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Who currently has the best gaming drivers? AMD or Nvidia?

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  • Graphics
  • AMD
  • Nvidia
Last response: in Graphics & Displays
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July 30, 2014 10:27:53 AM

I guess which is the more robust and uses the max available from the GPU (after an update for the game in most cases). I remember AMD had some problems 3-4 yrs ago with stability and i usually buy nvidia but everyone i saying the r9 290 is a better card for the money then 770 but its hard to exact price match because u can get 290 at 350 but 770 with extra mem is cappier choice then 780 but its more expensive.

More about : gaming drivers amd nvidia

July 30, 2014 10:31:10 AM

AMD has Mantle, Nvidia has stable drivers. I wouldn't make that be the deciding factor in your build. Focus on performance more. The drivers for AMD are good enough and there is Mantle for the games that are hard to run.
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a b À AMD
July 30, 2014 10:32:01 AM

If drivers are a concern nvidia is still best but the r9 290 is still a great card go with what suites your needs best
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a c 191 À AMD
a b Î Nvidia
July 30, 2014 10:38:00 AM

Mantle is not mature enough..
Sometimes it's even slower than DirectX, except graphics card with 4gb vram or more..


but i agree with shadow, focus on price performance.
Nothing have to worry, amd drivers is gettin better..it's stable and fast.
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July 30, 2014 10:44:02 AM

Both companies have great drivers. The difference lies in ecosystem. Nvidia feature set is more vast than AMD's with 3D Vision, Shield Streaming, ShadowPlay to name a few. Mantle is an api and you will have to wait for DX 12 to get here to determine if Mantle will stay. If the cards are very close, NVIDIA ecosystem is better so I would go that way, but you can gtx 770 and r9 290 are not in the same performance tier, 290 wins out easily.
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July 30, 2014 11:11:52 AM

ak47jar3d said:
Both companies have great drivers. The difference lies in ecosystem. Nvidia feature set is more vast than AMD's with 3D Vision, Shield Streaming, ShadowPlay to name a few. Mantle is an api and you will have to wait for DX 12 to get here to determine if Mantle will stay. If the cards are very close, NVIDIA ecosystem is better so I would go that way, but you can gtx 770 and r9 290 are not in the same performance tier, 290 wins out easily.


No, I had to wait ten months for a stable driver for my 7790 that is not "great" it's pants.
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a b À AMD
a b Î Nvidia
July 30, 2014 11:14:04 AM

Mousemonkey said:
ak47jar3d said:
Both companies have great drivers. The difference lies in ecosystem. Nvidia feature set is more vast than AMD's with 3D Vision, Shield Streaming, ShadowPlay to name a few. Mantle is an api and you will have to wait for DX 12 to get here to determine if Mantle will stay. If the cards are very close, NVIDIA ecosystem is better so I would go that way, but you can gtx 770 and r9 290 are not in the same performance tier, 290 wins out easily.


No, I had to wait ten months for a stable driver for my 7790 that is not "great" it's pants.


I have been using amd for a while now (5 years) and haven't had any issues. I recently tried my old 6950 and it can still run pretty well.
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a b À AMD
a c 173 Î Nvidia
July 30, 2014 11:22:17 AM

ak47jar3d said:
Mousemonkey said:
ak47jar3d said:
Both companies have great drivers. The difference lies in ecosystem. Nvidia feature set is more vast than AMD's with 3D Vision, Shield Streaming, ShadowPlay to name a few. Mantle is an api and you will have to wait for DX 12 to get here to determine if Mantle will stay. If the cards are very close, NVIDIA ecosystem is better so I would go that way, but you can gtx 770 and r9 290 are not in the same performance tier, 290 wins out easily.


No, I had to wait ten months for a stable driver for my 7790 that is not "great" it's pants.


I have been using amd for a while now (5 years) and haven't had any issues. I recently tried my old 6950 and it can still run pretty well.


