I've betrayed my country

horrorshow

Lakewood Original
Joined
Dec 14, 2007
Messages
9,420
First off, I've been a hardcore AMD supporter for quite some time.

Complete video card history:

TNT2
Geforce 2 GTS
Geforce 4 ti 4200
9800 Pro
7800GS
x1950 Pro
3850
5850
6950
380 (short lived)

As you can see, I've been straight AMD/ATI since 2006.

Unfortunately, at least for now those days are over.

The hardware has always been top-notch, but sadly the drivers have been wanting for some time now.

I'd say the issues really became prevalent around the 5850's launch.

Shortly thereafter, it became a constant game of "finding the best driver for ______ game". Once I found the one that worked best for me, I stuck with it.
The 10.4a driver for Battlefield: BC2 on the 5850 and the 12.8/13.12/14.12 drivers for the 6950 immediately come to mind etc.

I decided to give AMD one more chance and picked up a 380 4GB about two weeks ago.

There were no HUGE issues really, just a lot of little hassles.

So yesterday after much contemplation, I packed up the card, took it back to Microcenter, and exchanged it for a 960 4GB.

Make no mistake, I am fully aware of the 960's 128-bit bus and the fact that it is approximately 15% slower than the 380.

But, between Nvidia's much more frequent driver updates, market dominance, Fallout 4's apparent system requirements, and the overwhelming ease
of use/lack of issues, I decided to switch over to the green team.

I have to say, I am very pleased with my decision thus far.

Please, don't flame me. I just felt the need to express my opinions/impressions etc.

Make no mistake, if AMD gets it act together, I'll gladly switch back.

But for now, it looks like my love affair with AMD hardware has finally come to an end.
 
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Omega "SE" drivers are going to be release in november...
btw i think that 960 is a huge mistake, you should take it back and get a 970 at least or pickup a used 290x.

i was a nvidia fan until last month, i did a 360 turn around and i went back to AMD after 2 years, no regrets here!
 
What problems were you having exactly? Just out of curiosity.
 
Lol. Certainly not a fanboy of either company. I put my money in what works best FOR ME.

It wasn't my intention to offend. Let alone start a whole red/green thing etc.

I think my video card history speaks for itself. I've owned PLENTY of AMD cards over the past decade.

I just felt the need to speak my mind is all.
 
Lol. Certainly not a fanboy of either company. I put my money in what works best FOR ME.

It wasn't my intention to offend. Let alone start a whole red/green thing etc.

I think my video card history speaks for itself. I've owned PLENTY of AMD cards over the past decade.

I just felt the need to speak my mind is all.

You don't need to apologize, its your choice.
If you still have your old cards, you should check the new drivers there is a rumor about boost in all new/older cards.
 
Funny, I haven't bought an AMD card since they bought out ATI and the only reason I ever bought Nvidia cards was for the sake of 3DFX. Yes, the loyalty runs that deep. Both sides are floundering in very different ways. Hopefully with AMD releasing their GPU division things will get better. They need a solid driver team that just does drivers and isn't skimped on. Nvidia has proved investing in drivers is the most worthwhile investment you can make even if it does show in the short-term.

I do agree with the before. GTX 960 was a bad choice IMO. It's reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaalllly

............................

REEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLLLYYYYYYYYYYYYY [H] to recommend any Nvidia GPU below the high-end cards. The pricing and performance has got all jacked up since the 600 Series. Pretty much the 970/980Ti are the only cards worth a damn in the 900 Series. I would have gutted it out until at least the next generation cards where even the lowly x60 cards from Nvidia are going to be forced to have a big (much needed) upgrade.
 
Whatever works best for you. Both camps have their driver issues and support issues. Good luck with the 960, I think Nvidia cheated customers on that card castration it to 128 bit.
 
Damn, I didn't think my post would convince you, but it did. Are you happy with the noise?
 
Funny, I haven't bought an AMD card since they bought out ATI and the only reason I ever bought Nvidia cards was for the sake of 3DFX. Yes, the loyalty runs that deep. Both sides are floundering in very different ways. Hopefully with AMD releasing their GPU division things will get better. They need a solid driver team that just does drivers and isn't skimped on. Nvidia has proved investing in drivers is the most worthwhile investment you can make even if it does show in the short-term.

