IMac ATI HD 2600 Pro vs.Nvidia 8800 GS

[Paul O]

I'm considering making the jump to an iMac from PC. As an architect I need to run AutoCad 2000 and of course SketchUp Pro. The Nvidia card comes with 512 Mb memory and the ATI with 256Mb.
I can get a better deal on a bundle containing the ATI but I'm wondering if I would regret not getting the Nvidia? How much better would it be for Sketchup?

[remus]

Getting the 8800 is unlikely to make a huge amount of difference to SU performance, although im not sure how good the drivers are for the ATI, which might affect SU performance.

Basically, i ithnk if you can afford it you might as well go for the nVidia as its a better card, but if your on a bidget you shouldnt have any problems with the ATI.

[dylan]

All recent threads discussing ATi against Nvidia cards for SU have definately favoured the Nvidia cards.
I personally would always go with Nvidia.

[juju]

I had an ATi 2600 Pro 512MB graphics card, it performed worse than my ATi 9800 Pro 128MB on my old machine. The nVidia 8800 GS is also not a strong card but a lot better.

Personally I wouldn't want any of the two in my machine, but I'll favour the nVidia brand for SketchUp related work.

[solo]

I must say that I have had lots of joy with the 8800 GTX's, I have them in all but my Mac and must say the performance is excellent. I would suggest the Nvidia brand for now (and until the whole AMD and ATI thing settles down and a stable product is released)