Anyone else had loads of hardware issues with AMD current gen?

[spoffle]

GPU and RAM usage doesn't increase linearly with additional monitors. It's not about the straight pixel count.

I use 3x 2560x1440 monitors so I know exactly how a pair of 7950s work with them.

Additionally as I said before there's plenty of games a single 6950 can cope with at 7680x1440, people like to over exaggerate the power required for these monitors, I've noticed the people who at the most vocal about the 7680x1440 performance are those who haven't got 3x 2560x1440 monitors.

Also, I really have absolutely no interest at all in GTX690s or anything else beyond my 7950s as they are fine for me.

 

[Kaapstad]

GPU and RAM usage doesn't increase linearly with additional monitors. It's not about the straight pixel count.

I use 3x 2560x1440 monitors so I know exactly how a pair of 7950s work with them.

Additionally as I said before there's plenty of games a single 6950 can cope with at 7680x1440, people like to over exaggerate the power required for these monitors, I've noticed the people who at the most vocal about the 7680x1440 performance are those who haven't got 3x 2560x1440 monitors.

Also, I really have absolutely no interest at all in GTX690s or anything else beyond my 7950s as they are fine for me.

I just happened to use the GTX 690 as it came up before I got involved in this thread. The point is I think you seem to have an ingrained dislike for everything nvidia without seeing anything good in them at all.

If you are happy with your setup perhaps you could tell us what settings you use for modern games like Far Cry 3 or BF3 and what frame rates you get.

Or better still do an exercise like Rusty and gregster did @5760 x 1080. At least if your right about 7680 x 1440 you can silence the critics.

 

[spoffle]

I don't play BF3, I might give it a go with FC3 though.

I don't deny that I dislike nVidia, but I'm being objective about it, as per one of my previous posts.

Plenty of things really. The way they have forced PhysX to run badly on a CPU to make their GPU performance look much better.

The way they advertise PhysX and intentionally mislead, things like "With GeForce" and "Without GeForce", implying PhysX doesn't run on the CPU AT ALL.

The Batman AA issue (the whole AA code bit where nVidia and rocksteady blamed eachother, the code basically removed anti-aliasing for people who didn't have ge-force GPUs).

There's been multiple complaints about nVidia paying developers to exclude other companies from working with them to make games run better (or at least appear to) on nVidia hardware.

The failing laptop GPUs (millions of them) that they wouldn't even acknowledge without a class action lawsuit.

All the whinging they did over Assassin's Creed (the DX10.1 AA).

The way they messed with their drivers to block hybrid PhysX (for anyone trying to use an nVidia GPU for PhysX with their main GPU being from AMD)

The aggressive pompous attitude of nVidia staff that very clearly rubs off on the things they do, companies don't even like working with them because of the attitude they have.

That whole weird nVidia focus group thing, that whole "AMD drivers never work" thing never started from people who use or own AMD hardware, it makes you think really, especially because nVidia have the worst documented cases of driver issues than AMD in terms of damage and things going wrong.

The whole Vista release drivers where nVidia simply couldn't get a working driver out (another class action lawsuit). Those drivers that came out that "accidently" turned off the fans on graphics cards causing them to overheat and burn out (permanently broken), which conveniently was just when a new range of graphics cards had just come out, and to a lesser extend a driver that did something similar to GTX590s, the stutter bug with the GTX6XX series, where nVidia seemingly didn't want to acknowledge, some people think they pulled their forums as a result of this to stop the complaining people were doing.

Do you think my disdain is unwarranted considering the above?

That sort of stuff matters to me, so whilst nVidia keep doing it (and I doubt they'll stop any time soon) I am in no rush to support them with my monies.

It's also convenient for me that the company that offers the best value for money isn't nVidia.

That doesn't get in the way of me being objective though, I know that there are positive aspects to nVidia cards.

I was very tempted to pick up one of those cheap GTX480s last week to use for CUDA accelerated apps (like Arion for realtime unbiased rendering) because their latest gen stuff is poor at compute tasks.

So whilst I am quite negative about nVidia, I am being objective, I just simply dislike the stuff they get up to, it doesn't sit right with me.

 

[Kaapstad]

I don't play BF3, I might give it a go with FC3 though.

I don't deny that I dislike nVidia, but I'm being objective about it, as per one of my previous posts.


Do you think my disdain is unwarranted considering the above?

That sort of stuff matters to me, so whilst nVidia keep doing it (and I doubt they'll stop any time soon) I am in no rush to support them with my monies.

It's also convenient for me that the company that offers the best value for money isn't nVidia.

That doesn't get in the way of me being objective though, I know that there are positive aspects to nVidia cards.

