SLI or Xfire???

[Final8y]

The thing is your not weighting the issues properly. If you take a generalised look at the last few years or so you see that ATI/AMD problems tend to have a wider impact on their customer base and take longer to be resolved and nVidia issues tend to affect a more specific group of customers and have better support in regards to fixing them - its a gross generalisation but backed up with numerous articles, forums threads, etc. over the years.

You absolutely can't say "they both have issues therefore the customer experience will be the same".

I agree that the whole "AMD has bad drivers" thing has been exaggerated by word of mouth, people repeating it etc. over the years but you can't take away the fact that AMD has a worse track record for what they actually do in regard to supporting their drivers and sorting ongoing issues than nVidia has. This may turn around with the never settle program but its way too early days to make a call on it.

I disagree because on the NV forum it self are members moaning about how long its taking NV to sort out some issues and killing cards is a big weight issue and this is before the never settle program.
I have been having less issues with my quad AMD GPU setup then some NV users with single cards.
https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/507702/geforce-drivers/officialy-done-with-nvidia-/12/

 

[Gregster]

Weird how some will defend AMD so much and not recognise when they messed up the X79/X58 with Crossfire and eyefinity. It took months to sort out and only got sorted after talk of a lawsuit. Nvidia are far from angels but at least see where AMD have messed up.

 

[Gregster]

I disagree because on the NV forum it self are members moaning about how long its taking NV to sort out some issues and killing cards is a big weight issue and this is before the never settle program.
I have been having less issues with may quad AMD GPU setup then some NV users with single cards.

Do they still support the 5XXX cards?

 

[spoffle]

Well you're hardly one to be objective about it. You might think the same about me, your choice.

I've actually given examples of some of nVidia's driver mess ups. When I hear about AMD driver issues that people insist are very persistent, the very same issues affect nVidia users too.

There isn't really anything "big" that someone could complain about in general about AMD's drivers. They have had nowhere near as big an issue as nVidia has over the years. That's just the weird thing that I don't understand. Drivers aside, nVidia have had far worse quality control issues over the years as well, yet so many people love to go on about nVidia, how they exude quality and premium whilst either being completely ignorant to their issues, or refusing to acknowledge they exist.

The time scales on those fixes seem to be roughly the same. Your claims that AMD has a track record for actually doing what they say? It's amusing because of how much it sometimes takes to even get nVidia to acknowledge. They were completely unwilling to acknowledge that stutter bug, and it really does look like that's why their forums were down for so long.

You say nVidia have a documented track record with numerous threads, articles and so on? Well that's news to me. You can find plenty of articles of complaints about nVidia's driver and hardware issues, but most of the stuff you find about AMD's apparent driver issues is generally the same sort of people raging about how they'll never buy an AMD card because their drivers never work.

Over all the cards I've owned over the years, I personally haven't had much in the way of driver issues, nothing of note at all. I've got a fair few friends who are in to computers too who also use AMD GPUs and they've had nothing in the way of issues either.

Most people in general I know have had very little to no issues with any drivers, but I do know a fair few people who've had nVidia hardware issues.

It's a very backward situation that's very rarely spoken about truthfully, and you seem to get caught up in that a lot yourself Rroff, I've read quite the few unsubstantiated claims from you without anything there to back them up.

 

[spoffle]

Weird how some will defend AMD so much and not recognise when they messed up the X79/X58 with Crossfire and eyefinity. It took months to sort out and only got sorted after talk of a lawsuit. Nvidia are far from angels but at least see where AMD have messed up.

We don't know what the issue is, so it's not really something you can say with certainty like you're doing, people are pointing the finger at both AMD and Intel simply because it's not clear what the issue is, where it's come from and why it happened.

I'm saying this because genuinely we don't know what the issue was, not out of defense for AMD, but even if that's what you want to say it still doesn't compare to the mess nVidia's been in with drivers.

 

[spoffle]

Do they still support the 5XXX cards?

Of course they do. What you've probably read is that they don't release performance updates for such configurations due to how old they are.

They are still "supported" just not with priority, which considering their age isn't much to be surprised about.

You're hardly going to see nVidia release GTX480 SLi performance patches unless there's something majorly broken, there's just little reason to carry on with optimisation when near enough all the performance has been gotten out of them.

 

[Gregster]

We don't know what the issue is, so it's not really something you can say with certainty like you're doing, people are pointing the finger at both AMD and Intel simply because it's not clear what the issue is, where it's come from and why it happened.

I'm saying this because genuinely we don't know what the issue was, not out of defense for AMD, but even if that's what you want to say it still doesn't compare to the mess nVidia's been in with drivers.

I have no certainty however AMD fixed the issue with 12.11 beta 11, so this tells me it was an AMD issue all along.

Edit:

You can use the edit button

 

[Final8y]

Weird how some will defend AMD so much and not recognise when they messed up the X79/X58 with Crossfire and eyefinity. It took months to sort out and only got sorted after talk of a lawsuit. Nvidia are far from angels but at least see where AMD have messed up.

No one is denying it and im the one who posted the links to that issue.

And NV was facing a lawsuit over the Vista drivers.
You see the difference is People are not defending AMD from having issues, its NV users whom are claiming that NV have less.

 

[Final8y]

Do they still support the 5XXX cards?

Yes.

 

[Gregster]

We don't know what the issue is, so it's not really something you can say with certainty like you're doing, people are pointing the finger at both AMD and Intel simply because it's not clear what the issue is, where it's come from and why it happened.

I'm saying this because genuinely we don't know what the issue was, not out of defense for AMD, but even if that's what you want to say it still doesn't compare to the mess nVidia's been in with drivers.

No one is denying it and im the one who posted the links to that issue.

