Cyber Monday Debate with Myself

[JPG0809]

Hello!

After much searching through the web I finally pinned down my decision to two Graphics cards.

Nvidia gtx 970:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00NH5T1MS?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=ox_sc_act_title_1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER

AMD r9 390:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202164

(Those cards specifically)

What I'm basically looking for is:

 

• A card that's long lasting (not performance, but in life expectancy without completely dying). I count long lasting by being at least 5+ years.
• Cooling. (I don't care if the Nvidia is a LIL bit better with temperature, if the AMD's cooling is good enough to let the card last longer, that's fine.)
• Future proofing (The thing that got me interested in the r9 390 was it's 8GB of Vram which I hear can help me out in the future if newer games use this benefit)

This is my first time ever looking to buy a AMD so if anyone has any experiences they would like to share, that'd be great.

Overall, I don't plan on being a "hardcore gamer". As of now, the gtx 760 I have now works fine and I couldn't be happier. I just happen to have the money now and what to upgrade. In fact, I think SL is probably the heaviest application I run. So, no problem if I run my settings on med. 5 years from now on furture games.

My System Specs:

CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-4670 CPU @ 3.40GHz (3392.17 MHz)

Memory: 8146 MB

OS Version: Microsoft Windows 7 64-bit Service Pack 1 (Build 7601)

Graphics Card Vendor: ATI Technologies Inc.

Graphics Card: AMD Radeon HD 6350 (The 760 I had is going through some refurbishing)

Another thing people tend to warn me about is heat/noise and wattage consumption. Is the difference between these cards in those factors THAT much to make note of?

If it also helps, I don't plan on overclocking and looking more of a plug-in and play experience. Nothing complicated.

 

Thank you! :matte-motes-big-grin:

 

[Sy Beck]

I'd keep with nVidia all the way.  They run quieter and cooler if slightly more expensive on a peer to peer comparison with AMD.  Also the majority of games developers utilise nVidia's Gameworks software, which can lead to glitches or screen artifacts with AMD cards, though AMD are trying to quickly compensate for that and catch up.  So I wouldn't change from nVidia for at least another year.

[JPG0809]

What about that 8GB of VRAM? That seems good for future proofing, no?

[KarenMichelle Lane]

Nvidia is a clear winner in the gaming world.

[Dresden]

---

JPG0809 wrote:

What about that 8GB of VRAM? That seems good for future proofing, no?

---

It does, but you do realise that the nVidia card you linked to is 4GB, right?

I second Sy's suggestion to go with the nVidia card.  AMD cards have been notoriously problematic with OpenGL programs like SL.  Their drivers simply don't support it as consistently well as does nVidia's.  Now, you might have some people chime in to say that they have an AMD card and also be able to honestly say that they've had no issues with theirs, but why take that chance when who knows what might happen upon their next driver release?

This thread is a perfect example of the ongoing issues with AMD... link.  Why spend so much on a card, then have SL look worse than it probably did with your old card, because you end up having to turn off bump mapping in order to use it?

...Dres

 

[Aethelwine]

Check your power supply is up to it that may need upgrading with a newer graphics card.

[JPG0809]

Thank you! That gives me a lot to think about. 

 

Right, I know it's 4GB, but will that bite me later on when games demand for more VRAM?

[JPG0809]

I have a 750W 

[irihapeti]

if I was buying it for myself then I would go with the NVidia

reasons:

a) NVidia is what I am most familiar with

b) i have NVidia GeForce Experience installed. I automagic get all the latest drivers for the latest games. NVidia are constantly tweaking their drivers to maximise performance for each game title as they come out  

+

about future proofing

sometimes I think we can over-estimate this. Usually what happens is that what we buy now, is kinda not up to it when the future arrives. DirectX 13 or 14 or OpenGL 5 or 6. or whichever for example. So we end up buying a whole new hardware anyways at that time, for the new experiences that comes with these futures

+

ps

if I did buy the AMD I would get it bc is a bit cheaper, and I can buy something else with the savings 

 

[Dresden]

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jonhnnyroleplay wrote:

Spoken like an armchair tech expert..LOL   :matte-motes-nerdy:

---

More like a person that's been around SL long enough to know the problematic nature of AMD's handling of OpenGL... just like most of anyone else who actually knows what they're talking about.

...Dres  *might just have to start RICing your AMD propaganda as exactly what it is... spam*

[Qie Niangao]

---

JPG0809 wrote:

• Future proofing...

... I just happen to have the money now and what to upgrade.

---

Real future-proofing would be to put the money in the bank until you absolutely need a new card. For every GPU generation you can wait, any given amount of money will always buy more performance for less power = less cooling.

You mention VRAM as one thing that might improve future prospects, but there's really very little reason to think 8GB of VRAM will be more of a priority than the next performance tweak -- which may make today's 8GB beast an expensive, obsolete boat anchor.

Any "Cyber Monday" savings will be more than surpassed by normal tech advancement in less than three months anyway.

[Dillon Levenque]

---

jonhnnyroleplay wrote:

Another

armchair tech

based upon

personal opinions

..LOL how much Nvidia stock does SL own??..LOL

---

 

"armchair tech"? I don't know if you're aware of this but the majority of computer modification/configuration tasks are performed by people sitting in chairs with the computer on a workbench. It is not at all uncommon for the workbench to be at desk-height (even in professional computer repair centers) and the chairs to have arms.

"personal opinions"? Oh, you mean something like this?: "IF you had a 3rd or 4th generation i7 ( LGA 1155 or LGA 1150)  then yeah I say GTX  970 or AMD R9 390...unless all you want is to use SL then look at links above. I have ran BOTH Nvidia & AMD....I prefer AMD...more bang for buck....have fun..I AM..."  

