Are nVidia's products attractive to informed buyers?

[zCypher]

For what it's worth I went from an EVGA GTX 460SE 1GB to an XFX 7970 3GB, I've been extremely pleased with both cards. I was hesitant about getting the AMD card because of so called driver issues, but after doing my research I found this card to be the best value at the time (got it during boxing day sale). I haven't regretted my decision, haven't had a single issue whatsoever. The only thing is that I still can't play all games flawlessly at 1440p, but with a 1100T and a single 7970, I guess that was somewhat to be expected. It does play most titles smoothly at that res with maxed out options though, so I really can't complain. Can't say that I've experienced any stutter, artifacts or any other issues people have seen though.

I'd definitely purchase another nVidia or AMD card again at this point. In the past I have had MSI Ti4200 and an Asus 9200SE. There is a fanless 4250 or something in an HTPC also, none of them have had any issues whatsoever.

Seriously, just get whatever is the best value at the time. They are always trading blows.

 

[RussianSensation]

Not sure why you didn't just recommend him get an HD7950 and OCing it as that would be within 10% of the HD7970 GE OC or even HD7970 would be a good way to save $$.

I will never buy another MSI, PNY or Gigabyte motherboard or video card as long as I live as I've have had such bad times with them.

Your credibility went out the window the minute you said Gigabyte motherboards. Gigabyte became the go to motherboard brand during P965, P35, P45 chipset eras for overclockers/enthusiasts. Maxing out Core 2 Duo E6300-6400 on P965, Q6600s on P35 boards, or Q9550s on P45 boards was the shiznit! Even $90-120 Gigabyte boards were so amazing in terms of build quality at lower price levels that I was getting rock stable 24/7 99% CPU load operation on my Q6600 @ 3.4ghz /i7 860 @ 3.9ghz on them, saving a lot of $ in the process not overpaying for Asus, etc. You didn't even need to spend more than $150 to max out Intel CPUs on Gigabyte boards. Also, unlike some Asus boards, the power saving technologies worked perfectly on Gigabyte boards of those eras with overclocking. That was a killer feature. Asus disabled them when you overclocked manually. Additionally, during that period Asus' quality went way downhill and Gigabyte became the smart choice because not only were their boards better but they cost less. That was also the time Gigabyte took away a lot of market share from Asus. It's only since Z68 and Z77 that Asus got its **** together. Even then most Asus boards are overpriced today, and it's not as if Gigabyte's Z68 and Z77 boards are not great either.

The days of Asus being the hands down market leader for motherboards are long gone. Now you can get top notch boards like Gigabyte UP4, Asrock Z77 Formula or MSI Z7 Power.

PNY just make reference NV cards. So I can't see how you had a problem with those. Sounds like bad luck of the draw.

Finally comparing HD6950s to GTX660Tis in SLI makes no sense. It's like saying guys my GTX560Tis are way slower than HD7950 V2 in CF. Of course GTX660Ti SLI will be smoother and faster. They are faster cards. :hmm:

The OP clearly hit a point here. NV's GPUs are overpriced right now from a performance and performance/$ perspective. You also get nice game bundles and overclocking with AMD. At the moment, the key reasons to go NV are specific uses of CUDA/Adobe/Pro applications needs, particular monitor connection needs, if you feel like getting GTX670 SLI, or GTX690 for small cases. For single GPUs, nearly every single GPU card in their lineup is overpriced. I would even say a $280-290 HD7950 makes everything above that price level outside of GTX690 irrelevant for overclockers. The bang for the buck is just unbeatable against GTX670/680s when HD7950 OC can match/beat them.

nearly all of the games are written to favor Nvidia technology these days as well.

The opposite is true. It's not wonder that HD7970GE on average beats GTX680 in most titles. If you want to talk about the most GPU demanding titles in recent years, HD7970GE also wins. Games like Diablo 3, WOW, SC2 all have FPS > 100 which means you are to benefit more from an SSD or high IPC CPU + huge overclock in those games.

