nVidia vs AMD: Your pick and why.

[Brian]

Ok so I'm curious about everyone's views with regards to these two GPU manufacturers. Specifically, I'm interested in which you prefer (or if you're neutral state why). Criteria to consider:

1. Driver quality
   
2. Features
   
3. Game developer support and compatiblity
   
4. Hardware (reliability)
   
5. Cost
   

My pick: nVidia but they are far from perfect too. My reasons:

1. nVidia clearly has better drivers. This is especially true with SLi but even with single GPU, they have drivers that are more consistent in games and applications across the board.

2. Features: nVidia again dominates. Physx, CUDA (which I use for encoding), 3D support (will talk about this later), FXAA etc.

3. Game dev support: nVidia has their "The Way Its Mean to Be Played" game developer support program that the end user clearly benefits from with day 1 driver support from some of the latest AAA titles. This is especially true with regards to SLi profiles.

4. HW reliablity: this is where nVidia takes a hit. Traditionally, they seem to break down easier than their AMD counterpart. Furthermore, there are throttling schemes put in place via software by nVidia and ODMs like Dell for certain systems (e.g. M17x-R3 with its 78C throttle point) that make using these cards a headache at times.

5. AMD again wins most of the time with cheaper video cards and at least 80-90% of the performance of nVidia.

With regards to 3D support, its currently broken for mobile systems. Whenever someone connects their nVidia card to an external monitor/TV thats 3D capable, it displays some message about the hardware being for internal testing. This is a known issue that nVidia has ignored and not addressed--definitely a poor showing. Aside from that, I think nVidia has done a stellar job with their mobility and desktop range. The performance is top notch, SLi scales perfectly and their drivers are nearly flawless.

[unreal25]

I prefer AMD/ATI, even though my impressions are based on somewhat outdated experience:

1. Drivers. Absolutely horrible driver support on M11x, even on R2 the bugged "semi-automatic switching" with whitelist between IGP and dedicated GPU is one of the most retarded things I've ever seen. AMD drivers aren't something to brag with either, and crossfire support could be better, but I overall had far better experience with their drivers. Same on my Dell XPS M1330 with GeForce 8600GS.

2. Features: for me they are exactly the same. I just need a decent driver interface where you can see basic information, maybe extend the desktop to another screen and tinker with color settings. 3D *yawn* ... it seems like they reinvent this crap every 10 years or so. CUDA is definitely generally useful for scientific programming as well, but I don't use it so I personally have no use of it.

3. Game developer support.

4. HW reliability. Simple. AMD cards don't have to be baked in the oven and don't run at 70 C standby. I also received absolutely nothing for throwing $1K at a laptop powered by nVidia card with an obvious manufacturing defect. Not to even mention Dell "support".

5. Cost. I wouldn't consider this the factor unless the price difference is really significant and you get better stuff for paying more. If nVidia had better cards in terms of e.g. run cooler, can overclock better and faster it would be fine.

My choice: AMD. The lesser of two evils.

[iloveb00bs]

i have a love hate relationship with both. honestly i just like whichever is more powerful at the time, which today is nvidia. but my experiences with ati have been very good.

Edited March 1, 2012 by iloveb00bs

[StamatisX]

nVidia vs AMD

3 ---------2

but cost is crucial so it's a hard choice, especially when the budget is limited

[willace]

NV

1. NV is most famous for drive with no problem.

2. CUDA, PHYSX, and more (even though not much use on gaming)

3. Most game engine optimized for NV.

4. Not quite sure about this one, but I never have a problem with NV card. However, I think most of the time NV runs a bit hotter than ATI/AMD

5. Again, only use NV, so not sure how they compare to each other.

[troid]

Nvidia for me. Back in the days when I was still a big overclocking enthusiast I had all Nvidia cards. They always had top performance and better optimization with their drivers. Now that I switched my desktop systems for a decent performing laptop that's when I also went from Nvidia to AMD, the performance difference between a 6970m and 485m GTX just wasn't worth the extra 250EUR.. Recently I switched my 6970m for a 7970m without any problems except for some minor driver issues (HWaccel with Flash), and I must say that without enduro this card is performing great but the 680m with the modded BIOS is clearly the best card available just a bit too expensive for me

[Nospheratu]

Whichever takes the performance crown at the point of purchase. I initially disliked nVidia when they trashed 3Dfx though

No preference between brands really, although I do feel as I'm missing out when the game has extra eye candy from PhysX.

