Long time Nvidia fan thinking of going AMD

[Carfax83]

I've been an Nvidia user like forever, but my GTX 580s are getting kind of long in the tooth for the latest and most demanding games, so I'm considering switching sides and going with AMD. The last time I ran AMD in my rig, was back in the old 4800 series days. I had two Asus HD 4870 Dark Knight video cards, and if I'm to be honest, I wasn't all that impressed with them. Sure, the performance was good, but the bugs and stuttering eventually drove me mad and I ended up returning them.

Now, I'm thinking about AMD again, due to their never settle promotion, and Crysis 3 coming up on the horizon. I mean, I can potentially get 6 free brand new games (including Crysis 3), so who wouldn't be interested?

And looking at the latest reviews, as much as it pains me to say, the HD 7970 Ghz edition is definitely the fastest GPU out now, and by a fairly decent margin.

The higher the resolution and the settings, the greater the HD 7970 Ghz edition's advantage it seems. I'm really impressed by this card's ability to handle high IQ gaming..

I'm hoping I can max out, or come close to maxing out Crysis 3 @ 2560x1440 with two HD 7970 Ghz cards. Yeah, my CPU is getting kind of old as well, but I don't plan on upgrading that part until Haswell becomes available.

See the latest HardOCP review with up to date drivers.

So with all that said, what could be holding me back? First off, I have concerns about AMD's Crossfire performance. Sure, the frame rates are high, but I've read and heard from many sources that the high frame rate doesn't necessarily indicate "smooth" gameplay on Crossfire rigs. There's apparently quite a bit of stuttering, jittering etc...

Supposedly though AMD knows about this issue and is beginning to address it (which is great), but I'd like to hear the personal experiences of 7970 Crossfire users before I fully commit..

Secondly, I hear that AMD may be coming out with the 8000 series in a few months. Yeah I know, it's foolish to wait for the next best thing with computers, because the industry moves so fast.

But if AMD is going to be coming out with the 8000 series in only a few months, I may as well just go ahead and wait..

So, thoughts, opinions?

 

[nitromullet]

You might as well wait at this point. I'm pretty sure two GTX 580s in SLI are capable enough to handle anything you throw at them at 2560x1440, and you've hung on to them long past them being worth anything on the used market. Might as well wait until next gen.

 

[Carfax83]

You might as well wait at this point. I'm pretty sure two GTX 580s in SLI are capable enough to handle anything you throw at them at 2560x1440, and you've hung on to them long past them being worth anything on the used market. Might as well wait until next gen.

So is the 8000 series coming out in the second quarter as rumored?

 

[tweakboy]

You already have SLI going 580 . what else you want 400fps ?

 

[biostud]

So is the 8000 series coming out in the second quarter as rumored?

I think HD 8xxx series and GTX 7xx is being pushed til 'Q3.

 

[ICDP]

If you are going single GPU then AMD is very good. Steer clear if you are planning Crossfire, especially if you are coming from SLI.

I hate multi GPU but even I had a better experience with SLI than CF.

 

[tulx]

I think HD 8xxx series and GTX 7xx is being pushed til 'Q3.

The HD 8xxx will be a rebrand of 7xxx for OEM's only, just like Nvidia GT 3xx. AMD does currently outperform Nvidia at almost every price point, so they seem to be in no pressure to release new cards. The next AMD generation has indeed been pushed back till the end of the year.
That said, I do not think you'll gain much by switching from two 580'ies. I have two 5870'ies (two generations old) and can still play BF3 on max settings at 1080p.

 

[deltree86]

I still find AMD to be lagging in driver quality...at least when it comes to laptops...no matter what value for money AMD promises I would personally only recomend AMD GPUs to my enemy because of the fuss involved, drivers are hardly optimized in time or built right to begin with.

 

[Fx1]

I still find AMD to be lagging in driver quality...at least when it comes to laptops...no matter what value for money AMD promises I would personally only recomend AMD GPUs to my enemy because of the fuss involved, drivers are hardly optimized in time or built right to begin with.

Oh give it a f**king rest.

Drivers are only important in CF or SLI. Single cards tend to work on drivers nearly a year old.

Both amd and nvidia have had problems in games.

 

[wand3r3r]

You may as well wait until NV dwarf (titan) is released if you're considering spending ~$750 anyway (rumored a bit higher but everything has been rumors so far) being it's coming this month.

AMD publicly said HD 8000 is going to be late (purposely avoided saying by how much, 1 week, 2 months, 1 year). I would guess they are trying to maintain or even improve sales of the current generation and am still hoping Q2 but will not be surprised if it's Q3.

 

[FalseChristian]

I bypassed the 5xx and the current 6xx series because, amazingly, my 2 GTX 460 1GB overclocked to 840/1680/4200 run any game including FarCry 3 at about 55 fps average.

