AMD First And Last Time >_<

[Inceptor]

That's why you don't buy brand new hardware right at or near release.
It's all part of the early adopter's tax.

To OP, repeat after me:
"I will not buy newly released video cards until the drivers are matured"
"I will not bow to empty and vacuous consumerism and buy the newest thing, just because it's new"

 

[cadaveca]

Sounds like my 5870 experience. OMG it was horrible. RMA's 9 cards. The 6-series were much better. NO RMAs needed. Thank god I cannot afford to buy cards right now, and get to miss the fun.

Thanks for taking one for tne team.

 

[jaredpace]

Amd video card drivers suck - not gonna lie, especially compared to Nvidia. I use an AMD 6850, and my drivers work flawlessly, however AMD's support for the 7900 is pure crap so far.

They don't fix problems fast enough... the mouse cursor, flickering, grey screen of death, wake from sleep, powerplay etc...

I like my 6850 and it works good in games. But it seems that Nvidia's high end (580 and SLI) gets quicker and better support than AMDs high end (7900 and CFX)

I like NVCP and Inspector better than CCC and AMD's support reputation.

AMD makes much better hardware though. Nvidia glues the cheapest bargain basement shit they can find to their pcbs and they make a hella-unefficient gpu ... at least until kepler arrives (which kepler basically mimics AMD's cayman design).

Now AMD loses all around once nvidia starts shipping more efficient designs. AMD will lose on every metric - especially software and drivers.

Good job AMD, fokn idiots. Although I'll still keep my 6850 as it does everything fine.


To the Aussie who started this thread.... A 7970 is not a nintendo DS. Expect issues. A 580 is also not a nintendo DS, but I'll agree that it will be much more user friendly, and newbie friendly, and have better faster software support and fixes.

 

[lilhasselhoffer]

How can you bake a card and get it working again?

Simple.

When a chip is originally soldered, or under physical jarring, the traces can be incomplete or partially broken. In order to reform these traces the solder needs to be melted and reset.

Reflow ovens are often used to reset solder. These reflow ovens are far more temperature controlled than a standard oven, but work in much the same way. As the solder is heated and melts capillary action sucks the traces back together. Once cooled these reformed traces allow the graphics card to perform correctly again.

This is why you can occasionally get PS3s to start working again by blocking the exhaust ports, and why baking graphics cards will occasionally resurrect them. The big catch is the oven needs to heat evenly, and the temperature range has to be controlled well.

 

[Goodman]

Not sure about these "new" 120hz monitors but doesn't need 2x DVI connection?
Meaning that you'll have to use 2 DVI port on the card? (which most cards only got one )
Or is it a y-cable like?
Or using an DVI port + DP?
Anyhow from what i heard the HDMI can't use the 120hz so don't use it

Now ill still gona try to help you out here...

1- Could be a setting on your monitor itself check your manual

2- Could be a driver issue may have to wait for the next one (Lucky you , you get an update one every month , you wont have to wait 3months or more like Nvidia ,Yeah!!)

3- Go into Display/screen resolution/monitor & set manually your refresh rate to 120hz & apply (if not already?)

Sorry! can't help you more on this as i don't know much about 120hz monitor

 

[LiveOrDie]

They'll probably need to iron out the drivers as I have seen many peoples complaining about glitches on HD79xx, I think your best bet is to try a clean windows install, I know it is a pain but it could solve your problems, I know as personal experience that the Catalysts tend to conflict with the wierdest parts in your system.

For example if I set edge detect AA on CCC I somehow get bluescreens , I also gave up on CFX and unplugged one of my cards, soooo many less problems!

You could even replace your card with a custom GTX 580, over 950 MHz on core eats almost every game at 1920x1080.

Done that already clean install didnt fix any think.

Sapphire lover here as well. I thought I had issues with 120hz as well but it turns out only one of the 2 dvi ports on the card supports 120hz out. For my 6970 its the dvi port beside the hdmi and dp. Have you tried both of the dvi ports with a dual dvi cable? Using 12.2p drivers here. Shows up as 12.3 on gpuz.

7970 only have 1 DVI port dude also im not forcing 120hz.

Not sure about these "new" 120hz monitors but doesn't need 2x DVI connection?
Meaning that you'll have to use 2 DVI port on the card? (which most cards only got one )
Or is it a y-cable like?
Or using an DVI port + DP?
Anyhow from what i heard the HDMI can't use the 120hz so don't use it

Now ill still gona try to help you out here...

1- Could be a setting on your monitor itself check your manual

2- Could be a driver issue may have to wait for the next one (Lucky you , you get an update one every month , you wont have to wait 3months or more like Nvidia ,Yeah!!)

3- Go into Display/screen resolution/monitor & set manually your refresh rate to 120hz & apply (if not already?)

