How do you choose between AMD And Nvidia Cards

[Klo]

I go for price / performance. Which. Quite frankly is nearly always AMD.
If they were completely even I would go AMD because I prefer the company and the way they operate.
If Nvidia was slightly better price / performance then I would still go AMD for the reason above.
If Nvidia was considerably better price / performance then I would go Nvidia.

This pretty much.

Despite the usual suspects Nvidia Defence League posts above, AMD at the moment does have better business practices overall, so I try and support them within reason where I can. Obviously if I was in the market for cards above the 480's performance I would have to go Nvidia, but at the moment I can wait.

 

[Reppyboyo]

I just go for whatever is the best bang for my buck within my budget at the time.
No loyalty to whichever brand really.

 

[melmac]

Traditionally Nvidia has been the underdog. AMD was a far larger company, they just screwed up.

The business practices line is very misguided. I don't blame you, AMD have very good marketing to try and fool people in to thinking some how they are morally superior and Nvidia kills puppies. Their lies can be hard to see through, constantly blaming Nvidia for X, Y and Z. The truth is both companies are pretty similar, I actually give Nvidia the high ground as they don't pretend to be something they are not and do the throw lies and deciet at the competition to quite the same level.


Just look at all the people.on forums going on about "gimpwoks" or Nvidia sabotaging performance. AMD propaganda machine in full effect, lapped up by fanboys to spread around the internet.

yeah there are quite a few repeating this over and over, I guess we all know who they are.

funniest posts in this thread. *** No need to be so rude **

 

[FoxEye]

I rub crayon drawings of the company logos on my skin. If either gives me an allergic reaction, I choose the other one.

If this is inconclusive, I use price/perf as my secondary criteria.

 

[jubei]

I'm excited for Vega.... but only a little. I prefer Nvidia mostly due to Gameworks.

There are a lot of studios that do indeed partner with Nvidia and deploy Gameworks in their titles.

My last AMD card was a 5870 and I just thought the whole driver experience was terrible.

Since then it's just been Nvidia.

----

The thing I like about AMD is they are more supportive of open source technologies which is something that excites me.

I really do wonder what its like for people like yourself that have these 'terrible' driver experiences. Luckily despite having amd for the last few generations before my current 970 i have never had all this driver hassle. I just install drivers and they have always worked :|

Edit: that sounds a lot more hostile than i intended. That wasnt me having a go it was me pretty much being thankful that i have never been hit with all these issues. I do wonder just how many people parrot the 'amd has driver issues' without ever having had them though.

 

[Brazo]

Surely just a simple price/performance calculation. Although presently AMD aren't a player as they have nothing mid-high end to offer but that may change with vega. But I'll say it again I feel like wait and AMD go together like fish and chips. Never do I hear a pro AMD post without the word 'wait' in it!

 

[Griffildur]

I really do wonder what its like for people like yourself that have these 'terrible' driver experiences. Luckily despite having amd for the last few generations before my current 970 i have never had all this driver hassle. I just install drivers and they have always worked :|

Edit: that sounds a lot more hostile than i intended. That wasnt me having a go it was me pretty much being thankful that i have never been hit with all these issues. I do wonder just how many people parrot the 'amd has driver issues' without ever having had them though.

I am guessing about the same number as the people parroting the better AMD support and NVidia gimping

 

[J.D]

I really do wonder what its like for people like yourself that have these 'terrible' driver experiences. Luckily despite having amd for the last few generations before my current 970 i have never had all this driver hassle. I just install drivers and they have always worked :|

Edit: that sounds a lot more hostile than i intended. That wasnt me having a go it was me pretty much being thankful that i have never been hit with all these issues. I do wonder just how many people parrot the 'amd has driver issues' without ever having had them though.

I agree 99% but I have had a driver once in a while either cause crashes etc from both Nvidia and AMD in a random title. All it takes is moving back to the previous and all is well again. We're talking about 2-4 times possibly in my entire lifetime though. Both companies can make small mistakes, it happens but for the majority of my time gaming on the PC, driver side it's been near to perfection.

 

[Jumper118]

i dont choose. i buy both

 

[Apache14]

I always look for the best deal for my money, be that performance or features.

Take the GTX 1060 vs the RX 480. On latest drivers they perform pretty much on par, the 480 has dual GPU support (that the 1060 lacks) and is available in 8gb (for the price of the 6gb on the 1060). So on that alone I'd buy a 480. However of the 1060 performed persistently better than the 480 it would be the other way around.

If I needed more power than that the 1070 or 1080 would obviously get the money.

That being said I also understand people who have a favourite based on passed bad (or good experiences), if you had a nightmare card you will not want to risk that again.

