Nvidia vs AMD

[Enneikay]

No, I don't want to start a war between fanboys. I want to know what are advantages and disadvantages of each (price is kinda irrelevant since in my country everything is fucked up when it comes to technology..)

 

Specifically for gaming, is there really any "one is better than the other"? 

I've seen a lot of people (that sound a lot like nvidia fanboys) saying amd sucks and their drivers suck. Honestly I saw the latest nvidia driver and EVERY SINGLE PERSON commenting was saying it was sh*t. 

 

A lot of people get amd cards for gaming and have no issues, a lot of people (who I have my doubts if they ever even used amd) simply say amd sucks and they say it in a way that makes it sound as if you'd be unable to even use the card of how much the drivers suck....  

 

Personally I've never in my life owned a gpu, and the only graphics I ever used was integrated Radeon HD 6550D and although it's not exactly powerful, I never had any problems with it and it could run Batman and Crysis 2 decently well.

 

What are the good and bad things of both Nvidia and AMD right now, 2014.

 

 

 

 

 

[samuel]

AMD: still budget friendlier in Europe. Nvidia: very efficient. 

[DarrenP]

[Chriz6097]

280x vs 770 = 770

290 vs 780 = 780

290x vs 780ti for price/performance = 290x ( also depending on how much it costs in your country.

[Imabigmac]

 

way out of date.

[DoubleY]

AMD has Mantle, that's about it. AMD uses more power, and outputs more heat. Thus, making their cards usually louder.

 

Nvidia has Gsync (unreleased) Shadowplay, PhysX (not many games utilize it) And an upcoming driver that is going to destroy Mantle.

[helping]

Ease of use Nvidia > AMD, having owned both. GeForce experience and Boost 2.0 makes using everything to it's potential piss easy

 

Mantle, True audio, eyefinity, mining, AMD

 

PhysX, Gsync, Shadowplay, shield, stereoscopic, Nvidia.

 

Pick which features you want more.

way out of date.

the general idea of that video is certainly not out of date.

[schwat]

After being on team red up til this generation I'm pretty glad I made the switch to team green. Gsync is flat out amazing & shadowplay is pretty cool too. I actually bought 2 different r9 280x cards that I had to return for artifacting before settling on a GTX 770 and I couldn't be happier with my current setup.

 

With that said I still think brand allegiance is a silly thing. Just read reviews & pick whatever card fits your budget & needs.

[Vitalius]

Ugh. This again.

 

AMD's GPUs tend to be more consistent. i.e. if the average FPS is 60, the AMD GPU will stay closer to that than an Nvidia one will. Nvidia GPUs tend to get higher Max FPS but lower Min FPS. It just depends which prefer here. I prefer consistency (i.e. AMD).

 

Then there's Mantle VS GSync (I know they aren't comparable, but they are features that effectively are attempting to make the gameplay experience more smooth in some form or another). Mantle does more, while GSync is expensive and only does the one thing (variable refresh), but Mantle is only on 1 or 2 games while G Sync is on very few monitors.

 

Then there's PhysX VS TressFX but honestly, you can simulate PhysX enough on a strong CPU that it isn't exactly comparable, so you can technically have both (albeit at lesser quality for PhysX) if you go AMD.

 

Then there's Shadow Play VS nothing on AMD's side. A clear advantage to Nvidia for video game streamers/recorders.

 

Then there's pricing due to Crypto's mining boom making AMD cards a bit more expensive. Almost (almost) to the point of not bothering to buy them.

 

Then there's drivers, as you mentioned, which is a different battle depending on which OS you run. For Linux, IIRC AMD is better (I could be wrong). Whichever one has the Open Source drivers on Linux. Those are the better ones. For Windows, it's about even there imo. People complain all day on both sides about drivers, but honestly, I find it dumb. I've never had issues with AMD drivers and never heard of issues with Nvidia drivers.

