GTX 480 Sli vs AMD 7950

[PCplod]

What are these AMD driver issues people speak of anyway? I have never had any driver issues with either AMD or Nvidia....

I know ATI/AMD drivers used to be bad, But I have never had any issues and I havent actually heard of anyone having actual issues recently the last year apart from people saying with Nvidia cards "No I dont want AMD because their driver suck" lol

 

[zx128k]

I have had driver issues only in CF and SLI never with a single card these days.

 

[ALXAndy]

What are these AMD driver issues people speak of anyway?

When I enabled sleep on my computer the desktop would come back covered in coloured squares. Pink and light blue blocks mostly.

Then it changed into the bottom half of my desktop (half of the 1080) becoming a bottomless pit. If I dragged something down there it would disappear.

I would have to change the resolution on my monitor then change it back to get it working OK, and in the end it annoyed me so much I simply disabled sleep.

On the last drivers game menus would roll lines down the screen. At first on Alan Wake I thought it was deliberate, but then other games started doing it too. I also had issues with it simply going back to my desktop. Not crashing, but minimising the game and dumping me at my desktop screen.

So yes, AMD drivers leave a lot to be desired.

 

[Cleeecooo]

7950s are not exactly cool either when overclocked and the reference cooler is dire, very loud just like all reference coolers once you crank up the voltage.

Honestly at this stage if you already have a single or SLi GTX480s Mattuk69, hold out. Don't upgrade now, it is the wrong time to do so. You want to be on a level playing field with both sides having released the bulk of their next generation cards.

remember, you have 2 480's, but only one 7950

 

[zx128k]

I have had more driver issues with the 295 card from nvidia than anyother card I have ever owned. My brother is always ATI/AMD and he never has driver problems. I could not see the cutscenes because of the graphics issues in starcraft 2 on the nvidia 295 but my brother had no problems on ATI/AMD card. Drivers have never issue for some time, there is no difference between the to manufactures.

 

[ALXAndy]

Meh

No the GTX 480 is definitely in it's own league regarding power consumption and heat output. To say anything else is just blatently not true.

Erm. My GTX 280 was just as hot and just as loud. Infact so hot was it it blew up.

And the 260 wasn't much better either. And my 8800 Ultra put them all to shame.

Edit. Neither was the 8800GT and 9800GT. Idles in the 50s? oh yes oh yes.

 

[Speed]

remember, you have 2 480's, but only one 7950

Nope, I have one. I've owned a reference 7950 as well, when overclocked they are loud, just like any reference cooler. If you get one, go for something with a decent factory fitted non-reference cooler like the PCS+, but as I've stated before, upgrading at the moment would be a mistake for most.

 

[Cleeecooo]

Nope, I have one. I've owned a reference 7950 as well, when overclocked they are loud, just like any reference cooler. If you get one, go for something with a decent factory fitted non-reference cooler like the PCS+, but as I've stated before, upgrading at the moment would be a mistake for most.

what i meant was that in this case, there's 2 GTX 480's vs one 7950 (using "you" wasn't the best choice, my bad!)

 

[PCplod]

When I enabled sleep on my computer the desktop would come back covered in coloured squares. Pink and light blue blocks mostly.

Then it changed into the bottom half of my desktop (half of the 1080) becoming a bottomless pit. If I dragged something down there it would disappear.

I would have to change the resolution on my monitor then change it back to get it working OK, and in the end it annoyed me so much I simply disabled sleep.

On the last drivers game menus would roll lines down the screen. At first on Alan Wake I thought it was deliberate, but then other games started doing it too. I also had issues with it simply going back to my desktop. Not crashing, but minimising the game and dumping me at my desktop screen.

So yes, AMD drivers leave a lot to be desired.

Theres as many Nvidia driver issues as there is AMD now, not many, and most people dont experience them, AMD are just as good as Nvidia driver wise, people cling on to the past to much.

 

[ALXAndy]

Theres as many Nvidia driver issues as there is AMD now, not many, and most people dont experience them, AMD are just as good as Nvidia driver wise, people cling on to the past to much.

