Going from AMD to NVIDIA

jktmstokes23 · 21 Mar 2014 at 20:16

I might go to Nvidia... I am not trying to start an argument but I would like to know if anyone else has gone from AMD to Nvidia or vice versa and their experience...

I have 2 290s, sapphire tri-x, they cards aren't the problem, it's mostly the drivers. all 3 of the 14 drivers have given me problems in different ways. Only 13.12 works fully and the hassle of bouncing around drivers and doing sweeps and fresh installs is wearing my patience thin...

I am still deciding what to do, but when browsing forums I see a lot of people championing Nvidia drivers over AMD. My brother, who lives with me so I see his computer all the time, has an evga 780 SC and has no problems whatsoever like I have had...

How does crossfire compare to sli? I do like the bridgeless crossfire, but I don't like the massive power consumption.

Avenged7Fold · 21 Mar 2014 at 20:22

Why not just stick to WHQL drivers?

Sounds like you only experience issues with premature beta drivers.

Only advantages to the beta driver's are mantle, which you would lose going to nvidia.

korgtronix · 21 Mar 2014 at 20:26

Stick with the stable drivers for a bit, if you aren't getting any issues on those drivers and the cards are fine otherwise why change. The 14 drivers are beta for a reason.

Sli is historically better going by others posts but they both have issues I just think SLI historically has less.

LtMatt · 21 Mar 2014 at 20:26

jktmstokes23 said:
I might go to Nvidia... I am not trying to start an argument but I would like to know if anyone else has gone from AMD to Nvidia or vice versa and their experience...

I have 2 290s, sapphire tri-x, they cards aren't the problem, it's mostly the drivers. all 3 of the 14 drivers have given me problems in different ways. Only 13.12 works fully and the hassle of bouncing around drivers and doing sweeps and fresh installs is wearing my patience thin...

I am still deciding what to do, but when browsing forums I see a lot of people championing Nvidia drivers over AMD. My brother, who lives with me so I see his computer all the time, has an evga 780 SC and has no problems whatsoever like I have had...

How does crossfire compare to sli? I do like the bridgeless crossfire, but I don't like the massive power consumption.

Unless you use Mantle and play Battlefield 4 you should stick with the 13.12 WHQL drivers. They're solid, stable and good for benching. 14.X drivers are launch Mantle drivers so they're not the most stable. Go back to 13.12 WHQL for now. A new WHQL driver set is due in April.

darket · 21 Mar 2014 at 20:31

I went from a crossfire 290x setup to a 780ti for the same reasons, Amd always seem to sort out all of the bugs just as the next generation is due for release.

I'm not suddenly an Nvidia fan , i just go with what works. I play LOTS of different games and i expect for them all to work, i can't stand fiddling about tweaking stuff just to play one game. So far i've been 100% happy with my choice and have no regrets, i'm not worried about losing mantle because as far as i see it by the time mantle has either won the developers over or not new cards will be out anyway so right now i dont see that mantle or trueaudio dealbreakers when choosing a graphics card.

To sum it up, the 780ti is by far the better card at the moment if you just want something thats fast out of the box and works without any issues, i cant speak for sli at the moment but from all the reading i've done and past experience with crossfire nvidia cards its generally more stable , has more support and is a better gaming experience with again less 'fiddling'.

arc@css · 21 Mar 2014 at 20:33

13.12 is perfect - stay with it for now.

Avenged7Fold · 21 Mar 2014 at 20:37

With two 290's you wont need mantle for smooth play in any game that has mantle. WHQL drivers are 'Windows Hardware Quality labs' tested, moving to other cards only because the non windows approved beta drivers are causing issues seems silly.

Pretty sure all the Crossfire issues have been pretty much ironed out in the last few years.

LtMatt · 21 Mar 2014 at 20:41

Avenged7Fold said:
With two 290's you wont need mantle for smooth play in any game that has mantle. WHQL drivers are 'Windows Hardware Quality labs' tested, moving to other cards only because the non windows approved beta drivers are causing issues seems silly.

Pretty sure all the Crossfire issues have been pretty much ironed out in the last few years.

Microstutter? Can't remember what that is since August last year.

darket · 21 Mar 2014 at 20:50

Avenged7Fold said:
WHQL drivers are 'Windows Hardware Quality labs' tested, moving to other cards only because the non windows approved beta drivers are causing issues seems silly.

Pretty sure all the Crossfire issues have been pretty much ironed out in the last few years.

WHQL doesnt mean as much as you think it does, what it means is that its not going to destroy windows or format you're HDD, it just means tested on a hardware level and nothing else.

And i found crossfire issues to be just the same as they always were and the thing that still scares me the most is that with ULPS enabled the second card will just shut off its fan at 90 degrees with no attempt to cool the card when its not loaded ! , its things like this and the crazy hdmi audio bugs that still plague cataylist drivers that made me swap, these things have been broken for years and yet amd make no attempt to sort these seeming minor issues out.

LtMatt · 21 Mar 2014 at 20:55

darket said:
WHQL doesnt mean as much as you think it does, what it means is that its not going to destroy windows or format you're HDD, it just means tested on a hardware level and nothing else.

