What AMD Vs Nvidia experiences have you had?

iBSOD · 23 Aug 2021 at 15:00

i had several AMD cards doa, 7870 7950 rx580

never had a nvidia card doa. i wont let this dictate purchasing however as ive never had problems returning them

ZXSpekky48k · 23 Aug 2021 at 15:37

Bought loads of cards from both. Never had one I bought new fail from either.

MatteRB26 · 23 Aug 2021 at 15:59

My first GPU in the PC I built myself was a 6870 and I remember it being pretty good, but I had some Nvidia friends who seemed to have better cards. I then got a 7850 for a friend, then replaced that with the 970 I've got now. I haven't used an AMD card for about 4 years now.

Harlequin · 23 Aug 2021 at 16:42

Had a large range of card from 3dfx/Nvidia/ATI then AMD (even still have an Asus PhysX card). Never had a PowerVR Kyro or Matrox Parhellia though. Both AMD and Nvidia have good then rubbish then good again drivers, had cards from both green and red teams die on me , had more Nv card fail, both the fan stopping driver bug killed cards, twice. Both teams have good drivers now, but had less issues with AMD in windows 10

Jono8 · 23 Aug 2021 at 17:01

I've had more hardware issues and failures + driver problems with AMD (well ATI mostly) cards than Nvidia. I might have just been unlucky though.

This has made me buy Nvidia ever since and I've had very few issues.

I'm sure il try an AMD card again at some point.

kitfit1 · 23 Aug 2021 at 17:40

Over the last 20 years or so i've probably had about a 50/50 split of ATI/AMD and Nvidia. I can't say that i have ever had an issue with any of the GPU's when they were "current". What i will say though is that it's clear to me that Nvidia "nerf" the drivers for EOL cards to lower performance in relation to what ever is the latest card.
For a very long time i had 1080ti and performance actually got better with drivers until the release of the 2080ti. Within a month of the 2080ti release, every new driver release saw worse performance with the new 1080ti drivers.
This has never happened with ATI/AMD. In fact, the opposite has happened. That's why i'm now back with AMD for my GPU.

harmattan · 24 Aug 2021 at 12:03

I've been building systems since years before AMD made GPUs (and before that, ATI) and nVidia was building viable GPUs. They're both similar and their products generally work without issue. I care not to count how many cards I've owned (and money I've spent) from both companies over the years. AMD has had a few blips on the driver front, but for the past 5-6 years they've been solid. I generally have no qualms going with either, and am led by pricing and rasterization performance above all.

I have seen way more shenanigans from nVidia where they really push the envelope of what's morally (and sometimes legally) acceptable e.g. 970 "3.5GB", impeding mobile overclocking, continual and insidious methods to push pricing ever higher, banning reviewers who don't follow script. I could spend the next hour listing examples... They're really shady which has generally pushed me towards AMD of late, all things being equal. Not to say AMD doesn't have their fair share of anti-consumer incidents (ahem, completely dropping driver support for "mobility" chips when it didn't suit them, pressuring ), but they been generally more kosher in this respect, possibly due to having for so long not been in a position of power they could abuse.

harmattan · 24 Aug 2021 at 12:21

kitfit1 said:
Over the last 20 years or so i've probably had about a 50/50 split of ATI/AMD and Nvidia. I can't say that i have ever had an issue with any of the GPU's when they were "current". What i will say though is that it's clear to me that Nvidia "nerf" the drivers for EOL cards to lower performance in relation to what ever is the latest card.
For a very long time i had 1080ti and performance actually got better with drivers until the release of the 2080ti. Within a month of the 2080ti release, every new driver release saw worse performance with the new 1080ti drivers.
This has never happened with ATI/AMD. In fact, the opposite has happened. That's why i'm now back with AMD for my GPU.

That's a good point, and one I missed. I find it hard to believe nVidia just focusing on driver support for new GPUs would actually degrade performance of older GPUs -- but that's what seems to happen with the older cards. If you look at a lot of newer reviewers that include GTX 1080 tis, for example, they're performance has somehow gotten worse over time in the same games -- there's really only one way that practically happens :eek:

. On the other side, there's a common adage that "AMD drivers age like fine wine".

kitfit1 · 24 Aug 2021 at 20:36

harmattan said:
That's a good point, and one I missed. I find it hard to believe nVidia just focusing on driver support for new GPUs would actually degrade performance of older GPUs -- but that's what seems to happen with the older cards. If you look at a lot of newer reviewers that include GTX 1080 tis, for example, they're performance has somehow gotten worse over time in the same games -- there's really only one way that practically happens . On the other side, there's a common adage that "AMD drivers age like fine wine".

Yep, i had owned the 1080ti for so long that i had forgot how quickly Nvidia just dump support for for last gen owners. Now by that statement i don't mean they don't release new drivers, because of course they do. But they absolutely nerf those drivers so that performance goes down. The only reasons for that are twofold, first to make the latest Nvidia card look better than it should and second to coerce you into buying that latest Nvidia GPU to get better performance.
As you say, ATI/AMD have never done that, drivers just get better and better........................fine wine is absolutely true.
I really do feel sorry for peeps that are holding onto 2080ti's at the moment, because i bet any updated drivers they install give worse performance than the last one.

