What can AMD cards to besides displaying games?

TheBigCheese · 2 Mar 2015 at 00:00

'Wut?' I hear you ask.

Well I'm new to AMD cards (two coming tomorrow, very exciting!), and I'm wondering what that GPU grunt can be used for besides gaming.

Nvidia has it's CUDA processing applications which allow the GPU processing to be used for everything from a Fraps alternative (which was fantastic) to video recoding and other bits and bobs.

Adobe has said that it's programs use GPU acceleration from both Nvidia and AMD so that's great but is there anything else that AMD cards can do?

Ta.

CAT-THE-FIFTH · 2 Mar 2015 at 00:11

Adobe is using OpenCL acceleration which tends to on average run faster on AMD cards - in fact it was implemented by Adobe due to the urging of Apple and AMD for the new versions of CS. In fact last time I checked there were more certified AMD cards(especially the consumer ones) for CS than Nvidia ones(!).

TheBigCheese · 2 Mar 2015 at 00:34

That's good to know, I didn't know about that!

I was looking at Sony Vegas benchmarks and for recoding video it was 32secs on Nvidia and 22secs on AMD! :eek:

Just wondering what else they can do.

shankly1985 · 2 Mar 2015 at 00:36

TheBigCheese said:
That's good to know, I didn't know about that!

I was looking at Sony Vegas benchmarks and for recoding video it was 32secs on Nvidia and 22secs on AMD!

Just wondering what else they can do.

Outside of gaming I cant think of anything one does over the other.

tommybhoy · 2 Mar 2015 at 00:45

TheBigCheese said:
Just wondering what else they can do.

Replacing your gas boiler.

YB2ndBEST · 2 Mar 2015 at 01:24

AMD cards can MINE like no other

If you're still wasting time on that stuff haha

handsomejesus · 2 Mar 2015 at 01:29

They can get you a nice hefty electricity bill.

bru · 2 Mar 2015 at 01:34

shankly1985 said:
Outside of gaming I cant think of anything one does over the other.

I do find myself agreeing with Mr shankly here, with out getting in to things like, AMD has Eyefinity, NVidia doesn't do that. but of course they have an equivalent.

I would have said of said Mantle, but I very much doubt that it has been used in anything that isn't gaming related. Maybe Trueaudio, but again it probably hasn't been used in anything other than games.

They can Crossfire with a APU, does that count

Nope cannot really think of anything serious.

nitram100 · 2 Mar 2015 at 08:58

FreeSync is the big one for me.

Rusty0611 · 2 Mar 2015 at 10:14

TheBigCheese said:
'Wut?' I hear you ask.

Well I'm new to AMD cards (two coming tomorrow, very exciting!), and I'm wondering what that GPU grunt can be used for besides gaming.

Nvidia has it's CUDA processing applications which allow the GPU processing to be used for everything from a Fraps alternative (which was fantastic) to video recoding and other bits and bobs.

Adobe has said that it's programs use GPU acceleration from both Nvidia and AMD so that's great but is there anything else that AMD cards can do?

Ta.

They can reduce your winter gas bill quite nicely.

layte · 2 Mar 2015 at 10:33

In b4 heating joke.

oh...

On Holiday · 2 Mar 2015 at 10:42

Whilst also raising the electricity bill

jupiter_man · 2 Mar 2015 at 12:02

They will keep your room / foot warm

Marine-RX179 · 2 Mar 2015 at 12:04

shankly1985 said:
Outside of gaming I cant think of anything one does over the other.

The 290 series would destroy Nvidia's current Maxwells offerings on folding, which contribute to medical research.

win8.1 · 2 Mar 2015 at 12:07

Amd cards can stop you being milked by Nvidia twice (thrice for 970 owners) on the same generation and stop you being robbed of all your money. Apart from that there's not much in it.

Orcvader · 2 Mar 2015 at 12:18

YB2ndBEST said:
AMD cards can MINE like no other If you're still wasting time on that stuff haha

It's not worth it any more

.

Personally I find video playback quality on AMD cards better, but that was a fair few years back, they're probably equal now.

win8.1 · 2 Mar 2015 at 12:26

I always find Amd colors not as drab as Nvidia and the image sharper. Noticed it every time I put a Nvidia card in compared to the Ati. Others don't seem to notice though.

shankly1985 · 2 Mar 2015 at 15:17

win8.1 said:
I always find Amd colors not as drab as Nvidia and the image sharper. Noticed it every time I put a Nvidia card in compared to the Ati. Others don't seem to notice though.

They is truth to this.. Only recently did nvidia add RGB full range. Amd by default use RGB full range. So if you used nvidia before that driver update then amd would indeed look better. Now they shouldn't be much difference if both using same colour settings.

win8.1 · 2 Mar 2015 at 18:02

shankly1985 said:
They is truth to this.. Only recently did nvidia add RGB full range. Amd by default use RGB full range. So if you used nvidia before that driver update then amd would indeed look better. Now they shouldn't be much difference if both using same colour settings.

My screen only allows for limited RGB as full makes blacks too black and there is not enough shadow detail. Amd is better in this format than Nvidia at least on my screen it is.

james.miller · 2 Mar 2015 at 18:07

Pretty sure nVidia has always supported full RGB, it's limited they have issues with and limited RGB still doesnt flipping work properly for me

AMD just works.