Goodbye ATI, I'm coming over boys and girls

Capt. Insano

Weaksauce
Joined
Jun 14, 2006
Messages
99
I've been using ATI/AMD video cards for as long as I can remember. Currently, I use 2 6850's in xfire and I am so fed up with the driver issues that it seems like I spend more time troubleshooting my games than actually playing them. The latest drivers broke WoW for me to the point that I get artifacts all over the screen. I get bad micro stuttering in SWTOR and BF3, not to mention constant crashing and BSOD. The manual fan speed setting in CCC does not work no matter what I have it set to.

So today, I found a used EVGA 580 for $279 and I bought it. Should be here in a couple of days. I'll sell my 6850's and be done with AMD. It's a shame really. AMD has such a brilliant hardware design for the 79xx series of cards but such crap drivers. So for now, I'll see what life is like on this side of the pond...
 
Welcome back. I gave up a while ago. With FXAA taking out MLAA with a vicious uppercut to the chin there's now few reasons (imo) to own ATI if you're a hardcore gamer. SGSSAA just sweetens the deal. MSAA + SGSSAA + FXAA = gamerspooge.

I find myself saying "brilliant hardware, crap drivers" about every ATI series since... well... always, if I'm totally honest. Before r300 their hardware was deficient but since then with only a few exceptions the hardware has been fantastic. But I've seen better drivers from companies with two dozen employees and 5% of ATI's annual revenue. Hell, I've seen better drivers outside bars around closing time. It's disgraceful with such good hardware.
 
well it wasn’t called All Trouble Inside for no reason :D welcome to the right side my friend, you’ll notice that this subforum is dead because its impossible to have problems with the green drivers, we just come here to share happy stories and welcome new converts. /maximum flamesuit on
 
I really wanted a 680 but they being in such short supply and the price being a premium, I figured $279 for a 580 was a great deal. I game at 19x12 so I'm sure it will be able to handle anything I can throw at it for now. I'm giddy as a school girl counting the minutes for the FedEx driver to show up. :D
 
Not a bad choice, and the new beta drivers add some of the features from the 680 release to the 5xx series.
 
I tolerated all those issues for some time, but the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back for me was the stunt AMD pulled with renumbering the Radeon HD series between the 5000 and 6000 generations.

If you aren't familiar with the stunt to which I am referring, AMD changed the relevance of the 3-digit suffixes when they retired the ATI brand and began branding Radeons as AMD Radeons.

Prior to that, you could expect that the successive generation would surpass the prior in the same series. For example, a 5850 would be a direct upgrade to the 4850, but the 4870 would give a 5850 a run for its money. However, a 5870 would be an upgrade to the 4870, and so on.

With the 6000 series, the 30, 50, 70 and 90 designations stepped down one series. This resulted in the upgrade to the 5850 being the 6870; a 5850 outperformed a 6850, and a 5870 outperformed a 6870. And not to an insignificant degree.

AMD's justification for this was that it lowered the entry point for "high-end" graphics. The translation was: You're getting the same performance for your money, you just get the warm fuzzy feeling of having a higher number on your card."
 
I tolerated all those issues for some time, but the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back for me was the stunt AMD pulled with renumbering the Radeon HD series between the 5000 and 6000 generations.

If you aren't familiar with the stunt to which I am referring, AMD changed the relevance of the 3-digit suffixes when they retired the ATI brand and began branding Radeons as AMD Radeons.

Prior to that, you could expect that the successive generation would surpass the prior in the same series. For example, a 5850 would be a direct upgrade to the 4850, but the 4870 would give a 5850 a run for its money. However, a 5870 would be an upgrade to the 4870, and so on.

With the 6000 series, the 30, 50, 70 and 90 designations stepped down one series. This resulted in the upgrade to the 5850 being the 6870; a 5850 outperformed a 6850, and a 5870 outperformed a 6870. And not to an insignificant degree.

AMD's justification for this was that it lowered the entry point for "high-end" graphics. The translation was: You're getting the same performance for your money, you just get the warm fuzzy feeling of having a higher number on your card."

In case you weren't aware Nvidia invented that strategy...
 
and a 5870 outperformed a 6870

They seem pretty even after driver updates.

Sorry you had bad luck with AMD drivers.
Hope you figure out what you are doing wrong in the future.
 
In case you weren't aware Nvidia invented that strategy...

Yep, they did. I can't believe people care about the 'numbers' on a card anyways.

