AMD or Nvidia

[Headbomb]

Hello All!

I have been researching what graphics card to buy for about 2 months now. I'm a tech guy so I understand all of the terms and performance of both sides. I was pretty sold on the Radeon 7950, especially because of the free Crisis 3 and Bioshock infinite game coupons. Now, I am not sure at all. Nvidia has just announced this: http://www.geforce.com/landing-page/free-2-play

Yeah, I play both Planetside 2 and World of tanks so the in game credits would be very useful.

Also, The 7950 : 300$
the GTX 670 : 400$

I'm back on square one. What should I go for? What is the better deal?

 

[Eloy34]

i can recommend the radeon hd 7950, if you can save a lil more money get the 7970, nvidia and amd are very good i think it depends in the customer, i prefer amd instead.
whatever card you choose enjoy it

 

[flexxar]

In the new 3dmark benchmark, amd smokes nvidia cards. So with amd, you get better performance, it's significantly cheaper, and you get better games. I think it's a no brainer.

http://www.brightsideofnews.com/news/2013/2/4/amd-beats-nvidia-in-new-3dmark-fire-strike-extreme-benchmark.aspx

 

[djangoringo]

The 660 ti might be a good option for you, if you don't want to spend that much on a 670 gtx and you want the game credits in question, the promotion seems to include the 660 ti, usually you can get one under 300$ or about that.

 

[toyftw]

Hello All!

I have been researching what graphics card to buy for about 2 months now. I'm a tech guy so I understand all of the terms and performance of both sides. I was pretty sold on the Radeon 7950, especially because of the free Crisis 3 and Bioshock infinite game coupons. Now, I am not sure at all. Nvidia has just announced this: http://www.geforce.com/landing-page/free-2-play

Yeah, I play both Planetside 2 and World of tanks so the in game credits would be very useful.

Also, The 7950 : 300$
the GTX 670 : 400$

I'm back on square one. What should I go for? What is the better deal?

Hi - If you are considering the 670 @ $400, then you should look at the
amd hd 7970 (vs 7950) as it can be had for < $400 ($360-$390 after mir)

Tom

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814131468

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150596

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202008

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/598?vs=508

if the few games the 670 outperforms the 7970 are important to
you, get the 670. otherwise the 7970 ( for $440 the 7970 ghz)

 

[ubad00d]

I have an HD7950 and it's great, but if you want to play Planetside 2 - Nvidia all the way.

 

[Mousemonkey]

In the new 3dmark benchmark, amd smokes nvidia cards. So with amd, you get better performance, it's significantly cheaper, and you get better games. I think it's a no brainer.

http://www.brightsideofnews.com/news/2013/2/4/amd-beats-nvidia-in-new-3dmark-fire-strike-extreme-benchmark.aspx

So I'm not the only one to notice the disparity?

 

[Headbomb]

Hmm, What I'm hearing is that in the new 3dmark benchmark, The AMD cards smoke the Green team. However, Nvidia gets better frame rate in PS2. I understand that Performance varies in every game, but I'm trying to see what card will provide the best performance for my budget of 300$

 

[djangoringo]

660 ti.

 

[Mousemonkey]

Hmm, What I'm hearing is that in the new 3dmark benchmark, The AMD cards smoke the Green team. However, Nvidia gets better frame rate in PS2. I understand that Performance varies in every game, but I'm trying to see what card will provide the best performance for my budget of 300$

I asked in the 3D benchmark thread if anyone knew what physic's API was being used and that question was answered earlier in this thread.

 

[ingtar33]

Hmm, What I'm hearing is that in the new 3dmark benchmark, The AMD cards smoke the Green team. However, Nvidia gets better frame rate in PS2. I understand that Performance varies in every game, but I'm trying to see what card will provide the best performance for my budget of 300$

for $300 the best options are the 7950 or 660ti. The 7950 and 660ti are neck and neck at stock. However, overclocked the 7950 will generally smoke the 660ti.

You can even save a little cash and go with one of the new 7870 LE (Tahiti) GPUs. Those (when overclocked) will match or even beat a stock 7950 or 660ti.

Choice is yours... this generation of the GPU wars has seemed to favor team Red over team Green. Generally the AMD/ATI Radeon 7xxx series has outperformed the GTX 6xx series this go around (especially since the latest drivers came out) at a much lower price point then the GTX cards have been going at. That said, in general performance (if money is no issue) the cards are pretty similar.

 

[ittimjones]

with current series GPU's, NVIDIA and AMD are pretty much tied. I've heard that the new AMD drivers have really increased performance in the AMD GPU's to the point that they seem to be a bit better.

I've always been an NVIDIA fan, but with current gen GPU's, AMD might be just a tiny bit better for the money. So, just pick a GPU from a good brand (either NVIDIA or AMD really) and in ur price range and u'll be fine.

 

[JackNaylorPE]

I think you will find two schools of though on this .....

-the one with published benchmarks in the reviews

-the one posted on the forums.

Unfortunately, most reviews are done at specific resolutions ...... and we see reviews about "new drivers" from one team outperforming the other team with no mention of the other team's drivers being 2 generations old..... and we see average fps stressed in most reviews while lag / latency goes unmentioned..... and lets not forget the history of driver tweaking exchanging fps for image quality....... so that it's hard to tell what's what at any given point in time

I happen to like the HardwareInfo site as it performs the tests multiple times at various resolutions and settings .... in addition each review contains the entire database so you can pick just the latest review and see the whole history with reso's up to 5760 x 1080

http://uk.hardware.info/reviews/3026/8/nvidia-geforce-gtx-660-ti-review---3-way-sli-included-aliens-versus-predator

To my mind when mid - high range the nVidia cards came out, their cost per frame simply rendered the AMD cards irrelevant while AMD still owned the < $200 range. Since then, AMD's price cuts have now made most price categories very competitive on a cost per frame basis. If ya wanna see who is buying what, here's where each of the top 4 cards sits in % of market share among DX11 cards hitting Steam Servers as of January 31

http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/videocard/

GeForce GTX 670 - 2.11%
GeForce GTX 680 - 1.57%
GeForce GTX 660 Ti - 1.40%
Radeon HD 7850 - 1.39%
GeForce GTX 660 - 1.30%
Radeon HD 7870 - 0.92%
Radeon HD 7970 - 0.81%
Radeon HD 7950 - 0.77%

For reference .... biggest selling DX11 cards from both sides historically ....

GeForce GTX 560 Ti - 4.99%
Radeon HD 5770 - 3.10%

 

[niz]

Avoid worrying about the whole bundle. Just choose based on the video card. If you buy something because it comes with a lot of random stuff, you're paying for the stuff too one way or another so the card itself is necessarily cheaper. Do you really want to sacrifice on the card just for a bunch of stuff you can buy anytime and would probably soon grow out of?

If you're even slightly interested in Linux, nVidia is a no-brainer. AMD hardware/drivers under Linux is still a mess, but under Linux, nVidia is basically the standard. They have professional quality drivers and continue to support Linux well, unlike AMD.

With Steam now available on Linux and EA's serious hating of Windows 8, Linux may soon be far more relevant to gamers than you might currently think. There's even some strong rumours that EA are going to be releasing their own Linux-based console.

 

[nokiddingboss]

i'd go with the 7950 and the freebies. not only will you save some serious $ but you'll also get some free bundled games. i don't play Planet Side 2, but can't you just use the cash you saved by buying the 7950 to buy those creds or is it not the case for this game?

 

[Headbomb]

Best answer selected by Headbomb.