I was very tempted to pick up one of those cheap GTX480s last week to use for CUDA accelerated apps (like Arion for realtime unbiased rendering) because their latest gen stuff is poor at compute tasks.

So whilst I am quite negative about nVidia, I am being objective, I just simply dislike the stuff they get up to, it doesn't sit right with me.

Is that all you got on nvidia, I could probably find a few more lol.

You should be aware of a companies track record when buying from them but you should also look at the product in question as well, like you did consider the GTX 480 on its merits.

AMD has had the odd mishap as well like the current one with X58/79. Did this put me off buying my HD 7970s - no I know they will get it fixed at some point like in the latest drivers. I have thought highly of the HD 7970s since I started using these forums and I wanted to use them in a new build.

 

[spoffle]

Well exactly! That was just off the top of my head.

As I said though, it's quite convenient for me that nVidia never really have the price/performance advantage, because I would really resent supporting them with my money.

As for AMD mishaps, of course they do, my main issue is the underhanded aspect of nVidia though because it's to the detriment of everyone except nVidia themselves, they simply don't care as long as it makes them look good or superior.

Oh and the X58/X79 issue the last time I checked, it's still not clear what the issue actually was or is, it might be AMD, it might be Intel's with the chipset but I don't think anything solid enough has come up to know who to blame.

 

[SkodaMart]

Issue with ATi cards in WoT seems to have been fixed

 

[Rusty0611]

So it was a game problem and not an AMD problem?

 

[SkodaMart]

So it was a game problem and not an AMD problem?

It was a problem that made WoT unplayable with ATi cards for months.

You for one didn't believe me, said that it was my 'faulty' card causing problems when I knew full well that it was not.

I also said that overclocking wasn't fully stable, that has also proved to be true with in game freezes when MSi Afterburner is installed.

The 'real' world difference between HD 7950 and GTX 660 Ti is unnoticable at 1080p like I have said for months.

It all comes down to user preference, and mine is nVidia.

 

[Rusty0611]

It was a problem that made WoT unplayable with ATi cards for months.

You for one didn't believe me, said that it was my 'faulty' card causing problems when I knew full well that it was not.

I also said that overclocking wasn't fully stable, that has also proved to be true with in game freezes when MSi Afterburner is installed.

The 'real' world difference between HD 7950 and GTX 660 Ti is unnoticable at 1080p like I have said for months.

It all comes down to user preference, and mine is nVidia.

Yes a problem with the game that you have constantly whined about saying it's AMDs fault. A game patch would suggest otherwise.

Without digging up your thread I'm sure you said you had issues running anything else as well which was why everyone said you had a faulty 7950.

If your overclock was unstable then it's likely to be one or more of the following:

a) perhaps you didn't know what you were doing
b) not enough voltage
c) high temperatures
d) the chips limit

The real world difference is completely noticeable at 1080p if you play games which actually benefit from a decent graphics card and use 4x MSAA (i.e. most modern games).

You've admitted yourself that the only demanding game you own is Witcher 2 so I don't think you're qualified to determine the difference between the two without a proper testing sample.

By taking the numbers from a stock 7970 (of which an overclocked 7950 will surpass) vs a 660Ti then the difference in FPS is there for all to see .

If you were talking about a 670 vs a 7950 in terms of noticing a difference then I would agree as the 670 gains more from overclocking and will match a 7950 whereas with the comparatively poor 660Ti the memory bus is limiting it.

If you play without AA then fine the 660Ti is fine but for ~£250 I'm sure most people want some AA.

 

[SkodaMart]

Rusty, you want to try playing a few games once in a while.

My HD 7950 worked as it should other than brief occasional flashes.

As for Afterburner, I was only using it for a custom fan profile and hadn't applied any overclock, increased voltage or increased power limit.

 

[Locky]

I have had 6 7970's here and all have been fine and the 3 I have now are fine.

 

[Rusty0611]

Rusty, you want to try playing a few games once in a while.

I'm playing Far Cry 3 on the PC and FIFA13 on the PS3 at the mo - but are you now going down the route of: you have posted something I can't answer so I'll go down the route of a veiled jibe along the lines of "you post too much and don't play any games".

My HD 7950 worked as it should other than brief occasional flashes.

As for Afterburner, I was only using it for a custom fan profile and hadn't applied any overclock, increased voltage or increased power limit.

Exactly. So it was flashing/faulting at stock. Direct your zealotry/anger/disappointment at the WoT developers for having knackered AMD performance.

The important thing is that it's fixed and if you hadn't have kicked up such a stink over it then there would have been no need to point this out.

