I like AMD's processors, that's for sure, but I won't even consider their graphics cards anymore. I had three, before they were owned by AMD, and had horrible experiences with their drivers because of it, from my old ATI Rage Fury MAXX, where driver support was never fully realized and then ended early, to my Radeon 9700, where the drivers would crash my system daily for the year I had it, to my Radeon 4870X2, where, again, driver support was never realized and then ended early. I have not read enough to convince me to try again.
If you look at how RTG has consistently stayed far behind Nvidia there is little reason to think things have improved in the past decade. I would really like them to, but unless mommy Lisa really digs into RTG I don't see things improving on their own.
well nvidias prices went up 75% for an 18% performance increase. and those prices cant magically go down the chips actaully cost more to make. meanwhile amd is about to release the most cost effective chips ever.
That's a wild stab in the dark. There aren't any independent reviews, and no street prices - you have no idea about both sides of your statement there.
As with everything AMD, it depends what programs and games you run. Most applications favor Intel, and about half of games favor nVidia. But if you do a lot of compression\decompression, number crunching or FPU heavy tasks, AMD CPU's are generally superior for the money. And if you play games optimized for Mantle or are simply from a dev that favors AMD's architecture, AMD is, again, the better value.
As far as drivers and shit go, I'd say since Catalyst was axed in favor of Crimson, they are on-par with nVidia driver development. AMD's biggest problem with their GPU's is their partner program sucks. They don't have anybody like EVGA or PNY to make great quality performance and reference cards at a value price. Saphire is a joke and the third party providers (which are usually cross platform licensees - they also build nVidia cards) are very run-of-the-mill, especially MSI, Gigabyte and Asus - who subjectively always have unreliable long-term coolers.
This partner problem AMD has results in lost OEM presence.
And it's only one part of the total bill of materials. If the cost where to be, let's say, double of that of a similar sized gddr6, but the complexity of the board could be drive down, for an examlple going from a 12 layers pcb to an 8 layers one, you would already recoup a large chunk of that upfront investment. If you also factor in the fact that it gives AMD the chance to achieve better performance whith "worse" silicon it might actually be good value for money. Power consumption might also be a consideration.
It's kind of a prosumer card. Even at 1/8 rate (1/4 the MI50) the FP64 performance is very high for the money. So it can game but it can do work too, kind of a relatively affordable (compared to professional models) jack-of-all-trades.
As someone who has had an AMD R9 290 and then moved to my current Nvidia 1080ti, I can tell you that the AMD drivers are far, far superior, and they had a complete rewrite in 2015 with the release of the Crimson Edition. Not only did they have a nice, modern interface, but the performance of the UI was also far more fluid. The Nvidia drivers haven't seen an update since like windows 2000 and it shows. Changing windows in the drivers causes serious lag on even the beefiest PCs. Additionally, the stability is actually worse on the Nvidia drivers. I rarely had an issue with the AMD cards, but currently I'm having issues with gsync flickering, black screens if I leave my PC idle, etc.
You clearly haven't used an AMD card in a long time and you'd do better than to talk about your experiences with AMD products from 2007 while comparing it to your 2018 Nvidia experience. Doesn't make any sense at all.
AMD and Nvidia are on-par when it comes to stability of drivers these days. Video playback might be slightly better on Nvidia as their hardware decoder is better, but that's not really related to their drivers.
I really couldn't care less about the "look and feel" of the drivers. I care about how well the drivers support different games and how often they actually fix the issues that come up, and I have heard nothing but bad things about that side of things. In the mean time, whatever you think of the nvidia interface and control panel, they do actually work to fix problems in games and have a far lesser frequency of bugs with games in my experience.
As a former system builder, trust me, there was nothing worse than to have dead systems and dead video cards due to nVIDIA drivers and bad nVIDIA tech.
AMD/ATi was sometimes better sometimes less stable, but we have never had dead cards due to the drivers.
Also, buying Dual-GPU cards so far ahead of their time (ATi Rage Furry MAXX) should always be done with the expectation to be in a particular use case where realized potential is directly proportional to the level of DEDICATED development on behalf of the game producer and the GPU designer. Since the two rarely happen with the user's interest in mind (nVIDIA has done it a bit more often, but with their own interest in mind, while sabotaging their older clients) then you should stick to the most popular use case which is 1 GPU per card, IMHO.
I'm gonna go with the likelihood that this guy is bullshitting. He chose 2 cards that are known for driver complexity, and one that was the world's first Direct X 9 that became mysteriously famous for elusive driver "woes" right when Nvidia couldn't compete at all on price or performance. I had a 9800 and a friend with a 9500, I saw no more driver issues than usual. Nothing ever stopped me playing games or crashed my system "once a day".
By your own admission your experience is irrelevant to any discussion of products released in the last 10 years. Your continued insistence that AMD drivers remain worse thereby tells us that you have an axe to grind. The claim that you have heard "nothing but bad things" tells us nothing - I mean, that will happen if you only pay attention to bad things.
The facts contradict your statements, but don't let that get in the way of poisoning a thread.
For the last several years I have had AMD cards under both Windows and Linux. Both have been pretty solid (even if I have had to wait for the Linux side of things).
Any fears that the current drivers are not up to scratch are unfounded.
That has been my experience from a 5850 to 7850 to a 470. My 1080p experience has been plenty good for the past years for half the cost of any competing Nvidia model.
And as far as another commenter's opinion, I don't see that AMD was "far" behind Nvidia when it comes to mid-range products. And unlike many Nvidia fans on these types of articles, I don't need to bash the competition to appreciate the other company still makes good products. Nvidia makes good products and there is no denying it. AMD gives me the experience I want at the price point I'm willing to pay. That's it.
Their drivers have been fine for a long time and the OP likely had other major issues if his 9700 equipped system was "crashing daily". I mean seriously that's excessive, I never had that many problems with ANY graphics driver and I've used all the major chip vendors over the years (including long-dead names). The X2 is a dual-GPU setup, drivers have been an issue for those kinds of setups even on Nvidia and they spent a LOT of resources in those years on dual-GPU. The Fury MAXX was *ALSO* dual-GPU, and it's ancient history.
They both slip up and release bad drivers here and there but typically if you have major / constant issues there's something more than just "teh dirvers lol". Even Intel hasn't been that bad.
Reasons to think that things have improved with ATi/AMD drivers in the past decade: 1) The objective evidence that they have improved. 2) the testimony of people who have actually used the products in the past 10 years, rather than the ramblings of the OP who admitted that they haven't / seems to have "accidentally" cherry-picked the same products everyone does when they mount an argument about AMD drivers being bad.
I was a pretty dyed in the wool ATi (and later AMD) fan for a long while. The "[competitor]'s driver superiority is an old myth, Radeon drivers have gotten much better and have been completely rewritten since [XX]" has been said since 2008 at least. Back then, I didn't know any better, so I believed it and was even guilty of spreading it, too.
By the time I made the fateful leap to a GeForce (eew) product, people were still talking about how Radeon drivers have gotten much better. The bulk of my primary experience (which started with a Rage XL and ended with CF HD5870s) has indicated otherwise.