I've had nothing but issues until the 14.2's and anything after those bring back the issues. Why don't you go and try and convince this guy that AMD's drivers are trouble free?
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a b À AMD
a b Î Nvidia
July 30, 2014 11:26:23 AM

Mousemonkey said:
ak47jar3d said:
Mousemonkey said:
ak47jar3d said:
Both companies have great drivers. The difference lies in ecosystem. Nvidia feature set is more vast than AMD's with 3D Vision, Shield Streaming, ShadowPlay to name a few. Mantle is an api and you will have to wait for DX 12 to get here to determine if Mantle will stay. If the cards are very close, NVIDIA ecosystem is better so I would go that way, but you can gtx 770 and r9 290 are not in the same performance tier, 290 wins out easily.


No, I had to wait ten months for a stable driver for my 7790 that is not "great" it's pants.


I have been using amd for a while now (5 years) and haven't had any issues. I recently tried my old 6950 and it can still run pretty well.


I've had nothing but issues until the 14.2's and anything after those bring back the issues. Why don't you go and try and convince this guy that AMD's drivers are trouble free?


Well, I can tell you what OTHER people have been dealing with, I can only tell you about my experiences. And for ME, I haven't had any issues.
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a b À AMD
a b Î Nvidia
July 30, 2014 11:33:53 AM

as long as we're are collecting anecdotal evidence, I've never had any issues with amd drivers either with my 4yr old 5770, been updating them pretty regularly as well... running 14.6 betas atm.
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July 30, 2014 11:45:58 AM

Is fun to see those guys talking about issues and stuff with drivers, neither company is flawless in fact both of them have had pretty nasty problems with their drivers, Nvidia and it´s burning cards, AMD and it´s low perfomance but at the end of the day that´s just a minority. I have been with AMD like almost 6 years and had 3 different cards from them and didn´t have any issues and I´m always updating the drivers when necessary.

I´ll give you an advice, go with the best card you can buy with the money you can spend, forget about mantle, forget about physx, all that crap is propaganda at least for now, in the end the important is that you don´t have to regret a decision based in nonsense that people talk because one day his driver didn´t worked and just for that AMD or Nvidia is crap.
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July 30, 2014 11:56:33 AM

Drivers are great for AMD, no problems here and have had 2 AMD graphics cards. Just grab a Radeon! :-D
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July 30, 2014 11:58:05 AM

Honestly both are fine.
Just grab whatever card suits your needs and you'll be off.
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July 30, 2014 12:38:55 PM

Jay Lavistria said:
Honestly both are fine.
Just grab whatever card suits your needs and you'll be off.


+1 This..
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July 30, 2014 12:44:18 PM

Buy whichever card gives the most performance for your dollar. If the drivers aren't 100% perfect, they're still probably 98% of the way there. Drivers for both cards are plenty good enough.
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July 30, 2014 1:07:27 PM

Not really sure how are you going to compare even.

My latest 2 cards were Radeons and 2 before them were Nvidia with Radeon 9500 PRO before that. The Nvidia cards died horrible death (8800GTS simply died one day and GTX280 died a slow death with black screens of death with raising frequency as the time went on - both from MSI, btw), Radeons actually worked flawlessly all the way until upgrade - all my Radeons are from Sapphire.

As for drivers, my current 290X runs flawlessly on latest beta drivers and before it Radeon HD 6990 ran well as well, with only 2 games I had issues with over 2 years of use (both issues are crossfire issues and not single GPU though).

So I'd say AMD drivers are decent enough really.
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July 30, 2014 1:11:22 PM

^ Really, both companies make reliable cards, and I'm sure those 2 cards were simply defective over time.
But it's just preference.
Choose which path you'll take, and I'm sure you'll be satisfied with the end result.
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July 30, 2014 1:13:23 PM

As long as the driver doesn't fry your card or destroy it somehow, there is no problem. Get whichever card is better.

Why is this still an argument? I thought we came to a consensus many posts ago.
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July 30, 2014 1:14:42 PM

Jay Lavistria said:
^ Really, both companies make reliable cards, and I'm sure those 2 cards were simply defective over time.
But it's just preference.
Choose which path you'll take, and I'm sure you'll be satisfied with the end result.