I do agree with the before. GTX 960 was a bad choice IMO. It's reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaalllly

............................

REEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLLLYYYYYYYYYYYYY [H] to recommend any Nvidia GPU below the high-end cards. The pricing and performance has got all jacked up since the 600 Series. Pretty much the 970/980Ti are the only cards worth a damn in the 900 Series. I would have gutted it out until at least the next generation cards where even the lowly x60 cards from Nvidia are going to be forced to have a big (much needed) upgrade.

So this [H] review where a GTX 960 4GB card got the same exact max overclocked performance as a max overclocked R9 380 4GB, and got a gold award (just like the R9 380 4GB) is a figment of my imagination?

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2015/08/04/msi_geforce_gtx_960_gaming_4g_video_card_review/9

The big question, should you chose NVIDIA GTX 960 4GB or AMD R9 380 4GB? Honestly, they trade blows in performance, one is faster here, and the other is faster there. You will have to look closely at the games you play to differentiate between one or the other. The MSI GTX 960 GAMING 4G has a lot of overclocking potential. When overclocked the GTX 960 and R9 380 perform more similar than not. If you are wondering which one is more "future proof" both will be able to run DX12 games in Windows 10. The key factor to look at is pricing and the factory overclock you get out of the box. Take your time, do some research and chose the one that is priced better at the time, and has a high factory overclock.

It still managed to use 60w less power even at max overclock.

So much for the 128-bit bus being a concern. The card rolls through BF4 at 1440p ultra with 2xmsaa enabled. Ask me how I know :D

Overclocked, it should have enough performance for future games at 1080p high/ultra, which is all I expected of it.
 
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Omega "SE" drivers are going to be release in november...
btw i think that 960 is a huge mistake, you should take it back and get a 970 at least or pickup a used 290x.

i was a nvidia fan until last month, i did a 360 turn around and i went back to AMD after 2 years, no regrets here!

Err, if you did a complete 360, wouldn't you end up facing the same way you started? :) :) :) Perhaps you meant a complete 540? ;)

Ken
 
You should have gotten 980 or 980ti instead. You are sending the wrong message to Nvidia by buying a castrated product from them.
 
You should have gotten 980 or 980ti instead. You are sending the wrong message to Nvidia by buying a castrated product from them.

With the holidays coming up, I don't have that kind of disposable income.

I bought this card primarily for Fallout 4, nothing else.

I intend to do a complete rebuild in the next 8-12 months anyways.
 
Damn, I didn't think my post would convince you, but it did. Are you happy with the noise?

What noise? :D

Plus the CONSISTENT 1366mhz boost clock as opposed to AMD's powertune/powerplay malarkey.

Yeah, overall I'm very pleased.
 
What noise? :D

Plus the CONSISTENT 1366mhz boost clock as opposed to AMD's powertune/powerplay malarkey.

Yeah, overall I'm very pleased.

I have the same card overclocked to 1637 boost in games, and the cooler is still silent even after hours of looping Valley :D

I can't hear the GPU fan, even if I turn off every noise producing device in the house.
 
You should have gotten 980 or 980ti instead. You are sending the wrong message to Nvidia by buying a castrated product from them.


I'm sure over 90% of the world would be satisfied upgrading their Intel integrated HD 5500 to a 960. We power users are a very small percent.

Nvidia has a smart product in the 960. I own one that my fiancee has in her computer. I have a spare 970 ready to go for her and she doesn't care. Her skyrim and indie games run perfectly fine for her along with smite and other things.

To be honest I'm willing to bet the 750-950-960 market is of more value than the 970+ market.

I do photography and for years I would hear people complain about how us $4000-5000 dslr users were worth more because our camera cost. Which the reality is we weren't worth more. Nikon and Canon until a few years ago made hands over fist more with point and shoots.
 
I have the same card overclocked to 1637 boost in games, and the cooler is still silent even after hours of looping Valley :D

I can't hear the GPU fan, even if I turn off every noise producing device in the house.

Custom fan profile I'll assume? Max temps?

