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Mantle VS Reliability?

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Mantle may well be amazing. But it wont be apparent for at least another year. Mantle will take time to implement and as of right now we're only really going to see it (short term) in BF4, by the time mantle (if its amazing) becomes a main stay, any card you buy now will be fairly outdated anyway.

IE, buying a mantle based GPU to play star citizen would be crazy, because its not out until 2015 at the earliest, and in 2 years GPUs move a long way.

I'm certainly excited for Mantle, but it wont influence my GPU choice (planning to buy in the next month or two) as its a none factor right now.

In a year or two when i upgrade again, thats when mantle may play a heavy weight on my GPU choice.


Also while mantle is AMD only to begin with.
 
Examine what features each card bring and which suit your needs the most.
For me the 290 is best but that does not mean a 780 is a worse card because its not just brings different features performance is great on both
 
AWPC said:
Just buy the best Nvidia card you can afford now;)

Mantle is not likely to be a game changer as MS rejected it in favour of a Direct X future so Mantle is only going to help those on mid to low end AMD GPU's in a practical fashion as anyone with a high end GPU is unlikely to notice if its 60 or 160FPS regardless are they :rolleyes: if anyone says they can tell the difference they are just trying to justify their GPU expenditure ;)

Nvidia brute force will be more than enough to compensate for Mantle in future games but after the way AMD locked Nvidia out of TressFX on Tomb Raider until after release you can expect both sides to return the favour on PhysX vs Mantle release date lockouts until the NDA has lifted etc etc :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

I'd reply but to busy sneezing, Sorry am allergic :rolleyes:
 
Thanks for all the replies, it seems like no one here really believes that Nvidia is all that much more reliable than AMD.

If that's the case, I guess that makes my mind up for me, ill wait for non ref cooler 290 cards. Sure, i'd like to play Witcher 3 with all the fancy Nvidia exclusive extras, but it seems like ill get more out of most games on a 290 than I will a 780, that's before taking Mantle into account (which I agree, may not actually add anything for a while)
 
You have to remember with Mantle is that the game developer has to enable their product to make use of the API, it doesnt just do it automatically.

I dont side with eaither faction. Ive had both green and red army cards and ive had my share of ups and downs with them both ( although more so with Nvidia cards than ATI/AMD but I think this is down to just pure luck ) but at the moment your best bang for buck is AMD. Less than 10% of a performance gap with their top end single gpu vs Nvidia but over 30% cheaper
 
northwestdakota said:
Evening all,

I don't want to start some sort of Green VS Red thread of abuse; I would just like to see a few peoples perspective. I currently have between £300 - 450 to spend on a video card. This is a lot of money for me and I doubt I’ll be upgrading again for a couple of years, so I want to get it right.

My last card was a 7970, it was a great card and I was really pleased with the results. Well, I was pleased until it started causing all sorts of stability issues and I sent it back. To cut a long story short, it took me 4 weeks to find out it was the card and it frustrated me so much I gave up on the card and thought I’d keep my money. So here I am, in need of a card and cash ready to spend.

I waited for the 290 release to see how the card performed and like many people I come to the conclusion that it seems a great card but I should wait for the non ref coolers. So, that was me, mind made up.

Then I start seeing threads about stability problems, one big thread on these forums containing 14 pages. I'm now getting a bit worried, thinking to myself maybe I’d be better off with a 780, it will be cooler, quieter and I hear Nvidia are supposed to be really reliable. BUT, I know if I get a 780 and discover in a few months’ time that the likes of Thief run 20% better on Mantle, I’m going to be a little frustrated. I just want to play next years big games like Dragon age, Thief, The Witcher 3 all on max settings on a resolution of 1920x1200.

What do you guys think? I have no brand loyalty, I just want the best card I can afford and not have to deal with stability problems.
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few weeks away for thirdparty, early december.
my 290 works fine and is better than the 7970 I had even with early drivers.

so sound with thief using trueaudio.
Mantle well who knows but it be better.
thirdparty cooler you be fine with the sound.
drivers are early so they become a lot better down the road.

the 780 had a long time to mature.
 
lol at this thread :)

My input: I say take your £400 and get 7950 xfire. Will smash any single gpu out there. And you'll still have change to go downt' pub, get hammered and brag about how your PC is better than the ps4 and Xbox one combined. Not that I've ever done that myself...:rolleyes:
 
I'd buy a 290, if you can't deal with the noise buy a 3rd party cooler or wait for non ref cards.

