nVidia or AMD chipset?

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kyuusei

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Sep 16, 2008
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I'm in need of some input on my upcoming computer upgrade. It's been some 3 years since I've last upgraded my computer so I've been relatively out of the loop. And I do primarily video editing/encoding with mostly 1080p60 files, photo editing, and the occasional gaming.

nVidia 980a chipset or AMD 890FX? Personally I hate ATI's drivers so I'm probably not gonna use an ATI/AMD GPU, which would render Crossfire to me as useless. On the other hand, all that crap going on about nVidia pulling out of the chipset market has gotten me slighty worried about future support. I want an upgrade path to Bulldozer without having to change motherboards.

Oh as a side question, does ATI support GPU decoding of h.264? If so using which decoder? I know CoreAVC only supports nVidia's CUDA, but how about ffdshow? Speaking of ffdshow, does it support multicore and GPU hardware decoding?
 
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AMD's 890FX chipsets are a better choice. Nvidia's 980a chipset is a slightly updated 780a chip, with the only change being AM3 support added. As for AMD GPUs decoding h.264, yes they do. Use Media Player Classic-Home Cinema. With that program, you don't need to install another codec pack as it comes with it's own built in, including ffdshow.

As for Bulldozer, we don't know if they'll still be compatible with AM3 motherboards, including the new 890 series. I have a feeling they'll end up changing sockets for that release since it's pretty much a completely different architecture from K8/K10.
 
Bulldozer being on "AM4" is what worries me. Around a Q2/3 release probably? It might be a better choice for me to wait a bit before committing to a new mobo.
 
I'd expect sometime late next summer, or early autumn. They've been sampling their server chips within the last couple of months. But since we still don't know much of anything about this chip, it's a ways off from being released. Buying a cheap AM3 setup should hold you till Bulldozer is released and even after if it doesn't live up to expectations.
 
Oh this slipped my mind earlier but was one of the reasons why I was so interested in an nVidia chipset.

Is Hybrid SLI/Power still around? Or it's ATI/AMD derivative? The last reviews I've seen of it showed some significant reduction in power when paired with a power hungry GPU. I'd really like to use 980a if it Hybrid SLI works with new nVidia GPUs. Unless there are some significant performance hits or an exceedingly grim looking future of course.
 
Hybridpower was only really supported on particular series 8 and series 9 cards that you probably won't want anymore. Any Nvidia chipset you buy now is kind of dated at this point, seriously just consider AMD boards.
 
Seriously? get an AMD chipset board......it will out perform the Nvidea one by MILES.....especially in overclocking......as for ATI drivers sucking, well they are decent now(back in the nvidea 7800 time[which is what your sig says you have] they were worse).....also, some of the new ATI GPU's pull a bare 20 W or less at idle....much lower than you will get with anything you are thinking of....as for being ready for bull dozer, it probably will not be released for the AM3 socket....
 
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