Question Why does the overall gaming GPU market treat AMD like they have AIDS?

[VirtualLarry]

I guess I get the (sub-liminal) "The way it's meant to be played" ads from NVidia, along with the recurring FUD tropes about "AMD drivers", but I honestly don't get the sales disparity, especially for the price.

I've owned both NVidia-powered as well as AMD powered GPUs, and IMHO, AMD is (generally) just as good. Maybe 99% as good.

Edit: And I think that there's something to be said about the viability of AMD technologies, when they're in both major console brands.

 

[GunsMadeAmericaFree]

If times were really tight you'd be getting an etch-a-sketch right now. And you'd have to share it with the neighbor kid!

 

[Heartbreaker]

If times were really tight you'd be getting an etch-a-sketch right now. And you'd have to share it with the neighbor kid!

It's about time someone posted a Rig my C2Q with 8800GT can beat.

 

[desrever]

https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comments/yncuuc

17k upvotes for this garbage. Nvidia is burning GPUs but people are too soft on AMD?

Nvidia could be eating babies and this same attitued will make them outsell AMD.

 

[moonbogg]

Back to the OP: AMD is always a day late and a dollar short.

ATI managed to trade blows with NV because back then all they had to focus on was gaming. If you're card gamed we'll, then it did all the productivity stuff well too and that was that. twas a simpler time.

With the DAAMIT merger and unified programmable shaders, things really went off the rails. Nvidia had vision, and saw their GPUs as processors equal and superior to any x86 chip produced by Intel or AMD. AMD on the other hand saw a GPU: a neat toy for playing vidjagayms faster and faster.

NV went all in on CUDA, on PhysX. They overbuilt their processors to be the best, not the cheapest or most efficient, and then made the industry bend to their will (see Tessellation).

Even when AMD got a whiff of what NV was cooking, they only ever thought in terms of their core CPU business with stuff like heterogenous computing. "How will the GPU help us make better CPUs" and never "what is the inherent potential in this massive computing array technology we have here".

NV kept pushing and pulling rabbits out of its hat: the Titan prosumer line, CUDA accelerated everything, incredible efficiency increases with Maxwell, they had a juggernaut of a hypetrain behind them that is still barreling down on us. Now we have "RTX" and "DLSS" and "NERFs". Are 95% of PC users ever going to care about the cutting edge stuff NV is doing? Nope. Does it feel cool to be part of the crowd that's doing it? Yep.

AMD is always following NV's lead. Hell after however many years AMD still doesn't have it's **** together with something like CUDA. They can't even pin down a gosh dang naming scheme, while NV has been mostly consistant since the GTX 2xx line. They bring these pristine proprietary techs down to the unwashed masses, never quite as polished or refined (even if functionally, practically, indestinguishable from the NV equivalent). Freesync is a poor man's Gsync. Rocm is a poor man's CUDA. FSR is a poor man's DLSS.

At the end of the day, people that use AMD cards are the less fortunate that couldn't make it into the walled garden of NV Valhalla. Everyone wants NV. And for everyone else, there is AMD.

That is why AMD are treated like they have AIDS.

I agree. Nvidia constantly innovates and creates new technologies. When it seemed AMD had a chance to catch up in raster performance, Nvidia suddenly starts pushing this raytracing narrative. People scoffed, but now every reviewer includes ray tracing performance as a key performance benchmark. Nvidia reinvented themselves again and redefined the game, creating a new performance benchmark to be met with themselves way in the lead. Also, the mindshare contribution that raytracing has is huge for Nvidia. It's Nvidia's thing and they are best at it. When people think ray tracing, they think Nvidia. It also doesn't look good for AMD to be always following Nvidia's lead, trying to compete in new arenas that Nvidia is always creating. It also doesn't help that AMD's entire driver team is literally 5 guys in a trailer with no air conditioning.

 

[trexfromouterspace]

It also doesn't help that AMD's entire driver team is literally 5 guys in a trailer with no air conditioning.

That's just a flat-out lie. They've been WFH due to the pandemic.

