94 replies to this topic

[Vincent Vascaul]

dude thats really not a video card to base your opinion on a brand off of and certainly not for BF3, I have a 2gb 6950 AMD that I got for $165 and it runs crysis with 3 screens at 1080p on low which is pretty damn impressive, I am not saying that Nvidia cards are bad, I plan on buyin a couple for some builds soon but if you want a real opinion on AMD or Nvidia try a 69xx series or a 5870 or a 5850 and for Nvidia a GTX 460 or GTX 560 or above. Anywho both brands have they're points but for multi monitor setups and for overall affordability AMD gets my vote.

[Vulpesveritas]

FACEman Peck, on 09 February 2012 - 07:59 PM, said:

The more video card you can afford, the better. Plus, throw all your money behind Nvidia. I have an AMD Radeon HD 6450, and it turns the mountains in Battlefield 3 shades of green every once in a while.

Try a higher end card perhaps? It may merely be a faulty card. lol. Never had issues with AMD/ATI cards personally, and I haven't heard of that happening before.
Also, AMD/ATI currently wins in price/performance and powerconsumption/performance as well as heatoutput/performance categories at just about every price point. The Nvidea GTX570 is really the only Nvidea card with it's own winning price point, and the 560ti (both versions) are competitive at their price points.

lol

[Vincent Vascaul]

But you get more memory with AMD which is important for games like BF3

[Vulpesveritas]

Vincent Vascaul, on 09 February 2012 - 08:30 PM, said:

But you get more memory with AMD which is important for games like BF3

Quite true.

[Catamount]

FACEman Peck, on 09 February 2012 - 07:59 PM, said:

The more video card you can afford, the better. Plus, throw all your money behind Nvidia. I have an AMD Radeon HD 6450, and it turns the mountains in Battlefield 3 shades of green every once in a while.

Shall we go into my stories about Nvidia cards? In BF2142, the entire screen turns black when you try to use the cloak (hardly useful to be almost invisible if you can't see!). Who knows, maybe they finally fixed that, but for nearly two years they couldn't be bothered to.

Edited by Catamount, 10 February 2012 - 04:50 AM.

[guardiandashi]

you know catamount we all get that you don't like nvidia, but in my experience frankly nvidia has had (historically) decient cards, with comparable (or better) price/performance, and usually better drivers and more frequent driver updates than ati. I do have a nvidia card that has a minor issue (acts like it develops memory leaks or something) but the issue gets resolved when I reboot the pc, so I have been living with it.

oh and it only occurs when the pc has been on for typically several days (like a week or so, so its not like its a huge issue)

Edited by guardiandashi, 10 February 2012 - 08:05 AM.

[Vincent Vascaul]

See I can say the exact opposite I have never had anything but issues with Nvidias drivers (being serious) nothing but headaches and with their SLI setup its worse, yet I know I seem to be in the minority and most people have AMD driver issues (I have had some with AMD but nothing like Nvidia) The fact of the matter is anyone could buy a nvidia card hoping for low mantinence(I did) and have a horrible time of it or someone could by a AMD expecting extra drivers problems and never have them or vica versa but the thing of it is lets say someone gets a AMD card and has been told that they have driver issues, then the first time they hit a speedbump which will happen when your gaming on PC no matter what you use. All of a sudden they think they are getting the "AMD has Sh!tty drivers" and before you know it its a self fufilling prophecy. People need to buy cards expecting all of them to have minor glitches and hangup when they are new. Its just the way of PC gaming.

[Catamount]

guardiandashi, on 10 February 2012 - 08:04 AM, said:

you know catamount we all get that you don't like nvidia

I don't like Nvidia, because they're sleezy and dishonest, even moreso than most tech companies, and they hurt the industry, but that has nothing to do with the performance of their cards


You do realize I've owned many Nvidia GPUs, right?

I couldn't have stories about Nvidia cards without owning them. Prior to my 4870, my video card was a Geforce 8800GTS (G80). My last laptop had a Geforce 6150, which I widely praise as the first integrated graphics chip that was capable of running games (not well, but being able to play almost anything smoothly on low settings was a huge milestone).


