AMD vs NVIDIA - Advantages of each

Aceiscoolpro

Honorable
Nov 2, 2013
18
0
10,510
Okay, i made this thread just for my friend to see because i'm seeing him as being VERY biased towards AMD. I'm waiting on the 960 but he keeps saying 'no you HAVE to get the 300 series amd is better' - he's basically giving the 'i'll hate you if u go with nvidia' attitude. I said i will wait for 300 series because that will basically launch alongside 960. I have strong reasons to prefer nvidia without being biased at all. I've had experience with both brands, i've owned a 1gb 650 ti in the past and i currently own the even stronger 7850 2gb card.

Here are my reasons to likely go with nvidia:
-Geforce interface is better than Catalyst interface
-Adaptive v sync
-DSR - my main reason
-Power consumption (maxwell architecture. amd's next line up is rumored to consume little wattage)
-Green (this is my favorite color so it may sound biased but i don't mind going with red)
-MFAA (equiv look of the brilliant msaa, useless though if smaa is available)
-better optimization

Now the reasons to go with AMD:
-usually better value (760 remains great value however and 970 is a better value than 290 imo for dx12 and power consumption)
-better overclocking (new nvidia maxwell architecture allows for great overclocks)
-true audio (im partially deaf by about 5% so i don't see true audio being of any use)
-mantle (no point in mantle when dx12 releases)

My friend claims the 760 is rubbish. Yet he thinks 270x and 7850 are great cards. I however think the 760 AND 270x is great for this gen in gaming. He has literally no valid reason to hate the 760. He doesn't seem to like 660 either. If you think he has a valud reason i'd like to see you point it out. However, i am someone who prefers to have a lot of vram which is why i would prefer to have say a 280x over a 770 even when 770 wins in benchmarks.

My experience with amd is pretty bad, i owned a computer before that used an amd triple core and it was the slowest thing ever. I currently own an i5 and it's just smooth and fast and never overheats like amd cpus. One of my friends own an 8350 which is a good cpu but he said it overheated like mad so he had to watercool it. I tried to downsample with custom resolutions for 7850, i looked for many solutions online but none of them worked out and i got a blue screen error twice from this. I also had many amd driver problems at first, sometimes in any game i would play, the frame rate would drop suddenly by half the amount and stay there. I fixed this problem though but it was an honest nightmare to fix. I had to clean and reinstall the drivers twice. It felt like i owned an apu for a while. Also when looking at benchmarks, nvidia usually seems more stable even with weaker hardware due to better optimization. My friend literally grew up loving amd because his older brother would use a 5870 crossfire config but he doesn't seem to admit that him growing up with amd makes him biased towards them. He's even saying 'i hope amd rape nvidia with their next line up'. Can someone just give a clear answer for him so he doesn't have to read it coming from me?
 
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My experiences show that both makers have their issues.
I've recently upgraded to my current build and have to say in the first weeks the GTX970 was a massive pain with endless crashes: Bluescreens, yellowscreens, blackscreens and lockups, something I never had with the previous HD7950/i5 750 rig, in fact by swapping the GTX970 with the HD7950 I found the new system was totally stable, despite using WHQL drivers for both cards. a combination of Windows and Nvidia updates have all but killed these issues but I'm still getting the odd crash, and, judging by the posts here on Toms, I'm not the only one with Maxwell problems.
AFAIK any game will need to be written or patched to use DX12 and so far Microsoft have given no solid info on...
Disagree with a couple of your points:
I don't find the Nvidia interface any better than that of the CCC-and it lacks even the limited built in overclocking options available through AMD Overdrive.
DX 12 is still a fairly long way away, Mantle is more relevant ATM than DX12 compatibility, by the time DX12 becomes anything like mainstream our hardware will be old and grey (by computer terms anyway).
I've only had driver problems when I messed about with them or the system, most people seem to get issues by installing third party tuning software or by using non signed drivers-I know, it's boring but by sticking to WHQL or equivalent 'official' stuff I've had very, very few issues with my drivers-Sound, Video or motherboard, across many generations/combinations of hardware.
Those 8 core FX chips do exceptionally well in fully threaded software, they can run hot true enough, but challenge the performance of even high end i7s' for a fraction of the cost, making them a useful part for someone who uses 8 core enabled software and cannot/will not spring for an Intel setup.
 

Aceiscoolpro

Honorable
Nov 2, 2013
18
0
10,510


I'm pretty sure DX12 is meant to release around 2015 and in a few days it is 2015. DX12 will likely only be available on the new gpus and onwards, but that doesn't mean you need new hardware for all your other components. DX12 as far as i've read is meant to reduce cpu usage, and is meant to be beneficial for amd cpus. Not 100% sure but i do know cpu requirements will be reduced with dx12 gpus. As for interface, nvidia are very detailed with analyzing video game graphics and that's one of the things that make it a better interface for me, and the whole asthetic of the interface has a more
'gaming' feel in my opinion. I prefer using msi afterburner for overclocking. I did give the hand to amd for overclocking, usually for not limiting clock speeds. As for mantle, it isn't being implemented in enough games, it's just like with physx, though i admit mantle is used more and i'm no fan of physx. DX12 however, we can expect that to be used in basically every game when it becomes mainstream. Mantle is great, however, it's pretty much only for amd optimised games, and when dx12 releases (quite soon) , mantle will probably become irrelevant for video-game titles from there onwards.
As for driver issues, you can look at the r9 280(non x) online, a lot of users have had color problems with the gpu input. amd gpus usually have more issues than nvidia gpus and that's a fact. You can research and judge for yourself.
 
My experiences show that both makers have their issues.
I've recently upgraded to my current build and have to say in the first weeks the GTX970 was a massive pain with endless crashes: Bluescreens, yellowscreens, blackscreens and lockups, something I never had with the previous HD7950/i5 750 rig, in fact by swapping the GTX970 with the HD7950 I found the new system was totally stable, despite using WHQL drivers for both cards. a combination of Windows and Nvidia updates have all but killed these issues but I'm still getting the odd crash, and, judging by the posts here on Toms, I'm not the only one with Maxwell problems.
AFAIK any game will need to be written or patched to use DX12 and so far Microsoft have given no solid info on which Windows releases it will be compatible with but even so, it'll still be a couple of years before it becomes mainstream, much less a solid requirement, we're only now seeing DX11/Win 64 bit only titles turning up, some years after either were released.
 
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