[Mars]

So I'm looking to drop between $300 and $400 on a new video card this year, and I'm torn between getting an R9 390 (maximum performance for the money) and a GTX 970 (NVIDIA exclusive features like PhysX.) Is there an obvious answer I'm overlooking, or is it as much of a wash as it seems?

[Bobboau]

"exclusive features" == **** that
go with the AMD, just on that principal alone. Also weren't they involved in the recent Batman debacle? speeding up the released gameplay footage to make it look 60fps when the game was capped at 30? I remember that accusation being thrown around recently don't remember a resolution to it.

[Fury]

270? That's old, really old. I think you might have meant 970. I think you should wait what price point Radeon R9 Nano will be launched at, it should be released in a month or two.

But if you can't wait, Tomshardware.com just published articles on best-buy monitors, SSDs, motherboards, GPUs and CPUs just earlier this month.
http://www.tomshardware.com/

[Mars]

Corrected, thanks Fury.

[Mr. Vega]

I got the MSI Twin Frozr version of the 970 and my experience has been fantastic so far. My first-ever nVidia card and I'm definately not regretting ditching AMD.

[Fury]

I'm definately not regretting ditching AMD.

I've got 970 as well and I am regretting it. NVIDIA has had very questionable business practices and they prefer proprietary, exclusive hardware and software technology. AMD on the other hand tends to play surprisingly fair, and prefers open-source and open technology. I do not deny that NVIDIA has great GPUs and good drivers, but NVIDIA as a company is not a company I like to support. My future hardware will not be from NVIDIA, no matter how good their GPUs are. AMD on the other hand is the kind of company that makes you want to support them, even if their products are not the best.

[rev_posix]

I've got 970 as well and I am regretting it. NVIDIA has had very questionable business practices and they prefer proprietary, exclusive hardware and software technology. AMD on the other hand tends to play surprisingly fair, and prefers open-source and open technology. I do not deny that NVIDIA has great GPUs and good drivers, but NVIDIA as a company is not a company I like to support. My future hardware will not be from NVIDIA, no matter how good their GPUs are. AMD on the other hand is the kind of company that makes you want to support them, even if their products are not the best.

Are we talking about the same company?

AMD has historically been anti-anything that wasn't windows, along with forgetting about their previous cards once the new hotness arrives.

I won't touch AMD for video cards, been burned too many times in the past, NV has just about always worked the best under various non-windows operating systems with AMD providing mostly lip service and half-hearted efforts for anything open source.

Perfect?  Far from it, but in my experience they are definitely the lesser of the evils.

YMMV, IANAL, and so on.

[Fury]

AMD's support for operating systems other than Windows is regrettably half-assed, yet AMD does release technical information required to create open-source drivers for linux/unix/bsd. NVIDIA doesn't. AMD's open-source GPU drivers are quite decent actually, whereas NVIDIA open-source drivers are not. AMD's long-term goal supposedly is to support open-source driver development 100%, and make Catalyst a binary add-on to the open-source drivers. Hopefully the situation improves once Steam Machines and SteamOS have been released, which happens later this year.

AMD actually does have strong support towards open-source, whereas NVIDIA doesn't lift a finger until Torvalds gives them the finger.

As for forgetting old products, in my experience there has been exact same "forgetfulness" from NVIDIA's part.

[rev_posix]

AMD's support for operating systems other than Windows is regrettably half-assed, yet AMD does release technical information required to create open-source drivers for linux/unix/bsd. NVIDIA doesn't. AMD's open-source GPU drivers are quite decent actually, whereas NVIDIA open-source drivers are not. AMD's long-term goal supposedly is to support open-source driver development 100%, and make Catalyst a binary add-on to the open-source drivers. Hopefully the situation improves once Steam Machines and SteamOS have been released, which happens later this year.

AMD actually does have strong support towards open-source, whereas NVIDIA doesn't lift a finger until Torvalds gives them the finger.

As for forgetting old products, in my experience there has been exact same "forgetfulness" from NVIDIA's part.

Granted, AMD is now starting to be more helpful toward open source driver projects, true.  But they haven't been that way in the past, and I don't trust them to actually keep up with their current 'push' for supporting it.

As for the driver support, the current nvidia drivers still support all the way back to the GeForce 8 series under windows 8.1 in a 64-bit environment.

If I'm incorrect, please correct my oversight, but AMD only goes back about four generations (the HD series) compared to NV's nine(?) generations.

Also true is that NV isn't all that helpful in regards to open source projects, which is unfortunate.  But what they do provide generally works pretty well, even if it's closed source.

Again, personal experience has steered me away from AMD, and I've not regretted it.

[Klaustrophobia]

I want to go back to AMD, but right now Nvidia has too many edges on them.  AMD has price/performance and more user-friendly drivers.  Nvidia has smaller form factors, lower power consumption, higher horsepower.  I guess physX, but I'm not sure that's ever added any value at all.  Their drivers are more featured and powerful, work better with most games (I suspect in part because more games are optimized for Nvidia than not), but damn they are a pain to use.