Details please, I haven't started fiddling yet but some basic info/baseline would be much appreciated :cool:

What OC'ing utility do you use? GPU Tweak or Afterburner??

(Don't be surprised if I end up PMing you at some point, since we have the same card.... I have many questions heh)
 
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My last ATI card was the 5870. Been with Team Green since. No reason to switch back for me. Hope your new experience in your green world is as rewarding as has been mine. :)
 
Custom fan profile I'll assume? Max temps?

Details please, I haven't started fiddling yet but some basic info/baseline would be much appreciated :cool:

What OC'ing utility do you use? GPU Tweak or Afterburner??

(Don't be surprised if I end up PMing you at some point, since we have the same card.... I have many questions heh)

GPU Tweak, it's a little hard to figure out, but works jut as well as anything else. I went with GPU Tweak because I bought the card before Afterburner had official support for it.

I'll have to get back to you later tonight when I can get at the system.

But I'm running the stock fan profile.
 
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GPU Tweak, it's a little hard to figure out, but works jut as well as anything else. I went with GPU Tweak because I bought the card before Afterburner had official support for it.

I'll have to get back to you later tonight when I can get at the system.

But I'm running the stock fan profile.

Considering I've been trying to burn this thing up all afternoon and I've only hit 59c, I'm not surprised ;)

Furmark, GPU-Z burn-in, Valley, Firestrike.... This thing just won't get hot.
 
So this [H] review where a GTX 960 4GB card got the same exact max overclocked performance as a max overclocked R9 380 4GB, and got a gold award (just like the R9 380 4GB) is a figment of my imagination?

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2015/08/04/msi_geforce_gtx_960_gaming_4g_video_card_review/9



It still managed to use 60w less power even at max overclock.

So much for the 128-bit bus being a concern. The card rolls through BF4 at 1440p ultra with 2xmsaa enabled. Ask me how I know :D

Overclocked, it should have enough performance for future games at 1080p high/ultra, which is all I expected of it.


I wasn't trying to compare the two performance, sound, heat, or noise wise. Meant to imply it was a unnecessary, or "bad", side grade option if you could've avoided it. Unless of course:

A) OP is happy with the decision, which it sounds like he is.
or
B) Managed to get back all the money to fund the 960 with any money spent being negligible.

Both are fantastic cards depending on where you're coming from. However, it isn't hard to see how switching between the two at this point can make people scratch their heads.
 
I wasn't trying to compare the two performance, sound, heat, or noise wise. Meant to imply it was a unnecessary, or "bad", side grade option if you could've avoided it. Unless of course:

A) OP is happy with the decision, which it sounds like he is.
or
B) Managed to get back all the money to fund the 960 with any money spent being negligible.

Both are fantastic cards depending on where you're coming from. However, it isn't hard to see how switching between the two at this point can make people scratch their heads.

I returned the 380 to Microcenter (at Newegg price match), for the 960 (at Amazon price match).

I'd consider $15 negligible.

Btw, apparently MC no longer carries the Sapphire Nitro 380 4GB. Why? Hopefully there wasn't a really real issue.... I did notice them tag my Nitro 380 for 183.99, which for a perfectly fine (hardware-wise) card is quite a deal!

Also, bear in mind, I came from a 6950. So either card is a remarkable upgrade.
 
Funny, I haven't bought an AMD card since they bought out ATI and the only reason I ever bought Nvidia cards was for the sake of 3DFX. Yes, the loyalty runs that deep. Both sides are floundering in very different ways. Hopefully with AMD releasing their GPU division things will get better. They need a solid driver team that just does drivers and isn't skimped on. Nvidia has proved investing in drivers is the most worthwhile investment you can make even if it does show in the short-term.

I do agree with the before. GTX 960 was a bad choice IMO. It's reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeaaalllly

............................

REEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLLLYYYYYYYYYYYYY [H] to recommend any Nvidia GPU below the high-end cards. The pricing and performance has got all jacked up since the 600 Series. Pretty much the 970/980Ti are the only cards worth a damn in the 900 Series. I would have gutted it out until at least the next generation cards where even the lowly x60 cards from Nvidia are going to be forced to have a big (much needed) upgrade.



