Nvidia vs Radeon

[OpeningToEndgame]

I currently have a Nvidia GTX 660 2gigs in my computer. I bought it from Best Buy. It's an ibuypower. Well the sound is crappy so I bought a 5.1 Creative Sound card. Cheap $30 and would do the job. However, after opening the case I discover that my computer has a mini-motherboard with no slot for a sound card. Needless to say I am taking it back and going with an AMD 8-Core FX-8120 Zambezi Processor with AMD Radeon HD 7850 graphics. All the reviews seem great. I just thought I would get some opinions from fellow gamers. This computer runs great so far. Slight game lag from time to time, but overall great. I just want to use the full power of my surround sound. Only one little plug isn't cutting it.

[nateslice]

As for the sound card, I think I can help you with a recommendation. Best Buy sells a nifty little external SoundBlaster that plugs in to a USB port. I have one myself, and I'm pleased with it.

 

Edit: Sorry, I misunderstood; I didn't realize until after I'd posted that your plan was to take the entire computer back. My advice doesn't seem like it'll be all that helpful to you at this time, then.

Edited March 1, 2013 by nateslice

[Smiffo]

Why create a thread about video cards when you really want to talk about sound cards? I'm sure your existing motherboard, whatever size it is, is at least 5.1.

[Demerick]

All depends what do you listen to and what is your output? speakers or headphones? What is your budget?

 

Personally i love the HT Omega Claro Halo sound card with the sennhieser HD650s headphones. Been using this set up for 4 years and love it.

Edited March 1, 2013 by Demerick

[OpeningToEndgame]

It's about both the video and sound. I've always went with Nvidia as per people I've talked to. But there's a better deal that could save me some money, double my ram. I just wasn't sure about the loss in graphics if any. My motherboard only has 1 plug in for sound, 1 for a mic and one more. It's a tiny square on-board adapter. VIA I think it is. My surround sound sounds like garbage. I can only plug in the green cord. My other computer I put in all 3 plugs. It was a dell though. I called Ibuypower and they said they do this to "keep the cost down." Even though I paid $900 for it. *shrug*

 

I like the guys idea of an external card. I think I will go back today and check it out. Thanks for the help.

[soulseekerr]

My experience with vid cards has been thus:

 

Nvidia is slightly faster in terms of raw fps than the comparable Radeon cards.

Nvidia is slightly less glitchy than Radeon cards

Radeon cards provided better quality in their color and graphics than nvidia, but the difference is very slight.

 

As for sound cards, i've found no reason to use anything other than the on-board sound that comes on virtually any motherboard these days. I consider stand-alone sound cards these days to be for high-end sound/music developers.

Edited March 1, 2013 by soulseekerr

[Malastare]

Lesson: You don't buy Ibuypower systems expecting quality components. If you pick them out, then they're probably fine, but if you use their "defaults" you should expect a low-quality motherboard, a trashy PSU, and bargain RAM.

 

They might be fine for the majority of people, but if you're picky about anything in particular or have some use that is going to stress the system, you should be wary. I'm not at all surprised that their motherboard has no open slots and a poor quality sound chip.

 

More to the point: For the majority of people, there is no real difference between nVidia and AMD. In most cases, similarly priced cards from both brands will give similar quality. Benchmarks and enthusiasts will be able to pick one over the other as being better, but the difference is often on the order of a few frames per second for the average user. It's far more important for you to worry about whether the system its in can handle the heat and power draw of a gaming card. I'd like to think that any pre-built system with a given card would have done that homework for you. However, the cheaper the price tag, the more likely it is that they've cut some corner or assumed that you wouldn't ever actually use the thing at full power.

[Viridiana]

If you are buying a prebuilt pc from best buy and specifically an ibuypower then you won't notice any difference between the two cards, someone building their own system might see a slight difference but it usually becomes personal preference at that point.

[jimbothirtytwo]

AMD graphics cards are currently a better value than NVidia. Personally, I'd only buy an NVidia under very specific circumstances - if I had ~$400 to spend and I was gaming on a single monitor setup, I might go with an NVidia 670. Otherwise, the AMD cards offer superior price to performance ratio pretty much across the board.

 

Imo, the best value card on the market right now is the newish AMD HD7870 Tahiti LE. The gpu is the same Tahiti codename used on the higher end 7950 and 7970 (rather than the Pitcairn codename gpu on normal 7870's), and when overclocked (which AMD cards are capable of in spades, unlike NVidia-based cards which are moslty voltage locked) it performs almost to the level of the GTX670 I mentioned above - at nearly half the price. The Tahiti LE cards can be hard to find in stock though, since not all the AMD partners make them. Powercolor has one in production that I've seen for as low as $220. A real bargain for what you're getting, since the equivalent NVidia card (GTX660ti) can be around $80-100 more.

 

As far as sound cards go, Asus are the way to go. The Asus Xonar DGX is an excellent 5.1 card that also has a headphone amp. It should be easy to find at around $50-65.

Edited March 1, 2013 by jimbothirtytwo

[Nydus]

Interesting, I have to admit to having a high degree of brand-loyalty.

 

Currently that loyalty has been with nvidia (and voodoo before that). I can only say I've never had an issue with an nvidia card; very durable and outlast the warranties (I don't do any crazy overclocking or stuff like that).

 

I'm actually interesting in the price-point of most SWTOR players. I generally dish out about $300-$500 bucks for a video card. My latest is about 3 years old and is able to handle modern games on high resolution. Pay more up front to pay less later!

 

- Arcada

Edited March 1, 2013 by Nydus

[jimbothirtytwo]

It seems that there are a lot of NVidia loyalists around, but imo it doesn't make much sense to stick with one brand in a market like gpu's which is literally owned by two companies.

 

I think that if you buy based solely on brand loyalty, all you're doing is encouraging stagnation. Why are the NVidia cards priced 25-30% higher than an equivalent AMD? I have no idea, but I certainly wouldn't consider spending that extra cash just because a card happens to have a green logo. Also, NVidia are currently on the way to alienating themselves from enthusiasts - google "NVidia Greenlight" to see what I mean.

 

(tl;dr - they've forced card manufacturing partners to severely limit the voltage (and therefore overclocking) that their cards are capable of - apparently in order to reduce the number of returns (RMA's). At the same time, their cards are more expensive than equivalent AMD models which don't have those limitations. Makes perfect sense right? Maybe if you're an NVidia shareholder I suppose.)

[OpeningToEndgame]

Someone mentioned an external card. I don't need anything fancy. Just something more than the standard adapter. My wifes Dell has like 8 jacks. I used the Black, green and 3rd one for my 5.1 Surround sound. Just using the standard jack sucks.

 

 

I also saw the new Nvidia Titan earlier today. I drooled. This guy had ordered FOUR of them to build his rig. Ridiculous.

Edited March 1, 2013 by OpeningToEndgame
fsffs