Moving From Team red to Team green. What do I need to Know

[IOU4something]

Howdy.

 

So my xfx 290x decided to kick the bucket (after a couple of years of vram issues) so I settled for the incremental upgrade to the cuda powered 980 strix from Asus.

Since this will be my first ever dedicated piece of Nvidea hardware I have owned I will be stepping into some new territory personally. 

 

So I'm asking if there is anything I need to know going into this upgrade. (potential driver issues, nvidea software, overclocking differences, ect.)

 

The rest of my system specs are as listed...

-Intel i7 4690K

-MSI Mpower max z87

-16GB 2133mh DDR3 ram

-1000 watt power supply 

- Corsare 750D

-120GB sandisk ssd

 

Thanks in advance for the help.

[manikyath]

embrace geforce experience, but dont actually use it for optimizing your games, more so use it as a guideline.

 

just uninstall AMD drivers, slide in the 980 and download the latest drivers from nvidia website.

[sms1202]

Nvidia does not like amd drivers running in the background

[Sauron]

Why a 980? An r9 fury is the same price and kicks the 980's butt.

[Dobbsjr]

Howdy.

 

So my xfx 290x decided to kick the bucket (after a couple of years of vram issues) so I settled for the incremental upgrade to the cuda powered 980 strix from Asus.

Since this will be my first ever dedicated piece of Nvidea hardware I have owned I will be stepping into some new territory personally. 

 

So I'm asking if there is anything I need to know going into this upgrade. (potential driver issues, nvidea software, overclocking differences, ect.)

 

The rest of my system specs are as listed...

-Intel i7 4690K

-MSI Mpower max z87

-16GB 2133mh DDR3 ram

-1000 watt power supply 

- Corsare 750D

-120GB sandisk ssd

 

Thanks in advance for the help.

Be careful when installing nvidia drivers because you probably won't need some of them. 

[CydiaDash]

You need to know... that you made the right choice to move

[Prysin]

what you need to know is that you wasted some money not buying a cheaper but equally good 390X or a slightly more expensive, but better R9 Fury....

 

I honestly got to say, it will suck to be you once DX12 goes mainstream. AMD might have given you a few more years out of your GPU given the hints to how much more performance there is to get out of their current gen cards.

 

anyways, good luck. Have fun with your 980. Hope it doesnt let you down.

[Dobbsjr]

 

How is this possible? I thought it was impossible for you to have a physical form!

[SeanAngelo]

Howdy.

 

So my xfx 290x decided to kick the bucket (after a couple of years of vram issues) so I settled for the incremental upgrade to the cuda powered 980 strix from Asus.

Since this will be my first ever dedicated piece of Nvidea hardware I have owned I will be stepping into some new territory personally. 

 

So I'm asking if there is anything I need to know going into this upgrade. (potential driver issues, nvidea software, overclocking differences, ect.)

 

The rest of my system specs are as listed...

-Intel i7 4690K

-MSI Mpower max z87

-16GB 2133mh DDR3 ram

-1000 watt power supply 

- Corsare 750D

-120GB sandisk ssd

 

Thanks in advance for the help.

delete amd drivers, reinstall nvidia drivers. done.

[Sauron]

How is this possible? I thought it was impossible for you to have a physical form!

 

That's what I want my enemies to think

[Dobbsjr]

That's what I want my enemies to think

But Frodo destroyed the One Ring in the Orodruin.

[Guest]

Don't do it.

 

We all need to help the dying company.

 

No more monopolies!

 

The single worst man in the world is:

[Naijin]

Don't do it.

 

We all need to help the dying company.

 

No more monopolies!

 

The single worst man in the world is:

download.jpg

My r9 380's in crossfire never let me down. Also Nvidia has pretty good software for DX11, so the improvement to DX12 isn't so big. AMD on the other hand has massive performance gains going to DX12, as shown in benchmarks already. Stay strong AMD, you'll survive!

[Briggsy]

inb4 weak dx12 performance comments.

[Monarch]

what you need to know is that you wasted some money not buying a cheaper but equally good 390X or a slightly more expensive, but better R9 Fury....

 

Nope. Fury and 980 perform about the same. If you look at benchmarks from Anandtech, Techpowerup, Guru3d, etc. they all compare non-reference Fury to reference 980 to make Fury look good. If you had for example Gigabyte G1 980, it would perform about the same.

 

I honestly got to say, it will suck to be you once DX12 goes mainstream. AMD might have given you a few more years out of your GPU given the hints to how much more performance there is to get out of their current gen cards.

 

I would rather have great DX11 performance now, than promises about awesome DX12 performance in the future. Who buys graphics cards to play games in 2, 3 years? Current cards will be obsolete by the time DX12 goes mainstream.

[Jwolf7722]

Shadowplay and H.265 built in encoder (Pretty sure AMD does not have that yet). Another minor thing is less power draw and overall cooler running cards. 

[Prysin]

Nope. Fury and 980 perform about the same. If you look at benchmarks from Anandtech, Techpowerup, Guru3d, etc. they all compare non-reference Fury to reference 980 to make Fury look good. If you had for example Gigabyte G1 980, it would perform about the same.

 

 

I would rather have great DX11 performance now, than promises about awesome DX12 performance in the future. Who buys graphics cards to play games in 2, 3 years? Current cards will be obsolete by the time DX12 goes mainstream.

or equal DX 11 performance now (because, they are pretty darn equal if you compare stock G1 Gaming 980 with stock NITRO Fury), and BETTER DX12 in the future.

