My recent GPU experiences with AMD as a long time nVIDIA user...

[Mr. Bluntman]

After seeing this video:



...and being fed up with nVIDIA's flat out outrageous pricing on the Ada Lovelace series GPUs introduced thus far, with the gall to call what should have been the RTX 4070 12GB the 4080 instead, I started to have an open mind about finally looking into alternatives. Especially after seeing GPU prices soar to insane levels the last 6 or so years, the hobby is no longer sustainable at these prices for someone on a fixed income like myself. So, after stumbling onto that video while being on hard times, I decided to give up my prized Titan X Pascal to a new home, and try the FirePro W7100 for myself. And hoo boy... What an experience. (And I don't mean what you think...)

First, the hardware. One thing that strikes me the most about this GPU is it's svelte, single slot profile. And it's heft.

I remember the heady days of single slot high performance GPUs all the way up to the DX10 era. With the GT200 series of GPUs, with the exception of the half-height, low performance GPUs and the Quadro line as well as certain GPUs from ATi become AMD (the FirePro line, and, starting with GCN5.0 better known as Vega, the Radeon Pro line) single slot vanished from the mainstream desktop. And with this partially enabled Tonga based GCN GPU, I can see why. The default fan curve maxes out at 60%. Workstation workloads are different than gaming workloads in some/many ways, and OEM systems typically have airflow dedicated to the GPU. In these settings, maybe that's enough. But in a passive intake scenario, with third party Amermine Adrenalin drivers loaded and playing a game, this is nowhere near aggressive enough. The default GPU clock is 920MHz. I would often see significant fps drops and downclocking to 812MHz, sometimes as low as 5xxMHz. And this was with repasting the GPU with either Arctic Silver Ceramique 2 or Noctua NT-H1... Adjusting the fan curves with MSI Afterburner alleviated thermal throttling for the most part, but the GPU would be hovering right around the throttling point at 93-94°C at a comical 95-100% fan speed. I should note that this is with limiting the framerate to 60fps. The performance with the Pro drivers was... lackluster at best, but with the Amermine drivers I would say it's between a GeForce GTX 960 and 970. Not bad for a single slot workstation card from 2014. I should also note that this is basically the same shader and memory bus configuation as a Radeon R9 285, but at lower clocks. However, working with the Adrenalin gaming drivers (even these modded ones) has been a very positive (and stark contrast to the) experience, unlike Catalyst Control Center, which was mostly negative. Every game I have tried worked flawlessly, and settings I set in the driver settings works more often than not. I should note that GPU aspect-correct scaling works even slightly better than on nVIDIA cards. This was most definitely not the case with GPUs as late as RV770 - I should note I have tried both a 512MB Radeon HD 4850 with the very last driver release and a Radeon HD 4890 1GB when it was still commercially available and viable to use. The FirePro, even if performance wasn't great, was a mostly positive experience. And if you should think it sounded like an A-10C Thunderbolt II taking off, it was just a noticeable sound of moving air through a heatsink. Virtually no fan whine was heard. I believe it maxed out at 4400-4500RPM. 8800GTs and 9800GTs with the small fans are annoyingly whiny and loud at 100% (ask me how I know this, I'll give you a hint: something P5N-D something), spinning up past 7000RPM.

So, I did more digging into professional cards, and I noticed the next generation top-end single slot workstation card - which also has Amermine modded gaming drivers for Polaris/Vega/Navi(?) series GPUs... Supposedly you can switch to gaming drivers for Pascal Quadros and later generations of workstation GPUs through GeForce Experience, but I could find no verification of this. So I decided to get this, considering it was only about $230 after shipping...

(I apologize for the blurry photo, my hands are not as steady as they used to be...)
This is basically an RX480 with only a 250MHz lower memory clock, core clock is identical. The experience has been far more positive. The fan hardly ever spins up past 55% and I have not observed temps above 85°C, even in heavy load scenarios - maintaining max turbo clocks most of the time. And it is still somewhat viable for conventionally rasterized DX11, 12, and Vulcan titles with the aforementioned Amermine driverset. And I should note that the GPU feels weighty and built like a brick shithouse. Very high build quality. Unlike the fimsy, plasticy feel of the FirePros I have tried (namely the W7000 4GB, which is a novelty at this point. Only hardware DX11.1 support... It's great for a circa 2012 build and gaming, though. And oh god... The build quality of the shroud is a joke on the W7100. At least on the W7000 it felt at least somewhat solid).

