R9 380 or GTX 960? (Drivers)

[Muz]

I'm looking to upgrade my old ass card from 2011, it's an AMD card and it's been okay, but now I think I need an upgrade and I'm looking at the 300ish (AU) dollars price point, I know the 380 has better raw performance but AMD drivers have royally fucked me over in the past, specially the OMEGA drivers, I had to spend hours to finally get them to work. I play Nvidish optimized games (Not always) like GTA5 and Witcher 3, so the real question here, what card is better optimized and has better drivers? 

 

EDIT: I'm not saying the AMD drivers are bad now, I just had a lot of problems with them in the past and they took an average of almost 2 hours to install. The windows 10 drivers installed flawlessly, which was a first.

Edited September 1, 2015 by Muz

[Bob Jim]

Well, you've just started a flame war in all likelihood, lol. Currently Nvidia are actually in a worse position than AMD in terms of drivers; their Windows 10 ones sound like they have all sorts of problems, and if the single DX12 benchmark is anything to go by, AMD will do much better in newer games that support DX12. AMD also has more raw power.

[Dr_Curry_MONSTER]

R9 380 beats 960 is GTA 5 too lmao. Go for the R9 380, longevity is on its side.

[Guest]

Its hard to say on the drivers side of things, in the past Nvidia has been ahead but recently there have been a few issues.

I would just pick the R9 380, its the better card, but I would recommend a 4gb model as the 2gb model isn't ideal or future proof.

I did a video comparing the two:

[domini123]

I would just pick the R9 380, its the better card, but I would recommend a 4gb model as the 2gb model isn't ideal or future proof.

 

 

 

NOTHING IS FUTURE PROOF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

THEY CAN COME OUT WITH SOMETHING NEW TOMMOROW AND ITS NO GUARANTE THAT YOUR GPU SUPPORTS IT

I would just pick the R9 380, its the better card, but I would recommend a 4gb model as the 2gb model isn't ideal or future proof.

 

[Muz]

-sniperino-

 

Thanks, really helpful review, earned yourself a sub!

 

I dunno what brand now, MSI, ASUS, Sapphire, XFX or Gigabyte?

 

http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=193_1770

[Shoob]

Thanks, really helpful review, earned yourself a sub!

 

I dunno what brand now, MSI, ASUS, Sapphire, XFX or Gigabyte?

 

http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=193_1770

You can't go wrong with all of them for the 380 since it's a really efficient and easy to cool GPU. MSI has a backplate and is most overclocked, gigabyte has LEDs (if you are into that thing) and sapphire is considered to be the most reliable when it comes to AMD cards. I'd personally recommend the Sapphire Nitro 4GB,

[Muz]

You can't go wrong with all of them for the 380 since it's a really efficient and easy to cool GPU. MSI has a backplate and is most overclocked, gigabyte has LEDs (if you are into that thing) and sapphire is considered to be the most reliable when it comes to AMD cards. I'd personally recommend the Sapphire Nitro 4GB,

A local shop has the MSI and ASUS 380 slightly cheaper than pccasegear so i'm going with the MSI. 

[Majestic]

Well, you've just started a flame war in all likelihood, lol. 

 

Glad you are here to totally not turn it into one.

 

Longevity and futureproofing are moot arguments, but especially with midrange cards. Right now, on DX11, nvidia is way ahead in terms of driver efficienty and hardware efficiency. In terms of absolute performance to dollar AMD wins, but only on stock clocks.