 

[sy-core]

Ok, so really nice varied bunch answers all going back and forth. For business practices I could not care one bit, I need to know if one out powers the other even with greater clocks or core count.

So a quick comparison, with specs, a KFA2 GTX970 Vs RX 470 - slightly different specs, but i'll try to make a the comparison.

970 - 1664 cores / Core Speed: 1178MHz with boost 1300
470 - 2048 cores / Core Speed: 926MHz With boost 1200
Same amount of Vram

So initially I see core count about 20% more cores on the 470 with slower clocks, so do I or do I not get 20% give or take more power from the 470, do I get 20% give or take more fps.

This is what I do not understand, I mean I would love to have the cards to swap in and out to try first hand but I just do not have the time or money.

Also lastly I am running quite an older cpu AMD 8120 8 core @3.11Ghz, I really want to upgrade which I will eventually, only realized I bought this in 2012 while looking through previous orders. But first things first, where am I going with the video card choice.

 

[tommybhoy]

You are getting a bit pedantic over what gpu you want, out the 2, straight away I'd say get the current gen card not the older one, the newer one will have better forward support.

Performance for what I want to spend generally did open my wallet, not whether it's AMD/Nvidia.

 

[sy-core]

Not pedantic, it's just been an issue ever since I upgraded from 6800 to 9800, I was like wtf amd have different stuff which is exactly the same does the same stuff but cost less, then your like Oooo I see why now, and then you hear all the naysayers Nvidia this, AMD that.

After all this I might just sell the 970 and go for an 480, what with the higher cores similar clocks, be nice to see the other side for once. But again for the price of 480, would it be worth SLI for it.

Also how much is my CPU bottlenecking my GPU .. any thoughts, also love to update my RAM slow ass DDR3

 

[tommybhoy]

Tbh I haven't read the thread, just your post above mine as these types of threads can just get messy with the AMD/Nv wars-my bad.

I'd say stay away from Sli as mgpu on both sides imho is terrible now-being an ex mgpu user over multiple series.

I'd keep the 970 and not bother with a gpu as right now, only a 1070 will get you gains unless you want to see what's on the other side.

 

[mahius]

Whichever provides the best performance at the pricepoint. Currently theres only single options above the £250 price, since AMD hasn't released anything above the RX480 recently.

 

[IvanDobskey]

I have had both in the past but had better experiences with nvidia so i do tend to favour them.

But if amd released a killer card at a competitive price then of course I'd be silly not to consider it.

 

[Rroff]

Ok, so really nice varied bunch answers all going back and forth. For business practices I could not care one bit, I need to know if one out powers the other even with greater clocks or core count.

So a quick comparison, with specs, a KFA2 GTX970 Vs RX 470 - slightly different specs, but i'll try to make a the comparison.

970 - 1664 cores / Core Speed: 1178MHz with boost 1300
470 - 2048 cores / Core Speed: 926MHz With boost 1200
Same amount of Vram

So initially I see core count about 20% more cores on the 470 with slower clocks, so do I or do I not get 20% give or take more power from the 470, do I get 20% give or take more fps.

This is what I do not understand, I mean I would love to have the cards to swap in and out to try first hand but I just do not have the time or money.

Also lastly I am running quite an older cpu AMD 8120 8 core @3.11Ghz, I really want to upgrade which I will eventually, only realized I bought this in 2012 while looking through previous orders. But first things first, where am I going with the video card choice.

You can't directly equate cores between different architectures - 1 core on a 970 doesn't perform the same as one core on a 470 or even a 780, etc. even with the same clock speed.

Even the clock speeds aren't a great guide - nVidia boost clocks are the "guaranteed" minimum boost clock - the 970 would likely be around 14xxMHz in actual operation while on AMD the boost clock is normally what it actually runs at - though that can be a bit different with 400 series cards.

 

[J.D]

This is how I choose, odd number for Nvidia, even for AMD. I usually fall down too due to the excitement.

 

[~>Dg<~]

used to pick amd every time for gpus as had great cards in the past with little trouble.still prefer the colours of amd cards compared to nvidia. which arent as good.the drivers though have sucked hard from amd for a few years. also useless stuff added so that and its probably easier to just slot in a nvidia card and it just work with less issues and mainly quicker is just normally a nvidia purchase from now on.

 

[fs123]

used to pick amd every time for gpus as had great cards in the past with little trouble.still prefer the colours of amd cards compared to nvidia. which arent as good.the drivers though have sucked hard from amd for a few years. also useless stuff added so that and its probably easier to just slot in a nvidia card and it just work with less issues and mainly quicker is just normally a nvidia purchase from now on.

AMD for the past year and now with the new Relive drivers is a totally new ball game. You are still living in the past mate.