Ermmm, I feel someone is trying their hardest to save AMD looking like they messed up.

 

[Final8y]

Of course they do. What you've probably read is that they don't release performance updates for such configurations due to how old they are.

They are still "supported" just not with priority, which considering their age isn't much to be surprised about.

You're hardly going to see nVidia release GTX480 SLi performance patches unless there's something majorly broken, there's just little reason to carry on with optimisation when near enough all the performance has been gotten out of them.

Im still getting performance updates borderland 2 and planetside 2 are the ones that i have played recently and seen great improvements.

 

[spoffle]

I have no certainty however AMD fixed the issue with 12.11 beta 11, so this tells me it was an AMD issue all along.

Edit:

You can use the edit button

It's still conjecture though. The facts are AMD 79XX series having issues with Intel's X58 and X79 enthusiast chipsets.

They don't have the issue on other chipsets, and the chipsets don't have the issue with other cards. So the issue is between the cards and the chipset, and if you do some digging around, it seems to be related to the PCI-E 3.0 lanes being saturated, and when they do, it falls over and locks up.

Outside of that, we don't know what the issue is, but your reasoning here is faulty, they've been able to provide a fix, that's it. It doesn't indicate where the fault lies, just that AMD have found where the issue occurs and managed to get a work around in place, which is only a good thing.

Depending on where you look, people were talking about legal action against AMD and Intel because some people were convinced it was the chipset and others were convinced it was the cards.

Ermmm, I feel someone is trying their hardest to save AMD looking like they messed up.

Well like I said above, you don't know what the issue is, so you are guessing and in this instance you are choosing to assume AMD are to blame.

Notice how I'm not actually ascribing blame? I'm saying that it's not clear who's at fault. If I wanted to defend AMD, wouldn't I be saying that it's Intel's fault?

It may very well be AMD's fault, but we don't know.

 

[Final8y]

Ermmm, I feel someone is trying their hardest to save AMD looking like they messed up.

Were did i say its not AMDs fault when i have posted the compatibility issue quotes myself on this forum linked from Asus ROG.

 

[Gregster]

Im still getting performance updates borderland 2 and planetside 2 are the ones that i have played recently and seen great improvements.

That's cool I didn't know and was just asking. I remember a thread a while ago saying they didn't support the older gen anymore, so they wanted to upgrade.

It's still conjecture though. The facts are AMD 79XX series having issues with Intel's X58 and X79 enthusiast chipsets.

They don't have the issue on other chipsets, and the chipsets don't have the issue with other cards. So the issue is between the cards and the chipset, and if you do some digging around, it seems to be related to the PCI-E 3.0 lanes being saturated, and when they do, it falls over and locks up.

Outside of that, we don't know what the issue is, but your reasoning here is faulty, they've been able to provide a fix, that's it. It doesn't indicate where the fault lies, just that AMD have found where the issue occurs and managed to get a work around in place, which is only a good thing.

Depending on where you look, people were talking about legal action against AMD and Intel because some people were convinced it was the chipset and others were convinced it was the cards.

Ok. Of course you have your thoughts and I have mine. I don't see why AMD fixed a problem if it wasn't their problem to fix.

 

[Gregster]

Were did i say its not AMDs fault when i have posted the compatibility issue quotes myself on this forum linked from Asus ROG.

There are other people posting...

 

[Final8y]

The proble is not people saying AMD does not have faults it just the trying to get NV users to admit the mounts of faults NV have is some how deny that AMD has issues.
Since when is trying to get people to admit = automatically means trying to deny something yourself.

 

[Kaapstad]

It's still conjecture though. The facts are AMD 79XX series having issues with Intel's X58 and X79 enthusiast chipsets.

There is some room for arguement wheather it was AMDs mix up or not with the X79 setup as it is a recent platform.

However AMD must take it full on the chin for any problems with the X58 platform. Remember this setup was out before the 5 series, 6 series nevermind the 7 series so the onus was really on AMD to make sure the 7 series cards are compatable with it. It would be hard to blame intel unless their using crystal balls with the wrong drivers to design their product with.

 

[spoffle]

Ok. Of course you have your thoughts and I have mine. I don't see why AMD fixed a problem if it wasn't their problem to fix.

You say that like it's a bad thing. We don't know what the issue is, but in basic terms it was an issue between certain hardware configurations.

There was an issue there, demonstrated to be repeatable in "lab conditions" and a fix was found and implemented. That doesn't really show who's to blame, it just shows that it was fixed.

You're saying it as if AMD have issued a fix for nVidia having issues with a certain chipset.

AMD hardware's involved, so obviously they have interests in fixing it regardless of who is to blame.

What I don't get is why you're insisting blame must be on AMD when you know very little about the situation.

There are other people posting...

Well I pose the same question to you, when did I say it's not AMD's fault?

I'm not the one saying anyone's at fault, I'm not making claims or anything I'm just saying it's not clear who is at fault.

 

[Final8y]

There are other people posting...

The point is both have issues and when AMD took a long time to sort out the one you mentioned, NV has taken just as long to sort out an issue they have.

So the point is there is no point in pointing out a long standing AMD issue and make it look like NV don't have some of there own.

Its not defending AMD from the issue or denying it by point out the fact the NV also has issues.

 

[Kaapstad]

The point is both have issues and when AMD took a long time to sort out the one you mentioned, NV has taken just as long to sort out an issue they have.

So the point is there is no point in pointing out a long standing AMD issue and make it look like NV don't have some of there own.

Its not defending AMD from the issue by point out the fact the NV also has issues.

The thing I find hard to believe with nvidia and their faults is why do all the GTX 6 series card still not run @PCIe 3.0 straight out the box.

As people have said both companies have faults and if you use both companies cards you end up with twice the problems.