 

[maddie]

I agree. Nvidia constantly innovates and creates new technologies. When it seemed AMD had a chance to catch up in raster performance, Nvidia suddenly starts pushing this raytracing narrative. People scoffed, but now every reviewer includes ray tracing performance as a key performance benchmark. Nvidia reinvented themselves again and redefined the game, creating a new performance benchmark to be met with themselves way in the lead. Also, the mindshare contribution that raytracing has is huge for Nvidia. It's Nvidia's thing and they are best at it. When people think ray tracing, they think Nvidia. It also doesn't look good for AMD to be always following Nvidia's lead, trying to compete in new arenas that Nvidia is always creating. It also doesn't help that AMD's entire driver team is literally 5 guys in a trailer with no air conditioning.

But, but, they're in the arctic.

 

[GodisanAtheist]

That's just a flat-out lie. They've been WFH due to the pandemic.

-That would actually make sense, they've been more productive in the last 2 years than they've been in the last 12.

 

[Leeea]

-That would actually make sense, they've been more productive in the last 2 years than they've been in the last 12.

-blinks-
You know, productivity went through the roof when people switched to work from home.

Naturally, Jenson would never ever let anyone leave the office. You have found the keys to AMD's victory!

 

[moonbogg]

That's just a flat-out lie. They've been WFH due to the pandemic.

It's 5 guys working part time in their garage then.

 

[DeathReborn]

https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comments/yncuuc

17k upvotes for this garbage. Nvidia is burning GPUs but people are too soft on AMD?

Nvidia could be eating babies and this same attitued will make them outsell AMD.

Burning GPU's? Here I was thinking it was cables & connectors but no, apparently all those AD102 chips are going up in smoke...

 

[desrever]

Burning GPU's? Here I was thinking it was cables & connectors but no, apparently all those AD102 chips are going up in smoke...

Unless when you say you are buying a GPU, you aren't buying a connector with it, then the connector is part of the GPU you buy. Apparently using GPU in common vernacular goes out the window when defending Nvidia.

 

[Stuka87]

Burning GPU's? Here I was thinking it was cables & connectors but no, apparently all those AD102 chips are going up in smoke...

Really?

GPU has pretty much universally meant the entire unit for the last 20 years.

Since it seems to mean only the silicon to you, how do you reference the entire unit?

 

[Leeea]

Really?

GPU has pretty much universally meant the entire unit for the last 20 years.

Since it seems to mean only the silicon to you, how do you reference the entire unit?

To be fair historically a burning Nvidia GPU referred to the silicon itself melting its way through the bottom of the enclosure and lighting things underneath on fire.

He likely wanted to clarify this time it is the connector or whatever melting. A bit less horrifying this time around.

 

[n0x1ous]

Since it seems to mean only the silicon to you, how do you reference the entire unit?

the entire unit is commonly called a graphics card.

 

[DeathReborn]

Unless when you say you are buying a GPU, you aren't buying a connector with it, then the connector is part of the GPU you buy. Apparently using GPU in common vernacular goes out the window when defending Nvidia.

Really?

GPU has pretty much universally meant the entire unit for the last 20 years.

Since it seems to mean only the silicon to you, how do you reference the entire unit?

It's referred to as a Graphics Card, Video Card or in older parlance Graphics/Video Adapter. I've been working in the industry for nearly 2 decades now, building PC's for 30. Also it's not about defending anything but accuracy, perhaps you are injecting a dislike for a company to overegg the situation, kinda like AMD drivers still being called bad when they're not. When there is a issue in hardware you try to isolate it and find ways to mitigate/fix it you don't exaggerate or confuse the issue as that gets you nowhere.

 

[Mopetar]

Nvidia could be eating babies and this same attitued will make them outsell AMD.

Don't you mean more babies? JHH has been known to sup nightly on a trio of toddlers for years now and let's just say that those jackets of his aren't coming off of any bovine's back.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Don't you mean more babies? JHH has been known to sup nightly on a trio of toddlers for years now and let's just say that those jackets of his aren't coming off of any bovine's back.

Going for Max-Q here?? HMM, curious now, that name is...

 

[Captante]

The last time my primary gaming GPU was from AMD it was an X1900XTX.