So... If you are having a hard time finding a budget GPU, give the Radeon Pro WX 7100 8GB a look, especially if you have a fetish for single slot GPUs like I do! I couldn't recommend it more...

Oh, and I'll just let Linus say it for me...

 

[Kardonxt]

I'm a bit confused... so you essentially went from a 1080ti to a much slower and older r9 285, and then upgraded to a RX480, which is still slower than your original card?

At the ~$230 price it must have been used.... meaning you could have picked up a faster RX580 8gb for ~$100 or a 5700 XT under $200.

Other than the single slot form factor, I'm not really sure what your point is. Looks like a round about way to end up with a slower GPU.

 

[Mr. Bluntman]

I'm a bit confused... so you essentially went from a 1080ti to a much slower and older r9 285, and then upgraded to a RX480, which is still slower than your original card?

At the ~$230 price it must have been used.... meaning you could have picked up a faster RX580 8gb for ~$100 or a 5700 XT under $200.

Other than the single slot form factor, I'm not really sure what your point is. Looks like a round about way to end up with a slower GPU.

The first line is correct. I got rid of my nVIDIA GPU and downgraded on principle alone. 90% of my time is spent playing Oxygen Not Included and Factorio, both of which run fine even on an IGP. With my library, the Radeon Pro more than suffices for 90% of my gaming needs.

Again correct. But the RX 580 is third party only, no reference blower cards in sight that I saw. All were slab style heatpiped heatsinks with at least 2 axial fans. I detest this style of card. Personal preference.

The point is if you already have a Radeon Pro WX 7100 or want a GPU with a lot lower of risk of having being mined on, or even something low power and noise/heat in a compact single slot 9.5" GPU, this is a viable, albeit slower and somewhat more expensive alternative. And that the drivers are "good enough" to where they won't negatively impact your experience using this GPU.

 

[Kardonxt]

The point is if you already have a Radeon Pro WX 7100 or want a GPU with a lot lower of risk of having being mined on, or even something low power and noise/heat in a compact single slot 9.5" GPU, this is a viable, albeit slower and somewhat more expensive alternative. And that the drivers are "good enough" to where they won't negatively impact your experience using this GPU.

Fair enough. I would caution users that Radeon Pro cards were also used for mining. The WX 7100 was good for ~25mh/s, although something like the W5700 based on the 5700xt was the more preferred option.

 

[Verado]

So OP is a wierdo and posted to get some attention. Ok..

 

[Azrak]

So OP is a wierdo and posted to get some attention. Ok..

Can't people just be themselves without worry of ridicule?

 

[Mr. Bluntman]

So OP is a wierdo and posted to get some attention. Ok..

Am I autistic? Probably... Did I do it to get attention? No. An attention whore I am not. I am just stating my opinion based upon the rabbit hole I went down based on a video I saw on YouTube... And the GPU I bought I personally verified was pulled from a workstation doing CAD at a architectural firm, not mining.

Can't people just be themselves without worry of ridicule?

Thank you for being the voice of reason...

 

[blade52x]

Can't people just be themselves without worry of ridicule?

There are too many shackled within the constraints and expectations of society (and to an extent, the economy) has successfully imposed on them.

As much as I appreciate OP's effort here, I don't think too many will follow this lead. The new normal is $1300 for the mid-range offering. And it's not even the price that upsets me, but companies like Newegg and MSI that dump overpriced motherboards and coolers onto you along with your purchase of a 4090. And as if a high price alone is enough, Nvidia seems to be artificially shorting supply (to artificially increase demand) while AIBs take advantage of the customer in their own ways. And then of course, scalpers.

It's insane and I have no interest in being a part of this anymore. And that's coming from someone who is financially independent - this is the first Nvidia generation I am skipping in a very long time.

