Looking to buy a new PC

[Raesvelg]

And the two questions I have right now are:

Which version of Windows 7 should I get? Is the Ultimate worth the extra money, or will I be fine with a bit less?

And ATI or Nvidia? I've historically had Nvidia cards, but to be honest, I don't know too much about the competition...

 

[Bajaratt]

Unless you speak 34 langauges and want to see ALL of them in your windows, stick with professional. There's more to ultimate but everything else you can do with other programs.

For graphics, I only have nvidia cards, but I don't know much about ATI. Nvidia's the only one that supports 3D, which is a big thing for me, so I stick with those.

 

[alanon]

To be honest, you may not even need Pro, Home Premium is actually a pretty decent version. You kind of need to tell us everything you'll be using your PC for to get a truly useful answer. I, for instance, have been doing a lot with WMC, so Home Premium was actually better for me than Pro.

As far as video cards go, I'm like Baj, I've only used Nvidia for the passed decade plus...

 

[Raesvelg]

I got impatient! Went with Pro and an ATI card, lol. I figure why not give the competition a chance for once... If it sucks I can always replace it. ^^

 

[Bajaratt]

The biggest thing for Pro is Windows XP mode, if you still have some old software that's not compatible with Vista. Other than that, Pro doesn't offer much that's really important. I pre-ordered my copy, so Pro was only $10 more than Home and still half-price, so I just went ahead and got Pro.

 

[masterorion]

what ive noticed between ati and nvidia is that ati is a little bit more forgiving when it comes to graphics issues. for example, graphical glitches with ffxi. will have to usually roll back drivers if you have an nvidia card. with ati, i never had that problem. i like both companies. as far as graphics cards go, im not really biased

 

[Bajaratt]

I've heard that about ATI from some people, mainly people on these boards. My friends on the other hand, have always been bitching about ATI cards, even the ones who worked for game developers, said that the Nvidia cards ran better with less problems. I'm not sure how much of it is really ATI's fault(pre-alpha games and all), but I heard enough that I'm a little wary of them.

 

[masterorion]

i honestly havent heard anything bad about ati. ive used both brands at some point. in terms of any game that ive played through pc such as call of duty, battlefield 1/2, ffxi, ive only encountered graphics issues with nvidia. my laptop has issues with the most recent nvidia drivers for ffxi. call of duty, i had to roll back drivers as well. battlefield, i upgraded the drivers to fix that.
as for hardware problems, ive never heard of problems with either. it usually just driver issues. nvidia is a more common chipset and is supported more than ati.