When the 7xx series comes out then I'll get 2 GTX 760 (non-Ti).

 

[Tweak155]

I keep trying to think of an excuse to upgrade my 560ti 448, but I can't find any . I don't play the most graphically demanding games (highest is like SC2 / D3??).

I might just splurge on the titan if it somehow hits the market under $700.

 

[Will Robinson]

2x HD7970 GHz cards certainly would pack some punch,especially with some overclocking.
The 8 series "SuperTahiti" isn't likely soon and would obviously have driver issues to consider on release.
If NV's Titan can do it on one card,within $200 or so of the XFire 7970s
then grab one..its new and shiny and that counts for a lot.

 

[Insert_Nickname]

Drivers are only important in CF or SLI. Single cards tend to work on drivers nearly a year old.

Both amd and nvidia have had problems in games.

As a user of both over the years, I can testify too that. BOTH Nvidia and AMD have had their share of issues... :whiste:

I do tend to avoid CF/SLI setups, as I personally think them more trouble then they are worth...

 

[Carfax83]

I've been using SLI for years, and I've had very little issues. That's not to say though that I "want" to use SLI. I kind of have to because I've always used high resolution monitors.

No single GPU is able to push out the kind of frame rates that you can get with multi GPU set ups, and with Crysis 3 just around the corner, I want to be able to max it out, or come close to doing so.

That Nvidia Titan looks intriguing though, but it seems like it's just a rumor at this point. Plus, there's no way it's going to be able to match CF 7970 Ghz, while costing more money..

So there aren't any CF users around here that can give me some feedback?

 

[Pandora's Box]

Been running Crossfire 7970GHz Editions for about a month now. Was single 7970 before. Running eyefinity too. I have yet to run into any issues at all with crossfire. As long as you use a program to put a frame rate limit in place you will not have any stuttering. You will want to set it at your monitor refresh rate. MSI Afterburner works well for this. AMD has really stepped up to the plate with the latest beta drivers (13.2). No issues at all for me.

 

[Carfax83]

Been running Crossfire 7970GHz Editions for about a month now. Was single 7970 before. Running eyefinity too. I have yet to run into any issues at all with crossfire. As long as you use a program to put a frame rate limit in place you will not have any stuttering. You will want to set it at your monitor refresh rate. MSI Afterburner works well for this. AMD has really stepped up to the plate with the latest beta drivers (13.2). No issues at all for me.

That's nice to hear

I've been looking at the AMD driver thread recently, and indeed it does appear that AMD is really stepping both it's driver quality and production schedule up a few notches..

It seems they really want to earn peoples' money, and make a very convincing argument. As a long time Nvidia user, this really puts me in a bind because I love Nvidia. They've never failed me, and they've consistently delivered which is why I've stuck with them so long.

But AMD is looking so good right now! I may not be able to use PhysX anymore, but there aren't any major PhysX titles coming out this year as far as I know..

 

[Pandora's Box]

Theres no reason why you couldn't continue to use your GTS 250 for physx if u went AMD. Atleast I think you can still do that, not 100% sure though

 

[Insert_Nickname]

No single GPU is able to push out the kind of frame rates that you can get with multi GPU set ups, and with Crysis 3 just around the corner, I want to be able to max it out, or come close to doing so.

You might laugh, but I run Shogun2 completely maxed out at 1440p with a slightly overclocked 7870. It gets ~50FPS...

 

[Nintendesert]

I have a GTX 680 right now, before this I had a 5870. I've had issues with both cards and I think right now you can't go wrong with either company. AMD offers the better price/performance right now however you have SLI 570s and I would not recommend upgrading from that.

You might as well wait at this point and see what kinds of things shake out in regards to 8xxx and 7xx.

 

[BallaTheFeared]

That Nvidia Titan looks intriguing though, but it seems like it's just a rumor at this point. Plus, there's no way it's going to be able to match CF 7970 Ghz, while costing more money..

Probably not in raw frame rates, however the thing you have to remember with AFR is that often, due to whatever reason, the frame delivery isn't quite as smooth as with single cards (there have been problems in this regard /w single cards latley which has caused quite a storm - AMD though has responded well enough for me).

What that means is something that gets 90 fps, but has large deviations in each frames delivery might appear less "smooth" than another setup with lower fps, but smoother delivery. I assume because you seek high fps, you really actually seek smooth gameplay, so you should google some frame time testing. A few websites have started to pick up on this ever since Tech Report's first investigation into 7950 vs 660Ti.

It should also be noted that current the 690, a dual gpu is the best card of it's type on the market. Tom's did a report of the non AMD designed 7990, which showed drastic frame rate delivery issues. This was prior to TR's findings, and prior to AMD's latest beta drivers that attempt to combat it (for single cards, I haven't seen anything with MGPU related to this yet). Nvidia with 4xx series started doing frame delivery smoothing, with 6xx they've improved upon it. Often scaling suffers, but frame delivery does not making the experience while indicating lower FPS, actually smoother than it would be at higher fps... And smoothness is what you seek, not fps.