 

[Gulkor]

I am glad you found card you enjoy, everyone needs to enjoy something.

I will buy used card with warranty at discounted price then full price, i get my dollar work for me. I spent i5-12600k+asus tuf z690 wifi $325 and RTX 3080 $525. i bought whole pc for price of RTX 4080

I have adhd, I have been thru more then most have. I truthfully don't care what others think of me. but i am also respectful. I give respect get respect world is 2 way road. Only controlling people believe there is only 1 way road in world

 

[noko]

Thinking out of the box, experimenting and getting what works for you, ignoring all the abundant gimmicks that has meaningless implications for one use is very refreshing to see done here. Thanks for the blatant honest review.

The endless hype from Nvidia while others have some too are like fish hooks looking for fish to bite in an endless cycle. A bigger hook is used each time, and the thrown back rejected fish come right back biting harder than ever.

 

[Mr. Bluntman]

I am glad you found card you enjoy, everyone needs to enjoy something.

I will buy used card with warranty at discounted price then full price, i get my dollar work for me. I spent i5-12600k+asus tuf z690 wifi $325 and RTX 3080 $525. i bought whole pc for price of RTX 4080

I have adhd, I have been thru more then most have. I truthfully don't care what others think of me. but i am also respectful. I give respect get respect world is 2 way road. Only controlling people believe there is only 1 way road in world

Yes, aside from it's somewhat anemic performance by today's standards, IMO it's what the RX 480 should have been.
As do I, and I can completely relate. Life has put me through the ringer. This hobby is one of the ways I cope with my trauma. Even if not many decide to go my route and pick up a Radeon Pro WX7100 for themselves for gaming applications, I did buy it with the intent to actually use it for it's intended use case - 3D modeling - something I want to learn for a future venture I have planned. So for me, the fact that this GPU can pull double duty surprisingly well with the modded driver set on top of all that other stuff is icing on the cake for me. I try to be respectful as much as I can, unless you don't respect me, then, well, fuck you... I don't have time to waste on people that enjoy shitting in other's Wheaties in the morning... And I agree with your assessment, if people keep lining up and buying till these GPUs are sold out, ol' Jensen Huang is just going to take that as an affirmation that people still see value at the price he set on stage, and will continue to jack up prices until you see what's happening with the RTX 4080 - priced itself clear out of the market, especially if the RDNA3 Radeon 7900XTX is as fast as they say (within 10-15% of an RTX 4090, leaving the $200-300 more expensive RTX 4080 in the dust and wholly irrelevant at it's current price...).

Thinking out of the box, experimenting and getting what works for you, ignoring all the abundant gimmicks that has meaningless implications for one use is very refreshing to see done here. Thanks for the blatant honest review.

No problem! Glad you appreciate my efforts here, unlike some people...

 

[hititnquitit]

Good for you OP. I understand completely. I'm done playing the tired ass GPU game as well. The last few years have dropped my opinion of ngreedia right into the toilet(to put it kindly). I recently bought a 6800xt, my first AMD card since a 1900xtx and I couldn't be more impressed. It's a sweet card and cost a fraction of what I had originally thought I was in for with a 3080ti. I can safely say I'm done chasing. Rather, I will simply wait until the end of the cycle to buy from here on out.

 

[djstarfox]

I was an NVIDIA fan boy too for a while. My monitor died which prompted me to upgrade to 4k. Then, my 960 card could barely display 4k (even desktop lagged). So, I went with AMD 6800. It's been a great card, and I paid way less than something similar with NVIDIA. I can play everything at 4k between 90 - 120 fps...
I whole-heartedly agree: Buy what works for your scenario(s). No need to over-spend.

 

[Red Falcon]

Am I autistic? Probably... Did I do it to get attention? No. An attention whore I am not. I am just stating my opinion based upon the rabbit hole I went down based on a video I saw on YouTube... And the GPU I bought I personally verified was pulled from a workstation doing CAD at a architectural firm, not mining.

Thank you for being the voice of reason...