Totally agree, despite the green team failing me, I am pretty sure it was more to do with MSI being shit back then and Sapphire being solid always.

I personally too chose by performance and relative value, so the fact that I seem to prefer AMD's Radeons does not mean that my next GPU won't be Nvidia's one - I will change in a heartbeat if it will be a better choice in 2 years from now.
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July 30, 2014 1:20:20 PM

I guess the trend is:
AMD: Power for cheap
NVidia: Luxury, with additional noise and temperature reduction.
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July 31, 2014 6:43:50 AM

Mousemonkey said:
ak47jar3d said:
Mousemonkey said:
ak47jar3d said:
Both companies have great drivers. The difference lies in ecosystem. Nvidia feature set is more vast than AMD's with 3D Vision, Shield Streaming, ShadowPlay to name a few. Mantle is an api and you will have to wait for DX 12 to get here to determine if Mantle will stay. If the cards are very close, NVIDIA ecosystem is better so I would go that way, but you can gtx 770 and r9 290 are not in the same performance tier, 290 wins out easily.


No, I had to wait ten months for a stable driver for my 7790 that is not "great" it's pants.


I have been using amd for a while now (5 years) and haven't had any issues. I recently tried my old 6950 and it can still run pretty well.


I've had nothing but issues until the 14.2's and anything after those bring back the issues. Why don't you go and try and convince this guy that AMD's drivers are trouble free?


some times you get a convergence of hardware that together make a crap basket, windows millenium and then everything sucks. Im kidding but shipset or mobo plus GPU can make crap sandwich i had the same issues in the last build thats why i asked the question but i do agree at least for nvidia that they are coming out with fixes quickly now and i surmise AMD does the same.
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July 31, 2014 6:52:39 AM

They are both fine. A lot of people talk about having problems with AMD drivers though, even in these forums. I never really hear about anyone having problems with Nvidia drivers.
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July 31, 2014 7:01:29 AM

that the issue i had bough a benq monitor for the nvidia 3d and did get around to getting the 3d kit till i get the new comp. 3 our of 4 times id say nvidia is better but it all sounds like AMD has the mantel now. Do you guys think the financial spread is worth it between the 290 and 290x?

MSI Gaming GeForce GTX 770 N770 TF 2GD5/OC Video Card

$289.99 /w rebate
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PowerColor TurboDuo Radeon R9 290 AXR9 290 4GBD5-TDHE/OC Video Card

$359.99 /w rebate
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MSI Gaming GeForce GTX 780 N780 TF 3GD5/OC Video Card

$429.99 /w rebate
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GIGABYTE Radeon R9 290X GV-R929XOC-4GD Video Card

$459.99 /w rebate
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GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 780 Ti GV-N78TWF3-3GD Video Card

$649.99
$5.92 Shipping

Which card do you guys think is the best deal i leaning towards the 290 or 290x
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a b À AMD
a b Î Nvidia
July 31, 2014 7:33:35 AM

The 290 is the best deal @ 360.
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July 31, 2014 7:35:03 AM

ak47jar3d said:
The 290 is the best deal @ 360.


If he can deal with the heat and noise, yes. :) 
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July 31, 2014 7:42:13 AM

Alex Kelly said:
ak47jar3d said:
The 290 is the best deal @ 360.


If he can deal with the heat and noise, yes. :) 

Just get a nice quiet case like the H440 from NZXT or the Define R4 from Fractal

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July 31, 2014 7:44:30 AM

Shadowblade2652 said:
Alex Kelly said:
ak47jar3d said:
The 290 is the best deal @ 360.


If he can deal with the heat and noise, yes. :) 

Just get a nice quiet case like the H440 from NZXT or the Define R4 from Fractal



I have a H440, and I bought an MSI Twin Frozr 290 OC. It got to 90C and was really loud. I sold it because I couldn't deal with the noise. :p 
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a b À AMD
a c 173 Î Nvidia
July 31, 2014 11:35:49 AM

sebastian869 said:
Mousemonkey said:
ak47jar3d said:
Mousemonkey said:
ak47jar3d said:
Both companies have great drivers. The difference lies in ecosystem. Nvidia feature set is more vast than AMD's with 3D Vision, Shield Streaming, ShadowPlay to name a few. Mantle is an api and you will have to wait for DX 12 to get here to determine if Mantle will stay. If the cards are very close, NVIDIA ecosystem is better so I would go that way, but you can gtx 770 and r9 290 are not in the same performance tier, 290 wins out easily.