As others have said, best bang for buck.

Make sure your PSU is up to the job.
 
implosiveturnip said:
lol at this thread :)

My input: I say take your £400 and get 7950 xfire. Will smash any single gpu out there. And you'll still have change to go downt' pub, get hammered and brag about how your PC is better than the ps4 and Xbox one combined. Not that I've ever done that myself...:rolleyes:
Click to expand...

And be faced all the problems that dual GPU bring you. No thank you
 
I've not really had any dual GPU problems...

I know some games don't support Crossfire or not well, mainly MMO's and games that would run ok on one card.

I'd still go for the 290 @ 300 quid - then later on if you want / need more power you can add another one, that was my theory with the 7970's.
 
Last time I tried crossfire was when I had a couple of 6850's, too much noise and too many stability issues, I never really felt the performance was worth it. I see 290's crossfire in a new way (no bridge), does that increase performance? does it reduce stability problems?

The feedback from this thread has convinced me to go for a non ref 290, if reports about 290 crossfire go well, I may look to get another one in a years time.
 
If you use more than one screen, i'd go with a gtx 780 over amd at present simply due to the difference in idle power consumption. I've been using ati/amd for the last 13 years without much trouble, but chose nvidia for the first time as it is so much more efficient at idle. Not had any issues on the other side of the fence so far either.
 
Either way, both the 780 and 290 are fantastic cards at brilliant prices. They trade blows with each other in most benchmarks and games.

I honestly don't think you'd be disappointed with either card tbh. Mantle could be fantastic, it could be over hyped. Nvidia could have driver problems in the next few months, they may not.

There are too many if's and but's to make the 100% right choice and that's the way it will always be with graphics cards.

The 290 is a stormer of a card for it's price but I too have noticed there appears to be more issues currently with AMD's cards than Nvidia (this is based on driver issues, not receiving a DOA card) which will hopefully be ironed out with future driver releases.

Swings and roundabouts really.

I'm happy with my 780, just as I'm sure you'd be happy with either a 290 or 780.
 
JamesM said:
Either way, both the 780 and 290 are fantastic cards at brilliant prices. They trade blows with each other in most benchmarks and games.

I honestly don't think you'd be disappointed with either card tbh. Mantle could be fantastic, it could be over hyped. Nvidia could have driver problems in the next few months, they may not.

There are too many if's and but's to make the 100% right choice and that's the way it will always be with graphics cards.

The 290 is a stormer of a card for it's price but I too have noticed there appears to be more issues currently with AMD's cards than Nvidia (this is based on driver issues, not receiving a DOA card) which will hopefully be ironed out with future driver releases.

Swings and roundabouts really.

I'm happy with my 780, just as I'm sure you'd be happy with either a 290 or 780.
Click to expand...

Besides the black screen issues with the 290 I would not say AMD have more drivers issues.

Official NVIDIA 331.82 WHQL Display Driver Feedback Thread (Released 11/19/13)
https://forums.geforce.com/default/...y-driver-feedback-thread-released-11-19-13-/1
Official NVIDIA 331.65 WHQL Display Driver Feedback Thread (Released 10/28/13)
https://forums.geforce.com/default/...ay-driver-feedback-thread-released-10-28-13-/

https://forums.geforce.com/default/board/33/
 
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Final8y said:
Besides the black screen issues with the 290 would not say AMD have more drivers issues.

fficial NVIDIA 331.82 WHQL Display Driver Feedback Thread (Released 11/19/13)
https://forums.geforce.com/default/...y-driver-feedback-thread-released-11-19-13-/1
Click to expand...

There are bound to be issues with drivers from both sides, the AMD one was the only one that I could remember recently and picked up on.

The cheapest 780 on OcUK is £389 I think while the cheapest 290 is £317. Yes the 780 has a custom cooler setup etc but for that price the 290 seems like a no brainer really.
 
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