It's ok, I did the exact same thing when moving to a Quadro RTX 4000.
Turning enterprise equipment into gaming systems, and gaming systems into servers is my jam; I completely understand you and your goals.

There is also a nostalgic feel for a 1-slot GPU with a modern architecture.
Perhaps a remembrance to the 8800GT/9800GT in the late 2000s, and better times.

So OP is a wierdo and posted to get some attention. Ok..

You have been a member of this forum long enough to know where you are posting.
Might be time to get over yourself and get [H]ard.

 

[Mr. Bluntman]

It's ok, I did the exact same thing when moving to a Quadro RTX 4000.
Turning enterprise equipment into gaming systems, and gaming systems into servers is my jam; I completely understand you and your goals.

There is also a nostalgic feel for a 1-slot GPU with a modern architecture.
Perhaps a remembrance to the 8800GT/9800GT in the late 2000s, and better times.

For the first 2 lines, how has your experience been? Are the reports (unverified, naturally, and I could find no indication of it on nVIDIA's website...) true that with a GeForce Experience account and client install you are able to switch between pro/creative drivers to gaming drivers with just a few clicks and a reboot? Because if that is the case, I see a Quadro P4000 in my immediate future...
For the last 2 lines... It's totally 80% nostalgia, 20% seeing partner cards get so large you need an EATX compatible case to fit it without Dremeling the blue fuck out of your chassis, or what not. And let's not forget that there were many of us that could look past the noise (and in the earlier days, fan whine) for the lower power consumption and slim single slot profile. Definitely better times. Then $250 could buy you a card that was almost as fast as the 8800 GTX 768MB, which I think launched at, what, $600?
If I were in charge of things, I'd move back to sane power budgets and more intelligent, less brute forcing. You'd start seeing single slot GPUs again for the OEMs and enthusiasts that want such lower power and profile options again. This 3.25 slot + madness is insanity and not sustainable, IMO.
But then again, until I am able to get a CS or EE degree specializing in semiconductor tech I couldn't say for sure how that would be accomplished...

Which, as a matter of fact, is one of my 5 year goals. Get my existing student debt cleared so I can finish what I started and make a real difference in the industry for the better. I have great ambitions about this, and I realize it's going to take a metric fuckton of hard work, long exhausting days, and iron will dedication to make this happen. But to have a better future for me and mine, it is something I have to do. Living on disability at the lower end of the payscale is no way for someone to live in this day and age. When I am mentally and physically capable of it, I am going to start on the long winding road to get to where I want to go, and hopefully, one day, when that comes to fruition, you will all remember this post as the starting point of it all. Or, it's just going to end up being a local business serving the local community with quality workmanship and service. Either way, if I end up being a big enough OEM to perform a hostile takeover of nVIDIA, cutting out the cancer and toxicity there, and letting the engineers do what they do best, or end up with just a local business so I can save up a trust fund that will at least pay for my son's college and housing, I'll be 100% satisfied with that endpoint. Someone a very long time ago told me when I was on the streets and homeless at 19, "Aim for a skyscraper, but don't be disappointed if you only end up with only a 1 or 2 story building. The point is to spread your wings and try to fly."

 

[pavel]

I considered a used 6900 XT for Linux - although, I'll use both Windows and Linux. The OP looks like he uses Linux, too? I really wanted to switch to AMD - and get that card - although, it's difficult to find near me. However, with my use/r case - I am getting into video editing - Davinci Resolve and Premiere Pro (eventually, hopefully) - and Blender as well. Unfortunately, my research tells me the AMD cards and the performance is still behind - and although the Lovelace/RX 7900 series of cards appears to have made great progress - I am not able/nor willing to invest in the $ these cards will cost. I'm looking at used cards and the RX 6800 XT/6900 XT is good for gaming and in Linux, it's especially good for gaming - open source drivers - but, I think a lot of productivity software needs close drivers - and I am afraid that might be its own headache - which Nvidia drivers can be sometimes.