 

Oh yeah, when you start going into more custom versions of 980, prices go up, so aside from the fact that the 980 can OC like a champ (most likely. Silicon lottery, you never know), the Fury offers more bang for your buck with the promise of better performance.

 

Also, The NITRO version is damn quiet, so even with notably higher power usage, it is still more quiet then most 980 cards, and that is truly remarkeble.

[RuLeZ]

Cant you return? GTX 980 is really not a nice card anymore for its price, if you want to go nVidia then get some GTX 980 Ti, or get some R9 390x or Fury, you will have a much better price performance, and if you go AMD, apparently better DX 12 performance.

[Monarch]

or equal DX 11 performance now (because, they are pretty darn equal if you compare stock G1 Gaming 980 with stock NITRO Fury), and BETTER DX12 in the future.

 

Oh yeah, when you start going into more custom versions of 980, prices go up, so aside from the fact that the 980 can OC like a champ (most likely. Silicon lottery, you never know), the Fury offers more bang for your buck with the promise of better performance.

 

Also, The NITRO version is damn quiet, so even with notably higher power usage, it is still more quiet then most 980 cards, and that is truly remarkeble.

 

 

DX11 performance is not equal. You won't even get the performance you see in benchmarks with AMD cards unless you have a heavily OCed i7, like reviewers do. That's because AMD's DX11 driver overhead is much higher. And even then, you'll get worse performance in some CPU-bound segments of a game than if you had an Nvidia card. 

[Prysin]

DX11 performance is not equal. You won't even get the performance you see in benchmarks with AMD cards unless you have a heavily OCed i7, like reviewers do. That's because AMD's DX11 driver overhead is much higher. And even then, you'll get worse performance in some CPU-bound segments of a game than if you had an Nvidia card. 

I will get pretty much the same performance. Bit lower as my OC isnt that high...

 

thats the benefit of having a I7... the performance you get is pretty much in line with what reviewers "promise".

 

On a serious note, on a less powerful CPU, yes. But since the i5s and i7s in general is pretty equal in gaming, with the i7 being marginally faster when all 8 threads can be used, there is little merit to the whole "AMD vs Nvidia drivers" in at i5 or higher.

 

However below the i5 4690k/6600k. Like FX, Phenom II, Core i3s, Athlon, APUs, Pentiums and REALLY OLD i5s and i7s, like sandy bridge. Those CPUs would really notice the difference between AMD and Nvidia. Due to much lower IPC thus lower ability to to give out drawcalls. However, thing is though, there is like zero benchmarks of this. So you gotta go around and gather data from various sites then make your own compilation of % increase between using AMD and Nvidia cards, and also how this affects the CPU.

 

Not surprisingly, the little comparisons ive done show that AMD cpus benefit the most (duh) % wise. However i struggle to find enough data to see how anything from a i5 4690k and above is affected.

Because at some point, raw CPU and GPU performance together simply blur the lines as to where this driver optimization really helps. I havent found this point yet, but if i find enough benchmarks to scavenge data from, then maybe.

[BuckGup]

Don't do it.

 

We all need to help the dying company.

 

No more monopolies!

 

The single worst man in the world is:

download.jpg

Even though they can't exsist due to laws against them and AMD is the only one at fault. Companies need to fulfill customers needs and most customers feel Nvidia suits them the best. Maybe the new AMD GPUs can save them but the GTX950 is a great budget card

[Kinda Bottlenecked]

Shadowplay and H.265 built in encoder (Pretty sure AMD does not have that yet). Another minor thing is less power draw and overall cooler running cards.

I'm pretty sure AMD cards have that... The gaming evolved app thingy...

Anyway to op: if you're thinking nvidia is gonna wow you with their drivers, prepare to be disappointed. Otherwise, their features are more well refined than AMD's

[jhonny]

As some one who just made the same switch albeit dual cards, its alright. the nvidia driver package comes with alot of shit you done really need, and it feels like it downloads something every day. otherwise its alright, you'll notice a little improvement in AAA titles but normal games it aint huge.

 

Keep in mind if you wanna go higher but stay green, upgrade the card, cause SLI kinda sucks.

[IOU4something]

Thank you to everyone who replied. You where all very helpful and the discussion some of yall had was interesting.

It does pain me to leave team red but the deal I got on that 980 strix I couldn't pass up (450 after rebate) compared to 550 for the fury card... But I have been wanting a shield tv so now I can take advantage of the extra functionality.

Also in regards to the dx 12 debate I think AMD has the advantage on the rts side but for games that don't need that many draw calls it may be a bit more even.

[Arcanekitten]

Howdy.

So my xfx 290x decided to kick the bucket (after a couple of years of vram issues) so I settled for the incremental upgrade to the cuda powered 980 strix from Asus.

Since this will be my first ever dedicated piece of Nvidea hardware I have owned I will be stepping into some new territory personally.

So I'm asking if there is anything I need to know going into this upgrade. (potential driver issues, nvidea software, overclocking differences, ect.)

The rest of my system specs are as listed...

-Intel i7 4690K

-MSI Mpower max z87

-16GB 2133mh DDR3 ram

-1000 watt power supply

- Corsare 750D

-120GB sandisk ssd

Thanks in advance for the help.

Please don't buy the 980 the fury vanilla is magnitude better than it and a little more pricey also the r9 390x outperforms it for major price cut vs 980.