Am I Missing Out?

[satindemon4u]

I have been an Nvidia user all my gaming life. I just always have been. I have always been pretty pleased with the products but I have always wondered if I'm missing out with AMD? I have noticed that a lot of the time it seems that an AMD equivalent to an Nvidia is slightly less in the performance area, is this totally true?

Currently I have an NVIDIA GTX 680 Gigabyte Windforce OC. What would be AMD's equivalent? Should I stick with my 680? Scored it for $210 on ebay when the 980's came around.

 

[Nailezs]

Generally amd/intel and ati(amd)/nvidia has come always come down to performance vs price. History has shown that, usually, intel and nvidia cost more and perform better, while amd and what used to br ati performed slightly less but cost significantly less.

 

[satindemon4u]

See and that was always my thought on it. So if I wanted a better card or better performance should i...

A. Buy another card exactly like what I have and run then together.

B. Switch to AMD and get a more powerful card.

C. Buy a newer Nvidia and pay more?

 

[erocker]

No.. you're not missing out on anything.

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

What are you actually asking?

Are you trying to open another green/red debate? if you are...... just say........ so i can go and read something more interesting.

 

[Frag_Maniac]

Often times what price you can get a card for has more to do with how pleased you are with performance than anything to do with brand loyalty or claims of superior performance.

For instance I got my 7970 about 2.5 yrs ago for $330 with a solid 3 game bundle, and they're all great games that were fetching good prices at the time.

I don't regret having purchased it one bit, and it may even do well into 2016 when I plan my next major system overhaul.

Had I needed a card when the 900s came out though, I'd have gotten a 970. Sometimes AMD has better bang for buck on high end cards though. You just have to stay in tune with the trends.

The biggest GPU news brewing right now is how the Fury line will bench against Nvidia's new 980 Ti, esp the equal priced Fury X. Many are waiting with bated breath.

No.. you're not missing out on anything.

Then again, you were recently quoted as saying this regarding driver problems...

Yeah, I'm about to take this 970 out and put my 7970 back in. If AMD releases a card that competes with the 980 Ti in performance and price, I know what I'm getting. This is ridiculous.

I've been saying for some time I'm hoping Pascal will be everything it's advertised as, but there's a strong possibility NVLink will never make it to consumer MBs or get Intel signing on, which could be a game changer.

At this point I'm still keeping an eye out on both camps with no assumptions of one being superior to the other.

 

[MrGenius]

Do you consider owning a card that's most likely going to take a huge shit on you in a hurry if you even moderately OC it to be missing out?

If so, then ABSOLUTELY. You're missing out BIG TIME!

 

[Nordic]

As a nvidia user you are not missing out on anything. Amd' users are not missing out on anything. I own both. If you are thinking about upgrading, look at what has the best performance per $ or performance per Watt depending on what matters more to you.
Feature and driver wise they are functionally the same experience.

 

[xfia]

Do you consider owning a card that's most likely going to take a huge shit on you in a hurry if you even moderately OC it to be missing out?

If so, then ABSOLUTELY. You're missing out BIG TIME!

was this one the early top end models that had a lot of issues or something?

@satindemon4u i didnt see on the nv site what models are supported with dx12.0 and win10 but im sure rocker is right so you just need windows10 that is probably a free upgrade to you when it comes out and your good to go for any new dx12 game around the corner.

 

[El_Mayo]

Nothing at all, both cards play games. They both have pretty similar unique technology except maybe PhysX which I don't know has an equivalent on AMD.

 

[MrGenius]

was this one the early top end models that had a lot of issues or something?

No. But it's based on the following:

1. I OC all my cards as far as they'll go, and leave them that way.
2. Doing #1 to an Nvidia card WILL KILL IT...eventually. "In a hurry" is an exaggeration, spurred on by complete and utter disdain for Nvidia's weak-ass overpriced crap. I've only killed 2 cards from OCing alone, both were made by guess who? I could also put it like this, the only 2 Nvidia cards I've ever owned, died from being moderately OCed. From which you can also infer, Nvidia cards don't OC as well as AMD cards. Not as high, and not for as long. I consider the measly amount I was able to OC them to be A COMPLETE JOKE, compared to what I've achieved with my AMD cards.
3. It's IMPOSSIBLE to kill an AMD card by #1.
4. I've killed 2 AMD cards, but I HAD to hard mod them first. They WOULD NOT DIE any other way.

 

[R-T-B]

I've killed 2 AMD cards, but I HAD to hard mod them first. They WOULD NOT DIE any other way.

