Nvidia vs AMD what do prefer ?

A simple question. Do you prefer AMD cards or NVIDIA and why.

I've always been partial to AMD specifically because they were cheaper, but I believe I just found out why my desktop would lose focus now and then. I believe it was due to amd service for my video card audio. I've disabled it and it hasn't done it yet. AMD has always been a budget brand as far as I'm concerned. I may spring for the gtx 1070 when I upgrade this year.

I like nVidia because their drivers are always pretty stable, they now have the nVidia GeForce Experience which can allow you to stream directly to YouTube and Twitch, and they have PhysX.

Yeah I prefer Nvidia as well, awesome drivers and I find that the overall picture quality is better when I would switch from AMD to Nvidia in the past.

Had both, various generations from each, but I'm definitely more team Nvidia. I own a GTX1080 and my last 5 GPU have been Nvidia.

Used to use a lot of nvidia, until I had zero working cards left.

I haven't had issues with any of the new AMD/ATI cards I've used. I have a couple used mining cards now that apparently are a bit flaky but otherwise usually roll AMD since I've had less problems and dead cards.

Currently AyyMD. Really not a fan of Novideo lately, image quality was worse (some really bad gradient banding) and being forced to log in to download drivers really sucks. I had the GTX 970 so I'm still a little sore about the 3.5 thing.

Also FreeSync > GSync.

The actual G-Sync tech works better, but the premium you have to pay for it is ridiculously high.

Honestly though, choosing between the two right now depends on your budget.

Intel_man said:

The actual G-Sync tech works better, but the premium you have to pay for it is ridiculously high.

Honestly though, choosing between the two right now depends on your budget.

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/thread

I have my brand preference for AMD but at the end of the day whichever card is faster for your price point is what you should buy unless you have other considerations that are brand dependent like PhysX or Cuda.

Driver support from both brands is all in all good at this point. AMD is notorious for bad drivers but those days have passed, at least to the point where they're not noticeably worse than Nvidia's. If anything I'd say AMD has better driver support (recently) as they support their products for longer and performance on their cards can drastically increase over time. Certain cards like the 7970 have gone from competing with the GTX 670 at launch to matching a GTX 780 on newer titles. This obviously varies depending on the game and card but generally speaking you'll get more longevity out of an AMD card.

On a somewhat more business level I generally dislike Nvidia. Gameworks includes licensed technologies sold to game developers that run noticeably worse on AMD cards. On the flipside AMD has custom tech too (like TressFX) but release them for free to anybody and work just as well on Nvidia cards. This obviously is better for everyone but as it stands now their techs aren't quite as advanced as Nvidia. G-Sync also is way more expensive than Freesync and all in all I feel AMD is more consumer friendly.

You can argue till the sun comes up about it but really it's just what's best for your money. I don't see myself buying an Nvidia card anytime soon, but if they offer a better card for the price when I need an upgrade then I'll buy the better card.

Darren said:

G-Sync also is way more expensive than Freesync and all in all I feel AMD is more consumer friendly.

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The G-Sync cost is due to a few reasons.

1. It's a proprietary product.
   
2. It requires a physical chip on the monitor end to talk with the video card. (That may have changed, but it did when it first came out. It's been awhile since I've looked up how it works now.)
   
3. r&d for the thing... since it's still "relatively" new.

AMD's Freesync is more consumer friendly in the sense that it doesn't require additional hardware outside of the video card to make it work. So it's a lot cheaper to implement. But the actual tech itself I would say after witnessing both G-Sync and FreeSync in action, the G-Sync is a more mature product? But I think that's just due to the limitations on the Freesync end. It's cool to have either FreeSync or G Sync, but it's not the end of the world if you don't use it.

Intel_man said:

The G-Sync cost is due to a few reasons.

1. It's a proprietary product.
   
2. It requires a physical chip on the monitor end to talk with the video card. (That may have changed, but it did when it first came out. It's been awhile since I've looked up how it works now.)
   
3. r&d for the thing... since it's still "relatively" new.

AMD's Freesync is more consumer friendly in the sense that it doesn't require additional hardware outside of the video card to make it work. So it's a lot cheaper to implement. But the actual tech itself I would say after witnessing both G-Sync and FreeSync in action, the G-Sync is a more mature product? But I think that's just due to the limitations on the Freesync end. It's cool to have either FreeSync or G Sync, but it's not the end of the world if you don't use it.

Click to expand...

The consumer friendly comment was more about the company as a whole, particularly in regards to driver support/improvement on older hardware and Gameworks absolutely demolishing AMD's hardware. Depending on how tinfoil hat you want to go, maybe even intentionally.

I've never seen GSync or Freesync in action, my main point being that price of entry and availability of hardware is much better for Freesync. Would make sense GSync being superior since it's been around longer.