These kinds of choices remind me of that image of the master racers standing on the edge of a land of superior performance and enlightenment, staring off into the abyss of console peasants and other folks who made terrible choices that will cripple their performance and future enjoyment.

original.jpg


That is the image I see when I hear of someone buying an nvidia 960-980 over an equivalently priced amd part right now.


All the amd card users who chose a 380/390 series look out into the abyss, as if pondering the question : Should we save them?

But the answer is always no, because they cannot be saved by anyone but themselves. They chose lower/inferior and must suffer for their mistakes.
 
All the amd card users who chose a 380/390 series look out into the abyss, as if pondering the question : Should we save them?

But the answer is always no, because they cannot be saved by anyone but themselves. They chose lower/inferior and must suffer for their mistakes.

I stood on that stage for a decade, but ultimately I chose drivers over hardware.

Pure and simple.

MAYBE, if the actual 3rd party Omega drivers were still around. Or even ATI Tray Tools &/or Radeon Pro....

Let us all be realistic and admit the glory days of the underdog are over.

It's all about what works and what doesn't.

*not a fanboy of Nvidia.

*will shout to the rooftops why AMD SHOULD be on top

"Look, it's like they say, if you're not a rebel by the age of 20, you got no heart, but if you haven't turned establishment by 30, you've got no brains." - Swimming with Sharks
 
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I just recently switched to Nvidia (not REALLY my choice as someone gave me an Nvidia card) and I don't really see the whole 'driver paradise' people talk about. GFE crashes every time I open it and I've gotten multiple CTDs in games. But hey, I may be the exception.
 
So if you've betrayed your country by switching to nvidia, who did I betray by recently switching to amd?
 
I stood on that stage for a decade, but ultimately I chose drivers over hardware.

Pure and simple.

MAYBE, if the actual 3rd party Omega drivers were still around. Or even ATI Tray Tools &/or Radeon Pro....

Let us all be realistic and admit the glory days of the underdog are over.

It's all about what works and what doesn't.

*not a fanboy of Nvidia.

*will shout to the rooftops why AMD SHOULD be on top

"Look, it's like they say, if you're not a rebel by the age of 20, you got no heart, but if you haven't turned establishment by 30, you've got no brains." - Swimming with Sharks


You chose perception about drivers and lower performance over reality.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2015-nvidia-geforce-gtx-960-2gb-vs-4gb-review


There are reasons to break for a 960, you only have a 400W power supply with limited power connectors (terrible choice of initial tower power supply btw, deliberately crippling ones choices and options for non power sipping cards), you have more low profile options... and that's about it. Performance is not the reason, and as much as nvidia fans try to focus on everything but in this segment, that metric is still KING.


There might be a more specific reason to break towards the 960, but none was provided other than a nebulous statement about drivers (sans any specifics at all that could be vetted). So we are left with nothing here but self justification empty of any real force of objective argument behind it. Not that there needs to be.

I'd still take an amd part over an nvidia part even if it was slightly below performance levels, but that's because I favor amd and am open and honest about it. If I was compelled to switch it would be for VERY specific reasons and not some vague notions of driver superiority that often fail to show up in actual gaming benchmarks and playability.

Maybe you wanted to cf and it was shoddy, maybe you tried some feature and it was busted and broken, these would be tangible reasons to shift away, but we got none of that. Which again, that's fine, but it persuades no one that it was a sensible switch.
 
So if you've betrayed your country by switching to nvidia, who did I betray by recently switching to amd?

The only country betrayers are the Canadians who bought nvidia in the days of ati, turncoats, enemies of the home team.
 
The clock speed is actually 1530 core, 8.0 memory. It seems Valley was a little aggressive with the clock it reports. The "boost" clock I selected in the tool is just 1426, and the actual clcok is 1530.

My fan tops out at 1600 RPM, 59C. It seems to me the trigger temperature is 60C in the default fan curve, so if you don't mind higher, you could adjust it. I wouldn't let it get above 75C though.

I'm not sure I'd recommend GPU Tweak unless Afterburner doesn't work. I just tried to launch the GUI and it won't let me. Complains program is already running, but not visible in system tray.