I still buy a Radeon product every once in a while to keep me appraused of it's current status (and to avoid situations where I spread fake news, like my old claims about "Radeon drivers catching up to Green Team"). Most recently, I bought an E485 Ryzen thinkpad, which has been a joke in driver support (and thus feature support - I couldn't even get the Radeon control panel to start without regediting). Even basic things like YT playback of videos (after standby-wake cycle) are still an issue. AMD has no excuse on this, the whole CPU, GPU, and SB (all one SoC) are AMD, top to bottom.
I'll have to see if this latest "Radeon drivers have gotten better" claim finally comes to fruition in Feb 2019, when AMD finally takes ownership of their driver release schedule for laptops, and finally does what Intel and especially Nvidia have done for almost 10 years.
This is something that AMD *did* offer for all their Bulldozer-based APUs, but for some reason, they decided to not do this for Ryzen Mobile. At least with all the pushback they received, they had to relent.
What has been going on with Ryzen mobile video drivers has been horrible, and was caused by AMD leaving driver releases to the OEMs who make the laptops, even though AMD is providing updated drivers to those OEMs. I heard something recently that indicates that AMD will be putting the Ryzen mobile video drivers up for direct download to address this problem(really, that OEMs suck when it comes to driver updates, and should never be trusted when it comes to driver updates).
For desktop parts, AMD driver quality IS good, and it is rare that people need to go back to older drivers for 3-5 months due to problems with new drivers the way NVIDIA users end up being forced to do at times.
I've been using both brands since the late 90s, Nvidia peaks about a year or so after a new card comes out then the old hardware starts to decline. Occasionally they peak while the card is still on the market.
ATI has always been a bit odd about their drivers, but I've got the HD 5670 and 5750, never had so much as a hiccup out of either of those.
No rule is fixed in IT. Every decade or so the companies flip. They're just run by people and people change, move on, get new jobs, etc...
I have the E585 notebook and don't need to use regedit for the Radeon control panel. If you are having issues, that's a lenovo issue.
However, AMD is taking mobile drivers into it's own hands, making it's own responsibility now, so driver issues for Mobile will be a thing of the past.
I recently bought ryzen and I cannot say that their drivers work flawlessly. They just don't. I even got a bluescreen because of the video drivers once. Never happened with nvidia.
They may have been rewritten, but the philosophy of driver support hasn't changed. Obviously, it is not the drivers themselves, but the leadership of the group that writes them.
You should compare Core 2 and Phenom benchmarks against each other, since if you are considering either one in this age, you are probably looking at dirt cheap computers from a decade ago.
I get bit once, I tend to forgive. I get bit twice, I get very cautious, but I eventually forgive. I get bit three times, and it's no longer a relationship I want to keep. I don't give a rats ass if it was 12 years ago.
I had a friend/roommate who stole my credit card to buy stuff to trade for pot back, and then stole my toolbox for the same purpose, and in the mean time kept stealing the little food I could afford, way back in 1996. Do you think I'm going to just forgive him after all that?
My experience with Gigabyte is similar. I had a P35 motherboard that had horrible bios problems in compatibility with memory, but I dealt with it and kept the board for over a year. It was annoying, but I forgave them. Later, I bought a P67 board, and had similar memory/bios issues. Still, I forgave them, but was a bit more choosy on my board purchases. Finally, I came around to buying an x79 board, but only Gigabyte had a slot layout that I liked, so I bought their board. That board had the most annoying bios issues, from memory and sleep problems to USB device enumeration preventing boots, through over a dozen bios updates. I even had a bios update that rendered the board unbootable by anything except a USB drive. You'd think they'd catch something like that in testing before live release. Then, the USB ports started losing power. They'd still connect to self powered devices, but boot powered devices wouldn't work. It was at that point I decided I'd never buy a Gigabyte board again.
Like I said, third time, I quit trying to deal with it and just ditch the situation. Same goes for AMD graphics.
Just to counter your point, I've had AMD 9500 Pro 128MB, no issues. I've had a 3870X2, no issues (apart from SLI/CF sucking balls, but that was true of my 8800GTS 512 SLI as well). HD4670 for my HTPC, no issues. HD5770, 7970, 290X, 280X, all fine. And the AMD / ATI drivers had great performance uplifts as well.
Not trying to be a contrarian sort here, but if a series of driver updates significantly increase performance, that means the previous versions were written in such a way as to leave that performance initially unrealized and might legitimately be considered poorly written. With that said, I've had decent experiences from a reliability and image quality perspective from both AMD and NVIDIA over the past few years with the only noteworthy point being that NVIDIA seems to have their act together better when it comes to supporting us tiny niche Linux users.
Its only possible to reach the conclusion you've arrived at by getting enraged before bothering to read my entire comment. Calm down, read for comprehension, and try again.
If your architecture doesn't map easily to existing workloads (true for GCN when it arrived) and also is dependent on some level of manual optimization to maximise resource usage (again, true of GCN) then yes, you will expect performance to go up with newer drivers, and no, it doesn't require that they were "badly written" in the first place. You're unduly favouring one conclusion out of many and, in this instance, would be better off criticising the architecture design team for failing to produce a flexible architecture that performs well without extensive per-game fiddling.
I'm not sure what point it is you're trying to make. Is this a complaint about the hardware? If that's the case, then what specific hardware bothers you and why?
I'm sorry but my guess is that you're the issue. If there were constant issues with ATi/AMD GPUs then they'd be bankrupt.
My guess is that you had a bad overclock (booting Windows doesn't mean it's a stable overclock) or don't know much about computers. I mean you're actually saying "don't go AMD because hey my ATi Rage Fury was troublesome. Really?? Also people, don't go automatic transmission because my grand-father had trouble with one in the 60s.
Do you realize that they've been losing market share for quite a while now? The reason they've never overtaken Nvidia should be pretty plain. I'm obviously not the only one to have these issues.
In my household, there's one AMD GPU-based gaming PC (mine, Fury X), and one Nvidia-based one (a workstation, really, but also used for some gaming, with a GTX 970). From my own experience, the AMD drivers are on par with Nvidia in some areas, and dramatically superior in others.
The similarities lie in performance and stability: while I _have_ seen driver crashes with my Fury X, they are few and far between, and have mostly happened when I've been overclocking. Given that I rarely/never game on the other PC, I don't have first-hand experience, but I don't have the impression that it's night-and-day better - that would be difficult when the AMD reality is 2-3 crashes a year if you're tinkering with it.
The AMD superiority comes in when you look at features and customizability. The Nvidia driver control panel is badly laid out, bare-bones, and relatively feature-stripped, while AMD's is packed with features (including _good_ built-in OC tools), laid out logically, and easy to use. Want to set up per-game performance profiles? No problem. Adjust your fan curve, or monitor color depth, or set up gameplay recording? No problem. Or just leave everything at auto, and use the GPU out of the box - that works just fine too. My only gripe is that the "look for driver updates automatically" can't be set to download them silently in the background and ping me when it's ready to install. And no, that's not exactly a major gripe, no.
