Update me: Has Nvidia caught up with AMD yet (HDMI audio/Eyefinity/driver quality)

[Schmide]

Ive had more issues when i was on the 7000 series of ATI.
I had so many issues with the stupid cards in Xfire that i actually went back to my 580GTX in Tri Sli and sold off my 7000 series cards in xfire.
I am currently waiting on the 780GTX series to finally migrate my system into a new platform on GPU's.
And i fully intend to SLI or TRI SLI.

Dude? You went ahead a generation. Then went back a generation to fix it. This is not a logical comparison.

 

[aigomorla]

Dude? You went ahead a generation. Then went back a generation to fix it. This is not a logical comparison.

Cuz i didnt want to spend another boat load on cards where games i played were only in DX9.

And nvidia uses universal drivers.
Meaning most of there gpu are on one consolidated drivers.

So how would this change anything?
The drivers i use on my 580GTX are the same drivers used on 680GTX.
I skipped the 680GTX because again... why do i need a 680GTX if all the games i ended up playing this year was DX9?

Rift - DX9
GW2 - DX9
Star Conflict - DX9
Defiance - DX9
LoL - DX9

Even some of the games which offered DX10 and DX11 didnt offer it at launch.
I got tired of the game when the DX options came out many many months after release.
Now u can see my rage on the whole console port and DX9.

Why the hell did i even need monster gpu cards in 2011-2012?

Again this is a question asking when NVidia caught up to ATi in drivers.
The actual statement is reverse.
Has Ati caught up with Nvidia?

My answer.. i feel like they havent quite yet.

 

[coffeejunkee]

The OP is asking if Nvidia caught up to ATI.
The correct statement is has ATI caught up to Nvidia.
The answer to me on whose been though more then 1 platforms on both company at top tier... says no.

Reread the opening post. It specifically mentions audio over hdmi support, eyefinity and multi-monitor support in general. Areas in which Ati was indeed ahead of Nvidia (but not anymore as stated).

Apart from that, the Ati driver bashing is getting old. I've used multiple Ati/AMD cards and had zero issues. Catalyst never crashes on me, a stark contrast with the constant nvdllmk.dll crashing I experienced while using Nvidia, not to mention all their cards died a premature death on me. Not commenting on CF/SLI, no experience in that department and I'd like to keep it that way.

 

[aigomorla]

Catalyst never crashes on me, a stark contrast with the constant nvdllmk.dll crashing I experienced while using Nvidia, not to mention all their cards died a premature death on me. Not commenting on CF/SLI, no experience in that department and I'd like to keep it that way.

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2313718

Have u scan'd your PC for this guy?
I had 7 cases of GPU's having fault and still counting.

All Nvidia....cases was on the system which lead to the card dying prematurely.

Im not saying u may have it.. have you checked for it?
Oh and that virus is seems like it hurts nvidia with cuda processors more then Ati.
So i guess ATi wins on that aspect.

 

[Stuka87]

Ive had more issues when i was on the 7000 series of ATI.
I had so many issues with the stupid cards in Xfire that i actually went back to my 580GTX in Tri Sli and sold off my 7000 series cards in xfire.
I am currently waiting on the 780GTX series to finally migrate my system into a new platform on GPU's.
And i fully intend to SLI or TRI SLI.

Ive had to flash more drivers on my system to get games to play correctly on ATI then i have had to on Nvidia.

Ask anyone who has had both cards though 1 generation.
Nvidia just plays better at launch, near launch.
Drivers are a ton faster then ATi so u dont need to wait while everyone is already half completed with the game to start the game even.
(not all games apply to the first three... but 75% of the games i do play seem to apply.)

Water is NEVER rendered correctly on ATI. <--- u think they would fix this after how many years?
Catalyst drivers require C++ installed and other software to get running. <--- WHY? nvidia doesnt need this....
Catalyst drivers constantly crash because of the C++ and other programs.

13yr old eh?
I dont think 13yr olds go though 1000 dollars+ in GPU cards each migration like i do.


The OP is asking if Nvidia caught up to ATI.
The correct statement is has ATI caught up to Nvidia.
The answer to me on whose been though more then 1 platforms on both company at top tier... says no.

