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Back in AMD camp ...

R

rdqlus

Limp Gawd
Joined
Mar 24, 2010
Messages
368
In 2012 I swapped out my 7970 for SLI 680s. Here's that post:

Nvidia fanboi born

Now in 2014 I'm back in the red camp. I'd been struggling with nvidia drivers ever since 331.40 was released for BF4. None of the R331 driver series ever worked for me. I couldn't enable Surround without getting either a BSOD or just a blank black screen. I could roll back to earlier drivers (314.07 or 320.49) and everything would work again but I couldn't play BF4 with those after the Dec 16th patch. The nvidia geforce forums/moderators were no help.

Pulled out the 680s and installed the new MSI R9 290 GAMING card. I was up and running in under 15 minutes after literally months of nvidia driver failings. Pretty happy with it so far but all I've played with it is BF4. Overclocked it to 1061MHz and it has been running great.

Hopefully I don't experience any black screen issues that I've seen reported by other users. Not a single crash yet in BF4 :)
 
What? Nvidia drivers were worse for you? Such lies, Nvidia is the best!!!


Enjoy your new card ;)
 
I love how this thread is right next to another titled "MSI gaming cards are a joke and the warranty is a joke" :p

I bounce from camp to camp as well but am usually found on team red. I have a Asus 290 DCII coming, hopefully, within a couple weeks (at MSRP I might add).

From those I can remember, 9500 Pro, X800XT, X1800XT, X1900XT, 4870, 5870, 6970
 
BF4 runs amazingly on AMD hardware. My single 290X felt very close to my 680 SLI setup in general gameplay, I only had to turn down a few settings. 290X CFX blows it away. Enjoy your card :)
 
Sounds awesome man, a good price on a non ref 290 is the sweet spoit right now in gaming for performance. What are your temps when gaming? How loud is the card? How hot do the VRMs get?

Thanks! I only ask this because there are actually no reviews on the non ref MSI card AFAIK so far.
 
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Gumbi10 said:
Sounds awesome man, a good price on a non ref 290 is the sweet spoit right now in gaming for performance. What are your temps when gaming? How loud is the card? How hot do the VRMs get?

Thanks! I only ask this because there are actually no reviews on the non ref MSI card AFAIK so far.
Click to expand...

Overclocked to 1061MHz on the core my temps get up to ~78C ... I haven't checked the VRM temps yet. I have a 200mm side case fan that exhausts air. I don't notice the fans on the R9 290 over the rest of my system when I left it at 977MHz. At 1061MHz I can hear the card once the temps get to about 75C.

I didn't exactly get a deal on this card. I got fed up with nvidia and bought it while I was pissed off. I had been waiting for prices to come down until this happened:

nvidia support example

I'm Haemato in that thread BTW.
 
I just switched back to AMD too because of stability issues (I may have overclocked it too much:p). Been limping along on a gtx460 and couldn't hang on any longer, I was waiting for 20nm GPU's.

I nearly brought a gtx760, but after looking at reviews the R9 270(x)'s run most games fine at 1080p. So I just brought a R9 270, it does have dual 6pin connectors, hopefully it can handle a nice boost.

The funny thing is, the 460 was a stop gap too..
 
When GPU mining comes to an end... i tell you what, im going to get a 4k TV and keep my two 290x for crossfire. some day im going to be gaming like a boss, but for now i just game on my APU while the 290s mine.

Now i regret buying the cheap a4-4000 instead of a 5800k
 
This thing always eluded me but I have never had luck with AMD drivers I've been to the red camp 3 times in the past, and I'm still running one on my brand new laptop, and my secondary machine there drivers just does not feel as polished as nVidia ones, especially with the new GF experience damn it's just painless.

on the other hand people have a sea of problems with nVidia drivers bsod black screens game crashes.
 
Nahawand said:
This thing always eluded me but I have never had luck with AMD drivers I've been to the red camp 3 times in the past, and I'm still running one on my brand new laptop, and my secondary machine there drivers just does not feel as polished as nVidia ones, especially with the new GF experience damn it's just painless.

on the other hand people have a sea of problems with nVidia drivers bsod black screens game crashes.
Click to expand...

Maybe I'm just extremely lucky, but since 1998 when I started buying discrete GPUs, I've never had issues with any driver from either company. And I've owned 5 nVidia and 5 ATI/AMD cards since then. Current being a 290x
 
Same here. Been in both nVidia and AMD camps. Have never used CF or SLI, though, but still.
 
AMD drivers are fine for single GPU, but the problems tend to arise when you deviate from the norm with eyefinity, mGPU, HD3D. And when I say problems arise, that is the point to where AMD just has problems, at least with 7970s, that piss you off to no end - at least with the 7970CF those problems are well documented by even Brent Justice. Read his reviews on 7970CF eyefinity. He makes several mentions of how lacking it was in several areas. And to this day those problems are not fixed. I do think AMD single GPU drivers are pretty good nowadays. For single GPU AMD has improved quite a bit. For everything outside of single GPU, especially for the older cards, well, not so good.