 

[70 Polara]

This thread is great. For a long time now, I've been [H]ard on the trailing edge of computing, spending as little money as possible. I've spent enough money on PC parts over the last 30 years, that it kinda annoys me to think about it. So now that 10 year old hardware can still be usable and picked up for pennies, I'm set! All you have to do is look at my signature. There is no way that I would ever spend $1000+ on a GPU even if was rich. It seems to me that with the current pricing, the hardware companies may be secretly trying to kill PC gaming????

Anyways I recently picked up a 2012 AMD Pitcairn based W7000 4GB for 20 bucks, coming from a GTX 1060 that I sold off. I love BIOS modding/undervolting/overclocking AMD GCN 1.0 cards using VBE7. This card currently runs a 100MHz overclock on 1volt, down from the stock 1.120. I also tweaked the fan curve to much slower/quieter speeds to reduce noise/dust build up, yet card doesn't get over 68 degrees C under load! The stock fan curve was a joke..... I did disassemble card and completely clean it and upgraded to Arctic MX4 paste. When I pulled card apart the heatsink entrance was completely blocked with dust bunnies like what you'd see on a laptop!

I also use a 32" Samsung TV/monitor at 1360x768 as the low resolution on a big screen means my crappy eyes can easily read the oversized text. And the low resolution means I don't need much GPU to run games. I also like to tweak my OS and games to see exactly what I can get to run on my archaic hardware! Plays Cyberpunk 2077 at 30FPS on low settings, Far Cry 6 at medium/high settings 30+ FPS, Serious Sam 4/Siberian Mayhem at medium/high settings 30+ FPS, and Doom Eternal at medium settings 30+ FPS so I'm good. Other then these, all the other games I play are older and run like silk on my system. Amernime driver FTW too!

Someday when I can buy used Ryzen hardware for pennies on the dollar, I'll upgrade.

 

[gvx64]

Can't people just be themselves without worry of ridicule?

Judging from how many likes your post has I would say that they can, which I think is a great thing and is a big part of why I post here!

Similar to the OP, a lot of folks think that I am nuts to have paid almost as much for a GTX 1650 Super this year as a RTX 2060 would have costed me. Well, I had reasons for doing so. A big part of it was maintaining a low TDP so that I wouldn't have to pay through my nose to upgrade the 300W PSU in my Shuttle. Folks generally have a reason for the hardware decisions that they make and it isn't always to have the fastest hardware possible. If you combine that with this weird price-inflated market right now where certain hardware (such as the 1650) costs more now than it did 3 years ago I think that we are going to see more and more users starting to make unconventional decisions around their hardware upgrades.

 

[funkydmunky]

I love BIOS modding/undervolting/overclocking AMD GCN 1.0 cards using VBE7. This card currently runs a 100MHz overclock on 1volt, down from the stock 1.120. I also tweaked the fan curve to much slower/quieter speeds to reduce noise/dust build up, yet card doesn't get over 68 degrees C under load! The stock fan curve was a joke..... I did disassemble card and completely clean it and upgraded to Arctic MX4 paste. When I pulled card apart the heatsink entrance was completely blocked with dust bunnies like what you'd see on a laptop!

Sounds cool. I have a trusty HD7950 in my media center PC. Works a charm and I can't believe the mileage this 3GB GCN1.0 has given me. Would love to play around with VBE7 but would be scared to wreak the guy. Any low risk advice that would have worthy gains and a positive impact on longevity with my card?

 

[70 Polara]

https://www.techpowerup.com/forums/threads/vbe7-vbios-editor-for-radeon-hd-7000-series-cards.189089/

This thread contains a lot of good info and if you are serious about waking up your HD7950 (or possibly downclocking/undervolting to extend it's life), I'd study it. I have learned my skills with VBE7 starting off with cheap Dell R5 240, R5 430, R7 250, and R7 450 cards that were low value in case I screwed up. The CH314 USB BIOS flasher has come out a few times during my 'training' lol.