Your statement even contradicts benchmarks.

My entire rig blew up mining bitcoins in crossfire so be careful.

You mean your PSU blew up? What was the PSU and what GPUs/CPUs you were running? Did you have good case airflow/ventilation? Did you push your overclocked voltages too high? Did you replace the stock heatsink but didn't cool the VRMs sufficiently? Did you run the system through a surge protector?

I've been stressing every single GPU I ever purchased in the last 7 years by running it nearly 24/7 99% load in some tasks including bitcoin mining, distributed computing projects, when not gaming. I haven't had a single GPU fail on me and all of them were overclocked and stressed out from day 1-2 of purchase (after I found the max stable GPU overclocked) and until I sold them.

The fact that they had GK110 for a year now and never released it for consumer use just shows they didn't expect AMD to catch up so fast.

Most logical reasoning based on NV's conference calls/earnings, details they released, their Kepler mobile GPU vs. desktop GPU launch strategy, delay of sub-$300 cards due to wafer shortages on the desktop, and a 6-7 months backlog of K20/20X parts whose preorders went in to corporate clients in March-April 2012, all point to NV's inability to launch GK100 out on time and being forced to delay GK110 a full year. There were also financial/profitability reasons why this wasn't happening at the time. It sounds like a nice theory but NV couldn't have launched GK110 out back then. Even now the rumors state that GK110 won't be available in large quantities supposedly.

 

[Haserath]

I don't see many AMD only buyers while I do see quite a bit of Nvidia only buyers.

They price based on how the market acts. AMD is having to implement these great deals just to keep market share.

 

[Vectronic]

stuff

^- no upvote system, so +1 mainly about the Gigabyte stuff. (and I don't own one, never have, no fanboyism).

I don't see many AMD only buyers while I do see quite a bit of Nvidia only buyers.

I'm an AMD/ATI Only buyer... admittedly that's out of shear spite/contempt against nVidia though, not justifiable based on actual product quality.

 

[RussianSensation]

I don't see many AMD only buyers while I do see quite a bit of Nvidia only buyers.

They price based on how the market acts. AMD is having to implement these great deals just to keep market share.

Makes sense. NV has a loyal following not dissimilar to Apple. The difference is PC gamers love to rip Apple's products apart and then they go out and spend hundreds of dollars more for NV's GPU. Irony at its finest. Most "AMD buyers" consider a lot of different aspects of the GPU purchase every time they upgrade, including but not limited to price/performance, overclocking/voltage control, unlocking features, small extras (Double precision compute, bitcoin mining). Based on what we see happening on our forum, most existing NV buyers are more or less decided on buying the next NV GPU, assuming it's not another FX5800 U. Not so with "AMD buyers". Every new generation it's a new decision for me based on what happens. I'd wager even if AMD priced their cards 50% less and they were 25% faster at the same time, NV users would still find reasons not to buy them. That's why there are so many jokes how NV is copying Apple and building a following of loyal sheep who will pay huge premiums. It's no wonder NV had no trouble raising prices from $750 to $1000 going off GTX590. Why shouldn't NV raise prices to $1,500 next time for GTX790?

HD6950 Unlocked to 6970 cost barely as much as a GTX580 and yet 570s/580s were hugely popular on our forum. My guess is the loyal NV buyers would pay $100-200 more for as similarly performing NV card, easily. Right now HD7970 could cost $299 and people would still be buying $450 GTX680s. I believe it because HD7950 OC = or even > GTX680 in 15 minutes!

I mean it's a repeat of HD6950 Unlocked+OC vs. GTX580, but even worse since GTX680 OC is going to be barely 10% faster than HD7950 OC in games.

I want to know who is paying $530 for a referenced cooled GTX680 V2 4GB? You could get HD7950 x2 with 6 free games and have 60% faster performance.

