nVidia or ATi/AMD

[liamnic2]

Hey guys

After watching post after post of rigs being bought I noticed something, wheres the ATi/AMD cards ?

I dont really go for ATi/AMD cards myself but I can see a patern in customer buys.

I know that AMD is supposed to have a good performance/price ratio and nvidia are expensive but have more power.

So what are your reasons, nvidia owners out there, you know who you are :shifty:

 

[Gorman]

Its a personal choice thing, for me its:

• Drivers, Nvidia drivers just work, each version of CCC brings its own niggles
• Nvidia offers better performance in most applications, not just games
• Extras, CUDA and Physx etc
• Partnerships Nvidia is very proactive in the gaming industry, they are always working with developers to get the edge in games

I have a long history of GPU's both AMD / ATI and Nvidia, it would take a lot for me to buy another ATI / AMD card.

But on the other side of the fence there are people who prefer the red side and would give many of the same reasons.

 

[pcdan]

with the all the desktop computers ive had. ive always had a Nvidia. but on this laptop atm its a ATI which i wasnt really bothered with, due to uni and what not.

the desktop that i use had a 8600gt which is atleast 4 years old in that thing now and is kinda being annoying to me or it could just be VISTA being crap.
lol's

just hate those long slow days on vista when u go to boot it up and slow boot up and slow pc for whole day unless you do a defrag quite annoying.

never had that happen to this laptop well slow bootups and not slow for the day which is windows 7. which is a good thing

but can tell ya ATI graphics mobility well freezes this laptop at times when playing games its quite annoying. prefer nvidia all the way

well thats my choice

 

[Kalisnoir]

Its a personal choice thing, for me its:

• Drivers, Nvidia drivers just work, each version of CCC brings its own niggles
• Nvidia offers better performance in most applications, not just games
• Extras, CUDA and Physx etc
• Partnerships Nvidia is very proactive in the gaming industry, they are always working with developers to get the edge in games

Basically this - I've had both in the past but just generally prefer Nvidia cards, never had a problem with them, so I don't see any reason in changing - stick to what you know best.

 

[Fear]

Never owned an ATI/AMD card every review i used to read when i first thought about getting into gaming on the PC all pointed towards Nvidia as the better GPU manufacturer even when they are announcing the next big thing AMD's normally get released first and take the lead only for Nvidia to finally release theirs a little later with better performance, than as has already been mentioned the drivers are a lot more stable so it's Nvidia FTW

 

[Evil Tactician]

I've used both extensively and consistently had problems with ATI cards in the past. The machines with Nvidia always ran more quietly and performed a lot better so eventually that pushed me in the direction of Nvidia cards.

 

[NilSatis]

I have used both extensively too, and used to have problems with ATI drivers...the cards themselves are great quality however; the drivers used to let them down.

Generally the same level of competing cards you get a little more fps from the Nvidias, but they are more pricey; these later cards i.e. 6 series from ATI are excellent however; and the drivers are problem free; not to mention the cards being excellent performers; on old and new games alike at great value. There is generally pros and cons to each but the age old problems of ATI drivers are on the decline. I have always, always had Nvidia cards in the past as I think they used to be clear winners tbh, but had friends with ATI cards at the same time and they performed just as well.

This time I thought i would try an ATI card and have had great success with it. The drivers are stable, and the performance is great. They overclock well enough if necessary; the 6950 2gb I run for example is quieter and runs cooler than the nvidia 560ti pre-overclocked equivalent in my mates pc, not to mention consuming less power. He gets better fps on some games and i get better on others; games are all coded differently and some prefer one manufacturer over the other.

I think they are both a lot more equal now; and if you ignore problems of drivers that are now long gone (and assuming you know how to correctly remove and install new drivers and when you need to do so....i.e. not when they are just out!) I am gonna try an Nvidia next time again, although experience has taught me that there isnt much in it. Higher resolutions run better on this card as it has 2gb memory....I only run 1920 x 1080 so it doesnt really help too much unless you find certain games that demand a lot of video memory...and there are more and more of these out now; and gonna be more still soon. The alternative Nvidia card for me only had 1gb; and was more expensive. Not to mention there are possibilities if you are an advanced user to flash the ati cards with an upgraded bios to utilise the tech. already on the cards. :santa: (Warranty gone.....be careful!)