 

Then there's CPU & GPU efficiency. Apparently Nvidia is coming out with something called NVLink which lets the GPU and CPU access each other's memory or something to streamline efficiency between them, while AMD doesn't have to have a Crossfire bridge (290, X or not, only) and is working with their APUs to do the same thing basically (although I think they have an advantage because Nvidia has to work with AMD and Intel while AMD is all one company).

 

Then there's Stereoscopic 3D VS Eyefinity. That's just up to you in what you want, but I think we all know 3D from a monitor is gimmicky. I say AMD is better here. 

Then there's TruAudio & Mining VS Nothing on Nvidia's side, though higher end Nvidia GPUs can hit around 70% of what their AMD counterparts can with the right tuning for mining. Just depends if you even care about realistic and on-the-fly generated sound or not, as well as Cryptocurrencies.

Then there's Shield VS nothing on AMD's side, but that's a lot of extra money/hardware and up to you. I think Steam streaming will cover AMD honestly. I wonder when they'll let us stream this stuff to our phones. That'd be crazy, but sweet.

Then there's efficiency VS power. AMD's GPUs, in terms of raw computing power, are generally better than Nvidia GPUs. However, they also run hotter and thusly are louder. This is just a difference of taste since AMD and Nvidia are fairly equal in gaming performance, but if you just prefer efficiency, Nvidia is better here.

 

Then there's the specific titles that are made to run more efficiently with each GPU, but that just depends on your taste in games and what you will be playing more.

 

Did I miss anything?

[lachyman]

As everybody said, both have their own nice technologies, I personally am an NVIDIA guy, not that I am an NVIDIA fanboy or hate AMD, I just never had an AMD gaming card because every time I was shopping, the NVIDIA alternative was a better deal. Right now though it seems that AMD is the way to go if you're tighter on the budget and NVIDIA is the go-to high end option. 

[Clarkey]

Personally i would say nvidia it does offer more. UNLESS you are going for multi monitor gaming. In which case AMD is the way to go as Eyefinity is way better that nVidias option atm.  

[Vitalius]

I'm an AMD guy. I chose this because the Nvidia Top Tier options made no sense to me. Not the Titan, I'm talking about the 780 (the Ti wasn't out when I chose), and Nvidia GPUs in general. 

Note how I said above that AMD GPUs tend to be more consistent. i.e. higher min FPS and lower max FPS. Whereas Nvidia GPUs tend to be the opposite. lower mins and higher maxs. 

I've got benchmarks to prove it, but I'm not righting that discourse again. Google it if you want to know where all that comes from. 

But based on that one thing, I chose the 290X. And the reason was because it didn't make logical sense to buy a GPU that would give me FPS I didn't need, and take FPS when I needed it most. On the high end, for normal 1080p gaming, any GPU is going to give you 60FPS on average or more with high - Ultra settings (depends on the game). At that point, more FPS is bad (screen tearing), but less FPS is bad if it drops too low (stuttering/slide show effect). It's sort of the sweet spot. And in it, you want consistency. 

So that's why I went with the 290X. It made sense for my situation which incidentally is the situation of most gamers out there (1080p gaming, high -> ultra settings). 

[Enneikay]

Ugh. This again.

 

AMD's GPUs tend to be more consistent. i.e. if the average FPS is 60, the AMD GPU will stay closer to that than an Nvidia one will. Nvidia GPUs tend to get higher Max FPS but lower Min FPS. It just depends which prefer here. I prefer consistency (i.e. AMD).

 

Then there's Mantle VS GSync (I know they aren't comparable, but they are features that effectively are attempting to make the gameplay experience more smooth in some form or another). Mantle does more, while GSync is expensive and only does the one thing (variable refresh), but Mantle is only on 1 or 2 games while G Sync is on very few monitors.

 

Then there's PhysX VS TressFX but honestly, you can simulate PhysX enough on a strong CPU that it isn't exactly comparable, so you can technically have both (albeit at lesser quality for PhysX) if you go AMD.

 

Then there's Shadow Play VS nothing on AMD's side. A clear advantage to Nvidia for video game streamers/recorders.

 

Then there's pricing due to Crypto's mining boom making AMD cards a bit more expensive. Almost (almost) to the point of not bothering to buy them.

