The GPU Vendor Bias Admission Thread

[bystander36]

so the 80% claims are pure bs.

Most likely they took multiple sources, other than just Steam. The 80% might also be from sales numbers, rather than what is in use.

 

[boozzer]

Most likely they took multiple sources, other than just Steam. The 80% might also be from sales numbers, rather than what is in use.

steam stats is all that matters. the players base is big enough to represent the entirety of pc gaming.

 

[bystander36]

didn't see next page.

 

[bystander36]

steam stats is all that matters. the players base is big enough to represent the entirety of pc gaming.

Steam numbers may be all that matters to you, but the numbers were not BS. They were just taken from a different source. I believe they were sales numbers in a particular quarter. Not how many that are in use.

Edit: It was market share for a quarter: http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2465594
Not BS, but probably not what you wanted to know about either.

 

[RampantAndroid]

Don't the steam numbers double count GPUs for machines - aka, a machine with the Intel iGPU enabled and a discrete GPU report both the discrete GPU and the Intel GPU? I'd be more interested to know what GPUs are being used to render games in this setting.

 

[bystander36]

Don't the steam numbers double count GPUs for machines - aka, a machine with the Intel iGPU enabled and a discrete GPU report both the discrete GPU and the Intel GPU? I'd be more interested to know what GPUs are being used to render games in this setting.

That would be good to know, but then again, Intel doesn't have a big number in the Steam report that was previously mentioned, so I'm not sure if it does.

According to Steam. NVidia 55.79%, AMD 26.02%, Intel 17.78%. As of February 2016.

 

[RampantAndroid]

That would be good to know, but then again, Intel doesn't have a big number in the Steam report that was previously mentioned, so I'm not sure if it does.

How many people turn their Intel GPU off in the BIOS though? I know I do.

 

[Zodiark1593]

How many people turn their Intel GPU off in the BIOS though? I know I do.

I've my 2nd monitor on the igpu (don't ask), though aside from quicksync, it only functions as a passthrough. It runs at something like 50-150 MHz.

 

[nismotigerwvu]

My full purchasing history in the 3D accelerator era paints a fairly biased picture (ATI Xpert@play, Voodoo II, Radeon 8500, Radeon 9800 Pro, Radeon x850XT, Radeon 4850, Radeon 7950) but I tend to buy the best value I can get in the $200~300 range. It just happens that when I was building systems (or upgrading them) ATI/AMD has presented the best value (or well the vendors presented the products at the right price). I'm not opposed to NV, they've just presented less value to me at the price point I was interested in. I do miss having more competitors in the field, I drooled over the Rendition Verite way back in the day.

 

[Mahigan]

I think I understand this poll. Many people are now favoring AMD because of NVIDIA's perceived shady business practices, warranted or not.

Fewer people feel comfortable supporting a perceived unethical and immoral corporation.

Therefore many people feel that "may the best product win" even though, deep down, several of these individuals likely favor NVIDIA.

Not many people want to be seen as supporting immorality and the perceived immorality of NVIDIA's business practices has a great many of these people distancing themselves from the title of being "NVIDIA supporters".

 

[Pariah]

You don't really have to speculate why such a high percentage of posters are picking AMD because they are telling you in their posts. It's a unique phenomenon that you only in tech enthusiasts and it's the, "I'm cool because I support the underdog" line of thought. I have no idea why it is so prevalent among tech enthusiasts, but I know you don't see it in such numbers anywhere else. Does anyone go to the grocery store and pick their peanut butter based on whoever they perceive as the underdog peanut butter brand? Do you pick your clothes brands this way? A TV? Furniture? A car?

In most industries, going with the market leader is seen as the safe smart choice. For tech enthusiasts, it's the exact opposite, only uniformed stupid people without the time to do any research buy the market leader. But not you, you're not a lemming, you go with the underdog because you are smarter than all the users of the market leader and can see the awesomeness of the underdog that the ignorant masses can't.

I've been building computers and giving parts advice to friends, family and coworkers for 20 years. Not once has anyone requested parts from the underdog or asked who the underdog was so they could support them. That's not a rationale thought process when making a purchase. If you went to a site for baby products and told posters you chose an infant car seat made by a company getting their ass kicked because you refuse to go with the evil market leader, people would think you were legally retarded, but for some reason that is a perfectly acceptable reason for choosing a video card, CPU, or OS.

 

[Silverforce11]

@Pariah
I thought only a few people or even just one, mention AMD bias because they were the underdog.

Certainly myself, I don't prefer AMD cos they are underdogs, I simply prefer their open approach to gaming and conversely, I dislike NV's propriety push (G-Sync is an ecosystem lock-in) and closed source GW program. That's all there is. A few years ago, I was happy enough to buy a Kepler GPU for a second rig.

