Brand Loyalty or Agnosticism?

[Grooveriding]

For a while I've gone nvidia only, since the 480, because they have the top performing single GPU consistently. After the recent BS with nvidia's lies I'll probably go AMD again though once the next flagships are out. I always use muilti-GPU and since AMD's new crossfire with XDMA cards is giving a smoother experience than nvidia's I'd like to try it out again to compare.

Generally I just buy whoever has the fastest single gpu card though and that has been nvidia for a while.

 

[BonzaiDuck]

For a while I've gone nvidia only, since the 480, because they have the top performing single GPU consistently. After the recent BS with nvidia's lies I'll probably go AMD again though once the next flagships are out. I always use muilti-GPU and since AMD's new crossfire with XDMA cards is giving a smoother experience than nvidia's I'd like to try it out again to compare.

Generally I just buy whoever has the fastest single gpu card though and that has been nvidia for a while.

I've only dabbled with SLI, because my gaming "needs" are "second-priority." I HAVE tried to find a card that was fast enough, had "enough" VRAM, had potential for SLI.

I can see where all this leads. The fear that one won't be "future-proof" for new games ignores the wide market spectrum of game-happy PC-users. The SW developers and marketers will always try to make their product "playable" on older, more limited hardware. The welfare-subsidy gamer must be happy with lower resolution display.

Then, there's the 4K frenzy. You can buy a 4K monitor now for between $600 and . . $1,500 to . . . whatever . . I can get myself a Samsung "curve" TV for maybe $1,700. Or maybe $4,000 for the 55".

I just don't see the need to dump all my barely-dated hardware. But I WILL have 2x 970 in SLI -- YES! -- the "gimped," "crip" NVidia cards.

And frankly? With the 2x 970 SLI? If you get 80% of the 2x 980 performance, I'm sure you can upgrade to a 4K monitor(s). If that's a problem, I have no difficulty feeling all flush about my 1920x1080 displays.

 

[NIGELG]

Nvidia is a lying,stinking,pompous companyD: driven by a deceitful marketing /PR engine and a dreadful record of propriety crap that the minions fall hard for....

Maybe one day they can turn it around but then it doesn't matter because they have their fans and they make a ton of money.

 

[Blain]

Nvidia is a lying,stinking,pompous companyD: driven by a deceitful marketing /PR engine and a dreadful record of propriety crap that the minions fall hard for....

Maybe one day they can turn it around but then it doesn't matter because they have their fans and they make a ton of money.

I'm glad you didn't say anything about benchmark driver cheating.

 

[Atreidin]

If there are only two options, I go with the one that has better behavior, according to my own standards, giving more recent behavior more weight than older behavior. The farther back in time you have to go to dig up dirt the less likely the same people responsible for it are even still employed. It's clear to me which company's behavior for the past few years I find more acceptable and I'll vote with my dollars to support them.

 

[SolMiester]

Nvidia is a lying,stinking,pompous companyD: driven by a deceitful marketing /PR engine and a dreadful record of propriety crap that the minions fall hard for....

Maybe one day they can turn it around but then it doesn't matter because they have their fans and they make a ton of money.

Your tears are delicious!..
You need to lighten up a little!.. :twisted:

 

[NIGELG]

Your tears are delicious!..
You need to lighten up a little!.. :twisted:

Lol:thumbsup:.

 

[CP5670]

I'm somewhat partial to Nvidia because I'm more familiar with their drivers and third party software. It helps to have that knowledge base especially with getting old games working. If I encounter a problem, I know the typical workarounds for Nvidia drivers. I have used and liked AMD/ATI cards in the past and would probably prefer them if I had the same level of experience with their software, although I do need CUDA for a few things. I don't like Nvidia's vendor locked features and other controversies these days, but I ultimately care most about having all my games working with minimum effort.

 

[stuff_me_good]

I've always bought the best bang for the buck graphics cards because I'm poor and will never have money to buy what I really want.

I've owned cards from 3dfx, nvidia and ati/amd but so far in 10 years straight I've owned only ati/amd cards since there have always been more bang for buck in 300e price range. Before nvidia became "premium", I owned riva tn 2 or something like that, geforce mx and geforce 3 and back then the drivers were as buggy as people are touting still on ati/amd drivers. Only the linux gl drivers have been all these years better than amd's.


I'm not seeing myself buying nvidia anytime soon, since it always costs more while being slower in the same price segment(still talking about 300e segment). I kinda hate how scientifically nvidia calculates the prices to get just a little bit of premium even today. Long gone are the days when you got the best bang for buck from nvidia. I guess the reason is they were working hard to make more market share.