I still think Nvidia has superior drivers, and superior gaming performance right out of the box.
Tweeks on both cards in the game.ini file will drastically change the performance tho.

Another thing i constantly remember doing... .ini tweeks on the game so my ATi cards would play correctly.
Ask any gamer who enjoys the resolution and definition.
The first thing we always did was look for .ini tweeks on ATi cards so the game could play acceptably on ATi, before the driver patches came out.

Plenty of kids with rich parents to buy them whatever they want. If you are not some teeny bopper, why do you type like one? And ATI has not existed for 7 years.

I Never had an issue with water, looks the same on my AMD and nVidia systems.

AMD uses Microsofts C++ runtime, many things do. Saying it crashes "Because of C++" is one of the funniest things I have heard all day.

I have NEVER had to tweak an ini file to get a game to play. And you are still wrong on drivers after a new game. Both companies have had big issues after some games, and no issues after others.

I am calling bull on just about everything you have said. Especially since NONE of it had anything to do with what the OP asked for.

 

[coffeejunkee]

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2313718

Have u scan'd your PC for this guy?
I had 7 cases of GPU's having fault and still counting.

All Nvidia....cases was on the system which lead to the card dying prematurely.

Im not saying u may have it.. have you checked for it?
Oh and that virus is seems like it hurts nvidia with cuda processors more then Ati.
So i guess ATi wins on that aspect.

Yes, I read that post. No need to check, trust me, I'm the kind of guy that would notice. And I also don't click britneyspears.jpg.exe.

 

[Magic Carpet]

Yes, that's what I said, when using multiple monitors I'd recommend Nvidia because of the lower power consumption.

But not if they actually have issues like Zxian and birthdaymonkey mentioned, caused by the same problem that Ati/AMD cards ran into, being too low clocks for more than 1 monitor.

Looks like in an attempt to win every power benchmark, Nvidia clocked their multi-monitor profile way to low, whereas AMD didnt want to sacrifice stability. Kudos to AMD.

Thats another problem with reviews, it's not an issue until you actually use it. Not plugging in blank monitors for a quick power check. Looks very good on paper, though. Same with zero core not working reliably on some AMD cards.

To the OP, for your purposes, I'd just get a 7950 and be down with it. 3GB of video ram will come in handy down the road.

 

[Zxian]

in gaming nvidia is always greater then AMD.

Cuz AMD typicaly requires drivers after game launchs to run flawlessly.
Even then AMD can never get the water done correctly without updated drivers.
CrossFire becomes a nightmare without driver and software support.

Multi-GPU has always been, and likely will always be, a nightmare to code for. Both SLI and CF have had their fair share of issues when it comes to new games. It's a niche market, and therefore doesn't get as much development attention as mainstream support.

I've had fewer issues this generation with AMD drivers than nVidia. I installed the previously mentioned 680 in my system the day HotS came out. Installed the latest drivers and couldn't get past the first mission due to crashes. Replacing the 680 with my 7950 at the time allowed me to keep playing. Like others have said, nVidia seems to have pushed the boundary on power savings at the cost of stability and performance.

nVidia may have historically had more stable drivers, but they've also had a pretty bad history of breaking things that were otherwise functional. There was a period of time that Remote Desktop was broken due to a video driver update. The only severe stability-related or functional driver bug I've had with AMD in the past few years has been related to HDMI audio getting disconnected if you turn off your monitor/TV. Physically unplugging and replugging the monitor is the only way of getting it back aside from a reboot.

If the OP is running triple monitors, then AMD is the way to go today. Until nVidia changes the default memory clocks with multiple monitors (which incidentally is a BIOS setting, not a driver setting), then I really can't recommend them for multi-monitor setups.

 

[Sohaltang]

Amd has not corrected the 2D multi monitor feature in years. My 5770 and 7970 both tear in 2D mode. Known issue and 3 years later it has not gone away. Solution? HAck the bios and increase 2D clock speeds. Even then I still get bad results when duplicating screens.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-wfpUZNF_4

 

[Xarick]

I have only had my 670 for a few weeks. I am finding the drivers on par with AMDs (have had a few issues though). Had a ton of issue with AMD when I first got my 5850.. infact the 11 series drivers were terrible. I think I stopped at 12.1 and finally upgraded to 13.3 current drivers on AMD side seem better than nivida, but both have issues.