This is an enthusiast forum, as if members here wouldn't spend the few min to search on google for reviews to see how it stacks up against the previous gen.

It's on the same level as people who are crying foul because the GTX680 in their minds 'should be branded and priced at' as a GTX660/670
 
They seem pretty even after driver updates.

Sorry you had bad luck with AMD drivers.
Hope you figure out what you are doing wrong in the future.

Mildly condescending, though not well informed. I suppose this forum has trolls too. (For the record, don't let the "noobie" moniker fool you; I'm new to this forum, not the genre. I assembled my first PC in 1992 while you were probably still working on walking. ;) )

I wasn't the only one who made this observation. From tomshardware's Barts series review in October 2010:


What's With That Name?

Now, if you're like us, that Radeon HD 6800-series moniker will strike you as disingenuous. Even after hearing the official party line, we still don't like the fact that the branding requires an explanation from us in order to make sense. What about the folks who don't get the memo? We can only hope that price insinuates performance. Barts is designed to fill the $150 to $250 range, far below today’s Radeon HD 5870. This is more like Radeon HD 5830 and 5850 territory. The high-end Radeon HD 5870 and 5970 will be replaced by the “Cayman” and “Antilles” Radeon HD 6900-series before the end of Q4 2010.

I’m sure we aren’t the first to be surprised by the new naming scheme—to us, it’s a cinch that Barts should [fill] in as the Radeon HD 6700-series. AMD claims that 6800 was chosen because the Radeon HD 5700s will remain in production for some time to cover the sub-$150 market. We honestly don’t think this is a very good justification, as product generations have overlapped time and time again without too much of a problem. The biggest issue for us is that the ill-informed Radeon HD 5870 owner will assume that the Radeon HD 6870 is an upgrade, when in fact the new card wields less performance.

(Emphasis added for dramatic effect)

Personally, I'm one of those crazy sticklers who think that newer hardware should outperform older hardware out of the box. I do not think that the poor souls who ran out and upgraded their 5000 series to the 6000 expecting to see a performance upgrade should have waited until AMD got around to releasing drivers that would actually allow the newer card to perform "pretty even" to the old card. The simple fact that, at release, the 6870 was on par with the older, lower version 5850 and that it took (an eventual) driver update to bring it up to "pretty even" with the 5870 is a sham.

And, how long did we wait on that driver update again?

For myself, I didn't have a problem. I did my research, and invested in some 5870s when the 6000 series hit and the prices dropped. The fact that I wasn't burned by the switcheroo doesn't make me feel okay about what they tried to pull there.

So, you're a fanboi. And that's fine. I've been a long-time ATI supporter - Every card I've owned for the past 15 years has been an ATI. I'm still disappointed with what I perceive to be a deceptive marketing practice pulled by AMD trying to cash in on the ATI name.
 
Yep, they did. I can't believe people care about the 'numbers' on a card anyways.

This is an enthusiast forum, as if members here wouldn't spend the few min to search on google for reviews to see how it stacks up against the previous gen.

It's on the same level as people who are crying foul because the GTX680 in their minds 'should be branded and priced at' as a GTX660/670

I see your point, Daemos. Caveat emptor. In this era, people need to do their research. That doesn't excuse AMD (or nVidia, for that matter) from monkeying with the marketing to give the impression that a product is better, faster, stronger, taller, wider, deeper or more epic.. um.. er... than another one. In the end, I'm just disappointed at the attempt, especially from a company that I have been loyal to for a very, very long time. As I noted in my other reply, I didn't get caught in the trap - but that doesn't make me feel good about it.
 
lawl @ this thread. Least you put it in the Nvidia section.

I run crossfire 6850s, and haven't had the issues you have. Nor do I get butthurt about what a company decides to name it's products.

Hope you are happy with your purchase, nonetheless.
 
They seem pretty even after driver updates.

Sorry you had bad luck with AMD drivers.
Hope you figure out what you are doing wrong in the future.

Well, considering this is 2012 and Windows 7 and not 1996 and Windows 95, the driver issue is very apparent for any ATI/AMD product. As I mentioned in the first post, I've had all ATI cards for atleast 15 years, going back to the All In Wonder days. I simply decided to throw in the towel and go with the other camp because I am so frustrated. I really wanted a 7950 or a 7970 and watched and read these forums like a hawk when they were released and saw post after post about issue after issue and decided for myself that if I spend $500 on a card, I expect it to work. I was amazed that with the release of the 680, there was so little posts about driver issues compared with the 7970.