And i found crossfire issues to be just the same as they always were and the thing that still scares me the most is that with ULPS enabled the second card will just shut off its fan at 90 degrees with no attempt to cool the card when its not loaded ! , its things like this and the crazy hdmi audio bugs that still plague cataylist drivers that made me swap, these things have been broken for years and yet amd make no attempt to sort these seeming minor issues out.

For AMD it does. Their WHQL drivers are only released every 3-4 months so they're usually of high standard and exclude some of the minor bugs which sometimes plauge the beta's. Tbh AMD drivers have been rock solid for a long time. Only since Mantle launched and the 14.X beta's hit have they been a bit buggy. When you consider what they've had on their plate with Mantle its somewhat understandable. That said, 14.2 and especially 14.3 Beta have been rock solid stable for me.

funt · 21 Mar 2014 at 20:57

I came from Green team to Red team... was happy as a Green and am a Happy Red now too

I think every card has it's benefits and drawbacks and it mainly comes down to what is right you... When I got my 290 it was right for me at the time, I had a 560Ti and the 290 had just been launched and there was nothing in it's price range that could offer the same price to performance.

I have not had any driver issues since my swap despite countless many threads and individuals telling me how bad AMD drivers were and that I would spend every day waiting for the next driver but I haven't.

jktmstokes23 · 21 Mar 2014 at 21:00

thanks for the replies. I know the BETA drivers have their issues.. It is just frustrating that a real full driver has not come in 3 months... 13.12 gives me issues with Thief but with everything else it is fine. I just feel like there should be more with the drivers if people are paying for high end cards.

I do like not having any microstuttering...

I guess I am just frustrated having spent 1000$ on GPUs just to see Beta after Beta. I am not a BF4 player but I wanted true audio and mantle on Thief, and those are buggy right now too. There is an audio bug when I run mantle. And if I try to overclock one of the cards (it has stock AMD 290 clocks, got it from this website) to the same clocks as the other sapphire, it has the normal sapphire tri-x clocks, then it keeps the core at 1000 even in idle and keeps temps high so once I start gaming it gets into the 80s.

I guess it's just these small gripes. Before, when I had a 7950, I didn't care. I spent roughly 200$ on it so it wasn't as big a deal.

I appreciate you all knocking some sense into me though lol.

LtMatt · 21 Mar 2014 at 21:02

What's the problem with the 14.3 drivers old boy?

jktmstokes23 · 21 Mar 2014 at 21:05

It makes the core clock on my top card stay at 1000 mhz so the cards temps stay high (50-60s) and then when I game it makes the card bounce as high as 88.

Their is also an audio bug in Thief. Sound will just cut off. Have to exit the game and get back in.

The main issue is with the core clocks staying high like I said in the post above yours

funt · 21 Mar 2014 at 21:07

LtMatt said:
What's the problem with the 14.3 drivers old boy?

I have found them to be an improvement, at least for me personally.

LtMatt · 21 Mar 2014 at 21:07

jktmstokes23 said:
It makes the core clock on my top card stay at 1000 mhz so the cards temps stay high (50-60s) and then when I game it makes the card bounce as high as 88.

Their is also an audio bug in Thief. Sound will just cut off. Have to exit the game and get back in.

The main issue is with the core clocks staying high like I said in the post above yours

Have you tried disabling ULPS via msi afterburner?

funt said:
I have found them to be an improvement, at least for me personally.

Same. 14.3 are the best beta drivers yet of the 14.X range. Fixed the vsync issue too.

Gregster · 21 Mar 2014 at 21:08

SLI is straight forward. I did have to use DDU once but out of all the installs I have done (hundreds), once isn't so bad. I install drivers and go. Nothing more needed

Pair of Titans for reference. Oh and to add, I had a 6970 that required me to set +20 on the power limit or it crashed in any game I played.

jktmstokes23 · 21 Mar 2014 at 21:19

I did disable ULPS. But I just checked and the box is no longer checked for some reason... That is probably it right???

This fuss is all about the 4k monitor (samsung) I am getting in April. I want everything to be smooth.

jktmstokes23 · 21 Mar 2014 at 21:20

Gregster said:
SLI is straight forward. I did have to use DDU once but out of all the installs I have done (hundreds), once isn't so bad. I install drivers and go. Nothing more needed

Pair of Titans for reference. Oh and to add, I had a 6970 that required me to set +20 on the power limit or it crashed in any game I played.

I was brooding over getting two 780ti's but the 290s 4 GB is much more enticing at 4k...

LtMatt · 21 Mar 2014 at 21:20

jktmstokes23 said:
I did disable ULPS. But I just checked and the box is no longer checked for some reason... That is probably it right???

This fuss is all about the 4k monitor (samsung) I am getting in April. I want everything to be smooth.

Well there is a bug in the 14.3 drivers that the second card does not clock down in crossfire. I'm currently using those drivers and they clock down fine, but i have ULPS disabled. Try it? Nothing to lose and it will even give you a small performance boost.