I need some honest opinions about ATI Radeon GPUs. No bias

Well, to make it short, I've never used an ATI Radeon GPU, only GeForce. Most complaints seem to be about drivers. What do you think? (I'm asking because I'm considering buying one)

Also, just so I don't make another thread, how is a HD 6870 compared to a GTX 460 SE?

well when it comes down to driver support, AMD is a little bit slower than nvidia on fixes and improvements for the latest titles. So if you're one of those paranoid ones who has to have driver support for all the latest games on day 3 then go nvidia. 9/10 the latest titles don't have any issues, but the occasional ones do and thats where nvidia shines..

Nvidia might take a week for the drivers whereas AMD may take anywhere between 1-2 weeks. I personally with my radeon 6950 have very few issues. One of the issues I do notice from time to time, is if I leave my computer on over night then it MIGHT BSOD. This might not even be due to the video card so take that as you will.

Overall Radeon cards are generally greater bang for buck across the board than nvidia ones. Try one you won't be dissapointed. If you crossfire then their could also be more issues that come up, but that also is true for nvidia as well.

The majority (not all) of the people poo pooing amd's drivers have either never owned an amd card or haven't for years.

When looking for a card just take what you're willing to spend and find the card with the best price to performance ratio/power draw and heat signature (if you care about that).

AMD's drivers are fine. Everyone is still stuck 3 years in the past. If you say anything enough times, people will start taking it as truth. This is what happens. Also, 6870 > 460 but not by much.ShadowDeathX

i think hes talking about the 192 bit 460 gtx in which case 6870 >> 460 gtx.

[QUOTE="ShadowDeathX"]AMD's drivers are fine. Everyone is still stuck 3 years in the past. If you say anything enough times, people will start taking it as truth. This is what happens. Also, 6870 > 460 but not by much.blaznwiipspman1

i think hes talking about the 192 bit 460 gtx in which case 6870 >> 460 gtx.

[QUOTE="ShadowDeathX"]AMD's drivers are fine. Everyone is still stuck 3 years in the past. If you say anything enough times, people will start taking it as truth. This is what happens. Also, 6870 > 460 but not by much.blaznwiipspman1

i think hes talking about the 192 bit 460 gtx in which case 6870 >> 460 gtx.

AMD's drivers are fine. Everyone is still stuck 3 years in the past. If you say anything enough times, people will start taking it as truth. This is what happens. Also, 6870 > 460 but not by much.ShadowDeathX

Look up on what happened with the 12.2 driver for skyrim, and tell me they are fine again.

[QUOTE="blaznwiipspman1"]

[QUOTE="ShadowDeathX"]AMD's drivers are fine. Everyone is still stuck 3 years in the past. If you say anything enough times, people will start taking it as truth. This is what happens. Also, 6870 > 460 but not by much.Lox_Cropek

i think hes talking about the 192 bit 460 gtx in which case 6870 >> 460 gtx.

[QUOTE="Lox_Cropek"]

[QUOTE="blaznwiipspman1"]

i think hes talking about the 192 bit 460 gtx in which case 6870 >> 460 gtx.

ShadowDeathX

[QUOTE="ShadowDeathX"]AMD's drivers are fine. Everyone is still stuck 3 years in the past. If you say anything enough times, people will start taking it as truth. This is what happens. Also, 6870 > 460 but not by much.DoomZaW

Look up on what happened with the 12.2 driver for skyrim, and tell me they are fine again.

Lets not get into a "list f'ed up driver updates" list match here, as nvidia has their fair share as well.

[QUOTE="DoomZaW"]

[QUOTE="ShadowDeathX"]AMD's drivers are fine. Everyone is still stuck 3 years in the past. If you say anything enough times, people will start taking it as truth. This is what happens. Also, 6870 > 460 but not by much.topgunmv

Look up on what happened with the 12.2 driver for skyrim, and tell me they are fine again.

Lets not get into a "list f'ed up driver updates" list match here, as nvidia has their fair share as well.

[QUOTE="ShadowDeathX"]AMD's drivers are fine. Everyone is still stuck 3 years in the past. If you say anything enough times, people will start taking it as truth. This is what happens. Also, 6870 > 460 but not by much.DoomZaW

Look up on what happened with the 12.2 driver for skyrim, and tell me they are fine again.

what happened? I googled it and it said some radeon cards had issues with the AA, but most did not. The ones that had problems just needed to revert to 12.1 for rock solid gameplay.