 

[Ibra]

//

O rly? Now replace everything with AMD's Faildozers vs Intel's Bridges.

overclocking

Sure, because MSI Afterburner sliders dragging make AMD fanboys feel like KIngpIn. Also, I asume AMD Voltage Tuning which turns AMD GPU into power hungry beast doesn't necessary to mention.

unlocking features

Care to explain locked HD 6950 shaders. Something about GPUs which won't complete manufacturing test.

Double precision compute

Which is gonna be...?

bitcoin mining

Earn few $, loose hundreds of $.

 

[omeds]

Both have their pros and cons, but personally I'd buy an Nvidia GPU because of the features, graphics enhancements, and drivers. This is coming from somone that bought mostly ATi for the better part of a decade.
I would recommend the 7950 for anyone that doesn't need/want Nv features though, it really is great value.

 

[hjalti8]

HD6950 Unlocked to 6970 cost barely as much as a GTX580 and yet 570s/580s were hugely popular on our forum.

Nvidia had much better offerings last gen than they have now. A gtx570 was about 30$ more expensive than a hd6950 and could be overclocked way beyond gtx580 performance which a 6950/6970 could not.

But now an avarage oc hd7950 is faster than an avg oc gtx680 which is just ridiculous. So I agree with the OP. Nvidia needs to step up their game.

 

[Gryz]

Product X has higher average frame/sec on average in games than product Y. Therefor product X is much better ! And everyone who disagrees is a fool.

Every product is different. Every product has different properties. And which product you prefer, totally depends on which properties you think are important. Most people seem not to be able to understand the concept that other people have other priorities.

Which card is faster on average in all games ?
Which card is faster in the specific games I play ?
Which card is faster at the resolution I play at ?
Which card is faster when I enable all eyecandy I can think of ? (high AA, lots of textures, SSAO, etc).
Which card can give me a constant 60 fps (or 120) when I disable all eyecandy ?
Which card has less issues with the games I play ?
Which card runs well at the release of new games ? Which card needs 2-4 weeks until new optimized drivers are available ?
Which card has more fluff features ? (Eyefinity, surround, 3D, physicX, etc ? (Notice how obivious it is ("fluff") that I personally don't care about these ?))
Which card overclocks best ? How fast will they run on average overclock ? (I don't care. I don't overclock my GPUs).
Which card has lowest power/temperature/noise ? (Noise is a very important factor for me).

Bottomline is: which card is most desirable for you, might not be the best card for someone else.

I will not buy an Apple product, even if they gave them away for free. However, I do realize that Apple products are the best choice for some other people. (Secretaries, clueless professors, my parents, clueless hipsters). It is interesting that I just learned that I am basically in the same ballpark, as I own a gtx680.

 

[raghu78]

Nvidia had much better offerings last gen than they have now. A gtx570 was about 30$ more expensive than a hd6950 and could be overclocked way beyond gtx580 performance which a 6950/6970 could not.

But now an avarage oc hd7950 is faster than an avg oc gtx680 which is just ridiculous. So I agree with the OP. Nvidia needs to step up their game.

well said. Nvidia has gotten away because the first impressions for Kepler were better. Many uninformed users still think Nvidia products are faster. This highlights the importance of launch performance. so AMD should get that spot on for HD 8000 series. Given that GCN is the basis for HD 8000 series and all these driver improvements including the upcoming new memory manager will apply to HD 8000 cards AMD is in a better situation for next gen.

 

[Rvenger]

well said. Nvidia has gotten away because the first impressions for Kepler were better. Many uninformed users still think Nvidia products are faster.

Because most review sites didn't update their articles/reviews with the updated information. Most users who look at reviews don't even care about the published date either.

 

[Atreidin]

So what did the nvidia customers pay for when their laptop GPU's were overheating and failing 5 years ago and cost Nvidia $150-$200 million.

For me and my family, we got 3 dead laptops and no kind of restitution whatsoever for being sold faulty merchandise. It's going to be a while before I willingly buy nvidia.

 

[chimaxi83]

O rly? Now replace everything with AMD's Faildozers vs Intel's Bridges.