If you look, I'm not hating on Nvidia for the sake of hating on Nvidia; I'm responding to another post hating on AMD cards, based on anecdotal evidence.

Quote

in my experience frankly nvidia has had (historically) decient cards, with comparable (or better) price/performance, and usually better drivers and more frequent driver updates than ati.

Historically that's largely true, and has been ever since the Ati rage days. The only time they had worse cards was in the Geforce 4 vs Radeon 9000 series battle, when Ati cards had vastly better image quality (these days they're both equally great), and vastly better texture performance. Ati also had better single-GPU setups with the X1900 series; SLI was still better than crossfire, but since both sucked, the single-GPU crown was still all that really mattered. Then Nvidia plastered them with the Geforce 8 and 9 series before the new AMD management really started netting results.

Today, however, almost every point you make is no longer true. Nvidia drivers actually had a history of being LESS stable with Vista than AMD drivers. Today they're both fine, but Nvidia does not release drivers more often, since they're both on about teh same schedule.


Nvidia also doesn't have better value in their lineups anymore. In fact, other than the Geforce GTX 560ti Core 448 and 570 (which is a very good deal), Nvidia doesn't have any GPU that makes much sense right now. Now, those two cards are a better deal, with price drops, than even the Radeon HD 7000 series right now (the 7950 doesn't substantially beat the 570, but it's $100 more), but two cards does not a lineup make.

Quote

I do have a nvidia card that has a minor issue (acts like it develops memory leaks or something) but the issue gets resolved when I reboot the pc, so I have been living with it.

oh and it only occurs when the pc has been on for typically several days (like a week or so, so its not like its a huge issue)

That's not a hardware issue. If your VRAM was acting up, you'd be experiencing lockups and a VERY specific BSOD (116, with 0x50 as one of the parameters; I've had it happen).



Honestly, it sounds like a driver issue.

Edited by Catamount, 10 February 2012 - 08:28 AM.

[Vulpesveritas]

guardiandashi, on 10 February 2012 - 08:04 AM, said:

you know catamount we all get that you don't like nvidia, but in my experience frankly nvidia has had (historically) decient cards, with comparable (or better) price/performance, and usually better drivers and more frequent driver updates than ati. I do have a nvidia card that has a minor issue (acts like it develops memory leaks or something) but the issue gets resolved when I reboot the pc, so I have been living with it.

oh and it only occurs when the pc has been on for typically several days (like a week or so, so its not like its a huge issue)

"it only occurs when the PC has been on for typically several days." - what does the card temp reach?
Also, AMD/ATI has had better price/performance for a while now. Drivers... well, that should be expected. Though AMD has been at least trying to do better.
Also, AMD is one of the less.... shady/cheating/ripoffy companies out there ( http://www.hardocp.c...talism_ranking/ ). Nvidea has a track record for pulling tricks to try to keep ATI cards from performing as well in games, like paying companies to cripple ATI cards when playing. *cough*batman*cough* Not to mention, as he stated, there is that 460 confusion.

@Catamount

http://www.tomshardw...treme,2951.html

Edited by Vulpesveritas, 10 February 2012 - 08:37 AM.

[Catamount]

Vulpes is right. AMD has been ticking me off a bit with the mobile 7000 series rebrands, but other than that, they're a very clean, very honest company (for a company ).

Nvidia, on the other hand, is one of the worst.

[HeroicTofu]

I think all of the mobile video cards, nVidia and AMD both, are misleading to the average consumer. The average person is going to see Mobile Radeon 6990 and then just Radeon 6990 and "Ooo! Those are the same!"... Except they aren't! At all! Even close >.o. Honestly, I think both companies should both agree to do an entirely separate mobile numbering scheme. That way consumers aren't tricked into thinking they are getting something that they aren't, while at the same time, still able to show that one card is better then the other.