 

[Ancalagon44]

Look I don't say it is logical at all. In certain cases, AMD presents the most value because of their price/performance ratio. Nvidia can charge more because their cards are generally more power efficient. Some people are willing to pay for that.

However, graphics cards are not so easily comparable to peanut butter. Most people buy a lot more peanut butter (or food in general) than they do graphics cards. In terms of economics, peanut butter exists in a market where brand power matters little, and price is hugely important. Graphics cards, for whatever reason, exist in a market where brand power matters a lot. Not saying price does not matter, it does, but brand might sway someone to spend $20 more for a different brand, for example.

Supporting a particular graphics card company is closer to supporting a particular sports team than buying peanut butter. I don't buy enough graphics cards, AMD or otherwise, for my opinion to really matter. The last time I bought a graphics card was 2013, which shows that AMD can't depend on me for revenue.

Despite that, I always read Anandtech's articles on anything AMD. Well, I read all of Anandtech's articles, but I tend to be most excited to read AMD articles, if that makes any sense.

Again, it isn't rational and I'm not claiming it is. But graphics cards are not peanut butter either. They are hugely complex, and for AMD to do what it does, with limited resources compared to either Nvidia or Intel, is remarkable.

 

[ShintaiDK]

I think I understand this poll. Many people are now favoring AMD because of NVIDIA's perceived shady business practices, warranted or not.

Fewer people feel comfortable supporting a perceived unethical and immoral corporation.

Therefore many people feel that "may the best product win" even though, deep down, several of these individuals likely favor NVIDIA.

Not many people want to be seen as supporting immorality and the perceived immorality of NVIDIA's business practices has a great many of these people distancing themselves from the title of being "NVIDIA supporters".

I disagree. The poll just shows what we have known for years. As I said, you would also end up with something that wouldn't reflect reality in the CPU section. Reality and this forum is light years apart.

 

[Silverforce11]

As I said, you would also end up with something that wouldn't reflect reality in the CPU section. Reality and this forum is light years apart.

Do the poll in the CPU section. Get the answers. There's no way it's going to skew towards AMD or the "underdog" for CPUs.

 

[cytg111]

Ill buy my chicken and eggs from free range chickens and the like, at a price premium, for animal welfare, but beyond that it is just common sense.

I dont see the argument where I save the planet from global warming by basing my compute needs on perf/watt, still that leads to a cost benefit scenario, for me, with an i7 with an Nvidia card.

Best product wins, disregard perf/watt.

 

[Dribble]

...
In most industries, going with the market leader is seen as the safe smart choice. For tech enthusiasts, it's the exact opposite, only uniformed stupid people without the time to do any research buy the market leader. But not you, you're not a lemming, you go with the underdog because you are smarter than all the users of the market leader and can see the awesomeness of the underdog that the ignorant masses can't.
...

In this subset of the geek world nvidia/AMD/Intel have all become the equivalent of *sports teams*. You pick your team and you cheer them on, even if they suck. In that world it's actually uncool to start supporting the one that's winning all the time (fine if you supported them for years, but to start makes you a glory hunter!). That's what drives all the discussion on these forum's, wccftech have turned it into a money spinner - they can literally write nvidia/amd in a new header and get 1000 very childish comments guaranteed meaning wccftech get lots of advertising revenue.

Anyway while people write this stuff the reality is that a lot less are willing to put their money where their mouths are. Look at the number of posts where people write "I prefer AMD but *guilty admission* have an nvidia card right now".

 

[Piroko]

I think I understand this poll. Many people are now favoring AMD because of NVIDIA's perceived shady business practices, warranted or not.

Fewer people feel comfortable supporting a perceived unethical and immoral corporation.

Therefore many people feel that "may the best product win" even though, deep down, several of these individuals likely favor NVIDIA.

Not many people want to be seen as supporting immorality and the perceived immorality of NVIDIA's business practices has a great many of these people distancing themselves from the title of being "NVIDIA supporters".

If we're talking discussion support in a forum, then I'll usually side with those who are less smug about their brand preference. You, Game_dev, desprado, to me you're damaging your favorite brand more than you're helping it (just did a quick scan through this thread).

 

[Deders]

I do tend to go with Nvidia mostly because I have mostly had great experiences with them in the past, I love the Batman games and wouldn't want to be left playing without PhysX. My next monitor will be a 34" Ultrawide with Gsync.

I have often contemplated getting one of each and if DX12 allows for all the features of both kinds of cards without too much of a performance hit, I may go down that path.

I have also recommended AMD cards to other people when designing their systems if I feel it would be the best option for them. For instance my most recent GPU recommendation was a Fury Nano because it is one of the best cards available at the moment that supports DX12. It would be a bad decision to recommend anything else at this point in time.

 

[railven]

I think I understand this poll. Many people are now favoring AMD because of NVIDIA's perceived shady business practices, warranted or not.

Fewer people feel comfortable supporting a perceived unethical and immoral corporation.