[QUOTE="ShadowDeathX"]AMD's drivers are fine. Everyone is still stuck 3 years in the past. If you say anything enough times, people will start taking it as truth. This is what happens. Also, 6870 > 460 but not by much.DoomZaW

Look up on what happened with the 12.2 driver for skyrim, and tell me they are fine again.

[QUOTE="topgunmv"]

[QUOTE="DoomZaW"]

Look up on what happened with the 12.2 driver for skyrim, and tell me they are fine again.

Lox_Cropek

Lets not get into a "list f'ed up driver updates" list match here, as nvidia has their fair share as well.

Yeah.. they launched a driver that made the fans stop working on some cards. It wasn't good.

[QUOTE="topgunmv"]

[QUOTE="DoomZaW"]

Look up on what happened with the 12.2 driver for skyrim, and tell me they are fine again.

Lox_Cropek

Lets not get into a "list f'ed up driver updates" list match here, as nvidia has their fair share as well.

If you were overclocking with a modified vcore the fan wouldn't work right, yes.

[QUOTE="topgunmv"]

[QUOTE="DoomZaW"]

Look up on what happened with the 12.2 driver for skyrim, and tell me they are fine again.

Lox_Cropek

Lets not get into a "list f'ed up driver updates" list match here, as nvidia has their fair share as well.

[QUOTE="topgunmv"]

[QUOTE="DoomZaW"]

Look up on what happened with the 12.2 driver for skyrim, and tell me they are fine again.

Lox_Cropek

Lets not get into a "list f'ed up driver updates" list match here, as nvidia has their fair share as well.

Yeah both companies have their success and failures with driver updates, nvidia is the only one that blew their own cards up though.

Do you guys think it's worth it going from a GTX 460 SE to a HD 6870?

The rest of the PC is:

Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bits

Core 2 Quad Q9400 @ 2.9Ghz

8GB RAM DDR3 @ 1333MHz

GeForce GTX 460 SE

--

Also, how is Linux support for AMD ATI drivers? (Ubuntu)

[QUOTE="ShadowDeathX"][QUOTE="Lox_Cropek"]Yeah, the GTX 460 SE

Lox_Cropek

[QUOTE="Lox_Cropek"]

[QUOTE="ShadowDeathX"] Yup 6870 it is for sure!ionusX

[QUOTE="ionusX"]

[QUOTE="Lox_Cropek"]How big is the difference...?

Lox_Cropek

---- yea

[QUOTE="ShadowDeathX"]AMD's drivers are fine. Everyone is still stuck 3 years in the past. If you say anything enough times, people will start taking it as truth. This is what happens. Also, 6870 > 460 but not by much.DoomZaW

Look up on what happened with the 12.2 driver for skyrim, and tell me they are fine again.

Well, to make it short, I've never used an ATI Radeon GPU, only GeForce. Most complaints seem to be about drivers. What do you think? (I'm asking because I'm considering buying one)

Also, just so I don't make another thread, how is a HD 6870 compared to a GTX 460 SE?

Lox_Cropek

[QUOTE="DoomZaW"]

[QUOTE="ShadowDeathX"]AMD's drivers are fine. Everyone is still stuck 3 years in the past. If you say anything enough times, people will start taking it as truth. This is what happens. Also, 6870 > 460 but not by much.DevilMightCry

Look up on what happened with the 12.2 driver for skyrim, and tell me they are fine again.

Rage was an awfully coded game, that was all on id. A lot of nvidia users had problems with it too. Just not the same ones.

Is XFX a good brand?

Found a nice XFX HD 6870 1GB for the same price of a GTX 550 Ti

Is XFX a good brand?

Found a nice XFX HD 6870 1GB for the same price of a GTX 550 Ti

Lox_Cropek

Do you guys think it's worth it going from a GTX 460 SE to a HD 6870?

The rest of the PC is:

Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bits

Core 2 Quad Q9400 @ 2.9Ghz

8GB RAM DDR3 @ 1333MHz

GeForce GTX 460 SE

--

Also, how is Linux support for AMD ATI drivers? (Ubuntu)

Lox_Cropek

[QUOTE="Lox_Cropek"]

Do you guys think it's worth it going from a GTX 460 SE to a HD 6870?

