nVidia Fanboy Here - Moving on from GTX 760 2GB - Should I go AMD?

[HD64G]

@shovenose I created this account just to reply to you. I used to be a fan of AMD video cards. That was until I tried to overclock my HD 7970. It's been a while but from what I can remember (it's late and I'm not using google) AMD claimed that the 7970 had no limits on overclocking. However, I can tell you that after monitoring the card during testing that the clocks were locked at a certain point. I was trying to reach the same clocks as the R290X, as it's just a 7970 with slightly increased clocks. I had read that you could reflash the BIOS on the 7970 to that of the 290X as long as you used the one that went along with your vram vendor and figured I'd do that to unlock the card. My card was one of the original 7970's and after the reflash it would boot into windows, get recognized as a 290X, but my system would always crash whenever I went to play a game. So even that didn't work. My card has 2 bios chips so no damage was done. However, due to AMD's claim regarding overclocking which was the main reason I bought the card, and my experience in real life, I will never buy an AMD product or recommend them to anyone again.

7970 is the same chip as 280X, not 290X. That's why this crash happened when you flasheb the bios to the wrong one.

 

[Aquinus]

@shovenose I created this account just to reply to you. I used to be a fan of AMD video cards. That was until I tried to overclock my HD 7970. It's been a while but from what I can remember (it's late and I'm not using google) AMD claimed that the 7970 had no limits on overclocking. However, I can tell you that after monitoring the card during testing that the clocks were locked at a certain point. I was trying to reach the same clocks as the R290X, as it's just a 7970 with slightly increased clocks. I had read that you could reflash the BIOS on the 7970 to that of the 290X as long as you used the one that went along with your vram vendor and figured I'd do that to unlock the card. My card was one of the original 7970's and after the reflash it would boot into windows, get recognized as a 290X, but my system would always crash whenever I went to play a game. So even that didn't work. My card has 2 bios chips so no damage was done. However, due to AMD's claim regarding overclocking which was the main reason I bought the card, and my experience in real life, I will never buy an AMD product or recommend them to anyone again.

Sounds like someone got pissed off because they didn't know what they were doing. Thanks for registering to tell us how you made some pretty critical mistakes. You really have no one to blame but yourself, it's not AMD's fault that you didn't learn how to use the overclocking software before you decided to flash the wrong bios to your card.

 

[crazy098]

No, it was the right one. I can show you the eBay listing I made for the card. Like I said, it's late and I didn't feel like checking facts. Regardless, the point I was making is that the clocks are locked when AMD said they weren't. You can google that for yourself. You can see from the pic I took from the listing that the device ID is 1002-6798, which is for 7970/280X.

 

[Aquinus]

I didn't feel like checking facts.

Ah yes, those pesky facts.

I seriously haven't heard of a single person here at TPU having an issue with locked clocks on modern AMD cards. My first ATi card was a 9200 and even that overclocked. Every ATi/AMD card I've had since then has been able to: 9200, x800 gt, 2600 xt, 4850, 6870, and the 390. Also, you did use the wrong BIOS if you flashed a 290X bios to your 280X because they're different cores, different memory controllers, and different CU counts. Now, I haven't had voltage control on every one of those cards but, that isn't the problem at hand, it's locked clocks. Everything about the two other than GCN 1.2 is different so yeah, it was the wrong BIOS and it would kill the card. You can't even put a 290X on a 290 because the extra CUs are laser cut. If you were having trouble overclocking, you were doing it wrong.

Hell, I had a Mobility Radeon HD 3650 in an old laptop and I could even overclock that, so, I suspect you were using the wrong tools or didn't configure something properly because I've found that AfterBurner almost always provides limits that are well higher than what the card is even capable of achieving.

As I said before, you have no one to blame but yourself.

 

[crazy098]

Ah yes, those pesky facts.