 

[netxzero64]

simple, been a fan of 3DFX. now nvidia. I find drivers for nvidia more comfortable than what AMD has. been a user for AMD until cypress and switched over to fermi and never looked back.

 

[Ramses]

There isn't an S3 option...


I tend to buy the same way I do CPU's, from the little guy as long as it'll do the job and the price is reasonable (it's almost always less than the bigger guy).
There are few enough players in the big PC part world these days despite the hobby going mainstream, I figure spreading the money around is a good call in the long run.

Specifically in the last two or three years, NV hasn't had anything really compelling anyway compared to the higher end r9's for the money, till the 970 came out. Even at that, it's too much money for me right now and I'm not crazy about the whole memory bit. If the 380 or whatever comes out and meets half the claims I've read compared to the 290 I'm sure I'll end up with one eventually. AMD needs all the money they can get. If a good deal on a 980 comes along I wouldn't turn my nose up at it though.

 

[NIGELG]

Cheers to all who had the guts to pick a side whether Nvidia or AMD and not do the cowardly fence sitting option in the poll...of course there are brand agnostics but not so much as suggested in the poll.

 

[escrow4]

Right now Nvidia - Gamesworks in games for one (when the features actually work heh), driver support for games is usually there Day 1 (although Kepler abandonment grrrr) not to mention the detailed game write-ups for settings and options. And on launch I generally expect Nvidia's drivers to actually work without FPS dips and oddities. AMD just feels shoddy to me. Still waiting for the Titan Z/980 Ti. 390X eh the reviews we'll see but I likely won't switch.

 

[Jhatfie]

I am very much into both AMD and Nvidia. I think my preference generally falls with AMD, since I like to root for the underdog and they have always performed consistently great for me, but I also try all kinds of cards and configurations when a great deal crosses my path and I cannot resist testing out something new. Just in the last handful of years I've done 6850's in crossfire, 6950's in crossfire, 7950, 7850, GTX 580, GTX 660 and 660ti, 780 Classified, 780 Ti, GTX 970's in SLI, GTX 980, R9 290's and R9 290X and that does not even count the many builds I have done for other people.

 

[Silverforce11]

Right now Nvidia - Gamesworks in games for one (when the features actually work heh), driver support for games is usually there Day 1 (although Kepler abandonment grrrr) not to mention the detailed game write-ups for settings and options. And on launch I generally expect Nvidia's drivers to actually work without FPS dips and oddities. AMD just feels shoddy to me. Still waiting for the Titan Z/980 Ti. 390X eh the reviews we'll see but I likely won't switch.

Its funny you bring up GameWorks and driver support.

Considering Watch Dogs had broken SLI for so long and terrible stutters on NV's entire Kepler line-up.

Then FC4 had broken SLI with horrible shadow bugs that completely broke immersion, took forever to fix.

Then ACU with its mega list of bugs and what not that took forever to fix, with a recent patch breaking the same bugs they once fixed. :/

GameWorks has been nothing but trouble for gamers. Its bad enough even [H] thinks gamers should stay clear of pre-ordering games and wait it out for patches to fix broken mess before jumping on board. Me personally, if I see a game having GameWorks I'm not gonna buy it when its released. I'll wait a few months til all the patches fix a broken game, then the game comes on sale and I'll get it for cheap, when its actually functional.

 

[RadiclDreamer]

Im fairly brand agnostic with most things, but each time ive tried AMD ive been left sorely disappointed.

First was an ATI all in wonder card that was kinda cool but ultimately was slow and had various small issues

I secondly had a 9800XT that while super powerful for the time, had so many driver issues that unless I used the 3rd party omega drivers I had texture issues, and general instability.

I gave another shot with a 5870 and suffered from the grey screen of death issues, clock speeds that would NOT clock down like they were supposed to, flashed bios and core fixed, next bios fixed memory and screwed core back up, next bios fixed both but made GSOD worse, RMA'd the card and got one back that didnt GSOD as much and again I flashed to the fixed clock bios and got the same regular GSOD so i waited a while and finally got a stable bios but by that point I was just done with it altogether. On top of it all, it ran very hot despite being a solid copper heatsink with 2x fans

Went back to nvidia each time, and while they arent angels, they have stable drivers (for me at least). I dont mind paying bit more and even getting a sometimes slightly slower card as long as its stable.