Yeah I know. I was using Nvidia drivers myself until about 8 weeks ago. And for the 2 series they are absolutely woeful.

AMD still take the cake though.

 

[RichardH754]

AMD could be good 1 month for crossfire, then the next 5 months bad!

 

[Cleeecooo]

Theres as many Nvidia driver issues as there is AMD now, not many, and most people dont experience them, AMD are just as good as Nvidia driver wise, people cling on to the past to much.

true, but nvidia seem to be more supportive with their drivers. IMO, nvidia drivers are better, but not so good that you should discount AMD

 

[PCplod]

Im using a 465 atm, and im lucky enough to have no driver issues with either

 

[ALXAndy]

AMD could be good 1 month for crossfire, then the next 5 months bad!

The best one was my 7800? I had in 2002. It would simply lock the computer up. It took 9 months for them to fix it lol.

Used to get a beep out of the speaker on my dual xeon board and then a hard lock. Eee, them were the days... Not !

My 9200 pro was a lot less problematic.

 

[ALXAndy]

true, but nvidia seem to be more supportive with their drivers

No they bloody are not.

I went to Nvidia forums and asked if they could address the 200 series issues in BF3 instead of spamming me with adverts for BF3 and the 5 series. They ignored it, so I did a Tim Robbins out of Shawshank Redemption.

IE - I just kept bumping my post over and over and over and over. In the end I got banned.

The last set of drivers I ran (before I gave up and sold the 295s) stopped my fans going higher than 70% and nearly blew up the cards. It was then that I realised they were trying the trick they had used before (IE blow up people's cards that they know are out of warranty).

 

[zx128k]

"7950s are not exactly cool either when overclocked and the reference cooler is dire, very loud just like all reference coolers once you crank up the voltage." end quote

When you look at the rendering performance of GTX 480 it is roughly similar to GTX 295. In most tests, the GTX 480 is close to the GTX 295 in regards to power consumption. Maximum load 320watts. Average is 225watts from 480 or 181 for the 295.

So...

Sapphire 7950 OC (BIOS 1) Load 301w 67°C 37.9dB
Sapphire 7950 OC (BIOS 2) Load 302w 65°C 37.9dB
GeForce GTX 295 Load(stock) 320w- 505w(furmark) 76-80°C Noise 65.1dB
GeForce GTX 480 Load(stock) 320w - 467w(furmark) 94°C Niose 64.1dB
Radeon HD 7970 OC Load 364w 70°C 40dB
Radeon HD 6970 OC Load 364w 86°C noise 61.2dB
GeForce GTX 580 OC 438w 85°C noise 46.1dBA
GeForce GTX 480 SLI 668w 96°C Furmark 851w noise 70.2dB - 668w crysis 96°C 64.1dB

Sure get 480 SLI its only the hotest, loadest and uses the most power. Both reference cards for the 7950/7970 share what seems to be an identical heatsink.

 

[ALXAndy]

Are they all running Furmark?

Because Furmark is a synthetic pile of crap.

And plus you've negated to mention that pretty much all of the other cards have a TDP throttle that stops Furmark showing how much power and heat they can do.

 

[zx128k]

Furmark will take more watts from a graphics card than crysis or crysis 2. For the SLI 480 in furmark 851w and in crysis 668w. Furmark has killed some graphics cards in the past and i believe they where some ATI/AMD 4850s'. All the values are cysis 1 & 2. If there is a higher value as well then this is furmark.

 

[Cleeecooo]

No they bloody are not.

I went to Nvidia forums and asked if they could address the 200 series issues in BF3 instead of spamming me with adverts for BF3 and the 5 series. They ignored it, so I did a Tim Robbins out of Shawshank Redemption.

IE - I just kept bumping my post over and over and over and over. In the end I got banned.

The last set of drivers I ran (before I gave up and sold the 295s) stopped my fans going higher than 70% and nearly blew up the cards. It was then that I realised they were trying the trick they had used before (IE blow up people's cards that they know are out of warranty).

really?!

I've never had problems with my 8800/460/570/580

 

[zx128k]

Try 24/7 folding killed my 295 in google....