In the seven plus years I've been here I have heard many tales of woe from AMD users. Sure, those people might have been doing things wrong. Not getting the right drivers, etc. But the point is that AMD tends to have issues with OpenGL and thus it has issues with Second Life.

If a good graphics experience in Second LIfe is your target, why would you bother with AMD unless you were really at a high-level technically (as in a double-E at least, with hands-on graphics adaptor experience)? I mean, I can't think AMD is going to spend a lot of time worrying about how well their stuff works on Second Life! We aren't exactly the world's favorite online place to be, even if we are OUR favorite online place to be. Why not just go with Nvidia and not worry about it?

 

[Kelli May]

It would be interesting and significant that you've had good results with AMD if it was anything more than an unsupported claim, but at the end of the day "it works for me" is no less a personal opinion than "it doesn't work for me". The evidence as it stands? You're as much an armchair expert as anyone else posting here (myself included)

[Kelli May]

Thank you for providing some evidence for your claims. I'll take a look when I get the chance.

[Dresden]

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jonhnnyroleplay wrote:

as for opinions and my claims here is a valid article/hands on tests that mirror my own claims (facts-killer performance):

 

http://techreport.com/review/29357/amd-radeon-software-crimson-edition-an-overview

yeah, "buy Nvidiaaa....ohh nooooo!"  LOL @ armchair experts here.   :matte-motes-nerdy:

---

Perhaps I scanned over that article a bit too quickly, but I missed the part about how wonderfully Crimson now handles OpenGL and will continue to do so in the future.  And since that's what's actually relevant to this conversation, anything else mentioned in that article is completely meaningless.

Since you're so smart, why don't you explain to us armchair idiots why exactly this isn't indeed the case.

...Dres

[Sassy Romano]

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jonhnnyroleplay wrote:

as for opinions and my claims here is a valid article/hands on tests that mirror my own claims (facts-killer performance):

 

http://techreport.com/review/29357/amd-radeon-software-crimson-edition-an-overview

yeah, "buy Nvidiaaa....ohh nooooo!"  LOL @ armchair experts here.   :matte-motes-nerdy:

 

---

I'm struggling to find the part in that report that describes and compares performance in OpenGL with Second Life, or even just OpenGL at all, please can you help me?

Nearly all benchmarking is for DirectX and that's not SL's interface.

[Dresden]

"No opinion zone"?  Everything you've written about this topic are nothing more than opinions and not very well informed ones at that (not to mention barely coherent).  You can continue posting the same thing over and over and over again, but that doesn't make what you post any more truth than the first time you posted it.

...Dres

[Dresden]

Get back to me when you have something new (and actually relevant) to add to the conversation.

...Dres

[Sassy Romano]

Yet again, terrible quality of moderation on this thread.  Removing posts that weren't inflamatory, quoted anything previous.

Poor, very poor. 

[Sassy Romano]

I'll write up my reply AGAIN, in the same style as the original.

I have had both AMD and nVidia.  My AMD experience was poor, I found that the card stuttered when I panned around and the frame rate dropped to very poor figures, then after a few seconds, it would shoot up again.  That's not a fun experience but this was several years ago.

At that time, because SL was my primary need (and has since been augmented with another need for CUDA support), nVidia was the obvious choice.  Not without other issues though as I have a video editing package which can use CUDA support and the drivers have changed to a stupid habit of watermarking MY home video with nVidia logo.  Wholly unacceptable.

However, for SL, I have gone through several nVidia cards and they've all been painless, this is my experience and opinion but i'm happy for my opinion to be changed.  It was once the case that Intel integrated graphics were utterly rubbish for SL but the current crop are ok.  They won't stack up against a good GPU but they're a world apart from what they once were and for someone buying a general purpose laptop, they'll probably be happy enough.

If AMD have got their act together that's good but for the OP, we're all just posting our comments and opinions and johnny's opinion is equally valid but would be better if it were augmented with specific examples relating to the OP's question, how does it work in SL?

Video examples set to ultra, full shadows and lighting, quiet places, busy places, frame rate details, details of the region that we can visit for comparative purposes etc.  I'm genuinely interested so would like to see if he can be encouraged to illustrate.

Finally, suggestion was made that I post under various alts, I don't, my post count gives that clue but I do object to moderating his opinion off the forum, he just needs encouragement as to how to articulate it somewhat better.

johnnyroleplay, please would you post some examples as i've suggested above to YouTube, if you do have access to both AMD and nVidia and can produce comparative results, even better, that would be constructive and helpful.

[Amethyst Jetaime]

Going to jump in here with my experience with AMD.  Both my partner and myself have R9 290  AMD video cards.  Our computers are about one year old.  We are able to run SL on Ultra High all the time.  We are even able to run SL plus a second instance of our viewers running in another grid, also on Ultra High.   While doing this, we both can surf the web, and I can run Corel Draw and Gimp. He doesn't run graphics programs because he doesn't do textures and stuff but he runs other programs too.  We generally do not have any lag unless the lag is on the server side.  We don't have overheating problems as our cards have built in cooling separate from the main cooling system and we are very pleased with our cards.

Now this is just our experience. We both have high end computers with 8 core processors and 32gigs of memory and use high speed internet.  (Mine is 300mps.  I don't recall what his speed is.) The only glitch we ran into was AMD put out a driver a while ago that wasn't rendering mesh correctly.  We both reverted to the previous version of the driver and everything was fine.  Since then this has been corrected and now we both use the most current drivers.  If I were in the market for another computer I'd consider AMD cards again.

I don't have any links to studies comparing cards for you.  This is just my opinion based on personal experience.  Your results may vary of course.