What will AMD offer me over Nvidia?

Okay so I asked the other day about the r9 290x 4GB compared to the GTX 970, although I was looking at the 290x 8GB, I dont believe I will need the extra memory as most games do not use over 3GB, but I am still undecided on that, anyways.

As people who have been using this forum section for a while know, I had issues with PCI passthrough, even when I unbinded it did not work, so my main priority is that the card can work well with Xen or KVM.

I will be getting a 21:9 25" monitor, this will be sided with a 23" 1080p monitor for any side tasks I need to be doing, but the 25" will be my main gaming monitor, and used with the VM.

I also need performance for inside the VM, rest shall be done on the iGPU or a second 290x if I purchase one, although I do not want a jet and heater in my case.

What is true audio like also? is it any good? any advantages over my creative audio chip.

What other features will I get using AMD over Nvidia? and how long til the new drivers are out?

And the same for Nvidia, what does it offer me in comparison to AMD and can I do any of the things I need with Nvidia?

Thanks

In addition to what Kai said, freesync (at some point) and better openCL performance, better multi-card scaling as well as multi-card through the pci-e bus (for 285, 290, and 290x - probably most 300 series card onward too) esp. better 3 or 4-way setups.

nVidia offers lower power consumption, lower TDP, streaming to shield, CUDA, G-sync (although if more expensive but same as Freesync probably a disadvantage, but it is out now), GPU Physx (although I believe with Physx 3.3 it's rather well optimized for the CPU).

I don't think you'll be able to use FreeSync if the GPU is bound to a VM and you're using Intel Graphics, unless Intel takes advantage of FreeSync. If you end up using Linux with an AMD card you'll save yourself a headache since all the drivers are now open source and in the kernel.

The open source driver is unparalleled by Nvidia.

but does the 290x sound like a jet taking off? and heat up like an oven under loads? I am looking at the G1 

The reference 290x is loud. The non-reference ones are generally very quite. I know that is true for the Sapphire ones, I am not as sure about the G1, but I believe that it is quiet as well. There are videos on youtube that you can watch about the sound. Inside the case, I doubt you will hear it over your case fans generally. As far as the heat that it puts out, there is a big difference between the 290 series and the 900 series. That is how it goes with the power consumption situation.

Personally, free/adaptive sync alone is enough to get me to steer clear of nVidia. I REALLY REALLY don't like proprietary nonsense that nVidia loves. Also, I am setting up for 4k as that seems to be the next standard after 1080p, and none of the current cards can do 4k, in modern games, at 60 fps, and I don't want the extra expense of a G-sync 4k monitor added on top of an already expensive new monitor as well. Though power is a big concern for me, which is why I am looking forward to the 20nm and 16nm cards coming in the future. Even with the power consumption of AMD cards, I am expecting that the smaller manufacturing process will keep the consumption acceptably low. We will see on that though. The 20nm 300 series will give us a good indication on that, as the 400 series should be 16nm as the next series of nVidia cards are.

 

EDIT: I found a very comprehensive graph about noise levels for you.

Okay so what about the 290s? as far as I understand there 70Mhz behind the 290x, which of course can be overclocked if need be, nothing major, I was thinking either the MSI Twin Frozr or Tri-X, there is around £5 difference in them, but the Tri-X worries me a little bit, with the size is there any sagging.

Also I may get two later down the line, how does one perform at 1080p? reason I say this is because 1 - Games which I could sell 2 - £229 for the 290, and its like 10FPS behind Nvidia.

You can find reviews for just about every version of the 290 and 290x that are out right now (to my knowledge). Go look around for some benchmarks and cooling performance. Also, there is more to the difference between the 290 and the 290x than just clock speed. The 290 has a lock of stuff disabled. For a value though, this card is a solid performer.

Like what? It still has mantle and true-audio enabled, it has a few less stream processors and a slightly slower clock speed, something I can easily fix with a quick OC, but I think the 290 is a beast for its price over here, and in January sales it should be less

A 290x does have slightly more cores than a 290 however from what I've seen the 290 OCs are higher. The technology in the 290x is better thus justifying it over the 290.

but its a fair bit more expensive, and as long as it can still play stuff like Dragon Age and Call of Duty on Windows decent im fine, and it works better on Linux

Can't argue with that. AMD needs a 6GB 290 priced at $320. That would be awesome.

in some cases, some people were able to change the bios from the 290 to the 290x on some cards, i'm not sure it still is valid today but from what i hear is that the 290 is just locked cores and shaders which can be unlocked.  I would do some research on it but if that's true then i wouldn't even go for the 290x and just save some money and go for a Sapphire 290 Vapor X model or the Trix X design.  I would try to stay away from the Twin Frozr because for the value there are better designed coolers.

I was (inarticulately) trying to say that there are disabled stream processors on the 290 vs the 290x (which used to be able to be unlocked via a bios flash, but last I heard, that no longer worked, though I could be wrong). Because there are less stream processors, it puts out less heat, allowing for more OC overhead. Also, and I could be wrong here too as I haven't looked TOO much into it, the limiting factor on the 290 and 290x is the vrm thermals. That is something to keep in mind if you ever want to go with water cooling, which might be an option down the road.

Also, something to note is that DA: Inquisition is going to have Mantle support, so +1 for going AMD if you care about that game (nVidia has shown a lack of enthusiasm about supporting Mantle now or in the future).

