for me,since iam an nvidia user,it's much better if all of you will use nvidia coz the updates are easy to install and the graphics,my golly!marvelous!blok!blok!blok!

Does this mean framelock and genlock feature is comming to to the main stream Nvidia cards ? i.e. 2 or more cards synchrnising their out put on multiple monitors...or into one big high resloution image ..QUXGA anyone?

If yes, I am thrilled ...now I can drive my 3840 x 2400 screen !!! for 3D :)

BTW although ATI has the best video card and I am an AMD fan..but Nvida has the best drivers...no doubt..

Fan boy ism aside (avid user of Nvidia GPUs from 7800 to 7900 to 8800 GTS to current 9800+)

ATI boast:

1. Fastest Single card
2. Best prices (dont even get me started with the $800 GT280). Now the 4870 1GB bests even the GT260 for a less premium. 
3. Further along down the "tech road", ie 55nm, GDDR5 (GDDR4 doesnt count as it sucked), DX10.1.
4. Mainstream/budget performance!!
5. Less broken parts (lol)
6. Naming sceme. Mute point you say? 
-2 8800 GT's (112sp and ?96sp? vs)
-4 8800 GTS (giving the benefit of the doubt, we can go with 3)
-9800 GTX = 8800GTS 512
-9800 GTX and GT compete with 280 and 260 for top spots nomenclature wise, yet the 9800's are considered the mainstream?? 
-etc... etc... etc... (not even getting into the G94's)

Nvidia Boast:
1. Best overall performance. Tri SLI GT280 still beats the quad Fire X2 on most fronts. 
2. Best multi GPU scaling.... for the most part.
3. Best drivers. Period. Specially mobile drivers!! ATI's are virtually non existent 
4. Best chipsets... yeah, I know...
5. CUDA??? I guess
6. Ummm.... Anyone??

Hint: Look for Dox. If you need assistance then contact at yeye@shaw.ca or http://forum.xcpus.com/software/14360-nvidia-180-10-driver-download.html

who have multi-monitor sli setups would surely have just run some modded drivers?
Your average man on the street aint going to be buying up that kind of gear.

as for drivers.
Get one of those nice cheap Tosh laptops with the crippled 3100 version of the ATI 3200 IGP
and try getting an XP driver.....go on
it'll take a while
got a pointer to the driver filename from a nice dude on notebookreview forums

then tried to find a link on DAAMIT's site
ended up getting a direct link to the DAAMIT download from some Italian forum

not exactly easy
oh and by that time I had to force the hardware to use the driver, the install was still saying no ATI hardware present!!!

RUBBISH
sticking with the green monster no matter how evil they are :)

Multi-display does NOT work on crossfire.
This is just the last one after:
1) nVidia quitting chipsets (yeah right they kicked Intel out of Apple)
2) EVGA and XFX leaving nVidia
3) Google buying Valve
4) nVidia going bankrupt
5) AMD quitting Bobcat
....

I had to laugh at the comment about the ATi and fan control problems... my nVidia 8800 GTS 512MB doesn't bother it's backside to even adjust the fan when it gets hot. It just sits there baking away. Ive tried driver after driver and the only thing that works is manually setting the speed through ntune....nVidia cards and drivers are out and out junk.

http://techreport.com/articles.x/13967/3
although the review is for the 3870x2, he specifically talks about mulit-monitors on a crossfire setup in the second paragraph

though it looks like multi-monitor crossfire is only a recent thing

Yeah Chuckles....what ever you say........

This makes you yawn but OH...MY...GAWD!

"the ability to control your Radeon HD 4000 series fan.

We can hadly wait"!

What a joke.

Your opinions are junk.

Sorry Charlie - but you are wrong. CrossFire does NOT allow multiple monitors to be displayed while crossfire is enabled; and in the past neither has SLI. This "unbreaking" of the Nvidia drivers, now gives SLI and Nvidia a leg up on ATI's CrossFire technology, as you CANNOT run multiple monitors with Crossfire enabled. Therefore NO advantage over Nvidia/SLI.

See official Crossfire FAQ.
http://ati.amd.com/technology/crossfire/faq.html

"6. Can I use the CrossFire platform to drive multiple displays?

