What gpu company do you favor?

[Sky15]

It seems like ever time I upgrade I change from nvidia to AMD and vice versa.

 

[dkz]

What value? You pay double the cost for at best 30% more performance. Been down that road there's no value.

LOL Thanks for the laugh!

Back on topic, right now it's AMD. Last time it was Nvidia.

 

[wonderfield]

Been a while, so I'm not guaranteeing the order here:

S3 Virge DX
3Dfx Voodoo
3Dfx Voodoo 2
Riva TNT2
GeForce 2 GTS
Radeon 9800 Pro
GeForce 6800 Ultra
Radeon X1900 XTX
GTX 680
GTX 780

So, NVIDIA.

 

[madFive]

I've been buying exclusively from green team for over a decade now, but my last few buys I've been even more picky than that. Now I generally only buy EVGA - every single one of their's I've used was just rock solid reliable.

 

[Activate: AMD]

What value? You pay double the cost for at best 30% more performance. Been down that road there's no value.

I've gone dual cards for the last few generations (4870, gtx460, 7970) and the value is absolutely there. Scaling is almost always 50+%, usually more like 85+% and you can start with 1 card and when the price drops add a second. I bought my second 7970 for almost half of what I paid for the first one.

 

[Sodapopjones]

It seems like ever time I upgrade I change from nvidia to AMD and vice versa.

Seems like I have done the same thing, I go back and forth lol.

 

[Pylor]

I've gone dual cards for the last few generations (4870, gtx460, 7970) and the value is absolutely there. Scaling is almost always 50+%, usually more like 85+% and you can start with 1 card and when the price drops add a second. I bought my second 7970 for almost half of what I paid for the first one.

Except that there's always little limitations. Judging by what I've been reading, a lot of them still aren't eliminated. Windowed mode isn't supported (unless something has changed) in crossfire. Most of my most-played casual games I play in windowed fullscreen so I can watch something on a second monitor while I play. Some games (Rome 2) won't allow the second monitor to display a video when it's in full screen mode, atleast not that I've seen.

Second is driver support. I found that the profiles always lagged a bit behind game releases, not a big deal for games you play consistently but it did sting a bit knowing your second card is sitting there doing nothing while playing that brand new $60 game.

Third was microstuttering, though I'm hoping that's a thing of the past now.


Not trying to go against you or anything, but I always felt like there were limitations on the effectiveness of a second card. Which is a shame, as I could pick up another 7970 for a third of the price I paid for mine 2.5 years ago.

 

[dkz]

Except that there's always little limitations. Judging by what I've been reading, a lot of them still aren't eliminated. Windowed mode isn't supported (unless something has changed) in crossfire. Most of my most-played casual games I play in windowed fullscreen so I can watch something on a second monitor while I play. Some games (Rome 2) won't allow the second monitor to display a video when it's in full screen mode, atleast not that I've seen.

Second is driver support. I found that the profiles always lagged a bit behind game releases, not a big deal for games you play consistently but it did sting a bit knowing your second card is sitting there doing nothing while playing that brand new $60 game.

Third was microstuttering, though I'm hoping that's a thing of the past now.


Not trying to go against you or anything, but I always felt like there were limitations on the effectiveness of a second card. Which is a shame, as I could pick up another 7970 for a third of the price I paid for mine 2.5 years ago.

I don't think anyone is saying multi-gpu is perfect or doesn't come with limitations, but to state what the person before him said and claim there is no value is just absurd.

 

[Activate: AMD]

Except that there's always little limitations. Judging by what I've been reading, a lot of them still aren't eliminated. Windowed mode isn't supported (unless something has changed) in crossfire. Most of my most-played casual games I play in windowed fullscreen so I can watch something on a second monitor while I play. Some games (Rome 2) won't allow the second monitor to display a video when it's in full screen mode, atleast not that I've seen.

Second is driver support. I found that the profiles always lagged a bit behind game releases, not a big deal for games you play consistently but it did sting a bit knowing your second card is sitting there doing nothing while playing that brand new $60 game.

Third was microstuttering, though I'm hoping that's a thing of the past now.


Not trying to go against you or anything, but I always felt like there were limitations on the effectiveness of a second card. Which is a shame, as I could pick up another 7970 for a third of the price I paid for mine 2.5 years ago.

You're right, its not a 100% flawless experience all the time, but I've been using my 7970 CF setup for 9+ months at this point and can say that I haven't had any game-breaking issues or bugs, and everything else has been trivial or, at most, annoying (like Titanfall's crappy dual GPU issues that have been fixed AFAICT) I've never seen my second GPU sitting there doing nothing in any newly released game. I don't run in windowed mode so I can't confirm/deny that, but you specifically mentioned "casual" games, probably a case where dual 7970's are massive overkill anyway. Haven't experienced microstuttering since AMD's frame pacing changes.

Sorry if I'm going a bit OT here

 

[ManofGod]

What value? You pay double the cost for at best 30% more performance. Been down that road there's no value.

Oh, and hear I thought you were comparing Nvidia to AMD. Crossfire is great but, I am at a XFX R9 290 now and only use a 1080P TV so it would not be as good a value at this time for me.

 

[Ranulfo]

Hmm off the top of my head for my gaming systems:

S3 Virge DX (dukenukem3d ftw)
Riva 128 (Viper 330 card)
3Dfx Voodoo 2 (Ran this with the Viper)
Geforce1 (Asus 32mb card, was $300 I think)
Geforce 3 ti200
Geforce 4 ti4400 (I think, I mostly remember it as a loud Albatron card)
Geforce 6 6600 fanless
Geforce XFX 7950GT fanless (end of the fanless phase, $270 or so)
ATI XFX 5858 ($280 or so in 2010)
Geforce Asus 560ti (barely used)
AMD 7870

 

[Zarathustra[H]]

What value? You pay double the cost for at best 30% more performance. Been down that road there's no value.

Maybe he is comparing the price of two lower end boards vs the price of one higher end board?

In some cases that equation works out, but it's far from universal. Besides I've never found multi-GPU solutions to provide a good experience, especially since they are all AFR these days.

Now, if SFR were a real option in most titles, I'd start considering multi-gpu again.


And I understand, multi-GPU is always improving and gets better and better, but IMHO, until we ditch AFR in favor of some sort of SFR implementation across the board it will always be a losing proposition to me due to the input lag problem...

It's an inherent problem with AFR that can't be designed out. SFR has other problems (including poor scaling) but I'd take poor scaling without added input lag, over great scaling with delayed input any day.

 

[harmattan]

680m and 780m? Laptop graphics? That and all those prices are super inflated.

I owned half that list and didn't pay more than 300 except for the 680s I had.

I've moved towards mobile cards over the past couple years. Unfortunately, mobile is much more costly for several reasons (binning, single manufactuer and no partners/resellers), normally hovering around $600 for top cards when included with a laptop.

I wish they had been cheaper, and I thought I was over estimating too until I did some research -- the prices I listed are not inflated at all. Those were the retail prices of the cards at or a couple months after their launch (when I tend to buy my cards).

Here are a couple examples:

4600ti = $450 http://www.anandtech.com/show/904/10

6800 GT - $390 http://techreport.com/review/7161/geforce-6800-series-round-up/7

1900 XT was $550 http://www.anandtech.com/show/1930/3

GTX 8800 = $599 http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/bfg_geforce_8800_gtx_review,1.html

GTX 480 = $500 http://www.anandtech.com/show/2977/...-gtx-470-6-months-late-was-it-worth-the-wait-