No, I had to wait ten months for a stable driver for my 7790 that is not "great" it's pants.


I have been using amd for a while now (5 years) and haven't had any issues. I recently tried my old 6950 and it can still run pretty well.


I've had nothing but issues until the 14.2's and anything after those bring back the issues. Why don't you go and try and convince this guy that AMD's drivers are trouble free?


some times you get a convergence of hardware that together make a crap basket, windows millenium and then everything sucks. Im kidding but shipset or mobo plus GPU can make crap sandwich i had the same issues in the last build thats why i asked the question but i do agree at least for nvidia that they are coming out with fixes quickly now and i surmise AMD does the same.


It's been five months since their last stable driver (for me) so unless another turns up in the next few months, I'd dispute that. ;) 
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August 1, 2014 1:04:19 PM

I think we've set a world record of quotes in quote in quote.
After month I've decided to go with the r9 290 though afraid of the heat and for sure in general over last 10 yrs NVIDiA has better drivers
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2014/07/23/gtx_780_oc_6g...
i rest my case. Now the last big head ache. CASE :(  every build i need a new case as they all seem to suck and im not asking for much just mid tower that has good airflow (over pressure if possible) and GREAT dust filters that are easy to replace/clean, oh and room enough for a 290 and 2 5.25" as it appears that im a freak of nature by having blu ray burner and fan control(im willing though to cut off the left port and go to smaller size fan controller) .
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August 3, 2014 7:33:33 PM

sebastian869 said:
I think we've set a world record of quotes in quote in quote.
After month I've decided to go with the r9 290 though afraid of the heat and for sure in general over last 10 yrs NVIDiA has better drivers
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2014/07/23/gtx_780_oc_6g...
i rest my case. Now the last big head ache. CASE :(  every build i need a new case as they all seem to suck and im not asking for much just mid tower that has good airflow (over pressure if possible) and GREAT dust filters that are easy to replace/clean, oh and room enough for a 290 and 2 5.25" as it appears that im a freak of nature by having blu ray burner and fan control(im willing though to cut off the left port and go to smaller size fan controller) .


Budget then but for $90 I got CM storm enforcer and I love it, it can handle any card.

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August 3, 2014 8:04:10 PM

NZXT H440 is a good option.
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August 3, 2014 8:06:27 PM

Shadowblade2652 said:
NZXT H440 is a good option.


Yes. It will also suppress how loud the R9 290s are.
I've used a 290 and a H440 for 2 different builds. :) 
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a b À AMD
a b Î Nvidia
August 3, 2014 9:09:24 PM

sebastian869 said:
I guess which is the more robust and uses the max available from the GPU (after an update for the game in most cases). I remember AMD had some problems 3-4 yrs ago with stability and i usually buy nvidia but everyone i saying the r9 290 is a better card for the money then 770 but its hard to exact price match because u can get 290 at 350 but 770 with extra mem is cappier choice then 780 but its more expensive.


do you need the card ASAP? because there are a lot of rumor that suggesting nvidia will launching new card soon. the latest rumors i heard says Gigabyte has confirm to release GTX880 in late september/ early october. even if you have no interest with the new card there is a chance for older gen card to get price cut. for AMD at least they surely respond with price cut because most likely they don't have parts that will compete directly with nvidia 880.

i heard about AMD new card as well called Tonga but instead of new flagship this new card should replace tahiti directly in terms of performance but with much lower power consumption. the rumor suggest 7870/270X power consumption with the performance of 7970Ghz/280X. also it will have much lesser RAM and memory interface than tahiti based card. (2GB, 256 bit). it was supposed to launch sometime this month or next but so far there isn't much info about new radeon.