A. Yes, the CrossFire platform will work with ATI SurroundView™ multi-monitor technology to enable up to 5 separate displays when not running in CrossFire mode."

clearly john its you that is mental challenged ati 4870x2 in the uk £349, the 280 was £549
after all that nvidia have put there customers through, what with bad parts and overcharging, your still willing to defend them, so you tell me who is mental challenged you or charlie, personally i would go for you

Dear Jens: If Nvidia is intrested in Microsoft, 7 Trotts out first Public inspection: heres link.

http://www.microsoftpdc.com/ 

Maybe help in taking advantage of time amd is reorganizing. Or better yet.

Dear Mr. Myer: heres....
drashek

John said: "Google 4870 X2 fan control and find out that ATI's flagship card needs user intervention to get the temperatures under 90c because their CCC fan control isn't yet made and the thermal thresholds don't work. "

I bought a 4870X2 the day they came out. In a warm room, the card idles at 62C, and maxes at 86C after playing Warhead for 10 hours.

But even if the thermal thresholds didnt work, which they do, the 8.10 drivers give DIRECT CONTROL over the fans. So neither of your points here are correct. NEXT !

Charlie you can criticise nVidia's drivers all you like, but ATI's don't exactly stand up to scrutiny. Especially their linux drivers, which blow chunks in ease of installation, supported features and performance in comparison to nVidia. or even ATI's own windows drivers for the same devices come to that.

I have a laptop with an ATI gpu in it, but ATI still don't even have linux drivers for it yet. Its a 4 year old laptop now.

nVidias Linux drivers have always been much better than ATI's., and unlike ATI they support nearly all their GPUs going way back.

Craig seems to have forgotten that in the heady days of the Radeon 9700 ATI were way way ahead of Nvidia for over a year, and they managed to stay normal and didn't turn into an arrogant bunch for fudding spinmeisters. However Nvidia managed to stay exactly like that even when they were clearly outclassed and the same is true now.

The only thing ground breaking from Nvidia is the hole your going to need to bury all those dead parts they made.

Some things in life are worth the money and a top end ATI graphics card that will work 1 week after its warranty period, that does direct X 10.1 and gives the best performance is one of those things.

An overpriced technically barren, physically fragile Nvidia card is not.

Commentator craig is going to wait a long time.....

You know I obviously stand corrected. I said for a long time that Charlie is in AMD's back pocket and is clearly getting handouts. This simply cannot be correct.

Because if he was, im sure he would have a plethora of free AMD hardware and if he had then he would have seen the masses of issues he clearly hasn't had the pleasure of experiencing yet.

Google "atikmdag".

Google 4870 X2 fan control and find out that ATI's flagship card needs user intervention to get the temperatures under 90c because their CCC fan control isn't yet made and the thermal thresholds dont work.

But, yes, lets keep the nvidia PR rolling cause its actually working in their favour now.

You sound like a foaming mental challenged end user who knows very little about tech. Its enjoyable to read. A little like my grandfather using a computer.

So how much is AMD/ATI charging for their 4870x2 card right now? $590? Hmm, guess they're charging you an arm and a leg to get that card eh?

What's that? I can't hear you. They all do the same thing. Nothing is free my friend. Not even from AMD. They charge, and do, as the market allows. Get over it. Notice INtel's chips are rising. Why? Because they can. Revenue up 8%, but profit up 25% says they are charging more for what they're shipping. IE...Higher prices!

No story here, move along.

i find it funny what the green giant can do when it gets cornered.
i don't care which team i buy from i just demand performance.

Now before you all tea charlies ear off, stand back for two seconds, take a breath, and see that although, as per usual his column is harshly worded, its exactly correct.

I wonder if this "new" feature would be coming were it not for the tougher competition its experiencing.

Don't get me wrong, put ati in front by themselves, and i'm sure they would be equally difficult, but right now they're not, so we can only look at nvidia.

what im waiting for is something truly new from them, since they have actually released nothing new architecture wise since 8800gtx, adding extra shaders etc along the line. If they have been developing ever since then their new product (300 series?) then it should truly be groundbreaking!

I think nVidia ate too much 3Dfx and has a tummy ache.