Sorry! can't help you more on this as i don't know much about 120hz monitor

No 120hz is supported only though DVI-D your monitor needs to support Dual Link DVI and DP can support it with no problem because it has a lot of head room than DVI does, and like i said the monitor works fine on my GTX 480.

 

[ChristTheGreat]

Simple.

When a chip is originally soldered, or under physical jarring, the traces can be incomplete or partially broken. In order to reform these traces the solder needs to be melted and reset.

Reflow ovens are often used to reset solder. These reflow ovens are far more temperature controlled than a standard oven, but work in much the same way. As the solder is heated and melts capillary action sucks the traces back together. Once cooled these reformed traces allow the graphics card to perform correctly again.

This is why you can occasionally get PS3s to start working again by blocking the exhaust ports, and why baking graphics cards will occasionally resurrect them. The big catch is the oven needs to heat evenly, and the temperature range has to be controlled well.

That was not a question really, I wasn't asking, but there is not alot of Video card series I've heard about baking the card.. Only the G80 and thoses that where the update of and those chipset laptop..

Now AMD loses all around once nvidia starts shipping more efficient designs. AMD will lose on every metric - especially software and drivers.

sure, and AMD is going to produce chip for the new xbox, the new Playstation, and already producing for the Wii 2??

As for now, Kepler is not there, so we just don't know.. and sorry, they where supposed to come later, and the yadvance, there might be a reason to this. They sayd: "We thought the HD7970 would be faster", but well they advance the launch of the Kepler family.. Also, they say: "oh, the Kepler GPU is difficult to produce" and blahblah, they are just late now.. Just wait n see, you can'T say kepler will be "MUCH" stronger or power effiency.. All of this is speculation, like for the TDP of 300w for the GTX 670Ti while the HD7970 has a TDP of 210w.

Anyway, I'll stop answering those troll post, this will bring us nowhere

 

[ChristTheGreat]

Done that already clean install didnt fix any think.



7970 only have 1 DVI port dude also im not forcing 120hz.



No 120hz is supported only though DVI-D your monitor needs to support Dual Link DVI and DP can support it with no problem because it has a lot of head room than DVI does, and like i said the monitor works fine on my GTX 480.

You might have tried the driver on the CD?

have you also tried to remove anything from registry, and folder from the driver, then do a clean installation? Edit: I saw you did a clean windows install

Have you updated the .net framework?

Sorry alot of question, but it's difficult to see the problem, if you don't explain everything you did as test in a single post

Instead, if you sell your card for 400$, I'll take (Joking man, I know this could piss off someone when hardware is not working like we want )

 

[erocker]

Not a single problem to report here. Using the 1/20/2012 7970 drivers.

 

[cadaveca]

Not a single problem to report here. Using the 1/20/2012 7970 drivers.

No 120Hz monitor, either. There's always something, and because it's not something that is commonly used, good luck waiting for a fix. 120Hz problems are to the 7-series what mutli-monitor and flickering desktops was to the 5-series.

 

[erocker]

Hooked up to my 120hz television no issues either.

 

[cadaveca]

Hooked up to my 120hz television no issues either.

Using HDMI?

And is it an actual 120Hz TV, or one of the many that say 120Hz, but merely double the "framerate" internally?


Might help the OP.

 

[trickson]

What else can i say other than i hate this 7970 its has a load of problem which piss me off, the drivers are S##T and i really think AMD is cheaping out on components, Take this for one the DVI port cant handle 120hz but the DP port can, But even then using the DP port just randomly my screen will cut out and it will say i should be using 1920x1080 which i am i turn off and on my screen and it works again, I was going to wait for nvidia high end card but i think what ever they release next will do.

Want to trade that card for my 2 cards? no problems at all with them.

 

[erocker]

It's a vizio VL470M and I used HDMI. It is supposedly an actual 120hz TV.

 

[trickson]

It's a vizio VL470M and I used HDMI. It is supposedly an actual 120hz TV.

That is sweet! Man you have all the good stuff!

 

[erocker]

That is sweet! Man you have all the good stuff!

I work hard for it.

 

[trickson]

I work hard for it.

I wish I had a job to work hard for stuff like this!

 

[BlackOmega]

@BlackOmega & ChristTheGreat

I'm glad they work for you guys and as I said to Frick earlier, people can have wildly different experiences with either brand and both be right, because there's so many variables involved.

I can't really remember the details of the differences now, as it's been about three years or so, but there always seemed to be some stupid glitch or other when running games with AMD in my rig. Also, swapping out video cards could cause problems, too. Note that I was running XP back then, too, which makes quite a bit of difference.

Of course, things change over time and three years is a long time. However, whenever I see threads about driver/game glitches on TPU, many more of them seem to be about AMD problems than nvidia problems, so it doesn't look like things have changed all that much, really.