I seriously haven't heard of a single person here at TPU having an issue with locked clocks on modern AMD cards. My first ATi card was a 9200 and even that overclocked. Every ATi/AMD card I've had since then has been able to: 9200, x800 gt, 2600 xt, 4850, 6870, and the 390. Also, you did use the wrong BIOS if you flashed a 290X bios to your 280X because they're different cores, different memory controllers, and different CU counts. Now, I haven't had voltage control on every one of those cards but, that isn't the problem at hand, it's locked clocks. Everything about the two other than GCN 1.2 is different so yeah, it was the wrong BIOS and it would kill the card. You can't even put a 290X on a 290 because the extra CUs are laser cut. If you were having trouble overclocking, you were doing it wrong.

Hell, I had a Mobility Radeon HD 3650 in an old laptop and I could even overclock that, so, I suspect you were using the wrong tools or didn't configure something properly because I've found that AfterBurner almost always provides limits that are well higher than what the card is even capable of achieving.

As I said before, you have no one to blame but yourself.

The device ID for a 290X is 1002-67B0 or B1. However, I was wrong in blaming AMD and the clocks. https://www.google.com/search?q=hd+7970+clocks+locked&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8 It was voltage locked and was only done by certain manufacturers: http://forum.giga-byte.co.uk/index.php?topic=10222.0 http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2300069

 

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

Ah yes, those pesky facts.

I seriously haven't heard of a single person here at TPU having an issue with locked clocks on modern AMD cards. My first ATi card was a 9200 and even that overclocked. Every ATi/AMD card I've had since then has been able to: 9200, x800 gt, 2600 xt, 4850, 6870, and the 390. Also, you did use the wrong BIOS if you flashed a 290X bios to your 280X because they're different cores, different memory controllers, and different CU counts. Now, I haven't had voltage control on every one of those cards but, that isn't the problem at hand, it's locked clocks. Everything about the two other than GCN 1.2 is different so yeah, it was the wrong BIOS and it would kill the card. You can't even put a 290X on a 290 because the extra CUs are laser cut. If you were having trouble overclocking, you were doing it wrong.

Hell, I had a Mobility Radeon HD 3650 in an old laptop and I could even overclock that, so, I suspect you were using the wrong tools or didn't configure something properly because I've found that AfterBurner almost always provides limits that are well higher than what the card is even capable of achieving.

As I said before, you have no one to blame but yourself.

I had a 7970 matrix ed, its clocks and many like it had a top clock hard limit (which you couldn't reach to be fair via oc as you said but its there ),and they all without fail had a top core volt lock at 1.25volts that would not budge with out a bios flash even msi afterburner said it upped this but actually didn't ,and even then it took using the LNC version on mine to get to 1.3 core volts, in short they were shit to overclock compared to the 5870 I swapped out for example.

But this threads been derailed to high heaven already so for the third time, just get a gtx 1070 or better still save up and get a 1080 ,xfire or sli I are not for you at this time Op

And I'd recommend a RX 480 but to me a fan of the green team that has allowed themselves to become biased will always find fault in a card from a company they spend time hating on so what's the point.

 

[Tatty_Two]

The device ID for a 290X is 1002-67B0 or B1. However, I was wrong in blaming AMD and the clocks. https://www.google.com/search?q=hd+7970+clocks+locked&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8 It was voltage locked and was only done by certain manufacturers: http://forum.giga-byte.co.uk/index.php?topic=10222.0 http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2300069

Yes there were a few AIB's that locked voltage (XFX springs to mind), there was a whole host of owners joining here trying some VBE7 software to amend their Bios to try to get more voltage but alas, if they come with a locked voltage controller no end of attempts is going to get you there, I may have been lucky, my old 280X ran at 1160 with a voltage hike, my current 290X runs at the same.

 

[cdawall]

Don't know what his issue was my 7950's are flashed to 280, have unlocked voltage and are clocked to 1150. Never had a single issue out of them in the 3 or 4 years I have had them. Sounds like a big box of user error and picking the wrong bios.

 

[Caring1]

@shovenose I will never buy an AMD product or recommend them to anyone again.

You gave a pathetic one of reason which sounds more like sour grapes.
I suppose if you get one bad nVidia card you will never buy them again too.