The rest of the PC is:

Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bits

Core 2 Quad Q9400 @ 2.9Ghz

8GB RAM DDR3 @ 1333MHz

GeForce GTX 460 SE

--

Also, how is Linux support for AMD ATI drivers? (Ubuntu)

ShadowDeathX

agreed

i've never once had driver issues with any of my ATI/AMD cards.

I can't really recommend ATI/AMD cards, unless you're a person who intends to upgrade every few years or so. But if you're a guy like me who likes to really wear out a card before replacing it (either by running it to death or until games are unplayable on anything but low at 800x600), then AMD is proving themselves to be ****. From the grapevine, AMD is dropping support for its 2XXX, 3XXX, and 4XXX line of cards sometime this summer. This is balls, as my 4870 1GB is perfectly capable of running all games in existence. Given the fact that I'm losing support just 3 years after purchasing the card, I won't buy AMD next time, that's for sure. But again, if you're the kind of person who upgrades relatively frequently, this won't affect you. Then, I'd mostly just say look at price/performance and whichever company does best in your price range should get your money.LongZhiZi

Wow dude your a fool, losing support just means they wont be making new drivers for it. The card will still run fine and since its been around so long they have developed the drivers as good as they will get so not making new ones means nothing. All you have to do is stick with 12.7 or whatever will be the last ones till you need a new card and you wont have any problems running it into the ground. A new card like the 7xxx series has not been fully harnesing its power so new drivers are needed to optamize it but your 4870 wont run any better any time soon as they have wrung all the performance possible out of it so new drivers are pointless for you. Nvidia does this too, when new technologies come out often older cards arent even capable of utalizing them so thats just the way it is, technology moves fast and why would you want it to slow down?

[QUOTE="Lox_Cropek"]

Do you guys think it's worth it going from a GTX 460 SE to a HD 6870?

The rest of the PC is:

Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bits

Core 2 Quad Q9400 @ 2.9Ghz

8GB RAM DDR3 @ 1333MHz

GeForce GTX 460 SE

--

Also, how is Linux support for AMD ATI drivers? (Ubuntu)

ShadowDeathX

My options are basically: GTX 460 SE (U$230), GTX 460 (U$250), Radeon 6850 (U$230), Radeon 6870 (U$270) or GTX 550 Ti (U$200). Not american prices

I can't really recommend ATI/AMD cards, unless you're a person who intends to upgrade every few years or so. But if you're a guy like me who likes to really wear out a card before replacing it (either by running it to death or until games are unplayable on anything but low at 800x600), then AMD is proving themselves to be ****. From the grapevine, AMD is dropping support for its 2XXX, 3XXX, and 4XXX line of cards sometime this summer. This is balls, as my 4870 1GB is perfectly capable of running all games in existence. Given the fact that I'm losing support just 3 years after purchasing the card, I won't buy AMD next time, that's for sure. But again, if you're the kind of person who upgrades relatively frequently, this won't affect you. Then, I'd mostly just say look at price/performance and whichever company does best in your price range should get your money.LongZhiZi

[QUOTE="LongZhiZi"]I can't really recommend ATI/AMD cards, unless you're a person who intends to upgrade every few years or so. But if you're a guy like me who likes to really wear out a card before replacing it (either by running it to death or until games are unplayable on anything but low at 800x600), then AMD is proving themselves to be ****. From the grapevine, AMD is dropping support for its 2XXX, 3XXX, and 4XXX line of cards sometime this summer. This is balls, as my 4870 1GB is perfectly capable of running all games in existence. Given the fact that I'm losing support just 3 years after purchasing the card, I won't buy AMD next time, that's for sure. But again, if you're the kind of person who upgrades relatively frequently, this won't affect you. Then, I'd mostly just say look at price/performance and whichever company does best in your price range should get your money.Obiwan_1O

Wow dude your a fool, losing support just means they wont be making new drivers for it. The card will still run fine and since its been around so long they have developed the drivers as good as they will get so not making new ones means nothing. All you have to do is stick with 12.7 or whatever will be the last ones till you need a new card and you wont have any problems running it into the ground. A new card like the 7xxx series has not been fully harnesing its power so new drivers are needed to optamize it but your 4870 wont run any better any time soon as they have wrung all the performance possible out of it so new drivers are pointless for you. Nvidia does this too, when new technologies come out often older cards arent even capable of utalizing them so thats just the way it is, technology moves fast and why would you want it to slow down?

