Thread: Nvidia vs AMD

The age old question which do you think is better .I personally think AMD because of pricing and overall performance.

Brink being one of the new battlefields between the 2 gpu companies which do you think run the game the best?

I been looking at videos for the game and wow it looks tight and damn TPG has a server in it so I know it will have some cool team play action .
Once I pick up enough cans I`ll get the game just to see how my weak ass pc runs in it.
Wish I could see some video of you guys playing.

Voted Nvida. Shouldn't this be in the pc hardware and technology forum?

They flip flop all the time. But, more or less, they are quite equal. Can't really vote one or the other.

However, I prefer AMD. My dad likes Nvidia. So...

Answer, do what you want. N-Ur-Face is pretty much right on, both companies are past their teething problems and for most games the single GPU cards are enough to run them on max settings at 2560x1600 with reasonable performance. The reason AMD introduced "eyefinity" (such a dumb name btw) is that a normal consumer could not max out the card in terms of its performance. NVIDIA has CUDA and PhysX (physx is written in CUDA) I actually have a hybrid setup for game that use PhysX, like Arkham City.

I have a preference for AMD, only because there cards do some numerical computing problems better, but this only matters to people like me.

-H

I think nVIDIA makes a superior product at the moment, in my own opinion, but AMD is a much better company and offers a much larger variety of products. The survivability of nVIDIA is going to depend on their ability to adapt to the changing markets. They won't be able to rely on Quaddro to keep them alive forever.

AMD has already invested much capital and research into the APU technology, which will likely be the way of the future. Discrete graphics cards will likely phase out as they simply will not be needed, leaving the CPU manufacturers (Intel and AMD) ruling 3D graphics technology. nVIDIA has a lot of catching up to do if they want to compete in this market. The good thing is that the ARM processors that nVIDA has been working on seem quite promising.

Again, as of now, I would prefer any comparable nVIDIA product vs the equivalent AMD product at this time... but that is just me. We will see what happens with the next round of AMD cards.

Nvidia typically has much better drivers. Every release, and almost every beta release are rock solid.

AMD has been plagued with bad drivers with weird glitches and errors.... but they get it right often enough that it isn't a huge huge issue. But, the latest driver might not be the best driver....

Nvidia currently has the single fastest card (gtx 580).

And while at stock the dual-on-one-cards are quite even (6990 VS 590), the gtx 590 pulls away with it overclocking about as well as SLI gtx 580's do. Assuming your under water cooling of course.....

AMD does allow a 6990 + 6970 for tri-fire setups, which is nice..... you can't do that with nvidia currently.

SLI typically has better game support and will run better on newer (beta) games.....
BUT, Crossfire has better scaling per number of cards than SLI does, (when the game support is there)



And something recently that came up in an article over at TomsHardware I believe,
Nvidia has much better micro-stuttering management than AMD..... which I can see looking at my computer vs my cousins on the 5990. But this only helps if you have good enough vision to see micro-stuttering.




note: above is a purely gaming point of view and if I was only looking at gaming I would go with whatever was fastest for cheaper
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Now, if you are talking compute power (folding) go with AMD.

If you are talking openGL/game development/graphic design of any kind, then go Nvidia hands down.

Linux / open source support is pretty nice on both fronts, but in this I am biased towards Nvidia for their historic stance in this area.

In terms of price. Although many may disagree, AMD defiantly has it right.

Offerings like the GPUs below the 6850 are defiantly better for the money. Point being that a 5670 mops the floor with a similarly priced GT 520/430. The 6790 is the same price as the 550 Ti but performs much better. The 550 Ti is like the fail of the 460 SE, basically a 460 768mb SE version.

As for the higher tiers. Quite even, the 560 Ti is pretty good. Great at overclocking, but same can be said about the 6950 1 and 2GB models. The 6970 and 570 are evenly matched because some games give it to the 6970, others the 570. The 580 is the fastest card but at an outrageous price. 2x6870 cost less but perform WAY better. Buying a single GTX 580 you could practically get 2x560 Ti.

On to drivers, drivers are fairly even despite common believe. Nvidia drivers and AMD drivers are fairly good. Never had an issue with AMD drivers ever. Just a matter of the installer.

Forgot to mention, though this is because AMD is both a CPU and GPU manufacturer. They have APU offerings such as the A8-3850 which performs well in games using the 6550D but keeping a low TDP.

AMD offers Eyefinity support which is sweet for HTPC/Multi-screen on one card. Nvidia limits it 2 but has Physx which is just a marketing scheme. I say this since most recent games don't even really use it. IE BF3, COD, All Source games, most games. Physx doesn't even make a huge difference as I've heard from many that use it. I play Mafia II and it runs fine without, I've seen gameplay w/ Physx and it doesn't impress me.

Nvidia does have CUDA a fair offering, I don't really need it. But some do want it, IE Folders. Overall though, as I'm not employed AMD comes up with better budget cards in my opinion. Also with 7xxx coming before Kepler you know...

I've used both in the past and when the 3650 HD came around I jumped ATI and now that ATI and AMD are pretty much one in the same I'm sticking with AMD. I have no issues with nVIDIA whatsoever, its just a personal preference, and familiarity with the product since I also purchase AMD CPUs so the convenience of one name brand is something I like (that could be the girl in me though). Right now I have a 6850 HD and it runs beautifully but I agree with Heavy that nVIDIA needs to something to stay alive and I really want them to.