There are many more pros and cons....ATI cards are usually better on multi monitor setups, Nvidias are better in graphics processing packages/applications using more Cuda cores. To fault the ATIs on drivers however, is just wrong as these problems are gone and just recently Nvidias drivers have not exactly been great, in fact more problems with these....That being said atm the best performing single GPU card out there from a gaming perspective has got to be the Geforce gtx 580; while the ATI 5970 (really 2 gpus together) is still the most powerful, and trounces it on FPS if you can get it to run right...not hard if the right code is in the game and the right drivers are now out. So a lot of things to consider....it all depends on price range. If you have the money the 580 is the way to go....but now the 5970 is down in price for better performance it is a hard call. The 580 will run better out of the box in some games; as they are "still" not optimised correctly for 2 gpus in some cases. Why this is; is beyond me......with more and more people using sli/crossfire and manfacturers still having problems (or being lazy) coding some games to get the most out of them. Doh!

 

[Gorman]

To fault the ATIs on drivers however, is just wrong as these problems are gone and just recently Nvidias drivers have not exactly been great, in fact more problems with these....

This is not our experience with our own support and returns etc, although driver issues are rare on both sides they are still more common with ATI.

 

[NilSatis]

Fair enough.....won't argue with the official figures lol although i would like to know how they are all determined and resolved as driver issues.

I read enough on the ATI/Overclocking forums to know there are still a load of people who have problems! I thought I would chuck an argument in for ATI even though I have had no problems with the Nvdia cards I used to have; PCS tech support forum atm seems to have more Nvidia driver related problems but I guess the ones that you hear about/deal with are the ones that are well and truly stumped lol which would be the ATI owners....

I think there are better and worse cards by each manufacturer. Maybe Nvidia holds peoples hands more when it comes to drivers but i dont see a lot wrong with the later ATI drivers as long as the installation/deletion process is correctly followed. The key is not to use the later/newer drivers if you have an old card. Always has been. Nvidia are still better in this respect but for their later cards ATI seem to be doing better from reviews and forum surfing. That said I will still be getting an Nvidia card next time; as budget may allow me to spend a bit more!

 

[Gorman]

ahh but here is not a good indication, we sell a lot more of one over the other

usually to fix the driver issues its a case of removing the old ones completely and doing a clean install.

so what i see a lot is ati release x driver and it doesnt install properly. then its a pita to remove the different bits and get a good clean version on.

the general trend with nvidia is, driver is released beta or whql and people jump on it. the ati trend is driver is released, has some sort of issue be it crossfire config or unexpected slow down on some game and the user rolls back, which fudges.

thats why people have their favourite versions of ccc and usually skip a few releases

 

[NilSatis]

people have their favourite versions of ccc and usually skip a few releases

This is true indeed..... Im not gonna stick up for ATI anymore as I still havent installed 11.5 and cant think of a good excuse as to why not. Have had no problems with drivers so far with this gpu but have had plenty on old ones immediately to know to cross fingers. Its all about knowing how to get rid of old ones or ones that dont work correctly, boot up in safe mode and make sure no remains are left...but it shouldnt be like that at all. I will be first to let eveyone know when i "driver rage" in the next few weeks.....so far am delighted with my "current" ATI card.

 

[BAD SANTA]

I think Amd/ATI cards are great as you can see in my sig I have a 5970 and it's been great. I had one or two issues with it in the beginning but the are pretty hot on driver updates now, not like they used to be.
Imho they are great value for money, perform well and look great, however you don't have the option of cuda and physx which is a shame because they do add to the eye candy of games.
In my personal opinion if you have the cash to get the best nvidia card then get it, if you only have enough to get a lower performance nvidia card but the most powerful AMD card then get that.
Hope this helps.