Are there people that have AMD cards and have no issues whatsoever? Of course, but they seem to be in the minority around here.
 
I think the issue is with crossfire drivers because the single card drivers are pretty solid. It sucks but I hear that a lot around the web...
 
That whole rant above me is pretty funny, considering both companies both rebrand cards until they are blue in the face. How many generations did that 8800GT last?

Driver issues I get, but picking green over red just because of a product numbering change? That's...oy. Ok I guess?
 
Mildly condescending, though not well informed.

doubt that he meant to be condescending. in my case, i have 2 PCs with HD5xxx hardware. both suffered from constant lockups and BSODs while gaming. both are single card setups. it took me a while but i finally narrowed it down to SPTD.SYS on both machines. removed that bit and no problems since.

i think AMD drivers are really quite good. maybe they are just sensitive to the environment.
 
I'm migrating back to nvidia, but I actually don't mind AMD I've enjoyed my 5870s alot.

Only reason I'm moving back is they seem to have proper SLI before titles are released where with AMD if you're lucky there may be a 0-day profile.

Also have the itch to try adaptive vsync.
 
Are there people that have AMD cards and have no issues whatsoever? Of course, but they seem to be in the minority around here.
They seem to be the minority if you are not paying attention to them
I have had no issues with AMD drivers, this level of quality has been the case from generation to generation.



Personally, I'm one of those crazy sticklers who think that newer hardware should outperform older hardware out of the box. I do not think that the poor souls who ran out and upgraded their 5000 series to the 6000 expecting to see a performance upgrade should have waited until AMD got around to releasing drivers that would actually allow the newer card to perform "pretty even" to the old card. The simple fact that, at release, the 6870 was on par with the older, lower version 5850 and that it took (an eventual) driver update to bring it up to "pretty even" with the 5870 is a sham.

Uhm the 6870 was not the 5870 replacement...
The fact that driver updates got it matcfhing or exceeding its previous higher end cousin is actually fantastic.
When Barts was released every review was open about what the numbers meant.
AMD probably included that information in the review guide.
As for the couple of fools that bought it to replace a higher perfromance card?
Well those types of fools exist all the time and they get tricked by Nvidia and AMD.
Although with the info AMD was putting out there Its hard to feel as if those customers were tricked. Rather its just that they didnt do their homework.

Mildly condescending, though not well informed. I suppose this forum has trolls too. (For the record, don't let the "noobie" moniker fool you; I'm new to this forum, not the genre. I assembled my first PC in 1992 while you were probably still working on walking. )

I wasn't the only one who made this observation. From tomshardware's Barts series review in October 2010:
You respond about that to me even though I made one comment about the performance of Barts post Driver updates. Yet strangely you ignore the post above me that actually countered youre earlier post..
Im confused. You're moniker didnt fool me because I didnt pay it any attention. I dont look at the forum tags to determine who is intelligent. I look at the content of their posts.

The fact that you are choosing to bring up AMDs folly (depending on who you ask) while not even mentioning that Nvidia has done this as well is very telling.
Face the facts, both companies have done this and AMD was honest about it. I have no pitty for the poor souls that
A. Read toms hardware
B. Buy a GPU to replace there existing high end GPU without doing any reasearch what so ever, somehow mindlessly willing to spend 300 dollars on a GPU just because the numbers in its name are higher.
C. All of the above.


I really wanted a 7950 or a 7970 and watched and read these forums like a hawk when they were released and saw post after post about issue after issue and decided for myself that if I spend $500 on a card, I expect it to work
So my issue free experience with Drivers means nothing but conjecture in a bunch of forum threads was all it took for you to 'think' that if you bought a 79X0 gpu that you WOUlD have problems.
Look the amount of posts talking about driver issues will always be more than the amount of posts that speak about not having driver issues. Most people dont make a thread to state "Hey my drivers are working as advertised!"
Its whatever this idea that AMD has flawed drivers that will burn any user that uses them is not based in reality. Its been a debacle going on generation from generation. Used as a reason for purchasing Nvidia over AMD or AMD over Nvidia no matter which company puts the better GPU out.
And I am not a troll, the GTX680 is better hardware.
Im just no inclined to base the driver stability of either GPU by a couple of threads on the forums.
 
meh.....

This gets hashed out on a nearly daily basis.

Good luck, OP with your switch. I'm sure you will find things with nvidia sooner or later that make you angry and frustrated, as you are now.

I do find nvidia to do a better job responding to new game releases.

