With GPU is better for gamers AMD Radeon or NVIDIA Geforce

[K^2]

If Steam numbers are any guide and your statements are true, we would see significant game development for Intel graphics. I am pretty sure neither of us wants to argue that is the case.

Intel market share is significant, but it's not dominant. And yeah, developers most certainly do take this into consideration.

For what it's worth, they are not consistent with what I have seen

What sort of a user pool are you looking at? I'm talking 2M+ surveys.

[Camacha]

Intel market share is significant, but it's not dominant.

Again, looking at actual market share, Intel dominates either brand. Looking at discrete graphics, Nvidia has a distinct edge, mostly because AMD's APU's are not considered discrete cards. Looking at combined total market share the numbers vary, but generally end up being close either way, depending on time frame and exact source.

What sort of a user pool are you looking at? I'm talking 2M+ surveys.

Are those the same Steam surveys? I am mostly looking at sources industry people tend to quote for their numbers. Jon Peddie Research seems to be a popular source, though unfortunately most of it is locked behind a pay-wall.

[rtxoff]

Why did nobody mention energy efficiency yet? Nvidia is the moment the more innovative company. Also their new Maxwell architecture is without competition when it comes to energy efficiency.

Comparing similiar models from nvidia and AMD in the high performance segment you will save around 150W of power for the same GFX performance with nvidia cards.

That means you can assemble your PC with a weaker PSU which saves money and negates the cost of the more expensive nvidia card.

[K^2]

I'm talking about hardware statistics on games I'm actually working on.

Steam hardware survey shows Intel for any system that has Intel GPU, which is basically anything with a modern Intel CPU. You need to subtract off nVidia and AMD from 100% to get an estimate for Intel share.

[Toastedbuns]

My Nvidia GTX 760 can run the majority of the games currently on the market at max or near max settings. A couple of the modern beauties like BF4 and (definitely) Witcher 3 are ones I have to compromise for. The 980 is an upgrade I'm looking forward to sometime this year that can run BASICALLY everything on max as long as you aren't bottlenecking it with your CPU (cough Planetside 2 cough cough)

[cantab]

Steam hardware survey is by far the most comprehensive report, dwarfing statistical significance of just about any other analysis.

Except for one rather large problem. The PS4, XBox One, and Wii U all use AMD graphics. That's 35 million gaming machines that won't appear in the Steam survey. Any developer targeting consoles as well as (or instead of!) PC needs to make their game work well with AMD graphics.

[K^2]

Except for one rather large problem. The PS4, XBox One, and Wii U all use AMD graphics. That's 35 million gaming machines that won't appear in the Steam survey. Any developer targeting consoles as well as (or instead of!) PC needs to make their game work well with AMD graphics.

So, for starters, any console exclusives don't count. Now for cross-platform development. I only have experience with Windows/XBOne cross-development, but seeing how similar these environments are, I can't imagine how it would apply less to PS4 or Wii U titles. Almost all of the situations where a graphics hardware-specific bug arises, it's either due to some very specific feature, which is going to be different between PC and console versions of the chip, or even more frequently, due to the problem with the drivers. In either case, the fix for console rarely applies to PC, and vice versa.

The only cases of bugs that are caught more frequently on XBOne that have helped fixing PC version are race conditions and memory stomps. Simply because timing and memory layout can be different, making it more obvious on one platform over the other. None of these, obviously, have anything to do with graphics hardware.

Now, shader bugs this might help with. I haven't really had to touch these a whole lot around here, so I honestly have no idea how many shader bugs we get on each platform. I suppose, it's possible that XBOne/Windows dev on these gives a certain advantage to AMD. I'll ask around. It's an interesting possibility.

[78stonewobble]

My Nvidia GTX 760 can run the majority of the games currently on the market at max or near max settings. A couple of the modern beauties like BF4 and (definitely) Witcher 3 are ones I have to compromise for. The 980 is an upgrade I'm looking forward to sometime this year that can run BASICALLY everything on max as long as you aren't bottlenecking it with your CPU (cough Planetside 2 cough cough)

It depends on a few other things too... If you have a small screen, you could get away with something less than a 760 or possibly just don't quite care as much about maxing games out. If you have a large very high resolution, you might need more than a 760. If you heavily mod the games you might also need a bigger card.