 

[Aquinus]

The device ID for a 290X is 1002-67B0 or B1. However, I was wrong in blaming AMD and the clocks. https://www.google.com/search?q=hd+7970+clocks+locked&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8 It was voltage locked and was only done by certain manufacturers: http://forum.giga-byte.co.uk/index.php?topic=10222.0 http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2300069

That sounds more correct. I have gotten pissed off at some GPUs for not having control of voltage but, with that said the best overclocking GPU I ever had didn't have voltage control (a GeForce 8600 GTS.)

I do think in this day and age, control over voltages should be considered a necessity but, as you said, that certainly isn't AMD's fault.

Don't know what his issue was my 7950's are flashed to 280, have unlocked voltage and are clocked to 1150. Never had a single issue out of them in the 3 or 4 years I have had them. Sounds like a big box of user error and picking the wrong bios.

Voltage control depends on the vendor and if the controller is accessible via I2C in software.

 

[cdawall]

Voltage control depends on the vendor and if the controller is accessible via I2C in software.

100% correct and I read reviews prior to purchase of my parts to make sure I got one that had control. Research it's what separates those with good flashes from bad.

 

[BiggieShady]

That basically just shuts off Crossfire, which defeats the whole point.
In that case, you are better off just setting Crossfire to off in the profile, since Crimson allows a profile per game.

And run in single R290??

I thought it was AMD issue in general, not only in crossfire ... it figures though (silly me), otherwise backlash would have been enormous

 

[arbiter]

@shovenose I created this account just to reply to you. I used to be a fan of AMD video cards. That was until I tried to overclock my HD 7970. It's been a while but from what I can remember (it's late and I'm not using google) AMD claimed that the 7970 had no limits on overclocking. However, I can tell you that after monitoring the card during testing that the clocks were locked at a certain point. I was trying to reach the same clocks as the R290X, as it's just a 7970 with slightly increased clocks. I had read that you could reflash the BIOS on the 7970 to that of the 290X as long as you used the one that went along with your vram vendor and figured I'd do that to unlock the card. My card was one of the original 7970's and after the reflash it would boot into windows, get recognized as a 290X, but my system would always crash whenever I went to play a game. So even that didn't work. My card has 2 bios chips so no damage was done. However, due to AMD's claim regarding overclocking which was the main reason I bought the card, and my experience in real life, I will never buy an AMD product or recommend them to anyone again.

Um 290x is different gpu then a 7970 was so its not just a 290x with a clock bump. Less you mean originalk 7970 which had a clock of like 850mhz until nvidia dropped gtx680 which amd responded by upclocking 7970 to 1 ghz. only other card that 7970 was is 280x but if i remember right 280x was 50mhz slower then 7970.

 

[deviantyo88]

Nothing that AMD currently sells (R7,R9,Fury) interests me. So, should I buy two RX 480s or one GTX 1070? Your input is much appreciated!

Dont buy any, if you have money for a 1070 wait a while for rx 490/490x AMD might release some 1070/1080 competitors cheaper maybe by 100$ less, they really need marketshare and sales, i wouldnt be surprised if they would announce 490/490x soon after 480 release.
Also old cards will drop in price, used 980's and 980Ti are probably already being sold for cheap.

 

[Moofachuka]

I had dual 7970's and they lasted me 4 years. They aged very well compared to gtx 680. Now I got a 1070 and I'm also very happy. 7970 were very hot and limited my cpu oc (i7 980 @ 4.0ghz) cuz they took up most of my 850w power. Now with my 1070 msi gaming x, my card oc 2100 core and my i7 980 finally can oc 4.3ghz. =)

 

[Nergal]

tldr; can someone make for the OP (and me) a list of all the cons and pros from the NVIDIA;AMD;neutral-camp?
I am not certain if OP has any value of being bombed with these comments tbh.


But to answer his question(s):

1) YES, you can go AMD if you want.

=> Quality-wise; the AIB´s matter more and also any specific problems that pop-up. (so always read reviews of the brand and specific type you want to buy and search for problems relating to that specific card brand (example: rx480 MSI or 1080GTX Gigabyte G1)

2) If you want to spend about 450dollar you can best get a 1070GTX.
3) If you want to spend less (and upgrade other stuff with the money) get a Rx480
4) Spending more (1080GTX) is ludicrous at the moment (VEGA/Ti coming)

 

[Frick]

tldr; can someone make for the OP (and me) a list of all the cons and pros from the NVIDIA;AMD;neutral-camp?