Honestly I have a very mixed opinion on both companies. For desktops I'm beginning to like Nvidia better, currently running crossfire 5870s, the drivers are a royal pain expecially for certain titles like skyrim. 12.3 prevented me from even playing the game with a single gpu enabled and it gave flashing lights of seziures with xfire enabled. Nvidia just seems to have fewer hiccups (but not always the case as Dragon Age II worked better on ati cards when first released). I'm debating if I want to just upgrage to a GTX 680 and ditch the Radeons.

If your going mobile, then I will say I like ATI more than nvidia. Nvidia kinda screwed me with their 8800m gtx and it's stupid switchable graphics (the first attempt). They decided to change it and no longer write the code in any driver after a while and that caused me to be stuck with an old driver and I couldn't get new ones. (ATI handles this better, by letting the companies write the switchable code. I can install dells first to get the code, then install ATI's overtop).

So as far as my opinion goes;

Desktop: Nvidia

Mobile: ATI

[QUOTE="ShadowDeathX"][QUOTE="Lox_Cropek"]

Do you guys think it's worth it going from a GTX 460 SE to a HD 6870?

The rest of the PC is:

Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bits

Core 2 Quad Q9400 @ 2.9Ghz

8GB RAM DDR3 @ 1333MHz

GeForce GTX 460 SE

--

Also, how is Linux support for AMD ATI drivers? (Ubuntu)

Lox_Cropek

My options are basically: GTX 460 SE (U$230), GTX 460 (U$250), Radeon 6850 (U$230), Radeon 6870 (U$270) or GTX 550 Ti (U$200). Not american prices

[QUOTE="blaznwiipspman1"]

[QUOTE="ShadowDeathX"]AMD's drivers are fine. Everyone is still stuck 3 years in the past. If you say anything enough times, people will start taking it as truth. This is what happens. Also, 6870 > 460 but not by much.Lox_Cropek

i think hes talking about the 192 bit 460 gtx in which case 6870 >> 460 gtx.

[QUOTE="Obiwan_1O"]

[QUOTE="LongZhiZi"]I can't really recommend ATI/AMD cards, unless you're a person who intends to upgrade every few years or so. But if you're a guy like me who likes to really wear out a card before replacing it (either by running it to death or until games are unplayable on anything but low at 800x600), then AMD is proving themselves to be ****. From the grapevine, AMD is dropping support for its 2XXX, 3XXX, and 4XXX line of cards sometime this summer. This is balls, as my 4870 1GB is perfectly capable of running all games in existence. Given the fact that I'm losing support just 3 years after purchasing the card, I won't buy AMD next time, that's for sure. But again, if you're the kind of person who upgrades relatively frequently, this won't affect you. Then, I'd mostly just say look at price/performance and whichever company does best in your price range should get your money.kraken2109

Wow dude your a fool, losing support just means they wont be making new drivers for it. The card will still run fine and since its been around so long they have developed the drivers as good as they will get so not making new ones means nothing. All you have to do is stick with 12.7 or whatever will be the last ones till you need a new card and you wont have any problems running it into the ground. A new card like the 7xxx series has not been fully harnesing its power so new drivers are needed to optamize it but your 4870 wont run any better any time soon as they have wrung all the performance possible out of it so new drivers are pointless for you. Nvidia does this too, when new technologies come out often older cards arent even capable of utalizing them so thats just the way it is, technology moves fast and why would you want it to slow down?

True but also to be fair to AMD they didnt exactly said they would stop releasing drivers but rather change policy on older card and not update their drivers as often as new cards

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/AMD-Catalyst_Software-Radeon_HD-Drivers-download,15429.html

[QUOTE="Obiwan_1O"]

[QUOTE="LongZhiZi"]I can't really recommend ATI/AMD cards, unless you're a person who intends to upgrade every few years or so. But if you're a guy like me who likes to really wear out a card before replacing it (either by running it to death or until games are unplayable on anything but low at 800x600), then AMD is proving themselves to be ****. From the grapevine, AMD is dropping support for its 2XXX, 3XXX, and 4XXX line of cards sometime this summer. This is balls, as my 4870 1GB is perfectly capable of running all games in existence. Given the fact that I'm losing support just 3 years after purchasing the card, I won't buy AMD next time, that's for sure. But again, if you're the kind of person who upgrades relatively frequently, this won't affect you. Then, I'd mostly just say look at price/performance and whichever company does best in your price range should get your money.kraken2109

