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Origin PC drops AMD graphics options

Link I mentioned above: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2052...ion-to-so-publicly-dump-amd-video-cards-.html

Jon Bach, president and founder of Seattle’s Puget Systems, provided a cornucopia of reliability data culled from testing of 5698 units. Here’s what he had to say via email:

”It is hard to quantify customer experience, but one thing I can quantify is reliability. How many have failed? Here’s a report from the last 3 years.

Nvidia: 5.36% total failures (in our testing + in the field)
AMD: 8.89% total failures (in our testing + in the field)

But more important than failure rate is how many failed in our customer hands? We do a lot of testing here to weed out as many bad cards as possible in our build process. Here’s how many have failed in the field over the last 3 years:

Nvidia: 2.42% failures in the field
AMD: 3.23% failures in the field

Here’s that same info, over the last 1 year only:

Nvidia: 4.95% total failures (in our testing + in the field)
AMD: 7.79% total failures (in our testing + in the field)
Nvidia: 1.02% failures in the field
AMD: 3.25% failures in the field

So yes, AMD does have a higher failure rate, but nothing that puts up such a big red flag that I would want to drop their product.”​
Click to expand...
A 3x the failure rate is pretty alarming, but if the 3 years' sales were pretty steady, that's a difference of ~20 failures if AMD/nvidia were a 50/50 mix "over the last 1 year". That's not really significant enough to completely drop AMD, but also that's not Origin PC's failure stats. Poor choice of components, particularly overclocked models, could be very different from Puget's experience.
 
picket23 said:
Kind of makes them look bad doesn't it? They sell their systems with amd graphics while there are crossfire issues, then the problems are resolved for the vast majority of people (non eyefinity users) and origin stop using amd. Either shotty management, ignorance or nvidia puppeteering.
Click to expand...
It's not fully resolved for single-screen either.... If you try to run any DX9 or OpenGL game (and there are A LOT of them), frame pacing still doesn't work.
 
I don't know about you guys but I think AMD drivers are light ages better then NVIDIA. I have so many issues with Nvidia stuff its not funny, BSODS galore, I have had tons of failures as well. AMD video cards just work. I personally ditched my nvidia card went to a 6970.
 
As pissed as I am that Crossfire is still essentially broken on Radeon 5 and 6 series cards, The Crossfire on the 7 series is working just fine, and all Radeons run fine in single card mode. I think that limiting cards is limiting options, so it'll be hard for me to recommend Origin.
 
pxc said:
Maybe or maybe not. It's really easy to use innuendo, but I personally don't substitute it for thinking. :p
Click to expand...

OK, Let's do some "thinking". Look at the timing. 3 days after getting an exclusive with Nvidia they do this. Not during the frame rate wars, not when AMD had gone a while without new products, but 3 days after a deal with Nvidia. I'm not saying Nvdia told Origin to drop AMD (and then instead of making a statement on their website they go public) but do I think Origin did this to kiss up to Nvidia? Yes.
 
Rizen said:
I also find it especially interesting that the Steambox from Valve will only be using NVIDIA for the prototypes.
Click to expand...

This is just a guess, of course, but an educated one... Nvidia's Linux drivers are so far ahead of AMD's it's not even remotely close. Nvidia kicks AMD's butt on Linux. On Windows, eh, things have evened out significantly over the last year or so. I had a genuinely terrible experience with my pair of 6950's in crossfire, but that's been a while now.

But as far as I know AMD hasn't made any truly notable headway on their Linux display drivers for a while now. I suspect that has quite a lot to do with Valve's early hardware prototypes. You want stability at the very least.
 
I've never heard of origin PC's (I thought it was the EA client at first), but if they're trying to deliver "high performance" PC's, I'm guessing they're doing multi-GPU and in that case AMD shits the bed. Multi-GPU is an easy way for PC makers to add to their margin, and it probably simply isn't worth it if their customers and staff are complaining. All the more reason AMD needs to put more time into its drivers. That said, I doubt it will be a blip on AMD's bottomline.
 
Wrench00 said:
I don't know about you guys but I think AMD drivers are light ages better then NVIDIA. I have so many issues with Nvidia stuff its not funny, BSODS galore, I have had tons of failures as well. AMD video cards just work. I personally ditched my nvidia card went to a 6970.
Click to expand...

i have 2 680 classifieds in sli and a 6970 in my lan box.


nvidia drivers are way better then the AMD's i have more issue wiht my amd card then i ever have with my nvidia's.


like others have said your user experience is far from the norm.
 
Out of the 150 or so Machines that had nvidia cards I had all kinds of issues, replaced them with AMD cards on about 20 machines and I haven't heard a peep. I have alot of OEM systems that have AMD cards in them I have no issues with them, in fact the next most unreliable are the Intel ones.
When it comes to workstations I found the Firepro cards were less expensive then Quadros and they were hell of a lot more stable. I have about 30 CAD workstations almost all of them had Nv cards I have had about 8 fail in two years. There are about 10 Workstations that constantly crash with BSODs. I have used about 5 Firepros (out of 8) and the users couldn't be happier.
 