That being said, the 970 thing does kinda piss me off, I would prefer they said, yeah we screwed up and we're sorry, rather than the nothing to see here please move along PR BS they have been spewing.

 

[VulgarDisplay]

There was a time when I was younger that I was a die hard Nvidia fan. Then I had a 6800gt fail, a 7800gt fail, and an 8600gt fail. That left a bad taste in my mouth. I continued to buy a 8800gts 512mb, and a gtx260 core 216, but I was floored by the 5870 when it was released. That was such a legendary card and completely changed my perspective on AMD/ATi.

Since then I have been all about price to performance since with the 5870 I learned that AMD's driver issues were completely blown out of proportion.

Agnostic now.

voodoo 3 > Geforce ti4200 > 6800gt > 7800gt > 8600gt > 8800gts 512mb > gtx260 core 216 > HD5870 > HD7970 > gtx780 (card was a dud with fan issues so I returned) > r9 290

 

[Martimus]

I would like to say that I'm agnostic, but the truth is that I will buy AMD unless the alternative is far superior. No reason for it other than familiarity. I have never had a bad experience with AMD video cards, so I naturally feel comfortable with them.

At the same time I don't purchase new cards often. The cards I've bought are as follows: Tseng Labs ET6000, 3DFX Voodoo 5500, ATI Radeon X800 XL, nVidia Geforce 2, ATI Radeon 3850, AMD Radeon 6970, AMD R9 290.

 

[ramj70]

I stick with Nvidia not because I think AMD is inferior but just because I am comfortable with them. I have never personally had an issue with their cards and drivers and they do what I need so I stick with them. Just my personal preference.

I don't get why people fight so vehemently for their particular favorite brand though. It's like they take it personally if someone doesn't buy what they think they should buy. Consumers have preferences, whether it is video cards or cars or other products. Also if I based my buying decisions on ethics and morals then I probably would not be able to buy many products.

 

[iiiankiii]

I stick with Nvidia not because I think AMD is inferior but just because I am comfortable with them. I have never personally had an issue with their cards and drivers and they do what I need so I stick with them. Just my personal preference.

I don't get why people fight so vehemently for their particular favorite brand though. It's like they take it personally if someone doesn't buy what they think they should buy. Consumers have preferences, whether it is video cards or cars or other products. Also if I based my buying decisions on ethics and morals then I probably would not be able to buy many products.

That's the problem right there. You know you're getting screwed. But, you let it happen, let them get away with it, and then continue to reward them by giving them more money. Not cool. :thumbsdown:

 

[cmdrdredd]

That's the problem right there. You know you're getting screwed. But, you let it happen, let them get away with it, and then continue to reward them by giving them more money. Not cool. :thumbsdown:

Reads exactly like a social justice warrior. People buy nvidia products because it fits a need. The guy you quoted is right. If you looked at everything a company did and made your decision that way, you likely would never buy anything.

 

[xthetenth]

Reads exactly like a social justice warrior. People buy nvidia products because it fits a need. The guy you quoted is right. If you looked at everything a company did and made your decision that way, you likely would never buy anything.

Oh noooo. Not a social justice warrior. Truly the worst thing.

(In actuality it reads a lot more like he's angry the dude's just blindly buying from one side because it isn't in his best interests and distorts the marketplace.)

 

[garagisti]

Reads exactly like a social justice warrior. People buy nvidia products because it fits a need. The guy you quoted is right. If you looked at everything a company did and made your decision that way, you likely would never buy anything.

Would you say that iiiankiii is wrong? I'd say they're both right. Most companies have greedy sods for shareholders, who will sell their mothers for a wee bit of coin. So ramj70 is correct for saying that he wouldn't be buying much at all, if he decided only by morals. On the other hand, iiiankiii is right for saying that rewarding a company which has been screwing customers over is not the right way to go. What is wrong with standing up to the company who won't stand behind their products? IMO, nothing really. Would you be giving AMD a free pass for something like this? I know i wouldn't, and i so hope they don't pull some crap like this.

BTW, i agree with ramj70 and his point about comfort. If you're comfortable, i guess it is hard to suggest that one be uncomfortable with the kind of money that is involved in a GPU.

 

[ramj70]

That's the problem right there. You know you're getting screwed. But, you let it happen, let them get away with it, and then continue to reward them by giving them more money. Not cool. :thumbsdown:

Well if you feel like you are getting screwed then by all means do what you think you need to do

 

[brag.yondide]

Naw - Not buying it. At time of posting 79% claim to be agnostic. I'd guess at least half of you are unaware of your biases or are deceiving us.