Gavster · 25 Aug 2021 at 10:23

I`ve had both and never had a problem with either, my last AMD card was a R390 which I ended up swapping to a Nvidia 1080ti as the Vega 64 was very disappointing in comparison. I was tempted with the RX 6800 XT but as availability was none existent I went for the 3080FE and I wouldn`t have a problem going back to a AMD card next time round.

Jacky60 · 25 Aug 2021 at 10:42

I remember owning a Nvidia Geforce 4600 TI and replacing it with a 9700 Pro from ATI (which later became AMD). Playing Battlefield 1942 with the 9700 Pro I noticed all the textures that had been missing with the Nvidia card. Huge areas with the Nvidia card were simply untextured as Nvidia decided it was OK to cheat with AF so they didn't lose as badly in benchmarks. Nvidia will use every dishonest or underhand tactic they can and rip off their consumers by doing so without remorse or even shame. Only had one card ever fail on me a 1080TI but overall had 50:50 from each vendor and generally good experiences from both.

Phixsator · 25 Aug 2021 at 11:13

If your stuck with OpenGL then try a Vulkan wrapper.

TNA · 25 Aug 2021 at 11:48

Experienced both plenty times (see sig). Happy to switch between either. It all depends on price for performance and features at the time.

harmattan · 25 Aug 2021 at 14:15

Jacky60 said:
I remember owning a Nvidia Geforce 4600 TI and replacing it with a 9700 Pro from ATI (which later became AMD). Playing Battlefield 1942 with the 9700 Pro I noticed all the textures that had been missing with the Nvidia card. Huge areas with the Nvidia card were simply untextured as Nvidia decided it was OK to cheat with AF so they didn't lose as badly in benchmarks. Nvidia will use every dishonest or underhand tactic they can and rip off their consumers by doing so without remorse or even shame. Only had one card ever fail on me a 1080TI but overall had 50:50 from each vendor and generally good experiences from both.

You just brought back a memory that made me cringe a bit by mentioning the 4600 TI... I had just purchased a 4600 Ti and clumsily broke clean off one of the big capacitors at the end (and I wasn't really proficient at soldering at the time). This was before there were full-coverage PCB shrouds and HS/Fs on cards so bending/breaking a VRM, Capacitor or cable was quite possible when installing. I sunk $450 into that card, then went and bought a 4400 Ti (which I learned later I could have just overclocked to 4600 Ti levels), then the 9700 Pro came out a few months later. This was a three-fold slap in the face in retrospect: 1) I could have easily soldered the capacitor back on, or 2) I could have just bought a 4400 Ti to begin with, or 3) I could have just been patient and waited for the 9700 Pro to come out.

pete910 · 29 Aug 2021 at 16:46

Orcvader said:
A few others have recommended a wrapper for OpenGL to Vulkan

Linux has Zink that does that.
https://www.collabora.com/news-and-...ntroducing-zink-opengl-implementation-vulkan/

newuser · 30 Aug 2021 at 11:49

Desktop gpus never had an issue apart from a DOA pallit card.
Had one ATI laptop and one nvidia and they were both pretty flaky. Both were refurbs that I bought for the screen size rather than the gpu.

R4z0r · 1 Sep 2021 at 10:59

Had an RX580, worked really well, very happy. Now have a 3070 FE, works really well and also happy. Honestly, I think the whole AMD v Nvidia thing is a load of rubbish, both are great.

Bigger problem these days is finding an affordable one at all.

Wrinkly · 1 Sep 2021 at 12:48

kitfit1 said:
Over the last 20 years or so i've probably had about a 50/50 split of ATI/AMD and Nvidia. I can't say that i have ever had an issue with any of the GPU's when they were "current". What i will say though is that it's clear to me that Nvidia "nerf" the drivers for EOL cards to lower performance in relation to what ever is the latest card.
For a very long time i had 1080ti and performance actually got better with drivers until the release of the 2080ti. Within a month of the 2080ti release, every new driver release saw worse performance with the new 1080ti drivers.
This has never happened with ATI/AMD. In fact, the opposite has happened. That's why i'm now back with AMD for my GPU.

That was never my experience.

MatteRB26 · 1 Sep 2021 at 13:10

R4z0r said:
Had an RX580, worked really well, very happy. Now have a 3070 FE, works really well and also happy. Honestly, I think the whole AMD v Nvidia thing is a load of rubbish, both are great.

Bigger problem these days is finding an affordable one at all.

I've never personally had any driver issues with the older AMD Radeon/R9 cards, nor the 970. They may be more problematic on the more recent cards, which I'd kind of expect for a while...

ToOo · 1 Sep 2021 at 13:45

Only significant factor I can think of is that historically Nvidia offer driver support for about 10 years while ATI/AMD has been more like 6.

Otherwise red team and green team mostly wear the same trousers.