Wow dude your a fool, losing support just means they wont be making new drivers for it. The card will still run fine and since its been around so long they have developed the drivers as good as they will get so not making new ones means nothing. All you have to do is stick with 12.7 or whatever will be the last ones till you need a new card and you wont have any problems running it into the ground. A new card like the 7xxx series has not been fully harnesing its power so new drivers are needed to optamize it but your 4870 wont run any better any time soon as they have wrung all the performance possible out of it so new drivers are pointless for you. Nvidia does this too, when new technologies come out often older cards arent even capable of utalizing them so thats just the way it is, technology moves fast and why would you want it to slow down?

If I understand correctly, they'll still be releasing driver updates on a quarterly basis; they're not dropping driver support completely.

I have been using my ati 4850 for a couple of years. Never had problems with the drivers.

Look back at the last few pages, and you will see more people are having issues with nvidia drivers rather than ATI's

But don't get the 550ti, it's about the same as the radeon 6770 and nowhere close to the 6850, 6870 or the 460gtx.

[QUOTE="Obiwan_1O"]

[QUOTE="LongZhiZi"]I can't really recommend ATI/AMD cards, unless you're a person who intends to upgrade every few years or so. But if you're a guy like me who likes to really wear out a card before replacing it (either by running it to death or until games are unplayable on anything but low at 800x600), then AMD is proving themselves to be ****. From the grapevine, AMD is dropping support for its 2XXX, 3XXX, and 4XXX line of cards sometime this summer. This is balls, as my 4870 1GB is perfectly capable of running all games in existence. Given the fact that I'm losing support just 3 years after purchasing the card, I won't buy AMD next time, that's for sure. But again, if you're the kind of person who upgrades relatively frequently, this won't affect you. Then, I'd mostly just say look at price/performance and whichever company does best in your price range should get your money.kraken2109

Wow dude your a fool, losing support just means they wont be making new drivers for it. The card will still run fine and since its been around so long they have developed the drivers as good as they will get so not making new ones means nothing. All you have to do is stick with 12.7 or whatever will be the last ones till you need a new card and you wont have any problems running it into the ground. A new card like the 7xxx series has not been fully harnesing its power so new drivers are needed to optamize it but your 4870 wont run any better any time soon as they have wrung all the performance possible out of it so new drivers are pointless for you. Nvidia does this too, when new technologies come out often older cards arent even capable of utalizing them so thats just the way it is, technology moves fast and why would you want it to slow down?

They are moving the 2xxx/3xxx/4xxx from monthly driver updates to quarterly driver updates, specifically to fix bugs. Your point is moot.

[QUOTE="Obiwan_1O"]

[QUOTE="LongZhiZi"]I can't really recommend ATI/AMD cards, unless you're a person who intends to upgrade every few years or so. But if you're a guy like me who likes to really wear out a card before replacing it (either by running it to death or until games are unplayable on anything but low at 800x600), then AMD is proving themselves to be ****. From the grapevine, AMD is dropping support for its 2XXX, 3XXX, and 4XXX line of cards sometime this summer. This is balls, as my 4870 1GB is perfectly capable of running all games in existence. Given the fact that I'm losing support just 3 years after purchasing the card, I won't buy AMD next time, that's for sure. But again, if you're the kind of person who upgrades relatively frequently, this won't affect you. Then, I'd mostly just say look at price/performance and whichever company does best in your price range should get your money.kraken2109

Wow dude your a fool, losing support just means they wont be making new drivers for it. The card will still run fine and since its been around so long they have developed the drivers as good as they will get so not making new ones means nothing. All you have to do is stick with 12.7 or whatever will be the last ones till you need a new card and you wont have any problems running it into the ground. A new card like the 7xxx series has not been fully harnesing its power so new drivers are needed to optamize it but your 4870 wont run any better any time soon as they have wrung all the performance possible out of it so new drivers are pointless for you. Nvidia does this too, when new technologies come out often older cards arent even capable of utalizing them so thats just the way it is, technology moves fast and why would you want it to slow down?

I just made the jump from a 9600GT to a 6870 and honestly as far as drivers go, I have had zero problems. I think it's mostly brand bias out there that gets people so worked up.