I've not yet looked into the r9 3xx series, but if they knock down the power consumption (and hopefully the size as well) I might seriously consider going back to AMD.  I also would rather support them as a company than Nvidia.  I often get the feeling that AMD is doing a lot to advance the tech, and nvidia comes along and uses their much larger market share and the "Steve Jobs effect" to muscle them out.  AMD getting out of the game would be devastating to consumers.

[rev_posix]

I want to go back to AMD, but right now Nvidia has too many edges on them.  AMD has price/performance and more user-friendly drivers.  Nvidia has smaller form factors, lower power consumption, higher horsepower.  I guess physX, but I'm not sure that's ever added any value at all.  Their drivers are more featured and powerful, work better with most games (I suspect in part because more games are optimized for Nvidia than not), but damn they are a pain to use.

According to the devs from the now-defunct Adhesive Games, the studio that was making Hawken, they asked AMD and Nvidia for info and help in trying to optimize the game for the various chipsets.

Nvidia was apparently very helpful in this process.  AMD, not so much (apathetic comes to mind).  Granted, this was a few years ago from an indie dev, and AMD seems to be waking up as to the effect this was having on their market share and such, but it would seem that a lot of the damage is already done.  Hopefully they can improve things sooner than later.

I've not yet looked into the r9 3xx series, but if they knock down the power consumption (and hopefully the size as well) I might seriously consider going back to AMD.  I also would rather support them as a company than Nvidia.  I often get the feeling that AMD is doing a lot to advance the tech, and nvidia comes along and uses their much larger market share and the "Steve Jobs effect" to muscle them out.  AMD getting out of the game would be devastating to consumers.

I am amused.  I remember when it was the 'Bill Gates/Microsoft effect' that would 'muscle' competition out of a given market when they entered it.

Anyway, from a quick google, leaked charts for the R9 390/390X are pointing to better performance than the 980 series, but non-trivial amounts of additional power draw, which seems to be AMD's biggest weak point.

And before anyone claims I'm a NV fan boy...

Competition is usually a very good thing for us end users.  I really do hope that AMD is able to pull something really good out of their collective hats.  Right now, NV still tends to be the preferred choice based on performance, compatibility (but damn, I wish they would fix their funky OpenCL stack so I can use it with Sony Vegas or Premier), power consumption and heat output, which are most of the main points I look at.

I really don't give a flying fsck over things like PhysX, but I do have to admit to a certain interest in the alleged VR 'extensions/hooks' that NV is putting into their cards now.  If VR really takes off, they might have a serious advantage over the competition.

[Klaustrophobia]

I don't think VR is EVER going to take off.  It might gain a little ground from where it is now, but I believe it's always going to be a gimmick.  I used Steve Jobs effect because I read some other article that used that term.  Meant to describe the "let other companies do the inventing/innovating, then copy/make a slightly better/sleeker version and market the **** out of it" approach.  I know Nvidia isn't quite that bad about it and have original stuff of their own, but I do get some sense of this tactic.  For the last little while, it always seems like AMD leads the next generation with something that is definitely a step up from the last, and then nvidia comes in second with something that edges it out.

[Mr. Vega]

I'm definately not regretting ditching AMD.

I've got 970 as well and I am regretting it. NVIDIA has had very questionable business practices and they prefer proprietary, exclusive hardware and software technology. AMD on the other hand tends to play surprisingly fair, and prefers open-source and open technology. I do not deny that NVIDIA has great GPUs and good drivers, but NVIDIA as a company is not a company I like to support. My future hardware will not be from NVIDIA, no matter how good their GPUs are. AMD on the other hand is the kind of company that makes you want to support them, even if their products are not the best.

Kk. I've stuck with AMD twice despite considering switching and regretted it both times. I wanted the best card I could get, and I got it. You be the sacrificial lamb this time.

[TechnoD11]

As someone who builds PC's for a living I can give you some first hand advice on both camp's latest-gen cards.
First and foremost, I find the whole "my previous nvidia/amd card sucked so i went to amd/nvidia" is just not true. This usually boils down to people getting a lemon card from one company and then a working card from the other. I have built many systems recently using mid range and high end gpu's from both camps and they have all worked fine (talking R9 270 through 290X for AMD and GTX 750 Ti through 980 for Nvidia).

The best thing you can look for is performance/price (ie what card is the "best bang for the buck").

Here are the viable cards given your budget ($300-400):
From the AMD camp, you'll be looking at the R9 390X as your top end card at $430. If that is too much, you can lose about 10%~ performance and get a R9 390 at around $330.
From the Nvidia camp, your only option in that price range is the GTX 970 at also $320, as the next card, the 980, goes for no less than $480. The 970 frequently trades blows with the above cards, although the additional VRAM of the above two cards do give them a slight edge at 4K resolution.

If you are factoring in power consumption, than the GTX 970 is your card as it does draw less power and put out less heat than the AMD cards.

When it comes time to purchase a card, post here so I can get the latest Newegg promo codes for you.
That's pretty much it. Just look for the best deal on one of the above cards and you're pretty much good.

Hope this helped,

TechnoD11