Not trying to hate, but that's my experience. AMD single GPU is great, but I really hope AMD hires more talent for software engineering, because they do need it. Not only for exception users (eyefinity, CF, HD3D, , eyefinity + CF frame pacing, DX9 CF frame pacing, etc)) but for additional features as well - AMD hasn't added much in the way of features over the years. We'll see though. Honestly, I would love for AMD to step it up in the software area because it would bring better competition for all of us and make AMD more viable for those exceptional usage scenarios. And since AMD is back to making money again, I really truly do hope they invest that money in themselves with more software engineering talent, and less marketing nonsense. I think a big part of the problem is that in the past, nvidia had a lot more money to throw at software whereas AMD didn't - AMD IIRC had one guy working on drivers, who posts as catalyst_creator on twitter. One guy doing drivers. That's just unheard of isn't it? It seems to me they need to throw more money at this, and hopefully improve. I want them to improve.

I understand the 290 and 290X cards are better in crossfire, but the fan levels for crossfire reference without throttling would be high - and custom cards in crossfire are just not ideal because of dumping heat in the case. There's water I guess, though.

Hopefully that doesn't come across as hate, because it isn't intended like that. I really do want AMD to improve in this respect, because it's an area that they need improvement in.
 
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PureBooYah said:
Maybe I'm just extremely lucky, but since 1998 when I started buying discrete GPUs, I've never had issues with any driver from either company. And I've owned 5 nVidia and 5 ATI/AMD cards since then. Current being a 290x
Click to expand...

same here starting from 2001. i've owned 7 Nvidia cards and 6 ATI/AMD cards. all have been single gpu configurations (which partly explains my good luck) with the exception of SLI GTX460's which i had zero driver issues with.
 
xoleras said:
AMD drivers are fine for single GPU, but the problems tend to arise when you deviate from the norm with eyefinity, mGPU, HD3D. That is when AMD basically, well, at least with the 7970 those problems are well documented by even Brent Justice. And to this day those problems are not fixed. I do think AMD single GPU drivers are pretty good nowadays. For single GPU AMD has improved quite a bit. For everything outside of single GPU, especially for the older cards, well, not so good.

Not trying to hate, but that's my experience. AMD single GPU is great, but I really hope AMD hires more talent for software engineering, because they do need it. Not only for exception users (eyefinity, CF, HD3D, , eyefinity + CF frame pacing, DX9 CF frame pacing, etc)) but for additional features as well - AMD hasn't added much in the way of features over the years. We'll see though. Honestly, I would love for AMD to step it up in the software area because it would bring better competition for all of us and make AMD more viable for those exceptional usage scenarios. And since AMD is back to making money again, I really truly do hope they invest that money in themselves with more software engineering talent, and less marketing nonsense. I think a big part of the problem is that in the past, nvidia had a lot more money to throw at software whereas AMD didn't - AMD IIRC had one guy working on drivers, who posts as catalyst_creator on twitter. One guy doing drivers. That's just unheard of isn't it? It seems to me they need to throw more money at this, and hopefully improve. I want them to improve.

I understand the 290 and 290X cards are better in crossfire, but the fan levels for crossfire reference without throttling would be high - and custom cards in crossfire are just not ideal because of dumping heat in the case. There's water I guess, though.
Click to expand...

What features would you like them to add, out of curiosity? I haven't used a recent Radeon card in over a year, so I forget what's available over there on the AMD side.
 
I find myself using a lot of the NV features a lot, such as adaptive vsync, downsampling, driver AO, monitor refresh overclocking, and some other things. NV also has more "fine tuning" to where you can create custom profiles and even custom power profiles on a per program basis.

AMD hasn't really added much since MLAA to my recollection. But the main point is, AMD has historically been great for single GPU, but not so great in exceptional use scenarios. That's another area that needs to improved, especially for the older than 290 cards.

Again, not hate, but I would like AMD to fix these things as to better the GPU competition landscape. I find myself preferring nvidia by a wide margin mainly because of the software (IMO) being much much better. The performance is similar, but the non performance areas I do think NV is better in, especially for exceptional use scenarios (ie surround, mGPU, 3d, etc).
 
xoleras said:
I find myself using a lot of the NV features a lot, such as adaptive vsync, downsampling, driver AO, monitor refresh overclocking, and some other things. NV also has more "fine tuning" to where you can create custom profiles and even custom power profiles on a per program basis.

AMD hasn't really added much since MLAA to my recollection. But the main point is, AMD has historically been great for single GPU, but not so great in exceptional use scenarios. That's another area that needs to improved, especially for the older than 290 cards.