Here's what you do:

1. Speficy your budget
2. Specify your priorities (ie how important is noise and overclocking)
3. Get the fastest thing you can find within your budget and according to your priorities

 

[Nergal]

Here's what you do:

1. Speficy your budget
2. Specify your priorities (ie how important is noise and overclocking)
3. Get the fastest thing you can find within your budget and according to your priorities

Well; I was hoping someone would take the time to actually create a complete PRO-CON comparison on the Firms; not the cards.
He isn´t asking for a specific card; but AMD vs NVIDIA as a whole and how they relate to each other. In effect, as a NV-fanboy he is trying to consider the opposition and wants general well informed information?

 

[Vayra86]

Well; I was hoping someone would take the time to actually create a complete PRO-CON comparison on the Firms; not the cards.
He isn´t asking for a specific card; but AMD vs NVIDIA as a whole and how they relate to each other. In effect, as a NV-fanboy he is trying to consider the opposition and wants general well informed information?

Not really, he is moving on from one GPU to the next and wants buyer's advice. That is all, and any NV/AMD comparison is just flamebait, we all know this. There is no point either - you judge a company by its products' performance and everything else is entirely personal and pretty useless info. GPU's are for gaming, you want the GPU that serves that purpose best based on your personal preferences such as budget, resolution, games you play. Simple, effective.

 

[Tsukiyomi91]

if OP has a budget of around $400 for a GPU, the answer is rather obvious: a GTX1070 with some balance. If it's less than that, the GTX980 still has it's charms for 1440p gaming.

 

[Nergal]

Not really, he is moving on from one GPU to the next and wants buyer's advice. That is all, and any NV/AMD comparison is just flamebait, we all know this. There is no point either - you judge a company by its products' performance and everything else is entirely personal and pretty useless info. GPU's are for gaming, you want the GPU that serves that purpose best based on your personal preferences such as budget, resolution, games you play. Simple, effective.

I thought it would be a touchy subject and no-one wants to get burned.
Bit of a shame thou.

if OP has a budget of around $400 for a GPU, the answer is rather obvious: a GTX1070 with some balance. If it's less than that, the GTX980 still has it's charms for 1440p gaming.

Perhaps a 2nd hand 980GTX could be a good option.
Certainly not a new one. That would be ludicrous! (pricing is way to high)

Don´t forget it only has 4GB. There will be a time, not so far in the future, that on 1440P; the Rx480 8GB performs better than a 980GTX?

 

[Tsukiyomi91]

non Ti 980 still perform well for 1440p. U can check the performance charts TPU publishes. For future-proofing, a single GTX1070 does the job, lasting for a good 3 years, with where our game is going that is...

 

[Tsukiyomi91]

reference model GTX1070 (non Founder's Edition) is selling around MYR2k or so over here in Malaysia, which is quite decent for it's performance. Diff between FE & non-FE is the GPU chip, that's all.

 

[Vayra86]

I thought it would be a touchy subject and no-one wants to get burned.
Bit of a shame thou.



Perhaps a 2nd hand 980GTX could be a good option.
Certainly not a new one. That would be ludicrous! (pricing is way to high)

Don´t forget it only has 4GB. There will be a time, not so far in the future, that on 1440P; the Rx480 8GB performs better than a 980GTX?

Hey buddy, why don't you enlighten us with your pro/con list then? If you can't or won't you are just baiting and that is all, I suspect you can do better, so please be better than this.

On topic; it's quite clear that 4GB is more than enough for this performance level, and for the GTX 980 too. You won't be running 4K on these cards and 1440p has MORE than enough with 4GB. Maybe in SLI/Xfire, but even then, these cards will be bandwidth starved before they can push 8GB. 256-bit and one compression layer instead of the second pass that you get on Pascal, keep that in mind ^^

 

[Aquinus]

Diff between FE & non-FE is the GPU chip, that's all.

I think you mean the difference is the PCB and its components as the GPU itself between FE and non-FE is the same.