For example, The AMD Radeon M700-795 lineup. Current generation, uses a 3 digit model (unless counting the M) instead of the desktop 4 digit model. Shows that the card is still part of the current generation, with higher numbers indicating higher performance, without drawing direct comparisons and will hopefully allow the consumer to think "It's an M795, but that -is- different from a 7990!". Of in the case of nVidia, The GeForce M50-59 for the current gen (Until Kepler is a thing). Same concept. Uses condensed numbers to show a different card while still showing that it's current generation.

Edited by HeroicTofu, 10 February 2012 - 01:34 PM.

[Catamount]

Hmm, looking back over reviews, I stand corrected on the 7950; it's much faster than I was giving credit for.

[Oderint dum Metuant]

From what i have read, the 7950 is a really good card with a couple of drawbacks, allegedly it runs very hot, and is very noisy
In a small case system thats never a good thing.

Edited by DV^McKenna, 10 February 2012 - 02:03 PM.

[Leon McNicole]

Instead of fraps why not just get an X-fire account and use the ingame Recording feature that it has built into it?

[Barbaric Soul]

DV^McKenna, on 10 February 2012 - 02:02 PM, said:

From what i have read, the 7950 is a really good card with a couple of drawbacks, allegedly it runs very hot, and is very noisy
In a small case system thats never a good thing.

GPU OC'ed to 1085mhz, Memory OC'ed to 1785mhz



source- http://www.techpower.../HD_7950/1.html

temps aren't that bad.

[Oderint dum Metuant]

Barbaric Soul, on 10 February 2012 - 02:07 PM, said:

GPU OC'ed to 1085mhz, Memory OC'ed to 1785mhz



source- http://www.techpower.../HD_7950/1.html

temps aren't that bad.

Hmm, interesting still thats about 30D hotter than my current 5850BE which is starting to show its age but i guess thats expected given the power difference between the two.
from that review you posted it also agrees that its a very noisy card.

I was leaning towards a 7950 for my re-build next month, but i might just wait it out see if anything comes out at a bit lower price point.

[Catamount]

DV^McKenna, on 10 February 2012 - 02:14 PM, said:

Hmm, interesting still thats about 30D hotter than my current 5850BE which is starting to show its age but i guess thats expected given the power difference between the two.
from that review you posted it also agrees that its a very noisy card.

I was leaning towards a 7950 for my re-build next month, but i might just wait it out see if anything comes out at a bit lower price point.

It's not worth it really if you already have a 5850; even a 7950 would be a questionable upgrade ($450 is a lot to pay for something that's probably 50-70% faster, on average). When I tested two 7970s here, each was only 50% faster than my two 5770s on my system.

They're great cards, but cards have mostly stagnated in speed since the 5000 series premiered, so it's going to be awhile longer before worthy upgrades appear.

Edited by Catamount, 10 February 2012 - 02:44 PM.

[Vulpesveritas]

DV^McKenna, on 10 February 2012 - 02:02 PM, said:

From what i have read, the 7950 is a really good card with a couple of drawbacks, allegedly it runs very hot, and is very noisy
In a small case system thats never a good thing.

Where does it run hot? By what I've read it is quieter than the 6950 too. Not to mention there are always quiet aftermarket varients like the Asus CU II and the like.

Edited by Vulpesveritas, 10 February 2012 - 04:28 PM.

[Oderint dum Metuant]

Like i say the temp was what i read in a couple of mags here in the UK, and as above compared to my 5850BE 80degrees is hot (probably not hot relative to whats normal now)

As to noise me being lazy since i just got up the link above....http://www.techpower...HD_7950/26.html puts it towards to top end of noisy fans.

@ Cata interesting point, i wonder if it really is worth it i'll be honest i never played any of the crysis games to see how the 5850 did, and i cant seem to find any benchmark utils for Crysis 2 that do not require you to have the game.
Sadly im one of those people that can not play their primary game on low or medium settings ;p

[Vincent Vascaul]

just double up your 5850 my buddy did and its awesome for one screen its all you need!