I have not had a great deal of issue since late January with my 7970s. Yes, initially I was ready to jump ship (again) to nvidia when AMD couldn't get it right when the 7000 series was first released.....(released a card without a proper driver? Those rascals)

but AMD seems to have things pretty well in hand. I'm perfectly satisfied with what I have.:D
 
So my issue free experience with Drivers means nothing but conjecture in a bunch of forum threads was all it took for you to 'think' that if you bought a 79X0 gpu that you WOUlD have problems.

No, that was not the only reason. My experience with my own setup made up my mind. Why would I give my hard earned money over to a company that has caused me so much grief and frustration with their drivers? If I take my car to a mechanic to get fixed and time and time again they say they fixed it but something else breaks, guess what, I would stop going to that mechanic and take my business elsewhere. I was simply not going to gamble $500 of my money hoping and praying that I would not have an issue with the new AMD cards. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me...

Im just no inclined to base the driver stability of either GPU by a couple of threads on the forum.

Apparently you do not frequent the AMD video card forums very often. There be angry folks in there... ;)
 
I visit it more often than this sub forum.
Ive seen many people post the opposite experience of what you speak as well in that very forum.
 
The jump from multi-card to single card alone will be worth it, regardless of manufacturer, but it's a good decision from just about every angle.
 
Its just about finding the lesser of two evils. Hope you enjoy using Nvidia.
 
No, that was not the only reason. My experience with my own setup made up my mind. Why would I give my hard earned money over to a company that has caused me so much grief and frustration with their drivers? If I take my car to a mechanic to get fixed and time and time again they say they fixed it but something else breaks, guess what, I would stop going to that mechanic and take my business elsewhere. I was simply not going to gamble $500 of my money hoping and praying that I would not have an issue with the new AMD cards. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me...



Apparently you do not frequent the AMD video card forums very often. There be angry folks in there... ;)

This thread is a perfect introduction to one of the few negatives you will experience as an nVidia owner--every thread in this subforum that discusses an upcoming product, a newly released product, or says anything negative about an AMD product will be aggressively trolled by tourists from the AMD subforum. They take it in shifts so they can have time to rest. From a certain point of view, it could be seen as an impressive display of community spirit. If the community is Jonestown....
 
This thread is a perfect introduction to one of the few negatives you will experience as an nVidia owner--every thread in this subforum that discusses an upcoming product, a newly released product, or says anything negative about an AMD product will be aggressively trolled by tourists from the AMD subforum. They take it in shifts so they can have time to rest. From a certain point of view, it could be seen as an impressive display of community spirit. If the community is Jonestown....

This statement merely fuels that fire, doesn't it?;)
 
Ya, driver issues are the reason I like nVidia better. ATi's drivers aren't unworkable or anything, I'm not sorry I had by 5870, but ultimately I find more issues with their drivers, and less features. nVidia's per app settings are much better than ATi's in my opinion. It isn't like I'll tell someone "never get an ATi card," but when I have an equal choice I'll take nVidia.

Similar story at work actually. Had a 5770 in my computer. Did the job fine I don't need a ton of 3D power or anything. So then I get the new version of Sony Vegas, which has OpenCL acceleration of plugins and encoding. Thing crashes all the time, I am very annoyed and figure maybe it is crappy coding. However I try software only mode and there are no crashes. So something in my head says "Maybe it is ATi." I get a GTX 560, and no more crashes in hardware accelerated mode. Fast and stable. A little while later Sony releases a patch that disables a number of effects for ATi cards "due to a bug in the drivers," and says they'll be re-enabled at such time ATi fixes it.

Maybe it is Sony's fault, though I doubt it (they seem to go out of their way for support, OpenCL for ATi, CUDA for nVidia) but ultimately it doesn't matter why: nVidia = no crashes, ATi = crashes. I know which I wish to have.
 
Well, considering this is 2012 and Windows 7 and not 1996 and Windows 95, the driver issue is very apparent for any ATI/AMD product. As I mentioned in the first post, I've had all ATI cards for atleast 15 years, going back to the All In Wonder days. I simply decided to throw in the towel and go with the other camp because I am so frustrated. I really wanted a 7950 or a 7970 and watched and read these forums like a hawk when they were released and saw post after post about issue after issue and decided for myself that if I spend $500 on a card, I expect it to work. I was amazed that with the release of the 680, there was so little posts about driver issues compared with the 7970.

Are there people that have AMD cards and have no issues whatsoever? Of course, but they seem to be in the minority around here.