Sure, because MSI Afterburner sliders dragging make AMD fanboys feel like KIngpIn. Also, I asume AMD Voltage Tuning which turns AMD GPU into power hungry beast doesn't necessary to mention.

Care to explain locked HD 6950 shaders. Something about GPUs which won't complete manufacturing test.

Which is gonna be...?

Earn few $, loose hundreds of $.

Congrats on joining the ranks of Nvidia champions who post whatever you call this drivel.

Anyway, I use both, buy both, love both... I go both ways :sneaky: At first my 7970 was the fastest thing out, then my 680 took that lead, now my 7970 is faster again, but my 680 annihilates any game my kid plays. Win-win either way you look at it. Both cards play all our games beautifully, though my poor 680 is stuck mostly playing Wizard 101 and Minecraft D: hehe

 

[Eureka]

The question is.. Will nvidia even care to release huge chips for us? They're already making decent profits on their second tier chips (gk104)... Which while not the fastest chips still perform within the same window as amd's top lineup. They have other customers and markets that they can't compromise on.

If they had the ability to release gk110 where the 680 is now, we would have had a revolution in desktop power. But they are content with where they are now, especially with amd taking as long as it did to catch up. Saying amd is for the informed buyer is still pretty misleading as this advantage only became clear in the last 4 months or so. They have momentum now but they need to keep it up.

Lets just hope this isn't a sign of stagnation. If nvidia does find the capability to mass release gk110 in the next year we should start to see some serious improvements again.

 

[SirPauly]

I know what is important to me and that is immersion, quality of the pixel, from a movement point-of-view, flexibility of features, gaming experience potential and tools for enhancement. Been consistent since 1999.

I also realize that what is important to me may not be as important to someone else.

Even though I appreciate vocal views -- pros and cons, likes and dislikes, to me, the over-all market decides and decides what a price-point can demand over-all.

So buy based on one's subjective needs, taste, tolerances and wallet, and between AMD and nVidia, there is differentiation and strengths from both. Simply have fun no matter what choice one decides.

 

[DominionSeraph]

I want to know who is paying $530 for a referenced cooled GTX680 V2 4GB? You could get HD7950 x2 with 6 free games and have 60% faster performance.

Those who don't want to multiply the microstutter of a single AMD card, perhaps?

 

[VulgarDisplay]

Those who don't want to multiply the microstutter of a single AMD card, perhaps?

Maybe you weren't aware that amd has already started releasing drivers to fix those issues, and that nvidia also has games that stutter. It's easy to overlook those facts when you are being bombarded by the anti amd rhetoric in so many threads in vc&g.

 

[DrBoss]

Just read the OP... Uhhhhhh, WUT.

I'm going to skip this thread and assume it ends up with a few fanboys pulling their pork while blindly supporting the company of their choice... am i right, or am i right, or am i right.

EDIT* i just scanned the thread and it turns out i'm right.

 

[BrightCandle]

Step back to the 1000 foot view and the performance difference between cards is actually pretty small. On the grand scheme of things buying the latest generation makes much more difference than between the two manufacturers. The competition is very close between the cards. NVidia is also more expensive, but its also pretty close. We aren't talking about one company being twice the price of the other, its within 25% if not a lot less. So why might NVidia think they can charge more?

1) People do think their drivers are better. The recent bug list showed a big difference in severity between the two companies so I think its likely true but really depends if you run into the bug and how often.
2) 3D
3) PhysX
4) CRT like modes for the 120Hz monitors
5) Less stutter (an established fact at this point).

On AMDs side though you have:
1) full DX 11 support, something the 600 series is sorely lacking.
2) Better compute performance
3) More VRAM.

NVidia clearly thinks its got an edge and charges a little more for a little less hardware. I don't think its the right call on NVidia's part, I think they should be in and around the price of where they perform, but clearly they think they have the better product overall. The relative market shares seem to agree that the market overall is still mostly theirs. They don't need to change the pricing, especially on the super high end cards that less than 1% of people buy at this point.