 

[96Firebird]

Looks like in an attempt to win every power benchmark, Nvidia clocked their multi-monitor profile way to low, whereas AMD didnt want to sacrifice stability. Kudos to AMD.

Thats another problem with reviews, it's not an issue until you actually use it. Not plugging in blank monitors for a quick power check. Looks very good on paper, though. Same with zero core not working reliably on some AMD cards.

To the OP, for your purposes, I'd just get a 7950 and be down with it. 3GB of video ram will come in handy down the road.

You shouldn't comment on things you know nothing about.

AMD has serious, long-lasting issues with their multi-monitor downclocking causing tearing/flickering.

 

[Stuka87]

You shouldn't comment on things you know nothing about.

AMD has serious, long-lasting issues with their multi-monitor downclocking causing tearing/flickering.

Sure back in the 5000 series days. But I have never seen this issue on any 7000 series card. And in multi-monitor mode, the clocks stay quite a bit higher. Which means their idle power consumption tests are not as good, but the screen tearing/flickering stopped.

 

[Magic Carpet]

You shouldn't comment on things you know nothing about.

AMD has serious, long-lasting issues with their multi-monitor downclocking causing tearing/flickering.

Sure, my 7770 must be one of a kind, that doesn't give me issues whenever I work in a multi-monitor environment

 

[KingFatty]

You shouldn't comment on things you know nothing about.

AMD has serious, long-lasting issues with their multi-monitor downclocking causing tearing/flickering.

I think that's the point he was making - AMD fixed that issue you mentioned, by increasing the memory clocks. This comes at the expense of increased power consumption.

If a company is narrowly focusing on conserving power at all costs, it wouldn't have made such a change, because the elimination of flickering comes at the cost of increased power.

 

[Zxian]

You shouldn't comment on things you know nothing about.

AMD has serious, long-lasting issues with their multi-monitor downclocking causing tearing/flickering.

And you should really provide proof instead of a talking about a "longstanding" problem that neither I nor several others in this thread have experienced. Right now, at idle, my 7970 clocks are 500/1500. When I had the 680 installed in this system, they were 300/150. Which of those two is going to give more stable 2D multi-monitor performance?

My experiences with the 670 and 680 showed exactly the opposite of what you're describing. 2D performance with multiple monitors was very poor with nVidia, while I haven't had a single issue at the desktop with AMD with any 6000 or 7000 series cards. I can't speak for triple monitor with a 5000 series card, since I've never done that.

You have to remember - this is AMD's third generation of cards with triple monitor support. nVidia is playing catch up in this regard, and in my experience (multiple vendors, multiple cards, not just reading reviews), AMD has it better.

 

[96Firebird]

http://support.amd.com/us/kbarticles/Pages/Screentearingwithmultipledisplays.aspx

Notice the fix? Avoid the scenarios that cause the problem...

 

[Anarchist420]

they both suck pretty badly. They don't give the end user much room to increase image quality/compatibility (nvidia took most of those away, and now they both force some terrible depth buffer optimizations) or to decrease input lag (nvidia took away the option to render zero frames ahead, so I use inspector to cap my frame rate at 30fps and keep max render ahead frames at 1).

Also, nv has an issue with display port making the colors look washed out.

Pretty much the only praises I have for nv's drivers is the RGSS with hacks for almost every game that you could want them for and the scaling options... some day those will be gone too though.

 

[Zxian]

http://support.amd.com/us/kbarticles/Pages/Screentearingwithmultipledisplays.aspx

Notice the fix? Avoid the scenarios that cause the problem...

Alright. Granted. I don't understand why people don't provide proof like this when they first present their arguments. Had you provided the link in the first place, your initial statement would be much stronger.

I just tested the scenarios described there (two DVI, one DP->DVI active converter) and had some tearing while dragging windows across the screens. This is the first time that I've noticed anything like this when using my system, and had you not brought it up, I probably would never have noticed it. I also had to slow down and really focus on the window I was moving to see it. Usually when dragging a window from one screen to another, I'm looking at where the window is going - not where the window is now.