Biggest thing I've personally seen, as have lots of others, is AMD loves to overvolt these GPUs. ASIC quality is backwards on these too, so the higher the ASIC quality is in GPU-Z the crappier the chip is and the more voltage you will need and more heat output, and lower ASIC quality means less voltage and less heat. At one time I BIOS modded a pile of about 30 Dell R7 250 2GB cards, and proved this ASIC quality discovery myself. On those, cards with ASIC quality in the mid 70s or higher ran hot as hell and couldn't really overclock much with the stock cooling, yet cards with ASIC quality in the mid 60s or lower would undervolt and overclock nicely yet the stock cooler could easily keep up. So if your ASIC quality is say 70% or less, you can most likely drop from 1.25 3D mode voltage down to 1.10 or so. I usually apply a small 25/50MHz GPU overclock and drop the voltage a bit with VBE7, then flash the card in DOS. Sometimes you have to fight with the AMD drivers to get the drivers to acknowledge the new BIOS speeds/voltages but then I'll run Unigine Heaven/Valley/Superposition for several loops to verify stability. If you undervolted too far, you'll quickly see the Unigine benchmarks crash to desktop....

I got some of the Dell R7 250s to overclock 100-200MHz on GPU with less voltage then stock and 100-200MHz on memory, and after some fan curve tweaking they would also run cooler. I got a lot of budget gamers through the GPU apocalypse with my big pile of R7 250s lol.

 

[Red Falcon]

For the first 2 lines, how has your experience been? Are the reports (unverified, naturally, and I could find no indication of it on nVIDIA's website...) true that with a GeForce Experience account and client install you are able to switch between pro/creative drivers to gaming drivers with just a few clicks and a reboot? Because if that is the case, I see a Quadro P4000 in my immediate future...

I only use it with Linux for GPGPU applications and occasional gaming, but it performs quite well on all fronts.
If that is the case, though, I will have to give it a try in Windows, since that would be an extremely good tool.

The temperatures are very good under load, and the minimal power requirements and lower TDP are a plus.

For the last 2 lines... It's totally 80% nostalgia, 20% seeing partner cards get so large you need an EATX compatible case to fit it without Dremeling the blue fuck out of your chassis, or what not.

Tell me about it, fitting a 3070 into an HP t620 Plus thin client is a bit difficult, but with a will there is a way.

And let's not forget that there were many of us that could look past the noise (and in the earlier days, fan whine) for the lower power consumption and slim single slot profile. Definitely better times. Then $250 could buy you a card that was almost as fast as the 8800 GTX 768MB, which I think launched at, what, $600?

I know, right, even adjusted for inflation those prices are less than 1/3 what modern GPUs cost.
Cooling has definitely improved, but it has definitely needed that additional space to make up for 350+ watt TDP GPUs.

If I were in charge of things, I'd move back to sane power budgets and more intelligent, less brute forcing. You'd start seeing single slot GPUs again for the OEMs and enthusiasts that want such lower power and profile options again. This 3.25 slot + madness is insanity and not sustainable, IMO.
But then again, until I am able to get a CS or EE degree specializing in semiconductor tech I couldn't say for sure how that would be accomplished...

The standard desktop expansion form factor from the 1970s/1980s is definitely long in the tooth.
It's time we modernize our options with server rack 6U GPUs.

This is the way.

Which, as a matter of fact, is one of my 5 year goals. Get my existing student debt cleared so I can finish what I started and make a real difference in the industry for the better. I have great ambitions about this, and I realize it's going to take a metric fuckton of hard work, long exhausting days, and iron will dedication to make this happen. But to have a better future for me and mine, it is something I have to do. Living on disability at the lower end of the payscale is no way for someone to live in this day and age. When I am mentally and physically capable of it, I am going to start on the long winding road to get to where I want to go, and hopefully, one day, when that comes to fruition, you will all remember this post as the starting point of it all. Or, it's just going to end up being a local business serving the local community with quality workmanship and service. Either way, if I end up being a big enough OEM to perform a hostile takeover of nVIDIA, cutting out the cancer and toxicity there, and letting the engineers do what they do best, or end up with just a local business so I can save up a trust fund that will at least pay for my son's college and housing, I'll be 100% satisfied with that endpoint. Someone a very long time ago told me when I was on the streets and homeless at 19, "Aim for a skyscraper, but don't be disappointed if you only end up with only a 1 or 2 story building. The point is to spread your wings and try to fly."