 

[psychodil]

I think I am beginning to understand spoffle a little bit now. I think spoffle beef is with the company nVidia and some of the questionable antics they get up to, rather than the cards. Good cards, bad company? I also don't like putting my money in the direction of questionable companies, I boycott nestle for this reason.

 

[psychodil]

Unfortunately for skodamart, the truth is if he had stuck with a decent 7950, he would now have better performance in WoT and 95 percent of other games too.

 

[SkodaMart]

Direct your zealotry/anger/disappointment at the WoT developers for having knackered AMD performance.

I did.

Do you not remember my letter to the WoT development team?

Anyhow, this is my last post in the graphics card section as it a pointless exercise anyhow.

Have fun children!

 

[Rusty0611]

I did.

Do you not remember my letter to the WoT development team?

No I don't. Nor am I that interested to be fair. What I do remember is the posts after your 7950 experience by the dozens which apportioned blame to AMD for not performing as well in WoT and using it as an across the board example of a reason to buy a 660Ti.

Anyhow, this is my last post in the graphics card section as it a pointless exercise anyhow.

Have fun children!

The irony.

Ta-ra!

 

[humbug]

It was a problem that made WoT unplayable with ATi cards for months.

You for one didn't believe me, said that it was my 'faulty' card causing problems when I knew full well that it was not.

I also said that overclocking wasn't fully stable, that has also proved to be true with in game freezes when MSi Afterburner is installed.

The 'real' world difference between HD 7950 and GTX 660 Ti is unnoticable at 1080p like I have said for months.

It all comes down to user preference, and mine is nVidia.

SkodaMart; it was a pretty insignificant petty thing to pick up on.

I have played WOT while it was broken, FPS were not 'brilliant' in those broken places,- yet they were more than playable.
I play Metro 2033 at lower frame rates than what i got in broken WOT and that's perfectly playable.
And you can't blame AMD for a broken game.

@ Kaapstad, i understand what your saying about GPU muscle and vRAM amount.

But if Nvidia's 256Bit bus struggles with 3x 1080P what makes you think it would be any better with 3x 1440P?
Don't you think he would be better off with 4 7970's 6GB? or 2 7990's? instead of 4 GTX 680's 4GB...

 

[psychodil]

As 2 7950's significantly beat a 690 in 3 screen setups (as proved by Rusty) its pretty clear that spoffle best upgrade would probably be a third 7950. For the total cost of around £750 it will decimate a 690's performance (assuming good scaling). Really can't understand Kaapstad mentioning 3 x 4gb 680's that would cost over £1200 and still get beaten by the £750 trifire 7950's

 

[Davedree]

delete pls

 

[Kaapstad]

@ Kaapstad, i understand what your saying about GPU muscle and vRAM amount.

But if Nvidia's 256Bit bus struggles with 3x 1080P what makes you think it would be any better with 3x 1440P?
Don't you think he would be better off with 4 7970's 6GB? or 2 7990's? instead of 4 GTX 680's 4GB...

One of the things that has let the 7990's down in reviews is how the drivers don't always work, using 2 of them or 4 HD 7970s makes this even more likely. Nvidia's record with drivers and 4 GPUs is probably slightly better but still not good. Everything being equal at high resolutions 4 HD 7970s will beat 4 GTX 680s but depending on the game you have a slightly better chance of the nvidia drivers working.

I also remember andybird showing a review using either 3 x GTX 670s or GTX 680s running at a ultra high resolution in BF3. The biggest problem they found was not the crappy 256bit memory bus, but the fact it made a huge improvement running the cards in PCI-E 3 mode rather than 2.

The problem with using 4 GPUs is things are more unpredictable than using 1 or 2 with drivers.

As 2 7950's significantly beat a 690 in 3 screen setups (as proved by Rusty) its pretty clear that spoffle best upgrade would probably be a third 7950. For the total cost of around £750 it will decimate a 690's performance (assuming good scaling). Really can't understand Kaapstad mentioning 3 x 4gb 680's that would cost over £1200 and still get beaten by the £750 trifire 7950's

As I have said before using a GTX 690 for resolutions above 1600p is not a serious option.

When I mentioned running @3 x 1440p I said

Why are you messing around with a pair of HD 7950s to drive 3 x 2560x1440 monitors. The least I would go with is 3 x HD 7970s maybe even 4 or better still 4 x GTX 680s 4gb versions (more vram and better drivers for multi GPUs).

This is the way I would go if I ran that resolution. If spoffle wants to add a 3rd HD 7950 to his setup then yes that would be an improvement but for me it would not be enough. I want to run a game with the settings as high as possible.