One thing I do remember though, is when I compared the 4870 and the 8800 GTX:

- the 4870 benched higher in official tests, but didn't feel that much faster in practice
- some games actually ran faster on the 8800 GTX! No, I don't remember which ones now
- Fallout 3 gameplay was smoother on the 8800 GTX, with less hitches, despite the 8800 GTX having lower frame rate performance
- The 8800 GTX is pretty quiet while gaming and keeps the card at a reasonable temperature. Running both fans at 100% made a leafblower out of the 4870, but was only moderately loud on the 8800 GTX. nvidia's cooler cooled better (4870 ran really hot) and made less noise while at it. I really hate loud fan noise

I then got the GTX 285 and the experience was like the 8800 GTX, only with waay more horsepower!

You're absolutely right. People's experiences very and hence will sway their preference. I asked for an elaboration because I just don't like people saying "Oh I had a bad experience and now I have x brand."

But I still find it odd that you had issues with your 4870. My 4870's (XFX xxx reference cards) just performed leaps and bounds better than any Nvidia card I had at the time. Literally doubled the performance in everything.
And true that 4870's can get pretty loud with the fan at 100%. Hell anything over 55% is barely tolerable. However, the main reason for this is the horrible TIM they used. The TIM they used is/was a silver thermal paste similar to AS5. While this may work well on CPUs that have a lot irregularities, this paste is absolutely horrible on GPUs'. Instead of working as a thermal conductor, it seems to work more like an insulator.
With both of my reference 4870's, I resat the heat sink and used a silver pigeon poop TIM. It's a lot thinner and both the GPU and heat sink have a really smooth finish; kind of like a lapped surface. With that type of finish the thinner the TIM the better.
Anyway, just by doing that, I lowered my idle and load temps 13C. Results were the same on both cars. They would idle @ 62C and load @ 75C. After TIM idle 49C and load at 62C. At that point the cards became barely audible. I was literally like this after

Hooked up to my 120hz television no issues either.

Using HDMI?

And is it an actual 120Hz TV, or one of the many that say 120Hz, but merely double the "framerate" internally?

AFAIK, there are no "true" 120Hz TV's. Technically speaking, last I checked, TV's only have a 60Hz input. The 120Hz TV's simple double the frame.

However, erocker, if you do have a true 120Hz set that has a 120Hz input, I need the model # STAT!

 

[cadaveca]

AFAIK, there are no "true" 120Hz TV's.

There are now, for sure(and for at least the past 8 months, at least). Many aren't though. I think maybe HDMI 1.4 or something is needed? all these video inputs, and crap confuse me.

 

[BlackOmega]

There are now, for sure(and for at least the past 8 months, at least). Many aren't though. I think maybe HDMI 1.4 or something is needed? all these video inputs, and crap confuse me.

When I get serious about spending some cash on 42"+ 120Hz TV, I'm going to do a little more research. I've talked with some sales rep's at the local "TV store" (these guys are very well informed), the guy told me that all TV's, including plasma's, some of which have 600Hz refresh rates, still only can accept a 60Hz signal. And then depending on the refresh rate, it'll repeat the same frame up to 10 times to achieve their advertised refresh rate.
The guy also told me that as far as he knew, only actual monitors can accept an input signal of over 60Hz.

 

[Horrux]

Hooked up to my 120hz television no issues either.

120hz televisions don't accept a 120hz signal, with some scarce Samsung DLP TV's exception.

 

[erocker]

Well.. I guess the OP should just sell off his 7970 then.

 

[xenocide]

It's a vizio VL470M and I used HDMI. It is supposedly an actual 120hz TV.

That model uses "Smooth Motion Technology" which is Vizio's name for Post Processing. It's not true 120hz. Every site I checked about Smooth Motion said it was Post Processing. I'm not sure you can actually do 1080p @ 120hz over HDMI. I know DP has enough bandwidth, as does DVI-D, but HDMI I thought was right on the limit so most companies played it safe and restricted it to DVI-D and sometimes DP.

 

[trickson]

Quit knocking erockers kick-ass stuff! Man all you negative Nellie's!

 

[cadaveca]

Well.. I guess the OP should just sell off his 7970 then.

Kinda sad, but if it doesn't work for the application it's intended for, then I gotta agree. The issues I had with the 5-series cards are what had me hold back from selling off some of my current hardware to get a 7970/7950. Perhaps it's just a driver thing, or maybe a BIOS update for the card is needed...I'd really like to hear what AMD engineers would say about this issue, and whether it's something they can replicate, or if it's just a bad card. I know the flicker issues I ahd with the 5-series card never really did get solved, and it most definitely wasn't a hardware thing other than the 5-series design, as the 6950's that repalced those cards work far better, although not 100% flawlessly.


I'd like to hear the real end of this story, for sure.