Agreed!

 

[xDiVolatilX]

What Nvidia GPU is this equivalent to OP?

 

[jlbenedict]

Can someone compile a list of everyone that says "they are done with Nvidia".. so we can come back in 2023, and look what new $1000+ Nvidia GPU they bought lmao

 

[xDiVolatilX]

Can someone compile a list of everyone that says "they are done with Nvidia".. so we can come back in 2023, and look what new $1000+ Nvidia GPU they bought lmao

Well I've unfortunately been in this abusive marriage with Nvidia 20 years lol
It's like I prefer the hot blonde that cheats on me vs the brunette Karen lmao jk idk wtf I'm saying haha

 

[XoR_]

All this being done with Nvidia would definitely go much smoother if AMD made better graphic cards 🤣

 

[ZeroBarrier]

All this being done with Nvidia would definitely go much smoother if AMD made better graphic cards 🤣

I mean, if I'm getting fucked regardless, I might as well get fucked by the better option, right? 🤣

 

[Mr. Bluntman]

Can someone compile a list of everyone that says "they are done with Nvidia".. so we can come back in 2023, and look what new $1000+ Nvidia GPU they bought lmao

IF I did buy nVIDIA again, it would be either a used RTX 3080 or 3080 Ti FE - most certainly not a new one. I'm not giving NVDA another dime of my money directly until they start releasing cards at sane prices again

 

[matt167]

https://www.techpowerup.com/forums/threads/vbe7-vbios-editor-for-radeon-hd-7000-series-cards.189089/

This thread contains a lot of good info and if you are serious about waking up your HD7950 (or possibly downclocking/undervolting to extend it's life), I'd study it. I have learned my skills with VBE7 starting off with cheap Dell R5 240, R5 430, R7 250, and R7 450 cards that were low value in case I screwed up. The CH314 USB BIOS flasher has come out a few times during my 'training' lol.

Biggest thing I've personally seen, as have lots of others, is AMD loves to overvolt these GPUs. ASIC quality is backwards on these too, so the higher the ASIC quality is in GPU-Z the crappier the chip is and the more voltage you will need and more heat output, and lower ASIC quality means less voltage and less heat. At one time I BIOS modded a pile of about 30 Dell R7 250 2GB cards, and proved this ASIC quality discovery myself. On those, cards with ASIC quality in the mid 70s or higher ran hot as hell and couldn't really overclock much with the stock cooling, yet cards with ASIC quality in the mid 60s or lower would undervolt and overclock nicely yet the stock cooler could easily keep up. So if your ASIC quality is say 70% or less, you can most likely drop from 1.25 3D mode voltage down to 1.10 or so. I usually apply a small 25/50MHz GPU overclock and drop the voltage a bit with VBE7, then flash the card in DOS. Sometimes you have to fight with the AMD drivers to get the drivers to acknowledge the new BIOS speeds/voltages but then I'll run Unigine Heaven/Valley/Superposition for several loops to verify stability. If you undervolted too far, you'll quickly see the Unigine benchmarks crash to desktop....

I got some of the Dell R7 250s to overclock 100-200MHz on GPU with less voltage then stock and 100-200MHz on memory, and after some fan curve tweaking they would also run cooler. I got a lot of budget gamers through the GPU apocalypse with my big pile of R7 250s lol.

I just got one of the R7 450s and put it in my plex server so that I can stream some simple games anywhere in my house basically. It runs HOT. 80* in heaven but it does not throttle. I’ve been nervous to try modding the bios but I think it’s the only way

 

[Vegas P11]

I have been using nVidia since the late 90's and just picked up a XFX 6600 from Best Buy for $239 to replace my son's GTX780 (don't laugh). He is playing at 1080p and the reviews I read seemed to be very positive at that resolution. I am really looking forward to giving an AMD video card a shot for the first time.

 

[Mr. Bluntman]

I have been using nVidia since the late 90's and just picked up a XFX 6600 from Best Buy for $239 to replace my son's GTX780 (don't laugh). He is playing at 1080p and the reviews I read seemed to be very positive at that resolution. I am really looking forward to giving an AMD video card a shot for the first time.