I would suggest doing your research, look at facts, disregard opinions.

 

[VulgarDisplay]

Probably not in raw frame rates, however the thing you have to remember with AFR is that often, due to whatever reason, the frame delivery isn't quite as smooth as with single cards (there have been problems in this regard /w single cards latley which has caused quite a storm - AMD though has responded well enough for me).

What that means is something that gets 90 fps, but has large deviations in each frames delivery might appear less "smooth" than another setup with lower fps, but smoother delivery. I assume because you seek high fps, you really actually seek smooth gameplay, so you should google some frame time testing. A few websites have started to pick up on this ever since Tech Report's first investigation into 7950 vs 660Ti.

It should also be noted that current the 690, a dual gpu is the best card of it's type on the market. Tom's did a report of the non AMD designed 7990, which showed drastic frame rate delivery issues. This was prior to TR's findings, and prior to AMD's latest beta drivers that attempt to combat it (for single cards, I haven't seen anything with MGPU related to this yet). Nvidia with 4xx series started doing frame delivery smoothing, with 6xx they've improved upon it. Often scaling suffers, but frame delivery does not making the experience while indicating lower FPS, actually smoother than it would be at higher fps... And smoothness is what you seek, not fps.

I would suggest doing your research, look at facts, disregard opinions.

Tom's also tested the 7990 with RadeonPro and had a completely flat frame time graph.

 

[BallaTheFeared]

Tom's also tested the 7990 with RadeonPro and had a completely flat frame time graph.

Yep, by limiting frames to 40 over a short sample peroid.

Here is it still limited to just 40 fps, over a larger than 500 frame sample.

Everyone of those large spikes is a momentary pause in video output.

 

[mikeymikec]

Drivers are only important in CF or SLI. Single cards tend to work on drivers nearly a year old.

Both amd and nvidia have had problems in games.

I've had a string of driver issues on my single 5770. After a couple of years of regular updates I think most of the issues have been ironed out, though Flash doesn't work as smoothly with desktop composition enabled on Win7. Not impressed.

 

[RussianSensation]

I still find AMD to be lagging in driver quality...at least when it comes to laptops...no matter what value for money AMD promises I would personally only recomend AMD GPUs to my enemy because of the fuss involved, drivers are hardly optimized in time or built right to begin with.

" the Nvidia GPU is more or less 5 % ahead of the AMD card - a negligible difference. With regards to costs, however, the performance of the Radeon HD 7970M is truly impressive as the 680M can run users $400 USD more than the Radeon. Nvidia's high-end graphics card continues to have very poor value per dollar." ~ Notebook GPU Review January 28, 2013.

The main difference between AMD and NV in the mobile GPU space regarding drivers is Optimus vs. Enduro. However, it's hard to imagine how anyone would be gaming on a battery with high end GPUs, which makes this feature a lot less relevant when you are gaming plugged into a wall the GPU is used fully. Also, not many many people lug around 9-10 lbs gaming laptops for portability.

So is the 8000 series coming out in the second quarter as rumored?

Actually it appears it's been pushed back Q4 2013 at the earliest. Some are even saying Q1 2014.

You could sell the 580s and just get HD7950s in CF and overclock those. Then you still get 6 free games, try out 7950s for a much lower price (most go for $280-290) and if you don't like them, you can resell them later. HD7950s overclocked is faster than a stock GTX680/HD7970GE. Even if you overclock the latter cards, they won't be more than 10-15% faster than say an HD7950 @ 1130mhz.

http://www.legionhardware.com/artic...z_edition_7950_iceq_xsup2_boost_clock,13.html

Regarding Crysis 3, you should wait for benchmarks once the game is released. Also, Titan should launch this month. That would give you more options to evaluate say 7970 CFX vs. Titan OC. It's possible prices on GTX680s might drop as well as they've been in overpriced territory for a long time now. Additionally, there will be GTX670/680 SLI vs. HD7950 V2 / HD7970 CFX benches in Crysis 3 at some point. It's better to wait to see which GPUs run smoother if that's one of the key games you are upgrading for. As Balla said, especially in the cases of for SLI vs. CFX, smoothness is more important than FPS since dual-GPU cards are more prone to micro-stutter.

I've had a string of driver issues on my single 5770. After a couple of years of regular updates I think most of the issues have been ironed out, though Flash doesn't work as smoothly with desktop composition enabled on Win7. Not impressed.

Flash content crashes on me no matter what GPU I used, GTX470, HD6950, HD7970, FireFox, Chrome, same story. I hope they get rid of Flash online asap. It's also a huge memory hog. My friend with 8800GT complains about same issues.