If you're buying one of these PCs you're probably not the most technically adept tool in the shed.
 
TechPirate said:
And burning a big bridge in the process. I'm not naive to good business practices.
Click to expand...

lol bridges are easily rebuilt with toothpicks in the tech world. Anyhow chances are they weren't getting any special treatment from AMD anyway which meant they were buying their cards from suppliers which will have no problem selling them more if they change their minds.
 
Fooshnik said:
If you're buying one of these PCs you're probably not the most technically adept tool in the shed.
Click to expand...

True and most probably wouldn't know the difference between an Nvidia card or AMD besides the name.
 
Rauelius said:
http://semiaccurate.com/2013/10/05/much-nvidia-pay-origin-pc-drop-amd/
Click to expand...

Let's quote the pertinent bit.

"Multiple sources all said the same thing, a certain Nvidia marketing person, they all called him Bryan for no particular reason, has been calling around to all the Tier 3++ gaming PC makers offering large dollops of funding to dump AMD GPUs or so the story goes. Multiple SemiAccurate sources say this number is in the six digit range, several gave exact figures but asked us not to publish them. This isn’t direct cash payments but more towards MDF funding, product discounts, and other quasi-legal kickbacks that are directly tied to and based on sales volume of AMD GPUs. More details were given to SemiAccurate but we were asked not to publish the exact terms to protect our sources.

It wasn’t just a payoff to promote Nvidia products, it was a payoff to cut out AMD period and bang the drum about it. The fact that the funding was directly proportional to Origin PC’s AMD revenue leaves no doubt as to the intent of Nvidia’s payout and as Mr Wasielewski explained it, "because we absolutely do not want anyone to get that impression". You understand why a legitimate vendor would not want that impression to get out, especially if it were true. [...]"
 
Why is it quasi legal exclusive agreements are common place
 
rudy said:
Why is it quasi legal exclusive agreements are common place
Click to expand...

Actually paying someone to NOT use a competitors product is illegal in many places in the world.

Shocking, I know!
 
Well then how does apple get away with not using any AMD CPUs? How are they going to prove, under NDA that NVidia was paying for not using AMD vs paying for only using NVidia, I mean in a duopoly its not like those 2 options are any different.

The way I see it this shit goes on all the time. But it is only ever illegal when one company is considered a monopoly. As was the case with dell. So ultimately the argument comes down to, is NVidia a monopoly? I think you would be hard pressed to make that argument with anyone.

Also does that mean if AMD pays EA to develop mantle and they don't develop for an NVidia API that AMD is guilty too?

I can walk into almost any store I go to and see exclusive agreements and competing products missing. It's not illegal, if it is everyone is breaking the law. And I think we can assume that NVidia was not stupid enough to have their lawyers write the proposal in illegal terms.
 
rudy said:
Also does that mean if AMD pays EA to develop mantle and they don't develop for an NVidia API that AMD is guilty too?
Click to expand...

Because its not a case of using Mantle and nothing else, there will always be the other options available to use OpenGL,DX and NVidia API which has already been said that will be used in BF4.
 
Is it a big conspiracy or does AMD just have bad drivers? I don't think Elvis faked the moon landing just so Origin would dump AMD.

It's the drivers. It's always been the drivers. It probably always will be the drivers.
 
rudy said:
Well then how does apple get away with not using any AMD CPUs? How are they going to prove, under NDA that NVidia was paying for not using AMD vs paying for only using NVidia, I mean in a duopoly its not like those 2 options are any different.

The way I see it this shit goes on all the time. But it is only ever illegal when one company is considered a monopoly. As was the case with dell. So ultimately the argument comes down to, is NVidia a monopoly? I think you would be hard pressed to make that argument with anyone.

Also does that mean if AMD pays EA to develop mantle and they don't develop for an NVidia API that AMD is guilty too?

I can walk into almost any store I go to and see exclusive agreements and competing products missing. It's not illegal, if it is everyone is breaking the law. And I think we can assume that NVidia was not stupid enough to have their lawyers write the proposal in illegal terms.
Click to expand...

It's illegal to pay another company to stop selling a competitors product. It's that simple.

Intel did the same thing against AMD a few years ago, It fucked them over and they had to pay billions in fines years later, but by that time they'd already gotten a huge marketshare of the CPU business.

Effectively what happens is company A is the market leader and holds a huge marketshare. Company B comes up with a product that beats Company A's products by a fair margin. Company A then pays off all the retailers to stop selling Company B's products because as much as it'll cost Company A from doing so, they get a huuge market presence and bleed money from a weaker company.

It's like how a supermarkets can price food at below cost price to kill off local butchers/milkmen/etc, then once they're gone up the price.
 
Intel was considered a monopoly in their dell dealings which I already mentioned.


This shit happens constantly as I said and it never is a problem until one player is a monopoly. Super markets sell at a loss every week and have successfully destroyed all the smaller player and NO ONE gave a shit about it.
 
i have radeon crossfire.

i think radeon drivers suck, only because they seem to impact the games i want to play the most now, especially with crossfire.

i bought an nvidia $300 card to play black and white 2, guess what, microstuttering before it was a thing.

sucks to be me.
 