I might agree with compatibility with new games but I disagree with older games and some professional 3d application. NVidia has always had better quality in those areas.
no matter how many bad drivers ATI (ie, the company you’re referring to) wrote, they never bricked any video cards with a driver - so they’re light years ahead of nVidia.
When I was at my first job, I dealt professionally on OS level with ATI. At that time they were very simple graphics cards. Changes in OS over time, can make a perfectly good driver fail or even cause lock up.
A good example is audio driver for my Supermicro Dual Xeon 5160, Windows 10 driver hard locks on it but I can delete driver from boot and OS will boot, So I serous doubt that driver brick the video card but instead driver lockup especially on older card.
What you are saying are problems form a decade ago. As for the 4870x2 I had one of those cards and it worked as it should and I had very few problems with it at all every game I played worked fine with it. Well 98% of the games worked fine. Then I switched to Nvidia GTX 580 and that worked fine as well then the GTX 680 and it was supposed to be faster than the GTX 580 but for a lot of games it was slower than the gtx 580 or had problems. I have since switch to a AMD 390x and it is by far one of the best cards I have owned with very few problems and the drivers work great 99% of the time.
After reading all the comments on drivers.. I still can't believe it's being said in 2019. I remember people being so against Ati's Radeon 8500 in comparison to the Geforce 3. Drivers suck they said.. I owned a Asus Geforce3 at the time and wasn't happy with it (in comparison to what I paid for it..) so I gave the card to my girlfriend and went out and bought the 8500.
Not only did I never have a issue with the drivers, I actually got into the top 8 on 3dmark using windows ME no less.. just to prove a point. I think DigitalJesus was trying to prove a similar point but whatever.. (lol) My one small brush with being a tiny bit in the lime light. That card was my standby while waiting for upgrades for over 5 years.
The rumors surrounding driver support started with the first Radeon 100 series.. I think it was called the 7500.. At the time Nvidia had knocked off every video card maker except for Ati and my guess is if the rumors on drivers had stuck.. we'd have had only one video card maker today outside of intels integrated graphics chip. (..shrug)
If your not brand loyal and work with a lot of video cards you eventually realize that both companies have issues with drivers in some situations. I've never really found either company to better than the other on that front.. but that's just me.
Chennakeshu is the interesting one as that could mean that AMD wants to enter the ultra mobile market given his resume. The graphics side of things appears to be competitive enough to scale down in terms of power consumption but the CPU side of things would have to compete not with Intel but rather ARM. I wonder what is brewing on the semi-custom side of thing.
Skeptical of this move - seems more marketing than anything else. AMD should focus on making the best product it can; regardless of what it is paired with.
Imagine a world where they would handicap performance or certain features unless it is paired with another AMD product.
Better would be if additional features were developed, but if they are proprietary and truly innovative & beneficial, it would eventually be copied by Intel/NVIDIA and we have even more instances of competing/incompatible standards. Just at a time where it seems we can finally lay the freesync vs gsync to rest.
i agree. at first glance this looks bad. nobody in this market is going to be happy about this. even if they have the best intentions for increasing performance and value to the consumer, can they deal with looking so greedy along the way. too bad. i was just starting to really be an amd fanboy. oh well.
Remember Centrino? This is more marketing and sales than it is about changing functionality. There will be some interesting things that will happen in the next few years if AMD goes with Gen-Z support on the motherboard. Picture a Ryzen based machine with a discrete graphics card that could also use additional video memory that is installed on the motherboard. Since Intel and NVIDIA both decided to go with their own solutions rather than supporting Gen-Z, AMD CPU+GPU with Gen-Z might provide some very interesting performance benefits. Trying to convince OEMs to actually pay attention to AMD configurations doesn't hurt either, since you really don't see nearly as many AMD based laptops and desktop machines out there in the market compared to Intel, so a renewed focus on marketing to OEMs SHOULD be seen as a good thing.
I see NVidia and Intel having no reason to join the Gen-Z consortium. It does not provide them any benefits. The primary reason for why we don't see AMD based laptops and desktops is demand. Yes there are some diehard gamers that like AMD but primary for CPU and is Intel and if you need high performance GPU it always NVidia. Even Intel will find it hard to complete with NVidia for higher end GPU.
But the biggest limiting factor is that most people don't need high end GPU or more than 2 CPU's. Serious how strong CPU/GPU do you need for word processing or spreadsheets - this is why ARM has been successful in tablet area.
EPYC is great for deep learning but as far as GPUs go: you can pull CUDA out of my cold, dead hands. ROCm is really interesting but I'm not messing around with production systems or spending big money just to test how the AMD GPGPUs do. Best of luck to them though, I'd love to see competition drive down nVidia's pricing.
They need to get their GPUs to be as competitive as their CPUs. It really is that simple. Right now they aren't there. It sounds like they may make some progress this year, but they don't have any ray tracing technology and it isn't clear when they will have that. Their position is that Nvidia, was too early on that technology, but that is just because they don't have it.
Frankly, I would really like to see laptop makers introduce mobile Ryzen laptops with discrete Nvidia GPUs. I think that makes sense. So, trying to push further bundling with the way things are, just isn't going to work.
They need to spend the time to revamp their Radeon GPUs to make them truly competitive. A reorg may be what they need to do that, I don't know. But, they need to do the same sort of execution on their Radeon line they have been engaged in with their Ryzen CPUs. They need to put technologies out there that will have Nvidia responding to them, rather than the other way around!
Everytime I read this type of comment all I see is "AMD must make it faster, use less power and cost less than Nvidia competing products. There is no way I will buy it if it is faster and uses less power but costs more or the same."
The fact is they are competitive. Did I say better? No, I didn't. Competitive doesn't always mean better similar in performance like within 5 or 10% and in AMD's case, it is cheaper so yes they are competing. Many tech writers think the same way but I guess Nvidia fans think there is only one strict definition of being "competitive". Even with the current Ryzen line I've read the same opinion at least when it comes to gaming on Intel.
I don't think AMD has been less power in more than a decade, but in the other areas even when they're on par in perf/price the features are lacking. Stuff like geforce game streaming to your TV or nvidia experience where there's presets for your game are nice free features. AMD could add those for free to users too to get parity. You can get game streaming to even Amazon fire TV devices. Otherwise you'd need to buy a steamlink.
Driverwise, I think they're both the same on Windows, but if you're gaming on Linux just use Nvidia. Ignore the ppl online saying AMD for Linux, unless you enjoy pain.
That's why I think AMD does need to compete on price. They can't release a 2080 equivalent product (perf-wise) for the same price. They need to discount it 10% or so, because there's intangibles that consumers know and use to buy stuff. Just look at the steam survey:
Right now the sweet spot is a Ryzen CPU + Geforce GPU. If AMD wants to change that, they need to make a better feature filled product or reduce prices to get a complete AMD+AMD combo. Shuffling corporate chairs won't be the answer. Like Papermaster going from SVP/CTO to Executive VP, that sounds like a pretty lateral move. What's the difference between senior VP to executive VP. Place is starting to sound like a bank.