[KerbMav]

NVidia tends to be better supported. They release more driver patches to fix issues in AAA games, and a lot of devs optimize for nVidia.

I am still using a rather old driver version, because there was some trouble with a newer one once and whenever I look into the Nvidia forums, they are full of complaints how the newest driver killed everything ... ?

[Linear]

I am still using a rather old driver version, because there was some trouble with a newer one once and whenever I look into the Nvidia forums, they are full of complaints how the newest driver killed everything ... ?

I use a 750ti and a 780 on two systems and the latest drivers have helped enormously.

[rtxoff]

Using a 780 and also no problems at all with the latest release driver.

[asmi]

There is a reason nVidia cards are more popular in gamedev industry. Their developer tools are awesome (and free!)! Ask any gfx developer, and odds are he/she will have nVidia card(s) onboard. Then there is a consumer part of it - nVidia 3D Vision/surround/3d surround (I have the latter setup at home) works in just about any game, while equivalent technologies from AMD are not (at least they were not about 1.5 years ago when I was building my home system). That pretty much predefined what my config will be like (three 27" 3D-Vision-compliant monitors, two 680 GTX video card in SLI) at that moment.

[Camacha]

I am still using a rather old driver version, because there was some trouble with a newer one once and whenever I look into the Nvidia forums, they are full of complaints how the newest driver killed everything ... ?

That is the bit you do not always hear about.

[Vanamonde]

More not science. Moved.

[segaprophet]

Team Red for life.

Edited February 4, 2015 by segaprophet

[jmiki8]

I have an older 512MB ATI (pre-AMD) card and I'm satisfied with it. I think this question is similar to the Galaxy vs iPhone, Canon vs Nikon and Ferrari vs Lamborghini arguments... Both GPU brands have very good and crap*y models. I heard that NVidia has better support for older cards than AMD. I had to tinker a lot with the drivers in order to make my 6 years old ATI card work with Windows 8.1.

Edited February 4, 2015 by jmiki8

[Camacha]

I heard [...]

That seems to be the issue with a lot of these discussions. People tell each other stories, but very few actually know what is up. This causes the general perception to be based on outdated information or even pure rumours.

[segaprophet]

My current dream GPU : Sapphire Vapor-X Radeon R9 290X 8GB

"Power! Unlimited power!" - Emperor Palpatine

[rtxoff]

Do you also have a dream powerplant for powering it?

Recommended PSU wattage for this card is 750W !!!

[segaprophet]

Do you also have a dream powerplant for powering it?

Recommended PSU wattage for this card is 750W !!!

I already have a Seasonic X-750 80 Plus Gold -

[cantab]

My current dream GPU : Sapphire Vapor-X Radeon R9 290X 8GB

For me that would be a dream alright - a nightmare. Unlimited power, but a choice between the rock of dreadful drivers on Linux and the hard place of running everything on Windows.

[asmi]

My current dream GPU : Sapphire Vapor-X Radeon R9 290X 8GB

Go with 980 GTX - it's cheaper, consumes less energy (this is the first hi-end video-card with TDP of less than 200W in a VERY long time!), and more powerful!

According to tests even 970 GTX would outperform it, while being almost two times cheaper.

Red team is losing big time in this round

Edited February 5, 2015 by asmi

[ZedNova]

Go with 980 GTX - it's cheaper, consumes less energy (this is the first hi-end video-card with TDP of less than 200W in a VERY long time!), and more powerful!

According to tests even 970 GTX would outperform it, while being almost two times cheaper.

Red team is losing big time in this round

The R9 200 series was launched late 2013, pretty sure it was meant to compete with Nivida's 700 series(Which was launched in may), not the 9xx.

[rtxoff]

So which cards from ATI are meant to compete with nvidias 980 ? How much power they will consume? What will they cost?

ATI is on the loosing, they better bring out something very innovative or they gonna loose the race.

- - - Updated - - -

Also can the OP or an mod please add an poll for voting either team red (AMD/ATI) or team green (nvidia).

Thanks

[segaprophet]

So which cards from ATI are meant to compete with nvidias 980 ? How much power they will consume? What will they cost?

ATI is on the loosing, they better bring out something very innovative or they gonna loose the race.

Radeon R7/R9 300 series expected to be announced soon.

GO BIG RED!