Again, not hate, but I would like AMD to fix these things as to better the GPU competition landscape. I find myself preferring nvidia by a wide margin mainly because of the software (IMO) being much much better. The performance is similar, but the non performance areas I do think NV is better in, especially for exceptional use scenarios.
Click to expand...


I didn't know that AMD didn't have those things. Interesting.
 
jbltecnicspro said:
What features would you like them to add, out of curiosity? I haven't used a recent Radeon card in over a year, so I forget what's available over there on the AMD side.
Click to expand...

Short list:

Shadowplay equivalent
Custom resolutions built into CCC (no more EDID overrides)
PLP Eyefinity
An overlay for AMD Overdrive so I don't need to run MSI Afterburner/RivaTuner
Get Crossfire support to a point where I'm not afraid to buy a 2nd card. Have it just work.
Alt-Tab'ing out of a full-screen game shouldn't cause a resync of the monitors if the desktop is the same resolution (WTF does this happen?)
Gsync/FreeSync support
 
PureBooYah said:
Maybe I'm just extremely lucky, but since 1998 when I started buying discrete GPUs, I've never had issues with any driver from either company. And I've owned 5 nVidia and 5 ATI/AMD cards since then. Current being a 290x
Click to expand...

Jesus, just 10 cards since 1998?

I think I must have that many a year..
 
jbltecnicspro said:
I didn't know that AMD didn't have those things. Interesting.
Click to expand...

They do - Radeon Pro.

Not made by AMD itself, but does that matter?

per profile SSAA, MSAA, AAA, EQAA, MLAA, FXAA, SMAA, SweetFx, AO, V-sync, Triple Buffering, Dyamic Vsync (DVC), Dynamic Framerate control (DFC), Quality Levels, Crossfire Modes, Eye-Finity control, Oveedrive Control, GPU Spoofing, OSD, Video Recording, CPU Core Affinity, Program Aliasing (multiple .exe per profile) and so on.
 
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xoleras said:
I find myself using a lot of the NV features a lot, such as adaptive vsync, downsampling, driver AO, monitor refresh overclocking, and some other things. NV also has more "fine tuning" to where you can create custom profiles and even custom power profiles on a per program basis.

AMD hasn't really added much since MLAA to my recollection. But the main point is, AMD has historically been great for single GPU, but not so great in exceptional use scenarios. That's another area that needs to improved, especially for the older than 290 cards.

Again, not hate, but I would like AMD to fix these things as to better the GPU competition landscape. I find myself preferring nvidia by a wide margin mainly because of the software (IMO) being much much better. The performance is similar, but the non performance areas I do think NV is better in, especially for exceptional use scenarios (ie surround, mGPU, 3d, etc).
Click to expand...
FYI AMD does have driver profiles on a per-program basis now. Most of the rest of the features can be enabled in RadeonPro too. I don't know why AMD doesn't just hire the guy, as RadeonPro is a much nicer tool than Catalyst Control Center is.

I also believe that the guy on twitter was the manager of the driver team. Pretty sure they have more than one person working on drivers. I saw a job posting for an OpenGL developer as well a little while back.
 
lavaheadache said:
Jesus, just 10 cards since 1998?

I think I must have that many a year..
Click to expand...

You buy a new card every month or so?

Not everyone is so rich... I myself am on my second card (7950) in 4 and a half years, and have only begun considering getting a 290 Trix recently.
 
enh, if you sell them quick enough on ebay, you dont lose that much money.
 
I average about 1 card every 2 years and I thought I was bad ;)
 
lavaheadache said:
Jesus, just 10 cards since 1998?

I think I must have that many a year..
Click to expand...


lol, I had been buying 1 a year until 2009 when the 5870 came out. I had that for over 4 years, never really had a reason to upgrade since it played all those console ports just fine. ;) Sadly that was also the last year I bought a CPU, i7 920. 5 years in March for that thing. It's next on my list.
 
I got my 290 early and it has been fine and games great.. I waited awhile for Sapphire to release TRIXX for the card and after replacing my TIM and making my own fan profile and uncapping the 47% fan speed ,, well the card is a joy now as no more 95c temps and the clocks stay higher and runs a lot more like my old ref HD 7950 did.
 
Did you use the custom fan setup from Trixx? Or just use fixed ? Custom seems to work great here :)
 
I used the custom and made my own profile .. the gpu seems to settle in at 52-53% fanspeed and 82 to 83c temp letting it decide what it wants..
 
Hard to say it is rather simple program not as many features but if you want to adjust the basic things it works.

Then again simple programs tend to work better ;) .
 
I never used AB myself and I have not tried any overclocking with Trixx yet but just the fan profile.. I like to run a log file using GPU-Z while gaming or benchmarking so I can go back and read the data .. I have the card to a point that only gpu load drop will drop gpu clocks as what I think AMD's idea really was to help save power.

Also running it cooler then 95c will help save power and heat. but some may feel 52 to 53% is to much noise but 2 out of 3 ain't bad results..
 
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