so if you can wait a bit you might get better deal later but if you really need new card right now just get whatever offer that suit you best
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August 3, 2014 9:31:33 PM

The 880 is rumored to launch in a couple months.
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a b À AMD
a c 173 Î Nvidia
August 4, 2014 4:59:36 AM

The latest rumour is for a September release.
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August 4, 2014 11:48:03 AM

renz496 said:
sebastian869 said:
I guess which is the more robust and uses the max available from the GPU (after an update for the game in most cases). I remember AMD had some problems 3-4 yrs ago with stability and i usually buy nvidia but everyone i saying the r9 290 is a better card for the money then 770 but its hard to exact price match because u can get 290 at 350 but 770 with extra mem is cappier choice then 780 but its more expensive.


do you need the card ASAP? because there are a lot of rumor that suggesting nvidia will launching new card soon. the latest rumors i heard says Gigabyte has confirm to release GTX880 in late september/ early october. even if you have no interest with the new card there is a chance for older gen card to get price cut. for AMD at least they surely respond with price cut because most likely they don't have parts that will compete directly with nvidia 880.

i heard about AMD new card as well called Tonga but instead of new flagship this new card should replace tahiti directly in terms of performance but with much lower power consumption. the rumor suggest 7870/270X power consumption with the performance of 7970Ghz/280X. also it will have much lesser RAM and memory interface than tahiti based card. (2GB, 256 bit). it was supposed to launch sometime this month or next but so far there isn't much info about new radeon.

so if you can wait a bit you might get better deal later but if you really need new card right now just get whatever offer that suit you best


OMG youve unleashed my worst fear i wake from a nightmare that i bought a 290x rog and 2 weeks later a new line was released. In that case im stealing a G5 and bombing whos ever card i bought.
To answer you question kind off, i have i7 920 and evga 285 sli and i just cant take it any more DX 9c is torture i dont even buy new shooters since i dont want to miss out of the graphics. LOOKED IT UP ON WIKI. CAME OUT ON GeForce GTX 770M May 30, 2013 AND Radeon R9 290X Oct 24, 2013 SO im expecting a new models to come out do you have any idea as to when?

Lastly, ive been thinking and i want to get something in the 500 and in the future as prices drop i will get another. What do you guys think is the best model to buy (good cooling in mind)

Thanks
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August 4, 2014 12:45:38 PM

Nvidia has been known for more Stable Drivers in the past year. especially when it comes to multi-GPU. both drivers are pretty buggy when it comes to Multi-GPU configurations. but my experience with amd in that scenario was a total nightmare a years back.
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August 4, 2014 7:42:46 PM

Finally the answer was selected lmao. this debate is now over
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a c 177 À AMD
a c 458 Î Nvidia
August 4, 2014 8:45:12 PM

There is absolutely no getting around the simple fact that Nvidia spends significantly more on research and development and has a more robust GPU driver development team than AMD. This has been apparent time and time again, most recently as seen with AMDs frame pacing debacle over the past year, in which they have seemed to struggle to provide a fix, and still have not addressed several major flaws. One could also easily point to the variety of graphics settings, with Nvidia users able to take advantage of settings like Adaptive VSync, TXAA, and forced HBAO+, all of which have no AMD equivalent.

In general, AMD drivers have lower performance on DirectX 9 games, OpenGL games, and Linux OS. AMD is quicker to drop driver support for legacy hardware (currently discontinued for 4000 series and prior), slower to provide support for new game releases, and generally prone to more installation and update bugs. While it is true that the majority of users will have very little experience with driver problems from either company, there is no question that the two companies are not equal when it comes to driver support and development.
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a b À AMD
a b Î Nvidia
August 4, 2014 11:33:00 PM

sebastian869 said:
renz496 said:
sebastian869 said:
I guess which is the more robust and uses the max available from the GPU (after an update for the game in most cases). I remember AMD had some problems 3-4 yrs ago with stability and i usually buy nvidia but everyone i saying the r9 290 is a better card for the money then 770 but its hard to exact price match because u can get 290 at 350 but 770 with extra mem is cappier choice then 780 but its more expensive.


