Poll: NVIDIA or Radeon

[loc978]

Five years ago I would have said NVIDIA, because ATI drivers were a ***** to deal with. Nowadays, NVIDIA and Intel can suck it. They overcharge damn near as badly as Apple... and OpenGL support is far more important than Windows drivers, what with Windows gaming circling the drain.

Is there a better alternative to an Intel processor? I was just about to buy one.

Not really, if what you're looking for is the fastest thing available (same goes for NVIDIA)... which is really only useful for future-proofing your system at this point. If you just want to play every game on the market on high graphical settings for the next five years or so, build an AMD system at about half the price.

**edit**
mind you, if you're just buying a processor to upgrade an existing system, you're stuck within a single generation of intel processors by the slot on your motherboard... same as any other computer (at least the good, modular ones that don't have the processor soldered onto the board).

I'm building it from scratch. It's pretty hard to figure out what graphics card suits me just by looking at numbers. I had already settled on the Intel Core i5 3750K Ivy Bridge processor but maybe not. Graphics cards all look ridiculously expensive to me right now and to add insult to injury they all come with Assassin's Creed III which I wouldn't touch with a long stick.

My advice is to read reviews. Every system I build takes a ton of research.
Also, if you wind up sticking with that i5, go with an NVIDIA GPU. If you wind up switching to AMD, go with and AMD GPU.

...but I think that's enough derailing for one thread. If you want advice on specifics, feel free to PM me.

 

[Pinkamena]

Well, the nvidia drivers seems to be a bit more stable, so I'll go with them.

 

[Hero in a half shell]

I decided to go windowshopping for a new laptop last weekend, and looking up all the laptops on Amazon it took me ages to work out the power system on NVIDIA, but I've always had NVIDIA and they were used in most laptops I saw that were a good price, so I'll probably go with them. AMD seems to be a lot rarer in pre-made laptops, I also heard that developers tend to design their games around NVIDIA chips, so they perform better with them, but I don't know if that's true...

 

[Beryl77]

Radeon, I'm pretty happy with it in general, except that it's so damn noisy. I can deal with it sounding like a vacuum cleaner when I play games but it makes a really irritating sound when idling or browsing the internet.

 

[Keiichi Morisato]

Nvidia is the most stable Radeon is cheaper, so... Nvidia, ill take stability over cheap anyway.

 

[Kingjackl]

Video cards are way too damn confusing, but I prefer nVidia. It's what I started with, so it's slightly easier to do comparisons when I think about upgrading.

 

[Auron]

Depends on budget and what's doing better at the moment, I've had multiple of each and have no prejudice whatsoever, the durability of my Nvidia cards has been higher though... They were always XFX and EVGA, the Radeons being Sapphire, Powercolor and HIS respectively.

 

[clippen05]

Nvidia. I would normally say just for performance, but there customer service is also excellent. My gtx560Ti recently broke, and they had me shipped a new one within a week and a half.

 

[Coffeejack]

Honestly, I have no real preference, mostly because I'm not really tech savvy enough to know the difference. Don't Nvidia cards have a RAM/processor bottleneck?

My current card is a AMD 7870, best card I've ever had.

I've been using a Sapphire Radeon HD5850 for years and never thought it would last as long as it has, but it's brilliant. I might think of upgrading to the one you've listed in a few years, if that's a good model. I know hee-haw aboot graphics cards (having only really bought the one) and the significance of their model numbers, so I guess the safest way to get great value in a card is to rely on educated forum recommendations.

 

[Baneat]

Depends on what you want it to do. Obviously workstations for specialised tasks can use nVidia's Quadro. ATi have the best performance but nVidia use underhanded tactics to stay in league with ATi


I'm inclined to listen to the man himself

 

[dfphetteplace]

I use NVIDIA. It has always worked for me with no issue. I have nothing against Radeon, I just have always had good results with the other. The only Radeon card I bought was defective, but I wouldn't use that as my basis for the entire chipset.

 

[Lopende Paddo]

Simple question, which type of card do you prefer and why?