EDIT: couldn't kill the task in task manager, but was able to kill it in an admin command prompt. Loads fine after that.

Be sure the first thing you do is max out the power target at 115.
 
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can we stop with the driver BS already?

AND drivers are not bad at all..... now time for the history lesson

ATi started out with Windows accelerator cards like the ATi Mach 32, 64, etc

Anyone who had the original Rage card knows what bad drives are ATi drivers were absolute crap up until the mid Radeon 8500 days. Since the Radeon 95/700 cards their drivers have actually been quite good. I have used both AND and NVidia and neither driver set is significantly better than the other. Each set has their own quirks....

My video card history: from 1994 to the present

Cirrus Logic 5460
ATi Mach 64
Rendition V2100
S3 Savage (now them be some crappy drivers)
S3 Savage 4
S3 Savage 2000
Radeon LE
Radeon 8500
Radeon 9500 Pro
Radeon 1800XL
Radeon 1950
Radeon 3870
Radeon 4870
Radeon 280 (aka 7950)
 
can we stop with the driver BS already?

AND drivers are not bad at all..... now time for the history lesson

ATi started out with Windows accelerator cards like the ATi Mach 32, 64, etc

Anyone who had the original Rage card knows what bad drives are ATi drivers were absolute crap up until the mid Radeon 8500 days. Since the Radeon 95/700 cards their drivers have actually been quite good. I have used both AND and NVidia and neither driver set is significantly better than the other. Each set has their own quirks....

My video card history: from 1994 to the present

Cirrus Logic 5460
ATi Mach 64
Rendition V2100
S3 Savage (now them be some crappy drivers)
S3 Savage 4
S3 Savage 2000
Radeon LE
Radeon 8500
Radeon 9500 Pro
Radeon 1800XL
Radeon 1950
Radeon 3870
Radeon 4870
Radeon 280 (aka 7950)

so your more recent card is almost 4 year old tech? good.. you never suffered the black screen issues with hawaii?. that suffered basically every early 290 and 290X adopter. (I was one). you also don't suffered from the unable to awake (the card won't turn on after sleep). or no signal after restart the machine. but you also never suffered from stuttering in early 7970 in single GPU days, it was fixed later with a driver that reduced overall FPS but produced a more smooth frametime.. it took months to be able to play some games decently smooth I remember Skyrim was a pain with a HD7970 to the point that still I think 15.7 still had some bug fixes caused by drivers with that game.. also you probably missed all kind of bizarre issues with audio in the early days of the HD7000 series including some nasty black screen, all was working but the screen just go black but the game was able to run, etc..

Actually I like AMD drivers more than Nvidia drivers under windows 10, but I don't ignore the fact that the CCC is almost useless basically the only settings that work in the gaming tab is AF and Tessellation, you can't force vsync (on or off) and can't use most AA settings (until 15.9 that they fixed at least forcing MSAA).. but most things are useless. probably you are a casual user who don't mess with Game settings or don't tinker it a bit with CCC but AMD don't have that shit drivers reputation because people like to create that kind of stuff, Most people don't have the time or patience to be fiddling with drivers to find which one is better for the game that are actually playing, you have to see if your games works good or not with every new driver as it fix some things but also screw a lot of other.
 
The clock speed is actually 1530 core, 8.0 memory. It seems Valley was a little aggressive with the clock it reports. The "boost" clock I selected in the tool is just 1426, and the actual clcok is 1530.

My fan tops out at 1600 RPM, 59C. It seems to me the trigger temperature is 60C in the default fan curve, so if you don't mind higher, you could adjust it. I wouldn't let it get above 75C though.

I'm not sure I'd recommend GPU Tweak unless Afterburner doesn't work. I just tried to launch the GUI and it won't let me. Complains program is already running, but not visible in system tray.

EDIT: couldn't kill the task in task manager, but was able to kill it in an admin command prompt. Loads fine after that.

Be sure the first thing you do is max out the power target at 115.

8,000 on your VRAM is pretty nice.

Better than [H] even.

I thought 1600 on the GPU clock sounded pretty high....