I really want to see AMD bring real competition into the GPU space. I really don't like how much Nvidia has increased their prices of late. But, they get away with it because they have the superior technology. Yes, both faster and lower power. Nvidia does need to be careful not to price itself out of the market. AMD needs to catch up on with their technology before competition.
I am no ones fan boi. I am a consumer. I like what I am seeing from AMD with Ryzen. I have both an AMD powered desktop and laptop. I have an Nvidia GPU in my desktop. I am price conscious, so I really want to see AMD get to the point where their technology is on par with Nvidia. But, they don't seem to be executing on their GPU business as well as their CPU business.
I really wanted AMD to win with freesync, which they now have. They went with an industry standard that didn't need a special proprietary chip. I think that is a big win for the industry and consumers both. I have not seen any reviews of the coming Radeon GPUs. I am hoping they that will move them closer to Nvidia on technology. But, they do not have ray tracing technology in the coming generation. That is a concern.
Like I originally said they need to get to where Nvidia is responding to them, if they want to really take them on. Like they have done with Intel. Intel would have happily kept their desktop CPUs at 4 cores for as long as they could. Now they are responding to AMD. AMD needs to start throwing the same kind of curve balls at Nvidia.
While I agree with most of your statement, I tend to think AMD's statement that the ecosystem is not ready for ray tracing is correct. They been working with both consoles, they are working on these console next gens, and without the console biting ray tracing, it is unlikely to take off. Think prior Nvidia technology that failed to gain foothold due to consoles not biting: tessellation, hairworks, FXAA/'latest buzzwordAA here', etc.
I think it is a simple business equation, and without consoles developers being able to easily port their AAA to use it ray tracing is unlikely to gain a majority hold on the market.
Nvidia finally letting freesync works on their GPU, AFTER consoles can do it over HDMI. I think that's Nvidia trying to salvage whatever marketing steam they have left in G-sync before the news of G-sync LCD being discontinued breaks out...
In the laptop world I think Amd's integrated graphics work quite well.. but OEMs need to pair it all with some of their higher end chassis and displays. The problem is they make it all to cheap and then the end user experience is not as good as it could be.
In the desktop market.. while I'd love to own a 2070 or 2080ti I'd take a 580 in a heartbeat for 1080p and a vega over everything else except a 1080 and above including the 2060 which in my opinion is way over priced
I disagree that AMD's claim about it being too early for ray-tracing is entirely about them not having products that support it. Indications so far are that it's performance heavy to implement, it's very expensive to produce a chip capable of it, and the visual benefits in games are debatable.
For further reasons to believe it's not entirely about marketing, they never said it was "too early for DX10" when their cards were late to market and their performance sucked (HD2900) - they just went back to the drawing board and made better cards. This situation is arguably very different.
This works great for mid and low range systems AMD has great mid range and low end GPUs but there’s nothing worth pairing with a 2700X or Threadripper.
I can see a specific, relatively easy (for certain values of easy) win for amd+amd: teach the video driver to use both the igp and discrete card. This won't be straight additive and there are a host of factors to consider but it's got to be better than leaving the igp idle.
Is INTEL who sell mor GPUs. So are APUs what matter in sells. No need to be the best GPU, just good enough, ot even worse, just better than Intel APU ones. As new AMD APUs will be better than the 2400G that is the minimum to play games at 720p being able to sell the new APUs is just about good price,
And adding the ability to upgrade performance with more AMD discrete GPUs graphics power to the APU's GPU instead of change it and/or adding the GPU computing power to the CPU would be a great plus.
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dgingeri - Friday, January 25, 2019 - link
I like AMD's processors, that's for sure, but I won't even consider their graphics cards anymore. I had three, before they were owned by AMD, and had horrible experiences with their drivers because of it, from my old ATI Rage Fury MAXX, where driver support was never fully realized and then ended early, to my Radeon 9700, where the drivers would crash my system daily for the year I had it, to my Radeon 4870X2, where, again, driver support was never realized and then ended early. I have not read enough to convince me to try again.cwolf78 - Friday, January 25, 2019 - link
You do realize their drivers have been entirely re-written since then, right?willis936 - Friday, January 25, 2019 - link
If you look at how RTG has consistently stayed far behind Nvidia there is little reason to think things have improved in the past decade. I would really like them to, but unless mommy Lisa really digs into RTG I don't see things improving on their own.Opencg - Friday, January 25, 2019 - link
well nvidias prices went up 75% for an 18% performance increase. and those prices cant magically go down the chips actaully cost more to make. meanwhile amd is about to release the most cost effective chips ever.nevcairiel - Friday, January 25, 2019 - link
And yet their Radeon 7 offers 2080 performance for a 2080 price.emn13 - Friday, January 25, 2019 - link
That's a wild stab in the dark. There aren't any independent reviews, and no street prices - you have no idea about both sides of your statement there.jeremyshaw - Friday, January 25, 2019 - link
That's AMD's own claim.nevcairiel - Friday, January 25, 2019 - link
AMDs own numbers pit it straight against the 2080. Never have I seen a first party benchmark undershooting the actual performance.nevcairiel - Friday, January 25, 2019 - link
AMDs own benchmark numbers pit it about equal against the 2080. First party benchmarks being worse then reality would be a first.Samus - Sunday, January 27, 2019 - link
As with everything AMD, it depends what programs and games you run. Most applications favor Intel, and about half of games favor nVidia. But if you do a lot of compression\decompression, number crunching or FPU heavy tasks, AMD CPU's are generally superior for the money. And if you play games optimized for Mantle or are simply from a dev that favors AMD's architecture, AMD is, again, the better value.As far as drivers and shit go, I'd say since Catalyst was axed in favor of Crimson, they are on-par with nVidia driver development. AMD's biggest problem with their GPU's is their partner program sucks. They don't have anybody like EVGA or PNY to make great quality performance and reference cards at a value price. Saphire is a joke and the third party providers (which are usually cross platform licensees - they also build nVidia cards) are very run-of-the-mill, especially MSI, Gigabyte and Asus - who subjectively always have unreliable long-term coolers.
This partner problem AMD has results in lost OEM presence.
Targon - Friday, January 25, 2019 - link
You may have missed that Radeon 7 comes with 16GB of HBM2 memory. That memory isn't cheap.El_Rizzo - Saturday, January 26, 2019 - link
And it's only one part of the total bill of materials. If the cost where to be, let's say, double of that of a similar sized gddr6, but the complexity of the board could be drive down, for an examlple going from a 12 layers pcb to an 8 layers one, you would already recoup a large chunk of that upfront investment.If you also factor in the fact that it gives AMD the chance to achieve better performance whith "worse" silicon it might actually be good value for money.
Power consumption might also be a consideration.