[mi3x]

I had them both. I do appreciate nVidia more, as its drivers are more mature, and to be honest, we all know they were almost everytime superior. But that comes with its cost... ironically, the cost itself.

[Mr. Minecraft]

AMD is known for the price/power ratio being the best. From my experience though, AMD has a worse rep as far as the cooling department goes. Their chips (for me) have always overheated much sooner than intel. Intel has a built in throttler so it doesn't over heat and fry. Even when over clocked.

[Tseng]

I like AMD, but I am slecting between GTX675M, RadeonHD 7970m and GTX680M.

7970m has the highest C/P ratio. Plus AMD is catching up on driver pretty fast, in the meantime, nVidia is not doing very well on the kepler core driver.

[svl7]

AMD is known for the price/power ratio being the best. From my experience though, AMD has a worse rep as far as the cooling department goes. Their chips (for me) have always overheated much sooner than intel. Intel has a built in throttler so it doesn't over heat and fry. Even when over clocked.

Cooling isn't really the business of AMD (neither NVidia). It's maninly the card / system manufacturers which need to design this. Throttling is a bad thing and not a panacea for overheating systems, even though a lot of manufacturer seem that this is the case... look at all the Intel chips which even throttle at stock clocks, horror.

I still haven't managed to fry an AMD GPU and I seriously abused some of them It seems they're harder to kill than Nvidia cards.

I like AMD, but I am slecting between GTX675M, RadeonHD 7970m and GTX680M.

7970m has the highest C/P ratio. Plus AMD is catching up on driver pretty fast, in the meantime, nVidia is not doing very well on the kemple core driver.

Yeah, C/P is definitely AMDs strength, the 7970m is an excellent card, works like a charm in the M15x, runs really cool and has an insane performance. Though I have to admit the 680m is really impressing me, only got it for a couple of days now and the performance is incredible, but it's way too expensive if you ask me.

Also Nvidia really crippled the 680m with the OEM vbios - Clevo, Dell and MSI, you can't go above 135MHz without issues if you don't modify the vbios, and even then you get limited. (Except for the old MSI vbios, but that's not an OEM one).

[mw86]

This thread has been around awhile. I was going to post near its birth but waited as i tried more and more videocards. I have had both AMD and Nvidia fail on me but not from overheat or abuse. They both are enduring under great stress... but less true for Nvidia in the past as they certainly seem more sensitive like your saying SVL7. The Nvidia with all the extras in it like Cuda and Physx run hotter than AMD in same performance bracket. Though the two top cards in the mobile front right now overclocked run similar temps.

If this is a one or the other choice only Nvidia wins in my book. Never had i had so many games i can no longer play from driver issues. Nvidia even allowed me to play many legacy games that i have a lot of trouble with on the last gen or two of AMD.

If i can weigh in without an all or nothing answer Id say AMD is the best card that can be bought at its price.

[Wes Lawrence]

I'm going to have to join the neutral team as well. I've had more experience with nVidia, as I haven't built very many systems myself, but the ones I did all used nVidia graphics cards. I have recommended AMD cards to a lot of my friends though, just due to the fact that they seem to always have the best bang for your buck. They have yet to have a problem with any of them to date, so I could essentially choose either one. I agree that nVidia does have more mature drivers though, as I remember I had to give my friends a hand every once in a while when they ran into issues with their AMD cards, but they were very minor.

[roophz]

I would go for Nvidia solely for Optimus. (I know AMD has their own graphic switching thing now, but its apparently far from perfect atm) . Helps a great deal for batt life..