Therefore many people feel that "may the best product win" even though, deep down, several of these individuals likely favor NVIDIA.

Not many people want to be seen as supporting immorality and the perceived immorality of NVIDIA's business practices has a great many of these people distancing themselves from the title of being "NVIDIA supporters".

TIL: My open Radeon bias and years of buying Radeons stems from my secret love for Nvidia and some kind of personality perception by random strangers.

Considering the poll is anonymous, outside of people posting their preference, who likes what is unknown.

Also, not sure if you were around when AMD had it's own AMD center on the front page, open AMD reps posting in the forums, and the AMD Advocacy group (while some not open, some where.) There is a reason AMD chose this forum/website to partner up with for marketing, and if I had to guess it was due to the clear balance if not heavy AMD bias.

When I wore my red glasses proudly, NV posters were slain left and right. Hell, some of the most iconic posters here don't even have to state their bias, they were it tattooed on their foreheads. If I had to guess that's why NV planted it's own shills back in the hay day.

Now this is for VC&G, step into CPU subsection and I get the feeling Intel will destroy AMD. Haha.

(Personally, I think there are more ATI/Radeon fans that are hold outs. I know I am.)

 

[Creig]

I disagree. The poll just shows what we have known for years. As I said, you would also end up with something that wouldn't reflect reality in the CPU section. Reality and this forum is light years apart.

You sound like you're in denial.

Like many other posters here have also said, I prefer AMD over Nvidia because AMD typically offers the highest performance/$$$ ratio and because I dislike Nvidia's lying and shady business practices. It's as simple as that.

I put together a nice AMD 8320 system for my daughter two years ago that's just fine for gaming even today. Yet I still went with Intel over AMD for my most recent build because AMD's performance simply wasn't there relative to its competition.

AMD has video cards that can go toe-to-toe with Nvidia and do it at a lower price. The same can't be said for AMD vs Intel at the moment. So go ahead and do a CPU poll. None of us will be very much surprised when it shows that most people here would currently choose an Intel CPU over an AMD CPU.

 

[iiiankiii]

I disagree. The poll just shows what we have known for years. As I said, you would also end up with something that wouldn't reflect reality in the CPU section. Reality and this forum is light years apart.

I totally disagree. I normally go for the best card I can get at any given price point. Bang for the Buck. Honestly, when was the last time Nvidia offered anything that was considered bang for the buck? The last time we thought Nvidia game us a bang for the buck card, we were lied to (GTX 970). The reality is both AMD and Nvidia are competitive. They have been competitive for years.

In this forum, I tend to believe people are way more knowledgeable about tech. Most people here know when they're smeared with marketing gimmicks (GameWorks, TWIMTP, Gaming Evolved, etc.). IMO, most people here can look through that and make an inform decision without be clouded by marketing crap. When you do that, it doesn't take much to realize that AMD's GPUs aren't as bad at all. They are competitive. As such, you start to look at its merits, not its marketing. They have their pros and cons. Pick the card that fits your need and you'll be happy.

In the CPU department, AMD is NOT competitive. They're just not at Intel's level. As such, the obvious choice is Intel.

 

[railven]

So go ahead and do a CPU poll. None of us will be very much surprised when it shows that most people here would currently choose an Intel CPU over an AMD CPU.

What you choose has nothing to do with your bias. It was a good idea leaving the poll anonymous as it would let people vote honestly and not have to defend/commentary on their choice.




On the side, I like seeing people honestly say they hate Nvidia's shady business deals but have no qualms supporting Intel. If all the allegations are true, Intel has done some even shadier business transactions*. Haha.

EDIT:
*I'd like to note some legal and some illegal.

 

[linkgoron]

On the side, I like seeing people honestly say they hate Nvidia's shady business deals but have no qualms supporting Intel. If all the allegations are true, Intel has done some even shadier business transactions*. Haha.

EDIT:
*I'd like to note some legal and some illegal.

As others have already clearly stated (and I did as well), performance and price comes first.
After considering the above, once you're left with a few options (for example, 970 vs 390 or nano vs 980 etc.) only *then* does the bias kick in.

 

[MrTeal]

Do the poll in the CPU section. Get the answers. There's no way it's going to skew towards AMD or the "underdog" for CPUs.

A good part of that is likely because at almost all price brackets AMD is competitive with nVidia in the GPU space. You can argue back and forth about the lower power usage of a 970 vs the extra VRAM of the 390, but both are good cards priced competitively and you don't really lose much choosing one or the other. Pick whichever you prefer

OTOH, unless you're really budget constrained and are choosing between an 8230E and an i3-6100, there's no price comparable parts on the CPU side. Until Zen AMD has no answer to the newer i5 chips from Intel except in certain limited cases, let alone the i7 or HEDT parts, so if you want to support the underdog there you really are going to be giving up something to step back to FX.