Personally, I don't like to pump extra voltage into a card.

I'll shoot for 1450-1500 and 7.5-7.8 with default voltage and fan profile.

Thanks for the info :cool:
 
8,000 on your VRAM is pretty nice.

Better than [H] even.

I thought 1600 on the GPU clock sounded pretty high....

Personally, I don't like to pump extra voltage into a card.

I'll shoot for 1450-1500 and 7.5-7.8 with default voltage and fan profile.

Thanks for the info :cool:

1600 on GPU clock is more or less common in GTX 960s and even some 970s.. also 8000mhz-8200mhz in vRAM is kinda common. most people just set it at 8000mhz to avoid future issues or too much stress in vRAM.
 
To be honest, I'm on the contrary boat here.

Lets see...

Started with 8800GTS G92, and I have had several models since then. Last one? GTX760 because I barely played, but can't say I've been happy with the drivers for the past year or two.

So, I jumped and took a tri-x 290X. Lets see how the drivers handle new games like Fallout 4, although I'm a bit baffled by the rumour of running NVIDIA Gameworks.

Lets see I don't get burned by this, but so far so good. Card is quiet as a whisper.
 
so your more recent card is almost 4 year old tech? good.. you never suffered the black screen issues with hawaii?. that suffered basically every early 290 and 290X adopter. (I was one). you also don't suffered from the unable to awake (the card won't turn on after sleep). or no signal after restart the machine. but you also never suffered from stuttering in early 7970 in single GPU days, it was fixed later with a driver that reduced overall FPS but produced a more smooth frametime.. it took months to be able to play some games decently smooth I remember Skyrim was a pain with a HD7970 to the point that still I think 15.7 still had some bug fixes caused by drivers with that game.. also you probably missed all kind of bizarre issues with audio in the early days of the HD7000 series including some nasty black screen, all was working but the screen just go black but the game was able to run, etc..

Actually I like AMD drivers more than Nvidia drivers under windows 10, but I don't ignore the fact that the CCC is almost useless basically the only settings that work in the gaming tab is AF and Tessellation, you can't force vsync (on or off) and can't use most AA settings (until 15.9 that they fixed at least forcing MSAA).. but most things are useless. probably you are a casual user who don't mess with Game settings or don't tinker it a bit with CCC but AMD don't have that shit drivers reputation because people like to create that kind of stuff, Most people don't have the time or patience to be fiddling with drivers to find which one is better for the game that are actually playing, you have to see if your games works good or not with every new driver as it fix some things but also screw a lot of other.

yeah, why don't you look in the NVidia forums? ... it's not all green grass and roses over there... My card may be based on 4 year old tech, but the drivers are current .. o the fact that you try to discount my statement based upon that issue means you got straws

I have no issues with my setup, it works just fine even in windows 10 I overbuilt it to some degree by using a power supply that is larger than required for the card and used a case that has great cooling for it's size without being a dirt magnet

Most recent game I have is Dirt 3 and it is fantastic, Flight Sim X runs flawlessly, Metro 2033 runs great, tomb raider is flawless most of my games are older as I typically wait to buy new games until the bugs are worked out.... I really would like to get the new batman but that game is just too crappy performance wise.

expecting a card to work with just released titles is just asinine Fallout 4 performance will not be any different... it will get better after a patch or two and the driver teams can work around the flaws in the game.

but since you want to go down that road, AMD does not use standard coding techniques to lock out NVidia users when helping developers code... (Batman Arkham Asylum ring a bell?)

If you are whining about being an early adopter, aww poor you, you should know better by now (I hope)
 
yeah, why don't you look in the NVidia forums? ... it's not all green grass and roses over there... My card may be based on 4 year old tech, but the drivers are current .. o the fact that you try to discount my statement based upon that issue means you got straws

I have no issues with my setup, it works just fine even in windows 10 I overbuilt it to some degree by using a power supply that is larger than required for the card and used a case that has great cooling for it's size without being a dirt magnet

Most recent game I have is Dirt 3 and it is fantastic, Flight Sim X runs flawlessly, Metro 2033 runs great, tomb raider is flawless most of my games are older as I typically wait to buy new games until the bugs are worked out.... I really would like to get the new batman but that game is just too crappy performance wise.

expecting a card to work with just released titles is just asinine Fallout 4 performance will not be any different... it will get better after a patch or two and the driver teams can work around the flaws in the game.

but since you want to go down that road, AMD does not use standard coding techniques to lock out NVidia users when helping developers code... (Batman Arkham Asylum ring a bell?)

