Switching from NVidia to Radeon...

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Tripperman

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Aug 10, 2012
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I've been building my own PC's now for 14 years, and I've never used anything but nV and I love it. I don't upgrade very often, my budget is modest and I'm not a big gamer. But I do like having reliable graphics, the ability to display 99% of what's out there and a snappy system at my fingertips (ie: big bandwidth).

I've had my 9800GT for four years now and really wanted an upgrade this summer. After checking all the specs, reviews and prices it seems the Radeon 7850 offers the most bang for the buck (<$150 US, otherwise I'd get an EVGA GTX 660!).

So now I am learning Radeon's nuances. Coming from nVidia I feel like a fish out of water, I knew it like my own hand and what to expect. I could nitpick at the many differences between the two but I really just want to know what are the best tips or software I can use to increase graphics quality for smooth video playback and provide the best overall performance.

I find the Radeon overclocks quite easily and I suffer no artifacts at all. nV never allowed more than 10-12% on anything. Is Radeon that touchy too or should I look more to turning on/off any enhancements? I'm thinking maybe its a matter of display, my monitor caps out at 1600x1050.

Any help or advice will be appreciated, and thanks in advance for your interest...now let the flame wars begin!
 
Solution
nukemaster
AMD cards and Nvidia ones tend to act a bit differently and the older cards did not have many power states.

More and more programs take advantage of using the video card.

You may notice your video card clock up a bit on the main toms hardware page as well(this varies with card). My older 5870 used to get much warmer just sitting on the main page, but it was just because the web browser wanted to use it to accelerate what I see.

Windows update making it happen does seem a bit strange.
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nukemaster

nukemaster

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Nov 23, 2004
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Just remove the old drivers and install the latest ones for the new card.

It should be a good bump in performance as long as the cpu is not too weak and holds it back.

I personally jump back and forth from Red to Green depending on what meets my needs.

The AMD control panel is not quite as nice as the Nvidia one(per game settings have to be added manually last time I used it), but has gotten so much better over the years(used to not even have that) AMD seems to offer more video enhancements for dvd/bluray and other video formats

Both companies have similar quality for drivers. . I am sure every now and then either one will make a mistake.

All cards overclock differently.
 
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Tripperman

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Aug 10, 2012
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I agree with your assessment of AMD's "CCC", it appears to have more tweaks for video and less for 3D, go figure I suppose. This Pitcarin GPU appears just as powerful as any GeForce in this price range (<$150). I've decided to start benchmarking the heck out of it to discover its weaknesses. The one thing that does stand out to me so far is that it seems to run cooler than nVidia. Wish I could compare two cards directly, but what's a po' boy to do!

And after uninstalling all the nV drivers I found I had to reinstall PhysX to run various benches, at least it was possible to do so.

Thank you for your reply NM, it is greatly appreciated.
 
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Tripperman

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Aug 10, 2012
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Not so old...Zosma 4-core @ 4ghz, Samsung 2TB X 2 (no raid), Toshiba SSD 128 (19nm MLC), GA-870-UD3 and the Rad 7850.

Eventually I'll upgrade the chip and mobo but it really looks like I'll need more memory. I've got all 4 slots filled with 8gb of GSkill @1600 and getting "low memory" warnings now too. Plus, AMD chips push the CPU as well, not sure I like it. I may uninstall the Control Center to stop that, if it will work. (I mean, it boosted the PC power just to download from Windows Update...so what is up with that!?)

Back to the drawing board I guess...and thanks for your reply!

 
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Tripperman

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I checked it in Process Explorer and killed it, I think it was the Catalyst manager CCC. I was running a benchmark and if I remember right "CCC" left me with only 1gb of free RAM when it finished. It never happened while running my 9800GT, but 3DMark11 didn't exist at the time I bought it either. Checking procexp just now shows CCC using the most memory, 180 megs...the nVidia program NEVER did that.
 
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Tripperman

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Aug 10, 2012
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I don't get it either. I can't do it tonight but tomorrow I'll try and replicate. Now I did disable "AMD External Event" in services.exe, but I don't think that has anything to do with it. If it replicates like that again I'll just uninstall CCC and see what happens then.

Dunno if I mentioned it here but the other thing CCC did was boost my CPU up to full throttle (I use PhenomMsr to regulate speed and voltage) when I was using Windows Update, and it drove the temp up to over 60C before backing down after the update. It was the big download to update .NET 4.5, over 100 megs, and it hasn't done it since. But I don't think I want Catalyst just taking over my CPU like that, nV never did.
 
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nukemaster

nukemaster

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Nov 23, 2004
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AMD cards and Nvidia ones tend to act a bit differently and the older cards did not have many power states.

More and more programs take advantage of using the video card.

You may notice your video card clock up a bit on the main toms hardware page as well(this varies with card). My older 5870 used to get much warmer just sitting on the main page, but it was just because the web browser wanted to use it to accelerate what I see.

Windows update making it happen does seem a bit strange.
 
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