PRIME1 said:
Is it a big conspiracy or does AMD just have bad drivers? I don't think Elvis faked the moon landing just so Origin would dump AMD.

It's the drivers. It's always been the drivers. It probably always will be the drivers.
Click to expand...

Who says it cannot be both? Origin sells clevo based systems I believe and they had one HELL of a time around when the GTX680 released with enduro amd drivers. All the clevo sellers had people buying the AMD cards to save money because they had good performance for the price and many of those people were coming back saying you have to replace my card with an NVidia card because enduro wont switch. I do not remember if they even ever fixed it entirely but it caused people like me to pay a lot more for an Nvidia card.
 
Zolishoru said:
Yes, the Nvidia killer drivers.
Click to expand...

Seriously. How do people conveniently forget all the drivers of Nvidia that...oh I dunno... Literally fucking killed cards or created BSOD problems. I remember the whole Quake ATI driver shit that started this whole "OMG ATI BAD DRIVERS!" like 13 years ago. To see it still parroted to this day is truly the power of marketing. On a bad day ATI drivers = occasionally might crash a tri or quad fire system in certain games. Nvidia drivers on a bad day = blow up the card.
 
Michaelius said:
Yes always good to have a proof from totaly unbiased source who isn't emotionally invested in fight for AMD glorious future :D
Click to expand...

Actually, he just hates nVidia. There could be no AMD and he'd still simply hate nVidia. If you are going to accuse him of something, at least get it right. He has no particular love for AMD. He hammers AMD as well. He just doesn't hate AMD like he hates nVidia. :p
 
biggles said:
My impression is that AMD has been very slowly closing the gap with Nvidia in their driver support. So I find this news surprising. Anyway, folks with a modest degree of technical skills get a better bang for the buck with AMD. Non-techies are better off with Nvidia or console gaming.
Click to expand...

So far this takes the crown as most nonsense comment on this thread! Good job mate.
Seriously...what are you even saying...is not rocket science to install a video card so dont act like you are coding your own drivers to make it work or something lol
 
Wrench00 said:
When it comes to workstations I found the Firepro cards were less expensive then Quadros and they were hell of a lot more stable. I have about 30 CAD workstations almost all of them had Nv cards I have had about 8 fail in two years. There are about 10 Workstations that constantly crash with BSODs. I have used about 5 Firepros (out of 8) and the users couldn't be happier.
Click to expand...
With THAT many cards failing, it sounds to me like you might be running into early cards based on lead-free solder.

Both AMD and Nvidia had issues shortly after the switch to lead-free. Micro-fractures develop due to thermal cycling, and the core slowly detaches from the PCB. You should check to see if those Quadro cards qualify for the associated recall.

If not, a heat gun @ 600F on the core for 3 to 5 minutes will fix the cards.
 
Unknown-One said:
Both AMD and Nvidia had issues shortly after the switch to lead-free. Micro-fractures develop due to thermal cycling, and the core slowly detaches from the PCB. You should check to see if those Quadro cards qualify for the associated recall.

If not, a heat gun @ 600F on the core for 3 to 5 minutes will fix the cards.
Click to expand...

Source?
 
LordEC911 said:
Source?
Click to expand...
Physics?

Nvidia and AMD both switched to lead-free solder formulations, which we know has issues with longevity when heat-cycled unless some other additive is used to make it less brittle. They both had issues dealing with the switch.

That said, the two companies reacted differently to the problem...
Nvidia released cards based on a less-than-ideal formulation, a good number of cards produced ~2007 are susceptible to the issue.
AMD was pretty much dead-last to market with lead-free parts, but the number of failures due to this particular issue have been low.

We actually have a thread here on the forums dedicated to this problem, you can find both AMD and Nvidia hardware being brought back to life with ovens / heat guns: http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1421792
 
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Unknown-One said:
Physics?

Nvidia and AMD both switched to lead-free solder formulations, which we know has issues with longevity when heat-cycled unless some other additive is used to make it less brittle. They both had issues dealing with the switch.

That said, the two companies reacted differently to the problem...
Nvidia released cards based on a less-than-ideal formulation, a good number of cards produced ~2007 are susceptible to the issue.
AMD was pretty much dead-last to market with lead-free parts, but the number of failures due to this particular issue have been low.

We actually have a thread here on the forums dedicated to this problem, you can find both AMD and Nvidia hardware being brought back to life with ovens / heat guns: http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1421792
Click to expand...

So where is the proof that AMD had a similar problem?
 
LordEC911 said:
So where is the proof that AMD had a similar problem?
Click to expand...
They switched to lead-free solder, ergo they had to deal with the issues inherent to lead-free solder. What part of this isn't clear? :confused:

There are reports on this very forum of AMD cards being fixed by re-flowing them. A card that goes from perfect, to broken after extended use (and after lots of thermal cycling), that is then fixed by re-flow is pretty much without a doubt suffering from microfractures.

The fact that AMD delayed lead-free parts from public consumption until well after both Intel and Nvidia had already launched lead-free parts makes it pretty clear they didn't think they were ready yet.
 
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