This isn't because AMD is bad and Nvidia is wonderful, it's 100% based on feature-set (RT, DSR, DLSS) and performance followed distantly by price. Unless you're a graphics/video professional AMD drivers have been mostly fine for a long time.

I went with a 3080FE this time around and I'm very satisfied despite paying Ebay scalper-prices nearly two years ago. I still don't even need to consider running ANY game at max-detail settings.

 

[In2Photos]

I've mentioned aesthetics of AMD vs Nvidia based cards before, but I noticed something else yesterday while researching products for my new build. I've always planned on buying another black case with black components, but the all white builds are very easy on the eyes. So while looking for white GPUs I found that AMD has very few to choose from. I only found 2 models from PowerColor (6650XT and 6700XT) and 1 from the Sapphire Nitro line (6900XT). On the Nvidia side there are at least a dozen different models to choose from, ranging from the 3060 to the 3090. And judging by the number of white themed builds on PC part picker I'd say that is a LOT of missed opportunities on the AMD side. So are AIBs partially to blame for the bias? Are there just not the same number of cards available in the AMD variants compared to the Nvidia ones?

 

[GunsMadeAmericaFree]

I've mentioned aesthetics of AMD vs Nvidia based cards before, but I noticed something else yesterday while researching products for my new build. I've always planned on buying another black case with black components, but the all white builds are very easy on the eyes. So while looking for white GPUs I found that AMD has very few to choose from. I only found 2 models from PowerColor (6650XT and 6700XT) and 1 from the Sapphire Nitro line (6900XT). On the Nvidia side there are at least a dozen different models to choose from, ranging from the 3060 to the 3090. And judging by the number of white themed builds on PC part picker I'd say that is a LOT of missed opportunities on the AMD side. So are AIBs partially to blame for the bias? Are there just not the same number of cards available in the AMD variants compared to the Nvidia ones?

Wait - white cases are back in fashion?

 

[The red spirit]

kinda like AMD drivers still being called bad when they're not

They are still quite poor. So bad that they ruined RX 5700 XT with black screen issues. RX 6000 series have various issues too like glitched out HW acceleration in browsers. My own RX 580 had some really rocky drivers, not to mention that like half of AMD's control panel features are only semi-functional if not permanently broken. I also had Terascale pro cards and their drivers have been a cruel joke. Wanna load a website with YT embedded video? BSOD! Wanna force AA to games? BSOD! Wanna get just consistent performance from driver to driver, nope, there is as much as 15% of performance delta between nearly every driver release. BTW AMD still haven't made RX card compatible with VP9 decoding, despite that being promised in like 2015. The only good AMD cards I had were ATi X800 series, but ever since then drivers have been utter shitshow. It's about time AMD finally treated their software AIDS.

 

[Captante]

Sounds like you have problems that go far beyond AMD drivers.

I use AMD graphics cards all the time and essentially for home/media/gaming use they're pretty much rock-solid stable now.

As I mentioned however for PROFESSIONAL use it's another story.

 

[VirtualLarry]

BTW AMD still haven't made RX card compatible with VP9 decoding

Sounds like you have problems that go far beyond AMD drivers.

I use AMD graphics cards all the time and essentially for home/media/gaming use they're pretty much rock-solid stable now.

AFAIK, AMD does implement "Hybrid" VP9 decoding on RX cards.At least, it seemed like there was SOME hardware offload when I was watching 4K YT on my RX 570, and later, my 5700XT cards.

So in my opinion, you are incorrect. I would have to agree with Captante.

 

[In2Photos]

Wait - white cases are back in fashion?

Take your pick!

https://pcpartpicker.com/products/case/#y=8200000

 

[DAPUNISHER]

AFAIK, AMD does implement "Hybrid" VP9 decoding on RX cards.At least, it seemed like there was SOME hardware offload when I was watching 4K YT on my RX 570, and later, my 5700XT cards.

So in my opinion, you are incorrect. I would have to agree with Captante.

If @The red spirit says they experienced all those issues, I believe them. Do I think it is generally the case? Heck no. The 5700XT was a hot mess for me, but Polaris, Vega, just about every generation of APU going back to like 2013 and RDNA2 have been solid for me. Little issues, but same goes for my Nvidia cards.