do you need the card ASAP? because there are a lot of rumor that suggesting nvidia will launching new card soon. the latest rumors i heard says Gigabyte has confirm to release GTX880 in late september/ early october. even if you have no interest with the new card there is a chance for older gen card to get price cut. for AMD at least they surely respond with price cut because most likely they don't have parts that will compete directly with nvidia 880.

i heard about AMD new card as well called Tonga but instead of new flagship this new card should replace tahiti directly in terms of performance but with much lower power consumption. the rumor suggest 7870/270X power consumption with the performance of 7970Ghz/280X. also it will have much lesser RAM and memory interface than tahiti based card. (2GB, 256 bit). it was supposed to launch sometime this month or next but so far there isn't much info about new radeon.

so if you can wait a bit you might get better deal later but if you really need new card right now just get whatever offer that suit you best


OMG youve unleashed my worst fear i wake from a nightmare that i bought a 290x rog and 2 weeks later a new line was released. In that case im stealing a G5 and bombing whos ever card i bought.
To answer you question kind off, i have i7 920 and evga 285 sli and i just cant take it any more DX 9c is torture i dont even buy new shooters since i dont want to miss out of the graphics. LOOKED IT UP ON WIKI. CAME OUT ON GeForce GTX 770M May 30, 2013 AND Radeon R9 290X Oct 24, 2013 SO im expecting a new models to come out do you have any idea as to when?

Lastly, ive been thinking and i want to get something in the 500 and in the future as prices drop i will get another. What do you guys think is the best model to buy (good cooling in mind)

Thanks


for radeon it is best to get one with custom cooler. for nvidia looking their track record with Kepler based card even stock cooler is quite good at keeping the temperature down. but sometimes even cards with custom cooler that have much better cooling capability did not cost more than the one with reference cooler.
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August 6, 2014 4:01:46 AM

Nv still have the best driver division in the industry. It's not on the lv of before 5-6 years bat still the best. Nv's driver's for DX are more than good bat AMD'S are also more than decent. In OGL Nv is again best choice & AMD is not brilliant, especially on Linux. When it comes to OCL Amd is better than Nv then again Nv is neglecting this in favor of CUDA. It's fair to say that both of them are not brilliant in OCL bat Amd is better. Mantle is totally irrelevant & won't see much more spread adoption (nothing that is closed source will ever be capable of achieving that), besides OGL & DX are going same patch of reducing overheads on similar way. I personally whose not satisfied with costume care from any of those two companies and I never liked Nv's pricing policy. Only other company then Nv wort of mention by quality of GPU driver's is Imagination technology bat that is not in PC domain.

Globally things will get worse over the time as there are no new sols interested or skilled with machine language and their is less & less veteran's. Programming practice is getting worse every year. We can thank AMD for getting focus on this with Mantle bat this will be shortbreaded.
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August 6, 2014 7:35:08 AM

sebastian869 said:
I guess which is the more robust and uses the max available from the GPU (after an update for the game in most cases). I remember AMD had some problems 3-4 yrs ago with stability and i usually buy nvidia but everyone i saying the r9 290 is a better card for the money then 770 but its hard to exact price match because u can get 290 at 350 but 770 with extra mem is cappier choice then 780 but its more expensive.


I won't touch AMD as I have been burned too many times with their ridiculous abandonment of legacy graphics chips in high-end laptops which otherwise would be perfectly adequate to play many, if not all, of the latest games, albet with possibly some modifications to the settings. Their install programs verify the chipset and essentually turn their nose up at your 'legacy' card and refuse to install. I had already experienced this once but against my better judgement I went with an AMD graphics chip in the laptop because at the time the equivalent nvidia was a furnace. But now I have nothing but regret. I will NEVER buy nor recommend another AMD graphics product, even if they just happen to turn out to be the last graphics chip maker on Earth. Sorry AMD. Voting with my wallet is the only power I, as a consumer, have and I will choose to exercise that power where you are concerned. I have been burned twice now but no more!
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