Judging from the fact a large percentage of used cards have been bitcoin mining 24/7 for YEARS and are still running around in resold gaming machines, I don't find that hard to believe...

 

[xfia]

idk.. i think most of what of what is needed for overclocking the limits of chip if you get one of the better ones is put on there by most of the same oem's as amd unless your saying the silicone dies.. right now amd is actually using more cores while nvindia is using higher clocks.
edit-seems thats true except on titanx.. maybe maxwell looses efficiency at 3k cores if you ramp up the clock or they should have gave it a water cooler like fury instead of the loud blower that throttles.

 

[Ebo]

1 of my close friends just bourght a GFX980TI the other day, and he is NOT a happy camper.
Its a ref.design with a ref. cooler and when he Oc's it starts to throttle just before it becomes very loud, so he is not happy.

My other friend has 2xGFX980TI in SLI and he is happy, all is watercooled and dead silent, and oohhh myyyy his system can put out some polygons.

 

[satindemon4u]

Well then. It seems I did spark the great debate....again. I was expecting some good answers (which I got) but wasn't totally prepared the debate that followed haha. Ok so then, let's narrow this down.

Would I be better off buying the same card I have now and running them together, or sell my current card and combine that with cash to get something better? Which would be better in terms of price for performance. I know I could quickly google "two cards or one better one" and get some answers but in my specific case, if someone could say "yes run the two together" or "no sell it and grab yourself a ____________"

 

[Nordic]

You would probably get the most price per performance from a second 680 if that is what you want. I personally only like having a single card. Seeing as how you want to maximize price to performance, "yes run the two together."

 

[Frag_Maniac]

No. But it's based on the following:

1. I OC all my cards as far as they'll go, and leave them that way.
2. Doing #1 to an Nvidia card WILL KILL IT...eventually. "In a hurry" is an exaggeration, spurred on by complete and utter disdain for Nvidia's weak-ass overpriced crap. I've only killed 2 cards from OCing alone, both were made by guess who? I could also put it like this, the only 2 Nvidia cards I've ever owned, died from being moderately OCed. From which you can also infer, Nvidia cards don't OC as well as AMD cards. Not as high, and not for as long. I consider the measly amount I was able to OC them to be A COMPLETE JOKE, compared to what I've achieved with my AMD cards.
3. It's IMPOSSIBLE to kill an AMD card by #1.
4. I've killed 2 AMD cards, but I HAD to hard mod them first. They WOULD NOT DIE any other way.

Interesting, I'd like to see an in depth study on this, but it will likely never happen due to inciting net riots and potential lawsuits. LOL

I'm not one to try to push a GPU harder than I think it can handle, but I've always been under the assumption pretty much any chip will have a normal life expectancy if your OC is truly stable.

 

[satindemon4u]

Hmmm. So a second 680 then?

I bet I can find some videos of people running it.

 

[kn00tcn]

i would enjoy it for a year until pascal/next radeon/16nm? second 680 IF NEEDED (unlikely unless you really want certain settings turned on)?

you're potentially missing fun tools like radeonpro which added game specific AO injection with the help of someone from the driver team, but i dont know if it's been abandoned again

it all depends on which games you play, what performance you want in case the game has problems on a certain architecture, if you want physx/gameworks features

right now the upcoming radeon nano seems most exciting if it's supposedly faster than a 390x yet smaller & a single power connector, but you would lose physx & some gameworks

 

[xfia]

nano is the fastest smallest thing around at 2.5x(250%) performance per watt and faster than the 290x. two will deliver very well at 4k or 1080p eyefinity in small form factors in any game and thats the baby fury with 5k 1440p eyefinity at reasonable settings. optimal support for vr headsets with slip flame rendering. the 3 displayports are excellent for anyone giving the bandwidth you need to run alot of smaller resolution monitors any of latest greatest gaming experiences available that is also enabled to transfer hdmi 2.0 via adapter.

 

[Frag_Maniac]

^That vid goes WAY out of sync at 26 min, had to stop watching, disappointing.

 

[GorbazTheDragon]

I'm sitting quite happily on my (second hand) 670. I wouldn't throw any money in any of the GPUs that are out ATM. I would wait until Pascal and Arctic Islands.

 

[satindemon4u]

Hmmm. So maybe I should do a little waiting then?

 

[Nordic]

Its a long wait. When it comes out, people will be saying wait for the next gpu.

 

[xfia]

probably a good idea to wait a few weeks.. the market will take a little time to adjust to the new line up.
nano crossfire might be on my christmas list to myself lol.. i wish. probably 1 tho.