There are many users on this forum and the majority do not have problems. The ones that do have problems post them here since this is a hardware forum. Of course you will find less issues with Nvidia drivers since Nvidia has better drivers in my opinion. The AMD driver prob is hugely over exagerrated though and most of the issues are with dual cards.
 
This thread is a perfect introduction to one of the few negatives you will experience as an nVidia owner--every thread in this subforum that discusses an upcoming product, a newly released product, or says anything negative about an AMD product will be aggressively trolled by tourists from the AMD subforum. They take it in shifts so they can have time to rest. From a certain point of view, it could be seen as an impressive display of community spirit. If the community is Jonestown....

No different from either side. Fan boys from both sides are fools.
 
This statement merely fuels that fire, doesn't it?;)

I will grant that my comments are potentially, um, inflammatory ;), but they are factual from my perspective and observations, and I posted them in an nVidia thread in the nVidia subforum. If I had done so in the top video forum, or the AMD subforum, perhaps then someone could accuse me of living under a bridge... :cool:

It may very well be that regular nVidia posters behave similarly in the AMD subforum. I rarely visit there so I wouldn't know, but I would hope not.
 
Okay, this is where I shamelessly backpeddle in an effort, not to restore my credibility as a person knowledgeable about computers, but as a decent human being. Today's lesson: Never turn to the forums to take a break when you're having a frustrating day on short sleep. Sometimes, you'll type things that make you look a little like a jerk.

You respond about that to me even though I made one comment about the performance of Barts post Driver updates. Yet strangely you ignore the post above me that actually countered youre earlier post..

I agree that I gave nVidia a pass for doing effectively the same thing. That was in part because I haven't followed nVidia closely enough to be familiar with the nuances of the various series and the numbering of the generations. I had a couple of bad experiences with nVidia many years ago, which is what drove me to develop such a loyalty to ATI. In the end, it really is a Coke/Pepsi issue.



Im confused. You're moniker didnt fool me because I didnt pay it any attention. I dont look at the forum tags to determine who is intelligent. I look at the content of their posts.

The fact that you are choosing to bring up AMDs folly (depending on who you ask) while not even mentioning that Nvidia has done this as well is very telling.

It is indeed. I should have been clearer - I am not suggesting that I have given up on ATI for doing this, or that I am jumping ship to nVidia. Well, I should say that the intention of my post was to say that I will no longer favor ATI over nVidia and that was due, in part, to this numbering issue. I have also experienced the same kinds of frustrations with AMD's driver development and update timeline that are echoed all over the forums both here and elsewhere. The so-called "straw" to which I referred was - since the 6000 series numbering issue, I will no longer gravitate toward ATI over nVidia.


Face the facts, both companies have done this and AMD was honest about it. I have no pitty for the poor souls that
A. Read toms hardware
B. Buy a GPU to replace there existing high end GPU without doing any reasearch what so ever, somehow mindlessly willing to spend 300 dollars on a GPU just because the numbers in its name are higher.
C. All of the above.

I don't find any particular fault with tomshardware. They are a good "first stop" for reviews relating to benchmarking, equipment breakdowns and market comparisons. They are hardly the last stop. Let's call it a "beginner's guide". Rely exclusively on tomshardware at your peril, but that is true of any information source.

I entirely agree with your second point. However, the reality is that a lot of people in the market do exactly that. Right or wrong, they rely on certain presumptions about series configurations to make "book by the cover" judgments about hardware. They should do their research before plopping down a large hunk of cash. With that being said, the companies know that. Are they obligated to educate their consumers? Only marginally, if at all. Is it illegal for them to rely on a consumer's likelihood to draw uninformed assumptions? No. Does that make them less slimy for manipulating that ignorance? No. I will grant you that AMD was more upfront about the numbering shift than it appears nVidia was. After the fact. They offered a passable excuse for doing it the way they did, but the reality is they could have preserved the existing numbering scheme and accomplished the same goal. But they're in business to push product, so I guess I can say I am not surprised by this move. I don't like it any better.



So my issue free experience with Drivers means nothing but conjecture in a bunch of forum threads was all it took for you to 'think' that if you bought a 79X0 gpu that you WOUlD have problems.
Look the amount of posts talking about driver issues will always be more than the amount of posts that speak about not having driver issues. Most people dont make a thread to state "Hey my drivers are working as advertised!"

That is absolutely true.


