Torn between an AMD and NVidia

[justintech16]

Hi. I am planning for my next computer and I cannot decide on what graphics card to get.

I am torn between these 2 cards:

Radeon 7970 Ghz Edition http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202001

and

GTX 770 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130919

 

I have researched that these cards are pretty much neck and neck performance wise. But I like AMD for their never settle bundle and am in the market for Bioshock, Tomb Raider, Crysis, and Far Cry anyways. This was a pretty good deal for AMD because I don't have to buy those games. The catch is that NVidia has better multi-card performance than AMD and also features Geforce Experience and GPU Boost which is handy for me because I don't like to overclock myself.

So the NVidia card may be more future-proof, but the AMD card is considerably cheaper ($50) and has some games that I planned to buy anyways.

I would appreciate any opinions or suggestions. I would also like to stay in that budget of $350-420. Does AMD have any similar programs to Geforce Experience and GPU Boost?

[BlackOutCrisis]

Get the MSI twin frozr 7950, it is faster than the 770 and just as fast as the 7970. Also the members of LTT will be more than happy to help you overclock it yourself (it is super easy for a graphics card). The 7950 is considerably cheaper once the price drops and you get all the same games as 7970.

[Godlygamer23]

The card you linked doesn't have the Never Settle bundle.

[Gamebozzo]

u could find a way 2 squeeze throu a dual 760 which is 499.98, this would give u the same preformance as a titan yet way cheaper

[Godlygamer23]

Also may games are being amd optimized especially due to the console being amd based.

Did you not hear what Linus has said numerous times?

[Skanic]

In my opinion i would go for amd since stuff like problems with multi card is easily fixed with the use of Radeon Pro and they gonna release a crossfire fix 31st of July. It would also be future proof seeing as games like BF4 will be amd optimized.

But you could also wait for the HD 9000 series which will come out in October 2013 with a different kind of Never Settle Bundle. So i see alot of value in this. And if all you gonna do is gaming than go ahead do AMD.

And as for Geforce Experience yeah Radeon Pro got you covered there as well lot of tweaks you can do there. And yeah AMD has technology similar to GPU boost called Powertune which detects the gpu load and boosts the card accordingly.

[justintech16]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?bop=And&Submit=Property&N=100007709%2050001561%20600356257&IsNodeId=1&PropertyCodeValue=3055%3a94398%2c679%3a266447%2c679%3a331620&OEMMark=N

I linked the bottom card. It said "4 free games".

 

I guess I can't see the future, so I don't know how well Crossfire will perform when/if drivers are fixed for it.

[Godlygamer23]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?bop=And&Submit=Property&N=100007709%2050001561%20600356257&IsNodeId=1&PropertyCodeValue=3055%3a94398%2c679%3a266447%2c679%3a331620&OEMMark=N

I linked the bottom card. It said "4 free games".

Okay. It's not showing up on the actual page.

[justintech16]

I guess I am leaning towards AMD. How do you know if you get the free games? It says free games on Newegg, but are there codes in the box? How does that work?

[Skanic]

With Radeon Pro the crossfire performance is pretty good, since you can even use crossfire in games that are not yet supported by AMD.

[Godlygamer23]

I guess I am leaning towards AMD. How do you know if you get the free games? It says free games on Newegg, but are there codes in the box? How does that work?

They come in the slip of paper Newegg includes with every purchase of something. They are either codes you extract that turn into Steam codes or service codes, or just a straight code.

[Skanic]

I guess I am leaning towards AMD. How do you know if you get the free games? It says free games on Newegg, but are there codes in the box? How does that work?

Its this one http://www.amd4u.com/neversettlereloaded/index.html

You get a AMD Gaming Evolved Unique ID card with your gpu in the box.

Then you will get the codes send to you per email and if you have problems with retrieving the codes you can contact their support.

[Godlygamer23]

Its this one http://www.amd4u.com/neversettlereloaded/index.html

You get a AMD Gaming Evolved Unique ID card with your gpu in the box.

Then you will get the codes send to you per email and if you have problems with retrieving the codes you can contact their support.

Did they change it?

[justintech16]

Ok. Thanks everyone. I am going the AMD route. I will maybe grab another 7970 in the future if it starts to show its age.

[mc141]

always used ati/amd since day one  i have always been specific with my choices with manufacturers with the exception of cases powersuplys and monitors i have always used the same in every build i.e. asus, creative, labs, ati/amd, intell and w.d or segate. those brands i trust as i have used the same them since day one of my first 486dx build i think it was asus i cant remember using any thing else.

[Vitalius]

This is from Anandtech.

Use it to measure Crossfire/SLI performance for both Nvidia and AMD.



They have 2 others, one for Metro 2033, and one for Dirt 3. They essentially show the same thing.

If you notice, going from 1 to 3 7950's offers 3.2 times the performance. I'd say Crossfire works pretty well imo.

[Godlygamer23]

This is from Anandtech.

Use it to measure Crossfire/SLI performance for both Nvidia and AMD.

They have 2 others, one for Metro 2033, and one for Dirt 3. They essentially show the same thing.

That is not a good benchmark showing SLI/Crossfire, as it doesn't scale very well.

[Vitalius]

That is not a good benchmark showing SLI/Crossfire, as it doesn't scale very well.

I edited the post with this:

"If you notice, going from 1 to 3 7950's offers 3.2 times the performance. I'd say Crossfire works pretty well imo."

If having 3 7950's gives me more than 3 times the performance of 1 7950, I would indeed say Crossfire works pretty well. 

This is (approximately) reflected in the other benchmarks too.

[Kuzma]

In my opinion i would go for amd since stuff like problems with multi card is easily fixed with the use of Radeon Pro and they gonna release a crossfire fix 31st of July. It would also be future proof seeing as games like BF4 will be amd optimized.

But you could also wait for the HD 9000 series which will come out in October 2013 with a different kind of Never Settle Bundle. So i see alot of value in this. And if all you gonna do is gaming than go ahead do AMD.

And as for Geforce Experience yeah Radeon Pro got you covered there as well lot of tweaks you can do there. And yeah AMD has technology similar to GPU boost called Powertune which detects the gpu load and boosts the card accordingly.

You... you mentioned RadeonPro :D

[Nit3Rid3R]

With Radeon Pro the crossfire performance is pretty good, since you can even use crossfire in games that are not yet supported by AMD.

That^

 

And, Never settle, GPUs are just better when they come with free AAA title games. 

[Kuzma]

:') so beautiful people mentioning RadeonPro