 

Then there's drivers, as you mentioned, which is a different battle depending on which OS you run. For Linux, IIRC AMD is better (I could be wrong). Whichever one has the Open Source drivers on Linux. Those are the better ones. For Windows, it's about even there imo. People complain all day on both sides about drivers, but honestly, I find it dumb. I've never had issues with AMD drivers and never heard of issues with Nvidia drivers.

 

Then there's CPU & GPU efficiency. Apparently Nvidia is coming out with something called NVLink which lets the GPU and CPU access each other's memory or something to streamline efficiency between them, while AMD doesn't have to have a Crossfire bridge (290, X or not, only) and is working with their APUs to do the same thing basically (although I think they have an advantage because Nvidia has to work with AMD and Intel while AMD is all one company).

 

Then there's Stereoscopic 3D VS Eyefinity. That's just up to you in what you want, but I think we all know 3D from a monitor is gimmicky. I say AMD is better here. 

Then there's TruAudio & Mining VS Nothing on Nvidia's side, though higher end Nvidia GPUs can hit around 70% of what their AMD counterparts can with the right tuning for mining. Just depends if you even care about realistic and on-the-fly generated sound or not, as well as Cryptocurrencies.

Then there's Shield VS nothing on AMD's side, but that's a lot of extra money/hardware and up to you. I think Steam streaming will cover AMD honestly. I wonder when they'll let us stream this stuff to our phones. That'd be crazy, but sweet.

Then there's efficiency VS power. AMD's GPUs, in terms of raw computing power, are generally better than Nvidia GPUs. However, they also run hotter and thusly are louder. This is just a difference of taste since AMD and Nvidia are fairly equal in gaming performance, but if you just prefer efficiency, Nvidia is better here.

 

Then there's the specific titles that are made to run more efficiently with each GPU, but that just depends on your taste in games and what you will be playing more.

 

Did I miss anything?

Thank you for taking your time to write all that. 

 

I think price here favors amd atm, I just checked and I can get an R9 290/290X for less than a 780/780Ti.

If Gsync involves buying a new "g-sync compatible" monitor then....they'll never come to this country. God, we don't even have 27 inch monitors or even 1440p (let alone higher than that)

Regarding using physiX on cpu, I have an i5 3570K, so I guess I'm good there.

Shadowplay seems to be nice but honestly speaking I doubt I'd ever stream or record much, I'd like to have it, but it's not something I plan to do for now.

Heat may be a problem considering my room in hot summer days can get REALLY ridiculously hot, as for noise; well, I've had an old PC that was so loud (and high pitched) you could hear it from outside the house. So as long as the noise isn't high pitched or stupidly loud, I won't mind TOO much (plus, I use headphones).

 

This is what I was thinking: Get a budget gpu now (Even an R7 250 would be better by a lot compared to my stupid Intel HD 4000) and then save money and wait for Maxwell mid-high gpus.

I originally thought of getting a 750Ti since it's the best price to performance gpu BUT I now found a store that has R9 270(non X) for barely a bit more. 

 

Should I get 750Ti now and try to get a better maxwell (860/870 or whatever) in the future; Or get R9 270 now and then get Maxwell. 

Which also raises the question: Is it worth paying the extra for the 270? (R9 270 is $2670 while 750Ti is $2290, the difference is like, 34usd or something)

 

Sorry for making you read all this .__.

[Ashley]

280x vs 770 = 770

290 vs 780 = 780

290x vs 780ti for price/performance = 290x ( also depending on how much it costs in your country.

No... Just no.

There is a lot more nuance for which card you should choose.

AMD typically has the better price/performance ratio (and prices are coming down from their stupidly high prices earlier this year)

AMD does better at OpenCL

AMD does better at multimonitor

AMD typically has more memory and memory bandwidth for a given tier (280x has 3GB, 770 has 2GB) which is good for high resolutions

AMD may have a GSync-like solution, but no guarantees on support or release on the desktop

 

Nvidia typically runs cooler and uses less power for a given tier, and thus makes less noise. However with aftermarket coolers this isn't as much of an issue.

