cards cost more than AMD cards?

[lolwut]

I've been looking at upgrading to a really powerful graphics card for my gaming PC. I don't know very much about graphics cards, in the past I've been dealing contentedly with the on-board graphics chip because that's how scared I am of entering the bewildering world of graphics. But I got really tired of playing Skyrim on Low, and I've got £250 to blow so "why not?".

I've been searching high and low, and one of the few things I know is nVidia cards generally seem to cost a chunk more than the equvilalent AMD card. Allow me to explain by examples:
Here is an very appealing offering on AMD: Radeon HD 7850 - 2GB GDDR3, HDMI, DVI, Mini DisplayPort x2. The price for that particular card is £190.
Here is a similar offering on nVidia, the GeForce 560 Ti - 2GB GDDR3, HDMI, DVI x2. It's on sale this week for £200, but usually goes for £220.

That all seems fine, if I went by those facts alone the AMD card would be my choice. Then I looked at the technical specs. The AMD card has a 860Mhz clock speed, and the nVidia has a 822Mhz clock speed.
I don't know if a difference of 38Mhz will mean the difference between running Skyrim at High or running at Ultra (which is what I'd like to do) or maybe the difference won't be noticeable.

For what it's worth, I have an Intel Core i5 2500K processor and I've heard that nVidia cards work better with Intel CPU's than AMD cards - could be bull but it's enough to convince me to go for the nVidia card. I really want to look upon Skyrim in its full beauty.

What I'm asking is this: Do I go for the AMD card, or do I go for the nVidia card? What are the advantages of choosing either card?

If anyone has any other recommendations for other cards that will play nice in my system and let me run Skryim on Ultra (although I could settle for High), on a budget of less than £250, feel free to link me.

Thanks for any answers! I'll +rep every response I get (we still do that, right?)

[DeejayMachoo]

I've been looking at upgrading to a really powerful graphics card for my gaming PC. I don't know very much about graphics cards, in the past I've been dealing contentedly with the on-board graphics chip because that's how scared I am of entering the bewildering world of graphics. But I got really tired of playing Skyrim on Low, and I've got £250 to blow so "why not?".

I've been searching high and low, and one of the few things I know is nVidia cards generally seem to cost a chunk more than the equvilalent AMD card. Allow me to explain by examples:
Here is an very appealing offering on AMD: Radeon HD 7850 - 2GB GDDR3, HDMI, DVI, Mini DisplayPort x2. The price for that particular card is £190.
Here is a similar offering on nVidia, the GeForce 560 Ti - 2GB GDDR3, HDMI, DVI x2. It's on sale this week for £200, but usually goes for £220.

That all seems fine, if I went by those facts alone the AMD card would be my choice. Then I looked at the technical specs. The AMD card has a 860Mhz clock speed, and the nVidia has a 822Mhz clock speed.
I don't know if a difference of 38Mhz will mean the difference between running Skyrim at High or running at Ultra (which is what I'd like to do) or maybe the difference won't be noticeable.

For what it's worth, I have an Intel Core i5 2500K processor and I've heard that nVidia cards work better with Intel CPU's than AMD cards - could be bull but it's enough to convince me to go for the nVidia card. I really want to look upon Skyrim in its full beauty.

What I'm asking is this: Do I go for the AMD card, or do I go for the nVidia card? What are the advantages of choosing either card?

If anyone has any other recommendations for other cards that will play nice in my system and let me run Skryim on Ultra (although I could settle for High), on a budget of less than £250, feel free to link me.

Thanks for any answers! I'll +rep every response I get (we still do that, right?)

Ed right?

And i've had better experiences with AMD cards than nVidia

-Frijj

[Recursion]

Go for whichever gives the best performance for the cheapest price.

They're both fairly similar and they both overtake each other on this particular aspect every couple of months. GPUs working better with AMD/Intel motherboards is a load of **.

EDIT: The 7850 outperforms the 560Ti slightly.

[lolwut]

Ed right?

And i've had better experiences with AMD cards than nVidia

-Frijj

Go for whichever gives the best performance for the cheapest price.

They're both fairly similar and they both overtake each other on this particular aspect every couple of months. GPUs working better with AMD/Intel motherboards is a load of **.

EDIT: The 7850 outperforms the 560Ti slightly.

Thanks for the feedback, both of you! I'll probably go for the AMD card anyways.

To further clarify the second point, Recursion, I wasn't talking about the motherboard (which by the way is an Asus thingy for £80 - it'll do), I'd just heard that the CPU and GPU might not always function smoothly, specifically for gaming - the primary purpose of this machine. I had a friend tell me a horror story where an AMD card with an Intel i7 blew up and cost him £500. That's the only reason why I'm ****-scared of mixing the wrong GPU with the wrong CPU.

[Recursion]

You can't mix a CPU and a GPU wrong, they all work.

(Sorry, meant CPU in my above post! )

[Chippiewill]

Looking at processor clock speed between different brands is meaningless (In fact even between GPU series) as the processing efficiency per clock will be different. I would look at the benchmarks.
At a glance I'd quess the Nvidia card to be better as games tend to be written with them more in mind than AMD cards (Not as much of an issue as it was a few years ago though..).

ALSO. WHY IN THE HELL ARE YOU LOOKING AT THE 560TI AND NOT THE 560TI 448!!!!!!!

The 448 performs so much better and is also CHEAPER.

Although the AMD is actually still the better choice..

GPUs working better with AMD/Intel motherboards is a load of **.

Technically it wouldn't be unrealistic to see AMD Graphics cards working better on AMD motherboards in the future (Although AMD don't make the chipset so it's not that likely).

[lolwut]

Looking at processor clock speed between different brands is meaningless (In fact even between GPU series) as the processing efficiency per clock will be different. I would look at the benchmarks.
At a glance I'd quess the Nvidia card to be better as games tend to be written with them more in mind than AMD cards (Not as much of an issue as it was a few years ago though..).

ALSO. WHY IN THE HELL ARE YOU LOOKING AT THE 560TI AND NOT THE 560TI 448!!!!!!!

The 448 performs so much better and is also CHEAPER.

Although the AMD is actually still the better choice..

Technically it wouldn't be unrealistic to see AMD Graphics cards working better on AMD motherboards in the future (Although AMD don't make the chipset so it's not that likely).

**** I'm glad I checked this thread before I ordered the AMD card!

I had a look for the 560Ti 448 and it's on dabs.com for £200. I think I'll probably end up going for that - I know you say the AMD is "a better choice" but truthfully I don't think that matters; I'd rather have the slightly inferior card that games are designed for, rather than a good card that the game might not work properly with (for example there was a lot of news about Rage not running properly on ATI cards).

Thanks for the advice, +repped and stuff.