Frustrated AMD Owner

[exia989]

Over the past year, I have become increasingly frustrated with AMD due to their driver support. I'm running two 6950's, and am at the point where i just want to get rid of them and change over to Nvidia.

My question is, is it worth making the switch to nvidia right now or would it make more sense to wait for the next gen of their cards to come out?

My motherboard does not support SLI, so i am just looking for a solid single gpu card. Would something like a 670 be an upgrade or not?

[LessThanDan]

What problems are you experiencing with your two 6950s?

[sze5003]

I have a 7970ghz and 12.11 drivers are kicking ass. I never had dual gpu but you are bound to run into similar issues with drivers on both sides when running dual cards.

[exia989]

One of the big issues for me is my lousy Skyrim performance. I've really just come to the conclusion that i want a setup that just works for everything, whereas dual card setups are just kind of a pain in the rear half the time. So i figured i'd make the jump to nvidia since as far as i can tell, have the best single gpu cards overall. I would stick with amd if i had a really good reason to, but as of right now i really don't.

[Greenlepricon]

Just curious but what are your other specs? Skyrim might be your cpu, unless you're just on a large resolution. I think the 7970 will make you happier right now, but a 670 wouldn't be that bad a choice either. You really won't get more power than your crossfire setup, but the driver issues should disappear.

[exia989]

I'm running an i7-930 @ 3.8ghz, 12gb ram, asus p6t se mobo, game is running off a standard 7200rpm sata 2 seagate drive. Its really the only game whose performance is unacceptable for me. I can run anything else at max settings and have no problems (Borderlands 2, Battlefield 3 which i actually run on high instead of ultra for better framerate).

[thilanliyan]

Originally Posted by exia989

So i figured i'd make the jump to nvidia since as far as i can tell, have the best single gpu cards overall.

"Best" is subjective depending on what you are looking for. The 7970/7950 have better bang for buck currently and the 7970 GE is actually faster than the 680. A 7970 GE should get you performance close to if not faster than 2x6950, without dual GPU hassles.

If you can't live without PhysX and Cuda then go with nVidia. If you are looking for bang for buck (and actually winning performance), go with AMD.

I have been running a 7950 for several months now and have not had driver issues, but I don't play the newest games all the time...the newest games I played are DE:Human Revolution and AC: Brotherhood. YMMV of course.

[DaveSimmons]

> I'm running an i7-930 @ 3.8ghz, ...

Have you tried running the i7-930 at stock, or at least with a lower OC? Your +1 GHz OC might not be as stable as you think.

[dmoney1980]

have you tried to disable crossfire and run the game on a single 6950?

[NIGELG]

Sell those cards and buy the strongest single card solution.Either a 7970 Ghz or a 680 gtx.

[exia989]

I have been leaning towards selling them and going for the best single gpu setup, but that part is still up in the air. And i know that for most games, the 670 is pretty much on par with the 680 (at least teh last time i checked).

I have tried disabling crossfire in the past and i dont believe it made much of a difference, but i will try it again later.

As for the overclock, i am not overly inclined to drop it back to stock since this is the only game that i have an issue playing.

Since I didn't mention this earlier, the issue i experience in Skyrim is an insane amount of stuttering, which doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me.

[thilanliyan]

Are you running with mods? Are your cards 1gb cards or 2gb cards?

[zaydq]

Microstuttering is a dual GPU issue. I've heard that it tends to be worse on dual AMD setups.

[exia989]

I'm running the 2gb cards, and I do have mods. I'll experiment a bit later to see if killing crossfire fixes the stuttering


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[thilanliyan]

Originally Posted by zaydq

Microstuttering is a dual GPU issue. I've heard that it tends to be worse on dual AMD setups.

If he's only experiencing it in Skyrim however, it could be something related to that.

OP, did you have the same problems before the mods? If you are running a ton of mods, you may be running into a vram limit which would cause the stutter.

[LessThanDan]

Originally Posted by thilanliyan

If he's only experiencing it in Skyrim however, it could be something related to that.

Some games have their own micro-stuttering that is inherent to the 3D engine, regardless of what setup you're using. The Gamebryo engine (or whatever variation Skyrim uses) is notorious for this.

[djnsmith7]

I was having some sporadic issues until I changed to the 12.11's. That may also solve your issues.

[lavaheadache]

I find that I have to set a frame limiter in Skyrim to smooth out the game. There is lots of hitching in that game if I let my card go wild and draw as many frames as it can.

there is a big thread at hardforum explaining the issue.

Download afterburner and there is a built in frame limiter you can set from within.

Set the frame limit to whatever you monitors refresh rate is and you should be good to go.

[power_hour]

Try researching the older driver versions and testing a few. I am running 8.892.0.0 for almost a year with no issues on a HD6970 OC. AMD drivers do suck though.

[Majcric]

i've never really had any problems in skyrim with a 9800 GTX+, GTX 560ti, or the GTX 680. But if I turn V-sync off I get this horrible flicker in areas that have water.

[VulgarDisplay]

I've noticed that extremely high FPS will make the phsyics go haywire in skyrim also. It's really just an odd engine.

[exia989]

So just tried running Skyrim without crossfire on, seemed to solve the majority of my issues. Still a little bit of frame drops here and there, but thats likely due to the mods i have installed.

So i know i can run the game fine without crossfire on, which is kind of annoying cuz it means now if i want to play the game i gotta go change a few settings cause i am also running dual monitors...

[3DVagabond]

There are always going to be some issues from time to time. Multi GPU means there will be additional issues. Multi monitor, more issues. There is no pot of gold. There is no perfect solution. Skyrim has crossfire issues. Other games have nVidia multi monitor issues. What are you going to do if you play one of them? What happens when another game has issues in the future? You can't change GPU's every time something isn't perfect. Unless you want to have multiple gaming rigs you learn to work around/minimize them. It's part of PC gaming.

Both companies offer very good, well engineered solutions. Neither company offers perfect solutions.

[MTDEW]

If you're gonna run Skyrim with only one card, then you might as well run it with the Simple Borderless Window.
That will run best/smoothest on a single 6950 GPU.

Just copy the mod to the game folder, go into skyrim launcher game settings and set it to run windowed and your monitor resolution you're running now, then start the game using the SBW.exe file and it will start windowed and go full-screen in a few seconds and you wont even know you're windowed.
This helps with that "stutter" when looking up / down.
note: This also disables crossfire automatically so you don't have to do it manually, x-fire doesn't work in a window by default.

Also, as others have stated, if i use MSI Afterburner and limit the FPS to like 58-59 that fixes x-fire microstutter issues if you wanna use both cards, but a single card should be enough for 60fps if you're using 1920x1200 or below. (you never said what resolution)
Now 2560x1440 and above, you'll need both cards for a smooth 60fps.

And as said above keep v-sync on or use a frame-limiter , or you'll see all kinds of weird physics, like backwards flying dragons and flying furniture...LOL

You're specs are more than enough for a smooth Skyrim experience even with a bunch of mods.

[aaksheytalwar]

An oced 7970 ghz is faster than 6950 cf even in terms of plain fps in modern/very recent games.