Opencg - Saturday, January 26, 2019 - link
im not talking about radeon 7 im talking aboht navi dipshit.Alexvrb - Saturday, January 26, 2019 - link
It's kind of a prosumer card. Even at 1/8 rate (1/4 the MI50) the FP64 performance is very high for the money. So it can game but it can do work too, kind of a relatively affordable (compared to professional models) jack-of-all-trades.jaju123 - Friday, January 25, 2019 - link
As someone who has had an AMD R9 290 and then moved to my current Nvidia 1080ti, I can tell you that the AMD drivers are far, far superior, and they had a complete rewrite in 2015 with the release of the Crimson Edition. Not only did they have a nice, modern interface, but the performance of the UI was also far more fluid. The Nvidia drivers haven't seen an update since like windows 2000 and it shows. Changing windows in the drivers causes serious lag on even the beefiest PCs. Additionally, the stability is actually worse on the Nvidia drivers. I rarely had an issue with the AMD cards, but currently I'm having issues with gsync flickering, black screens if I leave my PC idle, etc.You clearly haven't used an AMD card in a long time and you'd do better than to talk about your experiences with AMD products from 2007 while comparing it to your 2018 Nvidia experience. Doesn't make any sense at all.
nevcairiel - Friday, January 25, 2019 - link
Not sure why so many people put so much value into the config UI. Who uses that daily?What matters is how the driver runs doing daily tasks. Gaming, video playback, rendering, what have you.
jaju123 - Friday, January 25, 2019 - link
AMD and Nvidia are on-par when it comes to stability of drivers these days. Video playback might be slightly better on Nvidia as their hardware decoder is better, but that's not really related to their drivers.dgingeri - Sunday, January 27, 2019 - link
I really couldn't care less about the "look and feel" of the drivers. I care about how well the drivers support different games and how often they actually fix the issues that come up, and I have heard nothing but bad things about that side of things. In the mean time, whatever you think of the nvidia interface and control panel, they do actually work to fix problems in games and have a far lesser frequency of bugs with games in my experience.IGTrading - Monday, January 28, 2019 - link
As a former system builder, trust me, there was nothing worse than to have dead systems and dead video cards due to nVIDIA drivers and bad nVIDIA tech.AMD/ATi was sometimes better sometimes less stable, but we have never had dead cards due to the drivers.
Also, buying Dual-GPU cards so far ahead of their time (ATi Rage Furry MAXX) should always be done with the expectation to be in a particular use case where realized potential is directly proportional to the level of DEDICATED development on behalf of the game producer and the GPU designer. Since the two rarely happen with the user's interest in mind (nVIDIA has done it a bit more often, but with their own interest in mind, while sabotaging their older clients) then you should stick to the most popular use case which is 1 GPU per card, IMHO.
Spunjji - Tuesday, January 29, 2019 - link
I'm gonna go with the likelihood that this guy is bullshitting. He chose 2 cards that are known for driver complexity, and one that was the world's first Direct X 9 that became mysteriously famous for elusive driver "woes" right when Nvidia couldn't compete at all on price or performance. I had a 9800 and a friend with a 9500, I saw no more driver issues than usual. Nothing ever stopped me playing games or crashed my system "once a day".Spunjji - Tuesday, January 29, 2019 - link
By your own admission your experience is irrelevant to any discussion of products released in the last 10 years. Your continued insistence that AMD drivers remain worse thereby tells us that you have an axe to grind. The claim that you have heard "nothing but bad things" tells us nothing - I mean, that will happen if you only pay attention to bad things.The facts contradict your statements, but don't let that get in the way of poisoning a thread.
Boxie - Friday, January 25, 2019 - link
For the last several years I have had AMD cards under both Windows and Linux. Both have been pretty solid (even if I have had to wait for the Linux side of things).Any fears that the current drivers are not up to scratch are unfounded.
Tewt - Friday, January 25, 2019 - link
That has been my experience from a 5850 to 7850 to a 470. My 1080p experience has been plenty good for the past years for half the cost of any competing Nvidia model.And as far as another commenter's opinion, I don't see that AMD was "far" behind Nvidia when it comes to mid-range products. And unlike many Nvidia fans on these types of articles, I don't need to bash the competition to appreciate the other company still makes good products. Nvidia makes good products and there is no denying it. AMD gives me the experience I want at the price point I'm willing to pay. That's it.
El_Rizzo - Saturday, January 26, 2019 - link
Actually, right now, AMD has probably the best driver stack EVER under linux. On windows they are not that far either.WinterCharm - Friday, January 25, 2019 - link
Lucky for you, in the last 3-4 years, AMD drivers have been *better* than Nvidia drivers.Alexvrb - Saturday, January 26, 2019 - link
Their drivers have been fine for a long time and the OP likely had other major issues if his 9700 equipped system was "crashing daily". I mean seriously that's excessive, I never had that many problems with ANY graphics driver and I've used all the major chip vendors over the years (including long-dead names). The X2 is a dual-GPU setup, drivers have been an issue for those kinds of setups even on Nvidia and they spent a LOT of resources in those years on dual-GPU. The Fury MAXX was *ALSO* dual-GPU, and it's ancient history.They both slip up and release bad drivers here and there but typically if you have major / constant issues there's something more than just "teh dirvers lol". Even Intel hasn't been that bad.
LordanSS - Sunday, January 27, 2019 - link
I have cards from both companies, and lately nVidia's drivers give me more headaches than AMD's.AMD drivers have been quite stable for several generations now.
Spunjji - Tuesday, January 29, 2019 - link
Reasons to think that things have improved with ATi/AMD drivers in the past decade:1) The objective evidence that they have improved.
2) the testimony of people who have actually used the products in the past 10 years, rather than the ramblings of the OP who admitted that they haven't / seems to have "accidentally" cherry-picked the same products everyone does when they mount an argument about AMD drivers being bad.
jeremyshaw - Friday, January 25, 2019 - link
I was a pretty dyed in the wool ATi (and later AMD) fan for a long while. The "[competitor]'s driver superiority is an old myth, Radeon drivers have gotten much better and have been completely rewritten since [XX]" has been said since 2008 at least. Back then, I didn't know any better, so I believed it and was even guilty of spreading it, too.By the time I made the fateful leap to a GeForce (eew) product, people were still talking about how Radeon drivers have gotten much better. The bulk of my primary experience (which started with a Rage XL and ended with CF HD5870s) has indicated otherwise.
I still buy a Radeon product every once in a while to keep me appraused of it's current status (and to avoid situations where I spread fake news, like my old claims about "Radeon drivers catching up to Green Team"). Most recently, I bought an E485 Ryzen thinkpad, which has been a joke in driver support (and thus feature support - I couldn't even get the Radeon control panel to start without regediting). Even basic things like YT playback of videos (after standby-wake cycle) are still an issue. AMD has no excuse on this, the whole CPU, GPU, and SB (all one SoC) are AMD, top to bottom.
I'll have to see if this latest "Radeon drivers have gotten better" claim finally comes to fruition in Feb 2019, when AMD finally takes ownership of their driver release schedule for laptops, and finally does what Intel and especially Nvidia have done for almost 10 years.
