137 replies to this topic

[MuffinTop]

I have a Nvidia 8800 GTX, and I wonder what some of you moneybags have or will be buying to upgrade your rigs. Whats most important to you, and is brand loyalty based on the name or do you have extensive use of both cards? Did one brand break your heart once, twice and will never go back? Did you base your decision on your friend's sister's boyfriend's neighbor's experience, i.e another person's opinion and never tried the other brand? I'm curious, because I'm looking at switching to a mid range AMD Radeon for my next purchase. Thanks in advance for your time.

[Vulpesveritas]

Me, I've never had so many 'personal' issues. that is, I've never had an issue with any of my graphics cards. I've had two Nvidea cards and three ATI/AMD cards. However, in general research, and the computers I've repaired for people, Nvidea cards have a much higher failure rate compared to ATI/AMD.

Also in general performance / watt and performance/ $$$, AMD is winning right now. Heck even high end AMD is winning again with it's 7970. The only Nvidea card that has it's own unique point of interest is the Geforce GTX 570. Other than that, AMD wins at the rest of the price points.

And by midrange do you mean midrange price ($200-300) or midrange normal user ($100-200). In both fields AMD wins.
$100- 6750, $150- 6790, $175-6850, $200-6870, $250- 6950, $325- 6970.
Also lower heat and power consumption / performance vs Nvidea. the only thing Nvidea cards have that AMD doesn't right now is PhysX, and better tessellation support.

So I recommend an AMD card personally and professionally. Saves you a bit on your wallet both short-and long term.

[Ceefood]

with all the pcs I have built for myself, friends & some word of mouth referrals I have only had 1 nvidia card fail but have had 6 amd fail - I will only install an amd now if the person really really insists

could just be unlucky but ....
I also prefer nvidia drivers

my only thing against nvidia is their 3d system - amd is far easier from what I have read

[John Clavell]

Basically it's going to come down to drivers and who ever has the best card out at the current time and personal preference. CryEngine 3 does not use middleware physics engine which is good. Games that use Nvidia's PhysX middleware for example will work better on Nvidia cards.

[Vulpesveritas]

I find that weird as in all the PC's I've built and repaired (well over 50.) I've had 8 Nvidea cards fail and not a single ATI/AMD card fail.

Also AMD has been doing quite a bit better recently on their drivers.

[John Clavell]

We're gonna have to wait a few more months to see what NVIDIA brings to the table with it's new, next gen cards. The new top of the line ATI card so far is the king though.

[Volume]

Before I start, let me just say that I don't think "brand loyalty" is a good idea - I just go for a superior product, or a product that has best value for price.

I stupidly got a 9400GT instead of a 4650HD, (which I sorta regret) ended up purchasing a 9800GT, and then finally upgraded to a 6850HD this August, I believe. In prior years I've used all sorts of companies (3DFX Voodoo Rush! Had some FireGL and Diamond card, some Stealth card, but I did have several GeForce 4 cards and I loved them all, a couple 6200LE's (not so good), and more recently I think AMD/ATI has better price/performance ratio, so I've been using them.

That said, if there's a "good deal" that tends to be what I buy, regardless of brand. I just think that at the moment, generally speaking, AMD has better products for the price.

Edited by Volume, 10 January 2012 - 02:38 AM.

[Ceefood]

@Vulpesveritas no offense meant so I hope none was taken - it was just my personal experience & not meant as a reflection on your experience - you certainly have built more than me

I will also have to take your word on AMD drivers as I have not built a pc with an amd card for 2+ years so have not checked or ages

when I come to build my next pc - most likely for MWO I will check reviews closer to time & while I will still have a preference for nvidia I will have an open mind - the Australian market is limited & we pay way above what the rest of the world pays

Edited by Ceefood, 10 January 2012 - 04:51 AM.

[MechaKitsune]

I've always been a Nvidia person. I like the reliability of their drivers. I readily admit that AMD has a lot to offer, and that their hardware is usually top notch, but the software problems that they seem prone to encounter are a turn off for me. Maybe if they get that part of their story straightened out I could be convinced to make the jump, but for now I will roll with my GTX 460 and wait for the GTX 600 series to release before upgrading.

[Vulpesveritas]

Ceefood, on 10 January 2012 - 04:51 AM, said:

@Vulpesveritas no offense meant so I hope none was taken - it was just my personal experience & not meant as a reflection on your experience - you certainly have built more than me

I will also have to take your word on AMD drivers as I have not built a pc with an amd card for 2+ years so have not checked or ages

when I come to build my next pc - most likely for MWO I will check reviews closer to time & while I will still have a preference for nvidia I will have an open mind - the Australian market is limited & we pay way above what the rest of the world pays

Eh none taken. And yeah the thing is to keep an open mind and look at what's out there. Especially the last year AMD has been trying to succeed on the driver game, CCC gets an update almost weekly by them with a tweak here, a tweak there, trying to make it more efficient for every game out there.

And yeah wondering myself how 28nm Nvidea will fare. Though I'm likely going to build my next PC before Nvidea cards come out anyhow. So I'm liable to go with a 6000 or 7000 series GPU.

[Xarg Talasko]

The way I see it personally, is if you want the most powerful thing out, it's usually NVidia (yes I know the 7970 just came out and it's awesome, but the NVidia 600 series isn't out yet and will be be the 7000 series competitor), but you pay for that with (usually) high price, power consumption and heat. AMD (since ATi is no longer a brand) gives you less graphical grunt, but almost always costs less, runs cooler and uses less power. I've used 3 NVidia cards and 2 of the ATi cards, my Radeon 9600 broke due to a fan failure on a crappy old mobo and it was in a really hot room (that's practically asking for it to die).

