Poll: NVIDIA or Radeon

[EHKOS]

I've had AMD for the past four years. Although not by choice. I like how much punishment they can take, I was determined to play Red Faction G even through a solid 15 FPS through the whole game. No crashes, low heat. I had a 4550 that overheated like a ***** though. Honestly I can't remember the performance Nvidia gave me, but I voted for Nvidia because I really want to switch over.

 

[Sealpower]

Had an ATI card once, it caught fire... So I've gone with nvidia my last few computers. Never had any problem with them what so ever.

 

[JudgeGame]

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.

 

[Paladin2905]

Voted for Radeon. Don't have a real "preference," but my last two cards (~5 years) have been ATI.

The (admittedly silly) reason I chose them was because, as someone who'd been out of the loop on what's "good" for years, I found their model numbering system really intuitive. It made it easy to judge which cards were worth learning more about. (Edit: To elaborate, if I see a mention of a specific model number, I instantly know where it sits in the hierarchy.)

Nvidia's naming scheme confused the hell out of me, so I never bothered to learn what the names actually mean.

Harumph. The naming scheme for ATI cards is exactly why I've been using them for so long. I swear people would be much less intimidated by upgrading or buying computers if the cards actually had sensible names and performance values, but I guess that wouldn't be good marketing.

Also, point to ATI for not whoring out their cards on every other unskipable intro movie on AAA titles.

 

[FF666]

I use Radeon basically because they are the only cards that can be used if you game with a calibrated monitor. Lots of games throw away calibration data in direct3d and enforce a normal linear gamma, which make the colours look awful on my monitor.

I use a program called powerstrip to override this. It has a function called "write directly to palette DAC". I don't know exactly what it does, but it can write calibrated data directly to you card. Nvidea has blocked this in their cards, making it impossible to get my calibrated colors working in a number of games. Up to now ATI does not prevent this and I'm a happy gamer.

If I didn't use a calibrated monitor, I think my next card could very well be a Nvidia. I do believe their support is better and you have more options that can be set by the user without using third party programs like Radeon Pro.

 

[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).

 

[tangoprime]

Definitely Nvidia, I've had nothing but trouble with Radeon drivers so I swapped to Nvidia, no issues whatsoever.

Same here, I dropped Radeon way back when they started using their "catalyst" driver, which was a huge resource hog. Have been using Nvidia happily ever since starting with a 6800gt that I replaced my Radeon X800 with, I've since used the 7600gt, 8600gtx, 9800gx2, and I'm currently on the 560gtx ti.

I remember I was having problems running KotOR, so I upgraded to the x800, had to install Catalyst, and it was even worse than the older card thanks to that, took it back and traded it for nvidia, and it's been pretty smooth sailing ever since.

A few years after that, I even got to work for nvidia for a bit doing driver QA testing Most fun job I ever had, shame it was only on the "college job" end of the pay scale, or I'd still be doing it.

 

[UrsusAtrus]

I've almost always made my choice based on noise, temperature and power draw within required performance limits, so I'm currently on a Radeon HD6850 (made by Gigabyte). I tend to avoid reference cooling solutions as they are always a bit too noisy and too hot for my taste. And, most importantly, I'm a late adopter, I usually wait for at least 6 months before switching to a new(er) generation, so I've successfully avoided driver problems with both AMD and NVIDIA cards.

 

[thejackyl]

Haven't had an AMD card since 2001 (Radeon All-in-Wonder ###), which I THINK was updated around 98(my old computer, not the card). I had a LOT of issues with games, mainly the fact that I couldn't even run most games around that time at reasonable speeds even with the graphics on Low. It may have also been my understanding of computers, since I couldn't tell you how much RAM or what CPU that old thing had.

Had a GeForce 8800 GT, which worked wonders until it overheated (My fans failed and I didn't notice until my computer kept shutting down without warning due to overheating. Too late to save the graphics card.)

I have a Geforce 450 GTS and so far have had no problems running most games on reasonably high graphics.

 

[Sennune]

The first videocard I purchased was ATI. When it came time to replace it, I put in an order for an ATI Radeon card. Due to a mixup with the website I was making the purchase from, I was offered and took an upgrade to a NVIDIA GeForce. I say "upgrade" because the NVIDIA card had better specs, it wasn't a lateral swap. Ever since then I've stuck with GeForce cards.

From my understanding, Radeon offers flexibility, while GeForce offers raw power. I haven't experienced a Radeon card AMD or ATI in a very long time but I think both cards are great and it just comes down to brand bias.

 

[Solo-Wing]

Radeon. Right now using a 6670 and I love it.

 

[Scarim Coral]

Radeon but only because that what I have been using so far for my pc (I don't exactly put my game spec to the max).

 

[Aariana]

Radeon for me. Up until the middle of December, I had a GTX 550 Ti that I bought when Skyrim came out. It was RMA'd twice, first time they claimed nothing was wrong, second time they gave up and gave me a refurbished card instead of sending the same one back. In December, the exact same problem came back, and rather than deal with shipping costs AGAIN, I said fuck it, decided it was time for an upgrade and picked up an XFX 7870 double D. Thing maxes out all the games I have, and I haven't had it warm up past 70, no matter what I do.

I'm sure that Nvidia cards are just as good, but I just got so sick of dealing with the damn TDRs from that card that I wanted to try something different.

 

[cikame]

No real preference but i've been going with Nvidia alot in recent years, they release new drivers a hell of alot.

 

[suitepee7]

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

so you decided not to include your own answer in the poll o_0

OT: neither, although i'm using nvidia atm, i used to use radeon, and not had an issue with either

 

[JudgeGame]

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.

 

[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.