Maximum PC

OK... I am sure this has been discussed many times and I have found an old thread and an article asking this. But, usually they were comparing like AMD 5770 to EVGA 560Ti or some such. I am thinking a little more generally.

I built a system in 2007...I believe it was still ATi at the time. I liked the card. But, I am considering another build for gaming (Skyrim, Oblivion, even Morrowind still, maybe FlightSim, DA:O, Witcher, etc). Maybe space based sim / rpg as well.

Some minor personal video / photo work may happen as well. What are the general differences? Is there a particular reason that would overwhelming compel or reject one platform over the other?

Thanks
Tony

nVidia has better 3d and is better for photowork and has better drivers. AMD is better for Bitcoin and has newer and stronger cards at the moment.
I'd go with nVidia when their 600 series GPUs come out, but that's just personal preference.

This is a big discussion that can go either way. It really depends on your budget and needs. AMD tends to hit a better price/performance with a decent level of performance/wattage while nvidia tends to be a bit more expensive and hold a higher price premium over similar performing gpu's. I do have to say that nvidia drivers are much more refined over AMD and they are rock solid. SLI is much more scalable compared to AMD's crossfire, but they are getting there.

For games and in the 200 price range, you can't go wrong with an AMD 6850/6870/6950 1gb or nvidia's 560 or 560 ti. Even their 560 ti 448 around the 250 hits a really good price/performance ratio that puts the 6950 2gb a run for it's money.

Nvidia has both CUDA and OpenGL/CL, while AMD only has OpenGL/CL so for some applications that use the CUDA, nvidia is the only choice. Adobe products use CUDA right now, but they swear that they are going to support OpenCL. there are few video editing programs now that use OpenCL and for raw performance, AMD is king; they just have to get their SM to actually fill the steam processors (nvidia does this on a hardware level not software I believe) to utilize the GPU better in certain applications. There's a reason why the 3.2 TeraFlop 7970 monster is only 30% faster than the 1.5 Teraflop 580 gtx; work load inefficiency.

Nvidia has a better 3D presence and more support, plus they have PhysiX compared to AMD that doesn't. AMD does have 3D support and they are expanding the 7k series for it, but AMD cards support 3 or more monitors on one card as oppose to the normal 2 that nvidia cards have now. AMD supports multimonitor gaming for 3+ monitors as well without needing a 2nd card like that of nvidia.

I find that multi-monitor gaming to be complete and utter crap on both nvidia and AMD; 3D gaming to be nothing more than an expensive fad that will strain your eyes and brain after a few hours. Another descriptor for PhysiX is "post processing garbage filter" because that's what it does for games... adds flying bits of garbage, debris and dust in your face. Adds more "realism" if you think flying paper's all over the place to be a worth while investment with nvidia. You can do without.

And as for nvidia's Kepler, hard to saw what it will do since its nothing more than just paper benchmarking at this point; AMD already released their 7k series ahead of schedule with no issues in production. The GPU wars are only heating up again this year so it'll be exciting to see what comes out and how far older gen gpu's come down in price.


At the end of the day, it just comes down to a single high res monitor as the best way to play a simple video game to shoot some complicated polygons while you shout "BOOYAA! EAT THAT" to some 14 year old punk who still wets the bed.

Thanks so far guys. Sounds like, JBaz, that gaming like I play is best done on a single screen, high res preferred.

I like the AMD price points I think, but I am leaning towards nVidia... SLI?

560 Ti? Not a 570 or 580?

560ti hits the 200-230 price point and does a good job on most games with max settings for 1080p resolutions. Works good and if you get a decent cooler stock, you can OC them quite a bit and get another 7-8% of performance out of it. EVGA makes the best nvidia branded cards on the maket, plus their warranty is top notch and their CS is great.

Right, I'm waiting to see how well Kepler will do before deciding between a GTX 680 or an HD 7970 at this point. Right now, I have a 32" 3D display coming its way (Toshiba 32TL515U), and I know that nVidia's 3D Vision does support 3D displays like that one, but not sure how AMD's HD3D does vs. that one... I do know that 3D Vision is more mature than HD3D, tho, so having 3D technology that can be more trusted with Kepler should be worth looking into.

Although, 3D Vision vs. AMD HD3D isn't really the big important part for the general sense. To get back to a more general topic, yes, currently while the HD 7970 is the best card as well as the rest of the HD 7xxx series, we shall see within the next couple of months, supposedly, what nVidia has up their sleeve. If the trend sounds right, nVidia should come up with a big-time upset, and prove to be even stronger than their AMD counterparts. We'll see if that happens this year.

Well the development for the 680 chip has been delayed and its up to anyone's guess to when those cards will hit the market based on that chip. The lower end chips for the 660 and 650 wasn't impacted of what the news were saying, but it could be a longer wait than expected for the 680's and with their poor yields on the 28nm production line, you could predict a very low product offering on the initial batches. Since we haven't heard a peep from nvidia about this, I'll put my money on late summer at this point since they'll still have to do all the marketing collateral, packaging and ads at this point, which is still a good few months job worth of work.

And yeah, if you want 3D support, stick with Nvidia. AMD is quite lacking in that department while their multi-monitor support is better. Even then, both tech's are crap; 3D is a fad and will probably never really hit mainstream beyond the cool gag factor for the first 3 hours... till you get headaches and can't play batman anymore while you grow dizzy from the odd perspectives of the 2 extra displays on the sides from the stupid implementation of multi-monitor gaming support...

Honestly, I just don't know how people can't see multi-monitor gaming is a big fail. perspectives don't line up. It's only till after I explain this to people before they see this and I'm left scratching my head "how do you miss it? its pretty damn noticeable".

I agree about the multi-monitor 3d. However, single monitor 3d looks pretty damn cool, and I am in the relatively small group of people who don't get headaches from it. It might be a fad but it looks cool and since I can't afford the 3d glasses anyway, it's a moot point.