CKing123 - Friday, January 25, 2019 - link
This is something that AMD *did* offer for all their Bulldozer-based APUs, but for some reason, they decided to not do this for Ryzen Mobile. At least with all the pushback they received, they had to relent.Targon - Friday, January 25, 2019 - link
What has been going on with Ryzen mobile video drivers has been horrible, and was caused by AMD leaving driver releases to the OEMs who make the laptops, even though AMD is providing updated drivers to those OEMs. I heard something recently that indicates that AMD will be putting the Ryzen mobile video drivers up for direct download to address this problem(really, that OEMs suck when it comes to driver updates, and should never be trusted when it comes to driver updates).For desktop parts, AMD driver quality IS good, and it is rare that people need to go back to older drivers for 3-5 months due to problems with new drivers the way NVIDIA users end up being forced to do at times.
dgingeri - Sunday, January 27, 2019 - link
Sorry, but I've never had to do that with my nvidia cards. I've always kept up to date with the latest drivers and never had any issues with them.0ldman79 - Monday, January 28, 2019 - link
You are quite fortunate.I've been using both brands since the late 90s, Nvidia peaks about a year or so after a new card comes out then the old hardware starts to decline. Occasionally they peak while the card is still on the market.
ATI has always been a bit odd about their drivers, but I've got the HD 5670 and 5750, never had so much as a hiccup out of either of those.
No rule is fixed in IT. Every decade or so the companies flip. They're just run by people and people change, move on, get new jobs, etc...
StevoLincolnite - Sunday, January 27, 2019 - link
I have the E585 notebook and don't need to use regedit for the Radeon control panel.If you are having issues, that's a lenovo issue.
However, AMD is taking mobile drivers into it's own hands, making it's own responsibility now, so driver issues for Mobile will be a thing of the past.
Murloc - Friday, January 25, 2019 - link
I recently bought ryzen and I cannot say that their drivers work flawlessly. They just don't. I even got a bluescreen because of the video drivers once. Never happened with nvidia.Mowmow - Saturday, January 26, 2019 - link
what does ryzen have to do with video drivers?0ldman79 - Monday, January 28, 2019 - link
Ryzen APU I assume, integrated video.There are no Ryzen drivers that the user sees anyway.
dgingeri - Sunday, January 27, 2019 - link
They may have been rewritten, but the philosophy of driver support hasn't changed. Obviously, it is not the drivers themselves, but the leadership of the group that writes them.Dijky - Friday, January 25, 2019 - link
Do you base all your purchase decisions on information from 12+ years ago?Before you jump in and get a Core 2, you should wait for Phenom benchmarks!
jeremyshaw - Friday, January 25, 2019 - link
You should compare Core 2 and Phenom benchmarks against each other, since if you are considering either one in this age, you are probably looking at dirt cheap computers from a decade ago.dgingeri - Sunday, January 27, 2019 - link
I get bit once, I tend to forgive. I get bit twice, I get very cautious, but I eventually forgive. I get bit three times, and it's no longer a relationship I want to keep. I don't give a rats ass if it was 12 years ago.I had a friend/roommate who stole my credit card to buy stuff to trade for pot back, and then stole my toolbox for the same purpose, and in the mean time kept stealing the little food I could afford, way back in 1996. Do you think I'm going to just forgive him after all that?
My experience with Gigabyte is similar. I had a P35 motherboard that had horrible bios problems in compatibility with memory, but I dealt with it and kept the board for over a year. It was annoying, but I forgave them. Later, I bought a P67 board, and had similar memory/bios issues. Still, I forgave them, but was a bit more choosy on my board purchases. Finally, I came around to buying an x79 board, but only Gigabyte had a slot layout that I liked, so I bought their board. That board had the most annoying bios issues, from memory and sleep problems to USB device enumeration preventing boots, through over a dozen bios updates. I even had a bios update that rendered the board unbootable by anything except a USB drive. You'd think they'd catch something like that in testing before live release. Then, the USB ports started losing power. They'd still connect to self powered devices, but boot powered devices wouldn't work. It was at that point I decided I'd never buy a Gigabyte board again.
Like I said, third time, I quit trying to deal with it and just ditch the situation. Same goes for AMD graphics.
Death666Angel - Friday, January 25, 2019 - link
Just to counter your point, I've had AMD 9500 Pro 128MB, no issues. I've had a 3870X2, no issues (apart from SLI/CF sucking balls, but that was true of my 8800GTS 512 SLI as well). HD4670 for my HTPC, no issues. HD5770, 7970, 290X, 280X, all fine. And the AMD /ATI drivers had great performance uplifts as well.
PeachNCream - Friday, January 25, 2019 - link
Not trying to be a contrarian sort here, but if a series of driver updates significantly increase performance, that means the previous versions were written in such a way as to leave that performance initially unrealized and might legitimately be considered poorly written. With that said, I've had decent experiences from a reliability and image quality perspective from both AMD and NVIDIA over the past few years with the only noteworthy point being that NVIDIA seems to have their act together better when it comes to supporting us tiny niche Linux users.Tewt - Friday, January 25, 2019 - link
We will just ignore then that when Nvidia improves performance gains in certain titles they are exempt this logic, right. /s"I don't want to be contrarian to your experiences but let me just shit on your opinion of the product I chose not to buy." is what I read.
PeachNCream - Monday, January 28, 2019 - link
Its only possible to reach the conclusion you've arrived at by getting enraged before bothering to read my entire comment. Calm down, read for comprehension, and try again.Spunjji - Tuesday, January 29, 2019 - link
If your architecture doesn't map easily to existing workloads (true for GCN when it arrived) and also is dependent on some level of manual optimization to maximise resource usage (again, true of GCN) then yes, you will expect performance to go up with newer drivers, and no, it doesn't require that they were "badly written" in the first place. You're unduly favouring one conclusion out of many and, in this instance, would be better off criticising the architecture design team for failing to produce a flexible architecture that performs well without extensive per-game fiddling.PeachNCream - Tuesday, January 29, 2019 - link
I'm not sure what point it is you're trying to make. Is this a complaint about the hardware? If that's the case, then what specific hardware bothers you and why?Schmich - Friday, January 25, 2019 - link
I'm sorry but my guess is that you're the issue. If there were constant issues with ATi/AMD GPUs then they'd be bankrupt.My guess is that you had a bad overclock (booting Windows doesn't mean it's a stable overclock) or don't know much about computers. I mean you're actually saying "don't go AMD because hey my ATi Rage Fury was troublesome. Really?? Also people, don't go automatic transmission because my grand-father had trouble with one in the 60s.
I mean seriously what's wrong with some of you.
Duckeenie - Friday, January 25, 2019 - link
AMD actually would have been bankrupt years ago if not for optimistic investors.rahvin - Friday, January 25, 2019 - link
You don't know how the stock market works.dgingeri - Sunday, January 27, 2019 - link
Do you realize that they've been losing market share for quite a while now? The reason they've never overtaken Nvidia should be pretty plain. I'm obviously not the only one to have these issues.HStewart - Monday, January 28, 2019 - link
Have you check the stock today, all of big three (NVidia, AMD and Intel) have lost stock today.Basically it stating Gaming and Datacenter revenue below the company’s expectations
To me it sounds like demand for extremely fast GPU's is dying out.