Having had 7970's and 680's I agree with NVidia, their cards are better. They stutter less, they need less driver tweaks to work and the triple monitor support is dramatically better than with AMD, it works in a lot more games. But there is no doubt in my mind that AMDs cards produce better FPS, they simply don't do so smoothly. Once AMD fixes the problem then maybe finally AMD will have realised the potential of their cards, but right now I consider the only people who should buy AMD are those who genuinely don't perceive microstutter.

I don't know what my next card will be, but I know it'll be chosen looking at a lot of factors including price/performance but not exclusively. Price/performance in my mind is about quality motion not FPS and its that I will be looking for in future products, I don't ever want to be in the situation I was in with the 7970's at the beginning of last year, they are the worst GPU purchase I ever made.

 

[Phynaz]

That's why there are so many jokes how NV is copying Apple and building a following of loyal sheep who will pay huge premiums.

I hadn't thought of this, buy you're right. The behavior is identical.

 

[BeauCharles]

AMD's improved drivers of late don't erase years of sub-par ones. Be consistent for a while (and not just when you think you're going to lose your jobs). Yes, Nvidia has had driver issues, but overall from my experience with my games they've been the better product since 8800 GTX days (and that's all that matters in the end).

Over the years I've tried a 9600 Pro, X800 XL, X850 Pro flashed to an XT, HD 5850 and HD 7850 2GB. When playing Bethesda Gamebryo/Creation engine games they have been more inclined to stutter than Nvidia cards (and I'd eventually end up selling them). Since those are the games I enjoy the most its pretty much kept me coming back to Nvidia. Yes, I stay "informed" and I don't blindly buy Nvidia (as witnessed by my repeated attempts to give ATI/AMD a chance), but when I'm sitting in front of my PC and can notice the difference in smoothness all the stats, internet reviews/benchmarks and price advantages don't matter (especially when they're not that great). The insinuation that primarily Nvidia users are sheeple that blindly support the company (as in the way Apple fans would never consider a PC or Android product) is off base. Most became regular customers because of repeated experience with the competition.

 

[Eureka]

Problem with that is just that it really isn't a huge premium. Paying $10-20 more is immaterial, and the performance difference isn't night and day. Like brightcandle said, view it from the 1000 yard mark. The huge advantage of a 7970 over a 680 is usually another 1 or 2 frames average when you're talking about heavy loads. Likewise the gap between a 7950 and a 7870 is still relatively small when you're talking about the price difference.

The whole apple joke is getting kind of old, too. Apple has gotten quite price competitive, considering what's actually packaged. How many laptops do you know come with high-res ips screens and unibody chassis? Are we going to make fun of the premium people pay for silver stone, Lian li or case mods cases? I also haven't seen any other manufacturer pushing high res screens yet.

 

[SirPauly]

I do think nVidia likes some aspects of the Apple model. nVidia may spend resources on differentiation and trying to innovate gaming experiences and innovate over-all is so the market may reward with a premium over-all for their name brand and products.

 

[moonbogg]

I have prefered Nvidia for years and still do, but i'll tell you what will ruin that. If Nvidia keeps releasing gimped midrange cards and charging full price for them, then i'll switch to AMD within a generation. I have been loyal for a long time because my experience has been good, but I don't like paying full price for cards and not getting things like compute capabilities etc. At least AMD released real cards this gen.

 

[BallaTheFeared]

I have prefered Nvidia for years and still do, but i'll tell you what will ruin that. If Nvidia keeps releasing gimped midrange cards and charging full price for them, then i'll switch to AMD within a generation. I have been loyal for a long time because my experience has been good, but I don't like paying full price for cards and not getting things like compute capabilities etc. At least AMD released real cards this gen.

If GK110 comes out at $800+ I'll do exactly that, mid-range for $500, high end for $800+ = Shut up and take my money, AMD.