I personally use a Radeon 5850 right now for the Eyefinity features, something I couldn't get on NVidia without a second card at the time. Next upgrade cycle I might get an NVidia if they're better, brand loyalty is stupid.

Otherwise I've had no hardware failures and would recommend you buy whatever is within your budget that gives you the best bang for your buck, regardless of brand.

[Oderint dum Metuant]

Ugh this is a time honored fan boy apples vs oranges thread.

Both brands are good, ATI/AMD cards are better performance wise, However AMD/ATI drivers are god awful, they have improved but are still bad.
Nvidia Cards are not quite as good as AMD/ATI but Nvidia drivers are far far better.

So like i say Apples vs Oranges.

I have owned and still do own both brands of card in my current machines. On card failure rates such a random question as a bad batch of cards can completely ruin any statistical answer i have seen more AMD cards fail but the difference is minimal between the two.

Take whatever you can get thats a good deal for a good card at the time.

[T0RC4ED]

Ok, AMD/ATI fans dont read too deep into this. Ive only had one ATI card and it sucked...so ill exclude that from the rest of my statement. I find that Intel and Nvidia have always put out more raw horse power. True, there was a time when AMD was my CPU of choice (back in the days of the athlon 64 and 64X2) but saddly those days are behind me. AMD although more inovative then Intel just hasnt been pumping out chips that will cursh my desktop's 980X or my laptops 990X and it seems that every time AMD/ATI comes out with something that is a slight upgrade (to my current equipment) Nvidia and Intel just turn around with a product that blasts the flagship out of the water.
Now when im building a box for someone who doesnt want to hand over their wallet for one of my high end exotic builds I will suggest AMD/ATI parts as the machine will give great price/performance without breaking the bank. I recently did a net build or my best friend, involving an AMD/ATI setup and he loves it and says it runs great. (max price was 1000 USD for a BF3/Black ops+ machine)

[Vulpesveritas]

Xarg Talasko, on 10 January 2012 - 08:48 AM, said:

The way I see it personally, is if you want the most powerful thing out, it's usually NVidia (yes I know the 7970 just came out and it's awesome, but the NVidia 600 series isn't out yet and will be be the 7000 series competitor), but you pay for that with (usually) high price, power consumption and heat. AMD (since ATi is no longer a brand) gives you less graphical grunt, but almost always costs less, runs cooler and uses less power. I've used 3 NVidia cards and 2 of the ATi cards, my Radeon 9600 broke due to a fan failure on a crappy old mobo and it was in a really hot room (that's practically asking for it to die).

I personally use a Radeon 5850 right now for the Eyefinity features, something I couldn't get on NVidia without a second card at the time. Next upgrade cycle I might get an NVidia if they're better, brand loyalty is stupid.

Otherwise I've had no hardware failures and would recommend you buy whatever is within your budget that gives you the best bang for your buck, regardless of brand.

By "graphics grunt" do you mean graphics power / $$$ or graphics power / watt? In general, AMD is for the moment winning in both regards. The Radeon HD 6670 is the fastest graphics card right now running off just the power provided via PCI-E x16. for the money, it's a tossup on opinion between the 560ti and Radeon HD 6950. The 6950 is $20 more, yet is faster, and performs better in a multi GPU setup. Overall performance (for now) for a single GPU is the Radeon HD 7970, though the single card king for the moment is still the GTX 590. (liable to be beaten by the 7990 coming out next month)

But yes, it should generally be whatever gives you the best bang for your buck.

[Xarg Talasko]

By that I guess I meant raw power. A GTX 580 is a very strong card against the single GPU Radeon 6000 series, but is more expensive. The 7970 beats it, true, but we haven't seen our theoretical GTX 680 yet.

[Vulpesveritas]

Right. But it's not out yet and not expected to be out until later in the year. So for the moment, AMD is winning.
That's the nature of technology. For the moment AMD is winning, perhaps by summer Nvidea will have back the performance crown again. Only time will tell.

[Xarg Talasko]

Yep, that was the story when I got my 5850 too.. I guess it becomes a case of do you want it now, or do you want to wait until NVidia launches their next line.

[Thorqemada]

Isnt the strength of Nvidia the integrated PhysX and the more powerfull Tesselation?

I hoped that PhysX (in the Ageia days) would open a door to better and more immersive gaming, but anything they did was to add worthless debris in vast ammounts where i had a modern version of i.e. Rampage in mind.
Now its mere a tool for Nvidia to win benchmarks.

[Prince Ian Davion]

I've had two of each kind of card, not including onboard cards.
I've had a Radeon 9250 Pro, that was a -brilliant- card for its age. I managed to run games such as Quake 4 on it fine.
Upgraded from that to a x1150? onboard card, which I then upgraded to a 9500 GT 1gb (Can't remember the brand). That card wasn't really that good, I replaced it soon after with a GTS250OC which also didn't seem to be that powerful, though it could have been bottle-necked by the rest of my system. When I built my new computer (3.2 ghz AMD Hexcore, 16gb of Corsair Vengeance 1600MHz, Antec Truepower Blue PSU, etc etc..), I ordered a VTX3D 6950 2gb. Which I must say is a brilliant card.

So from my experience, I've had far better experience with the AMD side, and all my processors have been AMD (Simply better bang for your buck). Will I stick with AMD? That's highly probable--they're better bang for your buck.

[Oderint dum Metuant]

Do you do rendering or programing to make use of that 16Gb of ram? seems an obscene amount if its just for gaming.