Don't expect much from the DXR side of that card, RDNA 2 is much weaker at ray tracing than a comparable RTX GPU, but it does have very competitive traditional rasterizer performance. And the Adrenalin driver suite actually *doesn't suck*...

 

[NightReaver]

And the Adrenalin driver suite actually *doesn't suck*...

The control panel itself blows Nvidia's out of the water.

 

[Mr. Bluntman]

What Nvidia GPU is this equivalent to OP?

Roughly a GeForce GTX 1060 Ti if they made one... A smidge faster than a 1060 6GB but not quite 1070 8GB territory.

 

[Mr. Bluntman]

The control panel itself blows Nvidia's out of the water.

Agreed. It looks like an interface made for a modern OS, not something designed in the Win2000/XP days. There is something to be said about function over form, but still...

 

[Elf_Boy]

So OP is a wierdo and posted to get some attention. Ok..

I'd rather be weird, even eccentric, than bitter and mean.

 

[Elf_Boy]

Can someone compile a list of everyone that says "they are done with Nvidia".. so we can come back in 2023, and look what new $1000+ Nvidia GPU they bought lmao

Fair point.

However, as someone who will be on a fixed income within the next 10 years I am starting to worry about costs as well. I can pop 2k for a gpu now (though I wont) after I retire I doubt I'll have that option.

I recently changed from NV and am happy enough with my 6900 so that when the 7900xtx is in stock at retail (yeah who knows how long) I already have the money put away to get one.

Next generation we will see, Green, Red, or perhaps Blue? I expect within the next 2 generations Intel will fold or be hitting with the heavyweights in the gpu amrket.

 

[ZeroBarrier]

Agreed. It looks like an interface made for a modern OS, not something designed in the Win2000/XP days. There is something to be said about function over form, but still...

I would rather have reliable drivers than a slightly modern interface that still looks terrible in my opinion, but maybe that's just me.

 

[Mr. Bluntman]

I would rather have reliable drivers than a slightly modern interface that still looks terrible in my opinion, but maybe that's just me.

The point I was trying to make is that AMD/ATi's driver department has really stepped up their game in a huge way. I have not had any graphical glitches, crashes, or other issues whatsoever using these modded drivers on workstation GPUs. My experience has been just as (if not moreso) positive on Adrenalin driversets as it was using GeForce drivers.

 

[FrgMstr]

ON TOPIC PLEASE.

 

[LigTasm]

The point I was trying to make is that AMD/ATi's driver department has really stepped up their game in a huge way. I have not had any graphical glitches, crashes, or other issues whatsoever using these modded drivers on workstation GPUs. My experience has been just as (if not moreso) positive on Adrenalin driversets as it was using GeForce drivers.

I don't feel like it has. Its pretty crap tbh, I picked up a cheap 6900XT to carry me at 4K for now and its been pretty close to abysmal - even worse than when I had one last year. Games with graphics bugs and artifacts, games where the card gets stuck at 500mhz and gets 4fps, games where the AMD technologies like FSR are grayed out for some reason and won't turn on? I just had a driver update through the radeon software and now the software won't open any more and if I click the red icon in the task bar the graphics driver crashes so now I have to go through the hassle of DDU, I've done driver updates through GFE a hundred times with zero problems. Its pretty amazing how bad it actually is, I'm really glad I didn't waste $1000 on a 7900XTX.

EDIT: I want to say that I think the hardware is great, this XTXH chip is an absolute beast but it seems like their driver development is all over the place. In a program where everything goes as expected like 3Dmark, it really shines. This is with -100mv and overclocked, it beats the 3090ti I had before handily.

 

[SamiiRoss]

I would rather have reliable drivers than a slightly modern interface that still looks terrible in my opinion, but maybe that's just me.

I bet you don't own currently an AMD GPU don't you? the adrenaline software is miles ahead of what nvidia currently offers and I do own both.

OP, I bought 10 Low Profile w3100 for an internet cafe nearby, I was totally unaware of that series being LP and that cheap.