AMD is fine if you're going to use the OS drivers for basic desktop tasks.

I recently upgraded to a 980 for the CL performance for certain mission critical apllications because AMD have extremely poor performance in this respect.

If you're going to game on linux, you'll need to go with the green team if you want the best performance.

Otherwise just use a spare machine to game on with windows.

In a couple of years OS AMD performance will be similar to Nvidia proprietary - not everyone can afford to wait as work rely on raw performance and not idealism.

For me Nvidia and linux have worked flawlessly for over 10 years. It'll be great when I can say the same about AMD open source performance.

2017 ftw.

You able to post benchmarks in Linux? from your 980 of course :)

Nothing current at the moment really, AMD at the moment relies on future investments: HSA, FreeSync, and OpenFX a.k.a. OpenWorks. All these features rely on the opensource community, hence, progress is slow.

The only two features I can say maybe worth over Nvidia is True Audio and Mantle, but few games support it right now, but lots of future titles I hear is supporting it. I believe when AMD gets their shit together with OpenWorks, if combined with the OpenCL and Mantle capabilities, AMD can offer something competitive, and maybe even superior to PhysX and possibly anything GameWorks has to offer. AMD has a top notch R&D team, just not enough financing to back them up.

As they said above, AMD 290x and 290 may be lower performance in OpenCL vs the GTX 980 but the 290x and 290 both have OpenCL 2.0 vs the GTX 980 which has OpenCL 1.2.

I could but I don't really feel compelled enough to bother (no offence). Larabel would have benchies posted.

This forum shits me now. It seems to have been inundated by a bunch of kids who can't even build a computer or install an operating system without driver issues that can be fixed in five seconds, but spend four days in a forum thread asking for help from other clueless members.

It's like the blind leading the blind in most cases.

Maybe Logan should rebrand to TeenSyndicate - where the kids worship Wendell because he is a god amongst amatuer web-designers or something of that effect. I used to appreciate Logan's point of view as a fellow blackmetal head, but these days he doesn't really have anything interesting to offer.

See you on the mailing lists.

I don't think you're quite being fair there, but I think I understand the idea behind what you're saying.

I personally think Logan and Wendell have actually put a lot of thought into their format. Let me explain why I think that.

Obviously TekSyndicate is an entertainment site, so the information they're giving would by definition be infotainment. Now that's kind of a dirty word, not as such, because obviously anyone that publishes content, whether an author or a journalist, has to please his audience, and works for his audience, but it has grown into a dirty word, because of things like LinusTechTips or Michael Larabel or whatever, because there is too much of an influence on the content because of the monetizing model: these people are not paid by the audience, but actually get their money from the companies of which they cover the products. Call it gamergate if you will, but that's not what's actually happening... what actually IS happening, is that the second book of the Poetica by Aristoteles is being stolen and hidden over and over again, because the Komedia just works, and some comedians are too ignorant to realize which play they're in.

Tek Syndicate tries very hard to walk the fine line between entertainment and journalism, and I'm sure they've run into difficulties because of that, and that it's taken a lot of effort and persuasion to still stay connected to the manufacturers.

Whatever level of expertise one has in a certain area - and some people do have expertise in a lot of areas, like Wendell for instance, which is most often the consequence of a life dedicated to learning and getting hands-on experience, which means listening to people and helping people, because that's the way to do those things - the thing that is always most admirable and admired is not the fact that someone has reached this or that level of expertise, or that he is or is not "the best" out there, BUT, it's the fact that that person is willing to share his knowledge, even if it may well be superseded by the knowledge of others... that is what makes people like Wendell so popular... it isn't important what Wendell does or does not for himself and then blogs about it, it's about Wendell doing things for others and himself and sharing it. Think about the difference. There comes a moment in a lot of people's lives, where you've worked really hard to achieve something, because you lived with the idea that this was THE thing to attain, and then, suddenly you've absorbed so much information to achieve that goal, that you come to realize that your personal goal is not that important at all, it's about what you can do with others to leverage experience and knowledge together, which will attract other people, and they will join, etc etc etc, and in the end, everyone takes the knowledge sharing part very seriously, even if it means sacrificing a lot of time and resources, and that gives you the renewed energy to keep improving and to keep building.

Entertainment is a superconductor, it's a programming language, and it can be used for different goals. I support the target TekSyndicate has set, because it hasn't just set a target for the owners, it has set a target for the community. And you know what, that target is also influenced and changed by the community, more than it is by marketing departments of commercial hardware and software companies. And it's a damn' complicated job to do something like that whilst still running your own business and thus taking responsibility over the livelihoods of the people that depend on you, even though it's worth every bit of effort in the long run. Being "popular", getting clicks, means nothing, unless you can at least get some useful interaction with the people that click, and even those that don't click.

And I'm not a fanboy of TS, if they post a video with bad content, and they have done that (but that's OK though, it's not half as crappy as some of the crap I've posted in my life for instance), I'll probably give my opinion on it, even if my opinion is complete crap itself. Thing is, if you stack enough crap together, you actually get a house that can serve an entire family as shelter, or if you spread enough crap on a piece of land, you'll grow healthy crops... it's the crap that makes the crops, and the crap that makes the cabin, it's not the architect or the brand name or the patent holder of the seeds...