Nvidia has more features (PhysX, Gamestream, Shadowplay, GSync)

Nvidia has a better multi-GPU implementation. (Better frame pacing, you won't have frame pacing in this game but not in another for example)

 

For most people it comes down to, which games do you play? What resolution/monitor setup do you use? What is your budget?

For example, I have a 1440p monitor. A 280x would be a much better choice for me than a 770.

If I was running a 1080p monitor then the 770 would likely be a better choice. Unless AMD starts getting their actual MSRP prices, then they will be a better value but they still produce more heat/noise.

 

It's not as simple as X vendor's GPU is better than Y vendor's GPU.

[Keudn]

Having owned cards from both companies, I have to say honestly as far as drivers go Nvidia wins because their control panel and especially geforce experience is just easier to use and is cleaner than on the AMD side of things IMO 

[LOST TALE]

Price doesn'T matter? get the Titan Z.

 

Best answer

 

how about u call NASA or google to ask them for their billion$ options. they'll probably engineer one just for you.

[C1intFunWood]

AMD has Mantle, that's about it. AMD uses more power, and outputs more heat. Thus, making their cards usually louder.

 

Nvidia has Gsync (unreleased) Shadowplay, PhysX (not many games utilize it) And an upcoming driver that is going to destroy Mantle.

You can use free-sync for any card (AMD G-Sync)

[LOST TALE]

Thank you for taking your time to write all that. 

Shadowplay seems to be nice but honestly speaking I doubt I'd ever stream or record much, I'd like to have it, but it's not something I plan to do for now.

H

You can record with no performance loss with AMD. Yup. Dxtory lossless codec.

Shadowplay has mor eufnctionnality planned, but its in BETA and crashes and shit.

Now the dtxtory has raw quality but uses a lot of hrad drive space. but your anyways going to optimize it by rendering it before uploading, which afterwards leads to the exact same memory.

 

My experience with nvidia drivers was of pure hatred as of recent months and years. Nvidia drivers are the biggest POS.

 

AMd has the equivalent of geforce experience.

 

In NA prices  of AMd cards are 33% higher.

a r9 280x is 300$

here its 400$

[TERAFLOP]

Some generalizations in here are just incorrect.
In terms of power consumption and heat specifically, you just can't generalize anymore.
In the 7000 & R200 series, AMD's Pitcarin (7870/7850/R9 270X/270) is more powerful & more efficient than Nvidia's GK106 (GTX 660, 650 Ti boost & 650 Ti).
AMD's Cape Verde (HD 7770 & 7750) also enjoy a performance & efficiency advantage over Nvidia's GK107 (GTX 650).

On the high end at 1920x1080 Nvidia's GK110 & fully unlocked GK104 ( GTX 780 Ti, 780 & 770 ) are more efficient than AMD's Hawaii & fully unlocked Tahiti (R9 290X, 290 & 280X).
At 2560x1440 the 290X is more efficient than the 780 & the 280X is more efficient than the 770 because memory bandwidth comes into play in which AMD enjoys a sizable advantage.

Partially unlocked GK104s specially GTX 760s are significantly less efficient than partially unlocked Tahitis (HD 7950 & R9 280).

Features are highly subjective so I won't go into any of them really.

[Ashley]

You can use free-sync for any card (AMD G-Sync)

We haven't seen any freesync capable monitors for the desktop yet. That displayport standard does not yet exist and might not ever exist. Nothing is set in stone for freesync on the desktop, yet.

[Ashley]

Some generalizations in here are just incorrect.

In terms of power consumption and heat specifically, you just can't generalize anymore.

In the 7000 & R200 series, AMD's Pitcarin (7870/7850/R9 270X/270) is more powerful & more efficient than Nvidia's GK106 (GTX 660, 650 Ti boost & 650 Ti).

AMD's Cape Verde (HD 7770 & 7750) also enjoy a performance & efficiency advantage over Nvidia's GK107 (GTX 650).