Personally I've used both types and have no real preference.

because its all i know. and it hasn't failed me yet.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

Eh, I've had 4 different Nvidia cards (2 were mobile ones, one is currently in my laptop) and they all ran like shit for the most part and the current one i have now runs hotter than the surface of the sun (been that way since about a month of having it).

AMD on the other hand (radeon) I've had 3 different cards, and they all were cheap and have performed like a boss for the price, I've yet to play anything that I can't max out or nearly max out (running skyrim with 100+ mods, especially a shit ton of texture ones, can chug a tiny bit, but i couldn't care less about that for paying 190 for my card.)

I've seen nvidia do some nice shit, especially with the PhysX stuff, but with those duck mcscrooge prices and shoddy experiences in the past, i'll stick with AMD until they prove otherwise with their "bang for buck" policies.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

Five years ago I would have said NVIDIA, because ATI drivers were a ***** to deal with. Nowadays, NVIDIA and Intel can suck it. They overcharge damn near as badly as Apple... and OpenGL support is far more important than Windows drivers, what with Windows gaming circling the drain.

Is there a better alternative to an Intel processor? I was just about to buy one.

Not really, if what you're looking for is the fastest thing available (same goes for NVIDIA)... which is really only useful for future-proofing your system at this point. If you just want to play every game on the market on high graphical settings for the next five years or so, build an AMD system at about half the price.

**edit**
mind you, if you're just buying a processor to upgrade an existing system, you're stuck within a single generation of intel processors by the slot on your motherboard... same as any other computer (at least the good, modular ones that don't have the processor soldered onto the board).

I'm building it from scratch. It's pretty hard to figure out what graphics card suits me just by looking at numbers. I had already settled on the Intel Core i5 3750K Ivy Bridge processor but maybe not. Graphics cards all look ridiculously expensive to me right now and to add insult to injury they all come with Assassin's Creed III which I wouldn't touch with a long stick.

not trying to market or anything, but i literally just saw this deal after i read your post, so figured i'd forward it to you.

http://promotions.newegg.com/VGA/13-0210/index.html?cm_mmc=SNC-Facebook-_-POST-_-BlackNovember-_-NA&nm_mc=SNC-Facebook

I have a 7850 and my friend has a 7870, they both run great and are pretty damn power efficient (a.k.a. can run anything out there maxed out just fine.)

if you are interested in either of those games, that's a great value, essentially 100 bucks or so that you wouldn't have to spend normally.

 

[AlbertoDeSanta]

Neither. I've used Nvidia and Radeon and they are both fine.

 

[RolandOfGilead]

NVidia. Just always liked'em better. CUDA's cool.
I've had a Geforce4 MX (barely usable-I should have done more research and gotten TX).
a vanilla GeForce 6600,
a GTX 260 which just died on me, luckily I ordered and received it's replacement before it died,
a GTX 560 Ti, so far I can't tell a difference.

I've had two AMD cpu's though, Athlon XP 2000 and 3200, now an Intel i7 920.

 

[FavouriteDream]

I've had two Radeons and both have had issues so guess what? Never using one again. I'm sure I was just unlucky but I've had two bad experiences and that's enough to not go there again.

Geforce and Nvidia have been fine though.

 

[William Dickbringer]

right now have a nvidia 550ti And it's not bad I can run skyrim on high with texture mods and the works and still only get little chug (now when I finally change out my motherboard to support two graphics cards I can have my friend's old 550ti now that's gonna be fun)

 

[Windcaler]

Generally I like Nvidia more. They always have something cutting edge on the market for reasonable prices and the 1 time I had a problem with a new graphics card their customer service was amazing.

Ive only bought 1 Radeon graphics card before and I had a lot of issues with it plus their customer service rep obviously wasnt experienced enough to help me solve my problem but the nail in the coffin was she was just rude. I kind of swore off Radeon then and havnt tried them again.

 

[Waaghpowa]

Nvidia, they tend to have better Linux driver support.