Valantar - Friday, January 25, 2019 - link
In my household, there's one AMD GPU-based gaming PC (mine, Fury X), and one Nvidia-based one (a workstation, really, but also used for some gaming, with a GTX 970). From my own experience, the AMD drivers are on par with Nvidia in some areas, and dramatically superior in others.The similarities lie in performance and stability: while I _have_ seen driver crashes with my Fury X, they are few and far between, and have mostly happened when I've been overclocking. Given that I rarely/never game on the other PC, I don't have first-hand experience, but I don't have the impression that it's night-and-day better - that would be difficult when the AMD reality is 2-3 crashes a year if you're tinkering with it.
The AMD superiority comes in when you look at features and customizability. The Nvidia driver control panel is badly laid out, bare-bones, and relatively feature-stripped, while AMD's is packed with features (including _good_ built-in OC tools), laid out logically, and easy to use. Want to set up per-game performance profiles? No problem. Adjust your fan curve, or monitor color depth, or set up gameplay recording? No problem. Or just leave everything at auto, and use the GPU out of the box - that works just fine too. My only gripe is that the "look for driver updates automatically" can't be set to download them silently in the background and ping me when it's ready to install. And no, that's not exactly a major gripe, no.
HStewart - Monday, January 28, 2019 - link
I might agree with compatibility with new games but I disagree with older games and some professional 3d application. NVidia has always had better quality in those areas.Sahrin - Friday, January 25, 2019 - link
no matter how many bad drivers ATI (ie, the company you’re referring to) wrote, they never bricked any video cards with a driver - so they’re light years ahead of nVidia.HStewart - Monday, January 28, 2019 - link
When I was at my first job, I dealt professionally on OS level with ATI. At that time they were very simple graphics cards. Changes in OS over time, can make a perfectly good driver fail or even cause lock up.A good example is audio driver for my Supermicro Dual Xeon 5160, Windows 10 driver hard locks on it but I can delete driver from boot and OS will boot, So I serous doubt that driver brick the video card but instead driver lockup especially on older card.
rocky12345 - Friday, January 25, 2019 - link
What you are saying are problems form a decade ago. As for the 4870x2 I had one of those cards and it worked as it should and I had very few problems with it at all every game I played worked fine with it. Well 98% of the games worked fine. Then I switched to Nvidia GTX 580 and that worked fine as well then the GTX 680 and it was supposed to be faster than the GTX 580 but for a lot of games it was slower than the gtx 580 or had problems. I have since switch to a AMD 390x and it is by far one of the best cards I have owned with very few problems and the drivers work great 99% of the time.just4U - Saturday, January 26, 2019 - link
After reading all the comments on drivers.. I still can't believe it's being said in 2019. I remember people being so against Ati's Radeon 8500 in comparison to the Geforce 3. Drivers suck they said.. I owned a Asus Geforce3 at the time and wasn't happy with it (in comparison to what I paid for it..) so I gave the card to my girlfriend and went out and bought the 8500.Not only did I never have a issue with the drivers, I actually got into the top 8 on 3dmark using windows ME no less.. just to prove a point. I think DigitalJesus was trying to prove a similar point but whatever.. (lol) My one small brush with being a tiny bit in the lime light. That card was my standby while waiting for upgrades for over 5 years.
The rumors surrounding driver support started with the first Radeon 100 series.. I think it was called the 7500.. At the time Nvidia had knocked off every video card maker except for Ati and my guess is if the rumors on drivers had stuck.. we'd have had only one video card maker today outside of intels integrated graphics chip. (..shrug)
0ldman79 - Monday, January 28, 2019 - link
ATI had a few issues, but they were limited to specific driver releases and they were patched, the bugged version was removed.The worst of it was the control center slowed down the computer. Nvidia control panel wasn't quite as bad, at least it didn't auto-load at start up.
Both companies have dropped turds over the years, both have created a few gems too.
just4U - Saturday, January 26, 2019 - link
If your not brand loyal and work with a lot of video cards you eventually realize that both companies have issues with drivers in some situations. I've never really found either company to better than the other on that front.. but that's just me.Despoiler - Friday, January 25, 2019 - link
This confirms that RTG was in fact not being setup to sell.plopke - Friday, January 25, 2019 - link
So what does David Wang do now? Wasn't he in charge of graphics?zodiacfml - Friday, January 25, 2019 - link
Simple. Bundle them. Provid reviewers with the bundles showing significant price/performance vs. the Nvidia/Intel combo.ManuelDiego - Friday, January 25, 2019 - link
Usually, EMEA stands for Europe, Middle East, Africa (same time zones). So the job description of Darren Grasby is probably wrong, i'm guessing.Kevin G - Friday, January 25, 2019 - link
Chennakeshu is the interesting one as that could mean that AMD wants to enter the ultra mobile market given his resume. The graphics side of things appears to be competitive enough to scale down in terms of power consumption but the CPU side of things would have to compete not with Intel but rather ARM. I wonder what is brewing on the semi-custom side of thing.Spoelie - Friday, January 25, 2019 - link
Skeptical of this move - seems more marketing than anything else. AMD should focus on making the best product it can; regardless of what it is paired with.Imagine a world where they would handicap performance or certain features unless it is paired with another AMD product.
Better would be if additional features were developed, but if they are proprietary and truly innovative & beneficial, it would eventually be copied by Intel/NVIDIA and we have even more instances of competing/incompatible standards. Just at a time where it seems we can finally lay the freesync vs gsync to rest.
Opencg - Friday, January 25, 2019 - link
i agree. at first glance this looks bad. nobody in this market is going to be happy about this. even if they have the best intentions for increasing performance and value to the consumer, can they deal with looking so greedy along the way. too bad. i was just starting to really be an amd fanboy. oh well.Targon - Friday, January 25, 2019 - link
Remember Centrino? This is more marketing and sales than it is about changing functionality. There will be some interesting things that will happen in the next few years if AMD goes with Gen-Z support on the motherboard. Picture a Ryzen based machine with a discrete graphics card that could also use additional video memory that is installed on the motherboard. Since Intel and NVIDIA both decided to go with their own solutions rather than supporting Gen-Z, AMD CPU+GPU with Gen-Z might provide some very interesting performance benefits. Trying to convince OEMs to actually pay attention to AMD configurations doesn't hurt either, since you really don't see nearly as many AMD based laptops and desktop machines out there in the market compared to Intel, so a renewed focus on marketing to OEMs SHOULD be seen as a good thing.HStewart - Monday, January 28, 2019 - link
I see NVidia and Intel having no reason to join the Gen-Z consortium. It does not provide them any benefits. The primary reason for why we don't see AMD based laptops and desktops is demand. Yes there are some diehard gamers that like AMD but primary for CPU and is Intel and if you need high performance GPU it always NVidia. Even Intel will find it hard to complete with NVidia for higher end GPU.But the biggest limiting factor is that most people don't need high end GPU or more than 2 CPU's. Serious how strong CPU/GPU do you need for word processing or spreadsheets - this is why ARM has been successful in tablet area.