Its whatever this idea that AMD has flawed drivers that will burn any user that uses them is not based in reality. Its been a debacle going on generation from generation. Used as a reason for purchasing Nvidia over AMD or AMD over Nvidia no matter which company puts the better GPU out.

My issue is not so much that AMD has flawed drivers. In all actuality, the Catalyst 12.2 series of drivers was the first series I ever experienced any issues with (the artifacting that was well documented). That resolved when 12.3 rolled out. But AMD does have a running history of delays in rolling out relevant driver updates, and with shipping product that underperforms until such updates roll out. Perhaps that is a function of field testing. Perhaps it's an issue of moving product. I did find it rather annoying (though I never owned a 6000 series Radeon) that the full performance of the 68X0 series was not realized until nearly halfway through its market life, and then only once about the fourth generation of drivers rolled out.

And I am not a troll, the GTX680 is better hardware.
Im just no inclined to base the driver stability of either GPU by a couple of threads on the forums.

This - at least from my standpoint - was never about driver stability. I was heaping on to a conversation about why someone had "had it" with ATI by sharing what move they made that disappointed me the most.

(And sorry about the troll comment).
 
Are there people that have AMD cards and have no issues whatsoever? Of course, but they seem to be in the minority around here.
I had several ATi cards and I never had any issues with the drivers at all. If you keep getting artifacts, BSODs and crashes it's likely that it is not caused by drivers. Artifacts I had with ATi card but it was caused by bad VGA Bios. I also don't understand those who were having problems like that, how they were able to tell that it was caused by drivers? If you installed older drivers, the issue persisted and if you installed newest and it worked than it's ok and it's done, if not, than you can't be sure if it is caused by drivers. So I'm really curious about OP how he diagnosed his games were crashing because of ATi drivers.

The issues you posted can have very wide of reasons why they are happening, it can be failure of RAM, motherboard, PSU, graphics card and much more.

About WoW, I had long ago when I played wow also strange problem with crashing and after many months of research I found the issue was caused by bug triggered within AMD chipset, replacing motherboard fixed the issue.
 
Going from dual cards/chips back to a single video card usually fixes about 95% or more of the issues from either company.
 
I had several ATi cards and I never had any issues with the drivers at all. If you keep getting artifacts, BSODs and crashes it's likely that it is not caused by drivers. Artifacts I had with ATi card but it was caused by bad VGA Bios. I also don't understand those who were having problems like that, how they were able to tell that it was caused by drivers?

Yes, it is a well documented fact that 12.3 drivers have caused artifacting with WoW, even quoted by Blizzard in their forums. Reverting back to 12.1 fixes the issue. However, 12.1 causes BSOD in BF3 for me which 12.2 fixed but 12.2 causes severe micro stuttering in SWTOR for me to the point that it gives me a headache. But SWTOR was fixed in 12.3 which causes artifacting in WoW... on and on and on like a merry go round I go...

While I agree that XFire AMD cards is my main issue, I am not willing to go back to AMD, even if it is a single card solution. XFire is not exactly a "new" tech, it has been around a while and AMD still can't seem to get it right.
 
I tolerated all those issues for some time, but the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back for me was the stunt AMD pulled with renumbering the Radeon HD series between the 5000 and 6000 generations.

Nvidia did and does the very same thing, FYI.
 
Yes, it is a well documented fact that 12.3 drivers have caused artifacting with WoW, even quoted by Blizzard in their forums. Reverting back to 12.1 fixes the issue. However, 12.1 causes BSOD in BF3 for me which 12.2 fixed but 12.2 causes severe micro stuttering in SWTOR for me to the point that it gives me a headache. But SWTOR was fixed in 12.3 which causes artifacting in WoW... on and on and on like a merry go round I go...

While I agree that XFire AMD cards is my main issue, I am not willing to go back to AMD, even if it is a single card solution. XFire is not exactly a "new" tech, it has been around a while and AMD still can't seem to get it right.

I play WoW with 12.3 and its just fine on dual 7970s. There is a lot of fud / bullshit around about ATI drivers, i'm sure they could resolve a few things and yes, they can improve but there's also alot of retarded nonsense floating around. 12.3 works just fine with WoW.

Both sides have worked for me, just minor issues with both AMD and nvidia. With the catastrophic problems you're describing perhaps it was user error? Because based on my use i've had minor things here and there but certainly not anything near to what you're describing. Sounds ridiculous TBH.
 
What I heated thread awesome read! Ti add some fuel I love my nvidia cards and I hate my ATI/AMD cards ;)
 
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