On the high end at 1920x1080 Nvidia's GK110 & fully unlocked GK104 ( GTX 780 Ti, 780 & 770 ) are more efficient than AMD's Hawaii & fully unlocked Tahiti (R9 290X, 290 & 280X).

At 2560x1440 the 290X is more efficient than the 780 & the 280X is more efficient than the 770 because memory bandwidth comes into play in which AMD enjoys a sizable advantage.

Partially unlocked GK104s specially GTX 760s are significantly less efficient than partially unlocked Tahitis (HD 7950 & R9 280).

Features are highly subjective so I won't go into any of them really.

AMD still uses more power for a given performance tier. It may not be a lot but in the case of something like a 750ti, it makes the difference between a power connector or not. However if you don't mind an extra couple of watts you can get a much better value. I have nothing against AMD or Nvidia. I owned three AMD cards before my current Nvidia card, but facts are facts.

 

[binman13]

AMD has Mantle, that's about it. AMD uses more power, and outputs more heat. Thus, making their cards usually louder.

 

Nvidia has Gsync (unreleased) Shadowplay, PhysX (not many games utilize it) And an upcoming driver that is going to destroy Mantle.

Oh sweet jesus...

For one, The 290X, 290, 780, and 780 ti all have the same TDP...so...uhhh...I dont really know what to say about that except a recommendation to understand what the TDP is for.

Their reference cards are shite admittedly, but who is buying a reference card now...

G-sync will go nowhere as soon as Displayport 1.3 starts entering the market, so if you want to waste 500 dollars on a g-sync monitor that'll be standardised within the year then be my guest.

Shadowplay is good if you are a professional streamer or let's player and need no performance loss at all when recording, but it's a small market share.

PhysX...yeah, the less said about that, the better.

And come on, If you really think that a driver update is going to boost performance by 50% and "destroy" an entirely new API, then you must be spending your nights shoving Titans into your cranium.

[binman13]

AMD still uses more power for a given performance tier. It may not be a lot but in the case of something like a 750ti, it makes the difference between a power connector or not. However if you don't mind an extra couple of watts you can get a much better value. I have nothing against AMD or Nvidia. I owned three AMD cards before my current Nvidia card, but facts are facts.

 

The 750 ti is a low power card...using that to say that nVidia's entire range is low-power is like saying that because the GTX 480 exists, nVidia cards must all be glorified space-heaters.

[Vitalius]

Their reference cards are shite admittedly, but who is buying a reference card now...

I am. Future watercooling.

G-sync will go nowhere as soon as Displayport 1.3 starts entering the market, so if you want to waste 500 dollars on a g-sync monitor that'll be standardised within the year then be my guest.

This. My goodness. G-Sync seems completely unnecessary. To an informed buyer at least.

Shadowplay is good if you are a professional streamer or let's player and need no performance loss at all when recording, but it's a small market share.

Agreed. It's something people use as an excuse to buy one over the other thinking they'll eventually use it, but never really do. I've done that plenty of times with other things.

The 750 ti is a low power card...using that to say that nVidia's entire range is low-power is like saying that because the GTX 480 exists, nVidia cards must all be glorified space-heaters.

That wasn't the point. It was a comparison between equivalent tiers for AMD and Nvidia.

[DoubleY]

Oh sweet jesus...

For one, The 290X, 290, 780, and 780 ti all have the same TDP...so...uhhh...I dont really know what to say about that except a recommendation to understand what the TDP is for.

Their reference cards are shite admittedly, but who is buying a reference card now...

G-sync will go nowhere as soon as Displayport 1.3 starts entering the market, so if you want to waste 500 dollars on a g-sync monitor that'll be standardised within the year then be my guest.

Shadowplay is good if you are a professional streamer or let's player and need no performance loss at all when recording, but it's a small market share.

PhysX...yeah, the less said about that, the better.

And come on, If you really think that a driver update is going to boost performance by 50% and "destroy" an entirely new API, then you must be spending your nights shoving Titans into your cranium.

But actual power draw is different

 

And the new Driver is supposedly going to beat Mantle in almost every benchmark.