Why do you prefer Nvidia over AMD? (or vice versa)

[Sebastian]

Hey everyone,

 

As I'm sure most people are aware, Nvidia has a pretty big lead in the market over AMD. There are a lot more people out there buying Nvidia cards over AMD. I want to know what reasoning you all have for preferring Nvidia over AMD, or vice versa.

 

Have you had a lot of bad experiences with a particular company? Have you simply always bought one brand and never been tempted to try the other? I'm curious because to be honest, I really want to want an AMD card, but there are a few things holding me back.

 

I currently have a GTX 970, and had a 770 before that. I have been 100% happy with both purchases. However, if you look purely at benchmarks, there are plenty of competitive AMD cards. For example, the 290X right now is way cheaper than the 970, but offers pretty similar performance. Beyond that, if you look at some of the supposedly leaked benchmarks of the 980 Ti and 390X, it seems quite possible that the 390X will be a monster, and if they price it similarly to they way they did with the R9 295X2 vs the Titan Z, they could have a really winner on their hands. At least on paper. But despite the fact that AMD seems to offer some products with a great price/performance ratio, I still don't ever really feel tempted to sample the red team.

 

I guess part of my hesitation stems from the complaints I've heard about AMD driver issues (i.e. more frequent crashing than with Nvidia cards), as well as MUCH less frequently released driver updates. Maybe Nvidia's frequent driver releases don't actually do very much, but at least it FEELS like they care more about the customer giving continuous support. Maybe it's because of things like Shadowplay and G-SYNC. I've heard some comparisons of G-SYNC vs freesync, and it seems like the downsides of freesync are worse than those of G-SYNC. But it also doesn't come with a hefty price tag. I dunno, like I said, I WANT to want to try AMD, but I can help but feel somewhat discouraged about them. Maybe I've just been brainwashed by Nvidia's superior marketing.

 

What do you guys think?

[Comessy]

NVIDIA because my room is 70sq feet so an amd card would make my room 40c in no time

Also NVIDIA does drivers better

[TheKDub]

IMO Nvidia > AMD

I like the features that nvidia offers, along with the more stable drivers and lower heat output. (My room is typically pretty hot already in the summer, I don't need it to be like a fuckin forest fire in there )

[AlanTheEmu]

Nvidia. More efficient and cooler and drivers tend to be good. However I've never had an AMD GPU.

[dougdangger]

Quality components, less heat and better drivers.

Nvidia for me.

[Suika]

Whichever works best for me at the time. I picked up a GTX 970 because I needed the lower wattage if I wanted to run SLI. My first ever GPU was the HD 7870 because it was marginally faster than the 660 for roughly the same price.

[TheMcSame]

Nvidia...

 

Why? Efficiency and drivers for me. My room easily gets into the 30's, maybe even hitting the 40's during the summer, I don't need AMD to bake me to death... Okay, a slight exaggeration but you get my point. As for drivers... Well, AMD's drivers haven't been too friendly with me in the past.

 

I'd happily switch to AMD if they got their shit together with their drivers and the efficiency of their cards though.

[dougdangger]

ATI cards left a bad taste in my mouth twice in a row.

9800XT and X1950XT.  Both fried themselves to death before giving me a light show from screen artifacts like fireworks.  Not to mention the fans were on full blast and I could have roasted a chicken in my PC case.

I gave Nvidia a try with the 8800GT and haven't looked back since.

In fact the card still works today.

[Trolling]

I like to compare Nvidia as a Toyota and AMD as a GM. 

 

They both do same jobs but it's just less hassle and it's more reliable. 

[gilang01]

Nvidia. I used to own amd cards, the last one being the 280x (now mine a 970).

With amd I get less graphical features (gameworks is a bitch but it sure does make.everything look good) and less Dev support.

[Dietrichw]

AMD for the drivers and the performance for the price. Eyefinity is so much better than Surround with the way it works and how lenient it can be. I can use different resolution monitors in an eyefinity setup. 

The perception of AMD using a lot of power and putting out a ton of heat is a false stereotype from my experience. With a stock cooler 290 OCed it usually runs 60-70 degrees (it got to 80 when doing heavy compute tasks once). Even when I was Folding on it 24/7 it only made my small room 2 degrees warmer. 

[gt403cyl]

I think a lot can be said for non reference versions, take into account cards like the Sapphire Vapor-X 290x, it runs cooler than the 970 while using about 65w more so I think there is some common ground between them as far as that goes.

 

Personally I don't have a favorite and I currently own cards from both companies, I think it comes down to what fits the build and personal preference more than the stereotypical nature of the "results" on reference models.

[Lord_Karango17]

Ive gone with nvidia mainly because it was what I started pc gaming with (laptop), and partially because of timing, as the 290 was not available when I was building my desktop.

[givingtnt]

hard to tell. iv had a amd apu. on my laptop. and a gtx 780. wich is far from the same.

[Vegetable]

Bad experiences with Radeon. I had an hd 2400 (just something to get me by) and it died in 6 months. Then got an 8600 gts 256mb, still works. Got a  BFG Gtx 260 a little later (I still use it today) and then a PNY Gtx 460 (a faulty PSU ate it RIP 460 2012-2014.) My friend gave me his old XFX hd 6750 earlier this year because the fan broke. I Linus'd it and zip-tied an old 92mm i had lying around to it. The temps never exceeded 50c and it started getting artifacts badly (no OC) and one day it just died. I'll stick to Nvidia until AMD makes a product that has performance worth it's price, isn't a furnace, and doesn't equal my fridge in power consumption.

[FellTheSky]

there are 2 simple reasons for me.

 

1- I work hard to buy the things i want, so i wont be satisfied if it isnt the best i could buy for my money

2- Performance isnt all. You get better driver support, generally better temperatures, and more features.(physx, streaming, recording, etc)