For the record, here's my experiences with the 670 - link. Also, 680 issues with HotS.

Both sides have bugs and issues with bleeding edge games and setups. Multi-monitor and multi-GPU are, like I said before, niche markets. They're going to get less attention than single card, single monitor configurations, and then again, we usually end up putting up with the issues at hand because there's "something better coming soon."


For the OP's purposes, I've had fewer issues with multi-monitor setups on AMD cards. I've also had fewer issues with HDMI audio and digital passthrough with AMD cards in my media centers (tried nVidia during the 200-series of cards - that was a headache). Is AMD perfect? No, but I think it'll give you the best value for your money and the least amount of headaches in the long run.

 

[Phynaz]

Sure, my 7770 must be one of a kind, that doesn't give me issues whenever I work in a multi-monitor environment

Maybe two of a kind, no issues with my 7850.

 

[96Firebird]

Alright. Granted. I don't understand why people don't provide proof like this when they first present their arguments. Had you provided the link in the first place, your initial statement would be much stronger.

Agreed, I should have posted the link in my original post. But I was too busy laughing at Magic Carpet's conspiracy theory that Nvidia clocked mutli-monitor clocks too low to win power usage benchmarks...

FWIW, I have no problems with my GTX 460 and multi-monitor usage, using DVI and HDMI. If Nvidia broke something with the newer cards, shame on them. I don't understand the need to fix something that isn't broken.

 

[birthdaymonkey]

For the OP's purposes, I've had fewer issues with multi-monitor setups on AMD cards. I've also had fewer issues with HDMI audio and digital passthrough with AMD cards in my media centers (tried nVidia during the 200-series of cards - that was a headache). Is AMD perfect? No, but I think it'll give you the best value for your money and the least amount of headaches in the long run.

I concur. In recent generations I've owned a healthy mix of AMD and nvidia cards (460, 550 Ti, 560 Ti, 670, 5870, 6870, 6950, 7790, 7950), and the AMD ones have always had better 2D/desktop features and driver quality.

 

[Ajay]

Driver quality on NV varies from release to release, but I'd say they are pretty good. I owned a couple of ATI cards (last one >5 years ago and I returned it) and their drivers were terrible, so I've stuck with NV. From what I read around the web, there's pretty good parity in the drivers now (I would have bought a 7970 if I didn't need CUDA), except in X-Fire. I hope ATI's June drivers solve this problem for people.

 

[Joeydubbs]

I can't find the old thread but I read somewhere on this forum that someone's AMD 7970 cured their cancer and stopped world hunger...in another thread I read someone was complaining about how their 670 got out of their case and punched their baby in the face...no pics so not sure if these stories are true...

 

[birthdaymonkey]

I can't find the old thread but I read somewhere on this forum that someone's AMD 7970 cured their cancer and stopped world hunger...in another thread I read someone was complaining about how their 670 got out of their case and punched their baby in the face...no pics so not sure if these stories are true...

Unfortunately the cancer curing is broken in the new betas.

 

[coffeejunkee]

Agreed, I should have posted the link in my original post. But I was too busy laughing at Magic Carpet's conspiracy theory that Nvidia clocked mutli-monitor clocks too low to win power usage benchmarks...

FWIW, I have no problems with my GTX 460 and multi-monitor usage, using DVI and HDMI. If Nvidia broke something with the newer cards, shame on them. I don't understand the need to fix something that isn't broken.

You wouldn't notice any issues because a GTX460 doesn't clock down as far as the newer models. Check the graph in post #18, only the 600 series cards have very low idle poweruse. GTX460 isn't in there but it's comparable to GTX560Ti which is included.

Calling it a conspiracy theory is condescending and uncalled for. Just try to understand what's going on. Is it really that strange that Nvidia would run into the same problem as Ati/AMD? AMD confirmed the issue and fixed it with a new driver. Nvidia hasn't confirmed anything, but that doesn't mean the issue doesn't exist (nor that it does, need more data first).