[jason3]

Nvidia, definitively, it's worth the price difference, imo.

I was going for the 7970m for my new laptop, but I found out about those enduro issues some clevo users were having and it really turned me off from AMD :/

[mw86]

Nvidia, definitively, it's worth the price difference, imo.

I was going for the 7970m for my new laptop, but I found out about those enduro issues some clevo users were having and it really turned me off from AMD :/

The new 12.9 beta released a day or so ago supposedly brings fix to enduro etc. But for the most robust drivers i agree Nvidia seems to be best in that bracket. AMD is catching up in a hurry though after they saw they broke more than they fixed and stated they would make updates less frequently in hopes the quality would improve and have less issues of causing problems with already well functioning setups.

[Ninjahunter]

Hmm, I like nvidia because its more reliable to give me good performance across all games i play. Like borderlands had issues with ATI. But ATI does have some pretty nice prices for their horsepower.

I usually reccomend noobies to stick with nvidia XD

[YodaGoneMad]

Nvidia all the way. The constant driver updates, extra features like Optimus, and generally Nvidia just seems to be more reliable and stable. Some games will have problems with ATI, or ATI has weird glitches like their whole enduro problem. I guess I just don't feel like I can count on AMD cards to work without issues.

On the other hand, AMD is competitive in performance and much cheaper, so they are a solid choice. Just have to be willing to tinker sometimes.

[Zolutar]

I much favor Nvidia, AMD struggles in the driver department.

I have owned ,any Nvidia and AMD cards over the years and favored ATi before Nvidia,but over the years with ATI's struggles with drivers grew I discovered Nvidia and really find their software support innovative. AMD continues to push the bar to drive Nvidia ahead further. AMD now owning ATI's continues to seem to be "catching up" however has a much better performance to price ratio to Nvidia.

There's pros and cons to both, you really can't go wrong with either but I'd score Nvidia 3, AMD 2 in the ops criteria.

[myxcon]

I prefer nVidia for most situations, due to their better driver support and general "behavior". In the past I have had horrible experiences with AMD card, due to drivers - it all started with an AW that had 4870 XFIRE.

For this particular case I opted for the AMD 7970m as it provides equal levels of performance to their nVidia counterpart at half the price. And also 680m is not compatible in my current laptop.

[kazshell]

I usually go with AMD, I have had more experience with them. Only had a few instances of driver issues with new games, but I have had my 4870 since 2009 and it still plays new games on ultra. I just got an alienware m14x with the GT555m and it hasn't handled some games very well (skyrim, Bf3)

[93795311]

I will go for driver development over cheaper card (AMD) on any day. That mean gtx 680m over AMD 7970m (horrible Enduro support on Clevo laptops)

[bigwoof]

Just received my R4 with a 680M. in this case, I actually went for the 680M as it was the most expensive. had a budget that needed to be spent. but even without that factor, would have picked the 680M as the driver support is much better.

also, the 3D support is much better than AMD and I have a few demos that require a proper 3D display and software support.

[octiny]

I'm usually geared towards the performance to price ratio and that usually entailed AMD. Although if I have extra cash to spare I always spring towards the nearest Nvidia solution simply because I've had better luck with their drivers because in my opinion they are less finicky and problematic.

[oile]

I'm not a "trademark" fanboy. Usually I'm a "tech" fanboy..

Whoever gives the best packet will take my money. And this paket include: Performance, Price, Old or New tech, driver, other software support. Considering the all thing is never so simple as it seems , especially nowadays with economic crysis. At the end, I've always picked nvidia cards to the present, but more because of the habits with nvidia softwares than other aspects I usually had to consider. ATi nowadays is a valid option: drivers are more frequent and with less problems, tech and performance are great, lack of software and marketing is repaid with considerably lower price. If you have not budget problems, I'd suggest nvidia but today, more than in the past, is a hard and very "case sensitive" choice.