If you are whining about being an early adopter, aww poor you, you should know better by now (I hope)


Dont feed the troll.
 
Someone must have miracled the shit out of my 290, its been more stable driver wise than my 470GTX and 660Ti.

Just saying.
 
Over the last 4 years, NVIDIA drivers have been solid for me. The only time it went wobbly is during the transition between Windows 8.1 and Windows 10 where they screwed up the drivers a lot, causing TDRs and what not.

But now that things have matured, I don't see any problems driver-wise apart from one issue: the new Share feature automatically forces you into CUDA clocks (P02 state). Don't know when they'll fix it.

As for people with problems with GFE crashing and what not, I'm 100% sure it's your set up. I upgraded straight from 8.1, not even a fresh install. And yet I'm 100% stable.

I guess my use case is too normal, so things work out for me.
 
First off, I've been a hardcore AMD supporter for quite some time.

Complete video card history:

TNT2
Geforce 2 GTS
Geforce 4 ti 4200
9800 Pro
7800GS
x1950 Pro
3850
5850
6950
380 (short lived)

As you can see, I've been straight AMD/ATI since 2006.

Unfortunately, at least for now those days are over.

The hardware has always been top-notch, but sadly the drivers have been wanting for some time now.

I'd say the issues really became prevalent around the 5850's launch.

Shortly thereafter, it became a constant game of "finding the best driver for ______ game". Once I found the one that worked best for me, I stuck with it.
The 10.4a driver for Battlefield: BC2 on the 5850 and the 12.8/13.12/14.12 drivers for the 6950 immediately come to mind etc.

I decided to give AMD one more chance and picked up a 380 4GB about two weeks ago.

There were no HUGE issues really, just a lot of little hassles.

So yesterday after much contemplation, I packed up the card, took it back to Microcenter, and exchanged it for a 960 4GB.

Make no mistake, I am fully aware of the 960's 128-bit bus and the fact that it is approximately 15% slower than the 380.

But, between Nvidia's much more frequent driver updates, market dominance, Fallout 4's apparent system requirements, and the overwhelming ease
of use/lack of issues, I decided to switch over to the green team.

I have to say, I am very pleased with my decision thus far.

Please, don't flame me. I just felt the need to express my opinions/impressions etc.

Make no mistake, if AMD gets it act together, I'll gladly switch back.

But for now, it looks like my love affair with AMD hardware has finally come to an end.

Love affair? You have one now for Nvidia? ;)

I've been using both for years now, single card driver wise I have not seen a significant difference. Except maybe Raptor sucks and GF experience is tolerable. CrossFire can have issues which goes with having two cards, I think AMD can do better there - certifying the games that work well, warning folks per driver on games (maybe last two years worth) that has issues if it is going to be fixed or not). Steam sell going on currently and looking at the top 10 sellers - load and behold "GTA V" #1, "Witcher 3" #3, "Dying Light" #5. Damn HardOCP doesn't pick the games to review right on the money! Each one of these have CFX issues and HardOCP rightly so brought it out!

The silence from AMD on CFX issues is not taking care of the customer. As for SLI I do not know. A simple chart showing what games especially newer ones and about what % increase going with CFX would be self promoting and give folks a heads up. Instead of buying a game and being utterly frustrated with the experience (Bad for AMD) they would either hold off until fixed or play it single card knowing it is not a supported CFX game. This will also prompt developers to improve CFX support as well. AMD is just not being smart with their driver releases.

The one good AMD driver a year release is - an utter joke, nice at the time of release but as the months goes on and new games come out - - - down hill. AMD needs BiMonthly quality drivers (Official Drivers) is my thoughts on the matter. Enough time to make a good driver but also enough time to get the drivers ready for new game releases as much as possible.
 
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