HStewart - Monday, January 28, 2019 - link
I be honest, until today I never seen Gen-Z in computers sounds more like Zen-Z I did look up a non AMD reference to it .https://genzconsortium.org/
DeepLearner - Friday, January 25, 2019 - link
EPYC is great for deep learning but as far as GPUs go: you can pull CUDA out of my cold, dead hands. ROCm is really interesting but I'm not messing around with production systems or spending big money just to test how the AMD GPGPUs do. Best of luck to them though, I'd love to see competition drive down nVidia's pricing.FreckledTrout - Friday, January 25, 2019 - link
The only issue is the more people that think like you the less likely they will drive down Nvidia's pricing.danjw - Friday, January 25, 2019 - link
They need to get their GPUs to be as competitive as their CPUs. It really is that simple. Right now they aren't there. It sounds like they may make some progress this year, but they don't have any ray tracing technology and it isn't clear when they will have that. Their position is that Nvidia, was too early on that technology, but that is just because they don't have it.Frankly, I would really like to see laptop makers introduce mobile Ryzen laptops with discrete Nvidia GPUs. I think that makes sense. So, trying to push further bundling with the way things are, just isn't going to work.
They need to spend the time to revamp their Radeon GPUs to make them truly competitive. A reorg may be what they need to do that, I don't know. But, they need to do the same sort of execution on their Radeon line they have been engaged in with their Ryzen CPUs. They need to put technologies out there that will have Nvidia responding to them, rather than the other way around!
Tewt - Friday, January 25, 2019 - link
Everytime I read this type of comment all I see is "AMD must make it faster, use less power and cost less than Nvidia competing products. There is no way I will buy it if it is faster and uses less power but costs more or the same."The fact is they are competitive. Did I say better? No, I didn't. Competitive doesn't always mean better similar in performance like within 5 or 10% and in AMD's case, it is cheaper so yes they are competing. Many tech writers think the same way but I guess Nvidia fans think there is only one strict definition of being "competitive". Even with the current Ryzen line I've read the same opinion at least when it comes to gaming on Intel.
webdoctors - Friday, January 25, 2019 - link
I don't think AMD has been less power in more than a decade, but in the other areas even when they're on par in perf/price the features are lacking. Stuff like geforce game streaming to your TV or nvidia experience where there's presets for your game are nice free features. AMD could add those for free to users too to get parity. You can get game streaming to even Amazon fire TV devices. Otherwise you'd need to buy a steamlink.Driverwise, I think they're both the same on Windows, but if you're gaming on Linux just use Nvidia. Ignore the ppl online saying AMD for Linux, unless you enjoy pain.
That's why I think AMD does need to compete on price. They can't release a 2080 equivalent product (perf-wise) for the same price. They need to discount it 10% or so, because there's intangibles that consumers know and use to buy stuff. Just look at the steam survey:
https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/videocard/
The game bundling helps a bit but its not enough.
Right now the sweet spot is a Ryzen CPU + Geforce GPU. If AMD wants to change that, they need to make a better feature filled product or reduce prices to get a complete AMD+AMD combo. Shuffling corporate chairs won't be the answer. Like Papermaster going from SVP/CTO to Executive VP, that sounds like a pretty lateral move. What's the difference between senior VP to executive VP. Place is starting to sound like a bank.
danjw - Friday, January 25, 2019 - link
I really want to see AMD bring real competition into the GPU space. I really don't like how much Nvidia has increased their prices of late. But, they get away with it because they have the superior technology. Yes, both faster and lower power. Nvidia does need to be careful not to price itself out of the market. AMD needs to catch up on with their technology before competition.I am no ones fan boi. I am a consumer. I like what I am seeing from AMD with Ryzen. I have both an AMD powered desktop and laptop. I have an Nvidia GPU in my desktop. I am price conscious, so I really want to see AMD get to the point where their technology is on par with Nvidia. But, they don't seem to be executing on their GPU business as well as their CPU business.
I really wanted AMD to win with freesync, which they now have. They went with an industry standard that didn't need a special proprietary chip. I think that is a big win for the industry and consumers both. I have not seen any reviews of the coming Radeon GPUs. I am hoping they that will move them closer to Nvidia on technology. But, they do not have ray tracing technology in the coming generation. That is a concern.
Like I originally said they need to get to where Nvidia is responding to them, if they want to really take them on. Like they have done with Intel. Intel would have happily kept their desktop CPUs at 4 cores for as long as they could. Now they are responding to AMD. AMD needs to start throwing the same kind of curve balls at Nvidia.
PEJUman - Friday, January 25, 2019 - link
While I agree with most of your statement, I tend to think AMD's statement that the ecosystem is not ready for ray tracing is correct. They been working with both consoles, they are working on these console next gens, and without the console biting ray tracing, it is unlikely to take off. Think prior Nvidia technology that failed to gain foothold due to consoles not biting: tessellation, hairworks, FXAA/'latest buzzwordAA here', etc.I think it is a simple business equation, and without consoles developers being able to easily port their AAA to use it ray tracing is unlikely to gain a majority hold on the market.
Nvidia finally letting freesync works on their GPU, AFTER consoles can do it over HDMI. I think that's Nvidia trying to salvage whatever marketing steam they have left in G-sync before the news of G-sync LCD being discontinued breaks out...
just4U - Saturday, January 26, 2019 - link
In the laptop world I think Amd's integrated graphics work quite well.. but OEMs need to pair it all with some of their higher end chassis and displays. The problem is they make it all to cheap and then the end user experience is not as good as it could be.In the desktop market.. while I'd love to own a 2070 or 2080ti I'd take a 580 in a heartbeat for 1080p and a vega over everything else except a 1080 and above including the 2060 which in my opinion is way over priced
Spunjji - Tuesday, January 29, 2019 - link
I disagree that AMD's claim about it being too early for ray-tracing is entirely about them not having products that support it. Indications so far are that it's performance heavy to implement, it's very expensive to produce a chip capable of it, and the visual benefits in games are debatable.For further reasons to believe it's not entirely about marketing, they never said it was "too early for DX10" when their cards were late to market and their performance sucked (HD2900) - they just went back to the drawing board and made better cards. This situation is arguably very different.
AlyxSharkBite - Friday, January 25, 2019 - link
This works great for mid and low range systems AMD has great mid range and low end GPUs but there’s nothing worth pairing with a 2700X or Threadripper.WarlockOfOz - Saturday, January 26, 2019 - link
I can see a specific, relatively easy (for certain values of easy) win for amd+amd: teach the video driver to use both the igp and discrete card. This won't be straight additive and there are a host of factors to consider but it's got to be better than leaving the igp idle.mitcoes - Saturday, January 26, 2019 - link
Is INTEL who sell mor GPUs.So are APUs what matter in sells.
No need to be the best GPU, just good enough, ot even worse, just better than Intel APU ones.
As new AMD APUs will be better than the 2400G that is the minimum to play games at 720p being able to sell the new APUs is just about good price,
And adding the ability to upgrade performance with more AMD discrete GPUs graphics power to the APU's GPU instead of change it and/or adding the GPU computing power to the CPU would be a great plus.
wonderbread2 - Saturday, January 26, 2019 - link
So who can I blame specifically if Navi and zen2 are crap?Spunjji - Tuesday, January 29, 2019 - link
Who got blamed for the HD2900 series, or the GeForce FX 5800? The whole company usually takes the hit.kina88 - Wednesday, February 12, 2020 - link
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