Nvidia or AMD for the future.

[explodatron]

Right now I'm running two EVGA 670 GTX FTW cards in SLI. They perform well and everything, but I'm hearing some rumors about AMD far out pacing Nvidia this coming year.

Some things I've heard is that with AMD being put in both the next xbox and the PS4 that more games are going to take advantage of DirectCompute. I know that Nvidia's DX11 cards are supposed to handle DirectCompute, but I'm told it's not going to be a good as with an AMD card.

I'm not the biggest fan of the problems that come with using multiple GPUs, but Nvidia have made it not so painful with their great driver support. The last AMD cards I used in crossfire were two 6950s. The driver support was totally awful. Sometimes waiting months after a game came out for crossfire support. So far I haven't had to wait at all to have my SLI working in any game at launch with Nvidia. SLI support isn't always great, but it's never been game ruining like it was on AMD.

I have heard that AMDs most recent drivers have been way better and they're releasing them more often. Is this true? If a single 7970 can handle everything on max settings at 1920x1080 and above 60 FPS, then crossfire isn't as big of an issue for me.

I sort of want to go back to only using one GPU and it looks like a single 7970 will handle any game with ease. From the benchmarks I'm looking at a single 7970 seems to be pretty close to what I get with two 670s...

Keep in mind that I'm sort of a graphics whore. I need to have everything maxed out, and I can do that with my current set up. I also want to be prepared for what changes may come this year, and I feel like things will be better with AMD.

I could sell my 670s and pick up a single 7970 and have some spare cash afterwards. Do you guys think that is a wise decision?

 

[redeemer]

The console is the biggest gaming market and AMD is in the center of it. What that means is devs will optimize for AMD heavily but of course. Do not worry Nvidia based solutions will work just fine.

There is absolutely no point switching your setup to 7970's. Nvidia will continue to work with developers just like they always have.

 

[lt_dan_zsu]

Because of all new consoles being amd based, they might have an edge in coming years. I would say that 2 670's= 1 7970 ghz is a bit of a stretch. Maybe it's not the best because of memory bottlenecks though. AMD tends to be better price per performance from what I've seen, that's why I like them more. I don't think I would sell your 670's. Wait till quarter 3 this year to get something from the 8000/700 series.

 

[manofchalk]

Dont know what reviews you'v been reading, a single 7970 couldn't touch the performance of dual 670's, even in a heavily Radeon biased test that stresses on memory performance and higher resolutions.

Its possible AMD could have an edge during the coming console cycle in PC gaming (if that makes sense) since developers are going to making games that suit AMD processors and graphics in consoles, though how that actually pans out in the PC realm is unknown.
Back when the X360/PS3 released was when multi-core CPU's were becoming mainstream, the Xbox was a tri-core and the PS3 had something like six. Everyone thought that multi-threaded games and applications were going become far more common, were only starting to see that now. The rumor mill surrounding console tech has been wrong before, so wouldn't place great stock in its predictions.

Though I feel it would be safe to say that AMD will return to profitability, manufacturing the hardware on both sides of the console war (WiiU doesn't count 😛) will no doubt bring a massive and sustained cash injection.

EDIT: WiiU does count it seems, there's an AMD Radeon GPU running in it.

 

[supersonic977]

Don't sell your 670s man they are a far better than single 7970
Its true that all the upcoming games will favor Radeons but no way that only one amd gpu beats two 670.

 

[lt_dan_zsu]

The wiiU still doesn't count lol. But you will probably see devs optimizing more for amd this gen. I am sure nvidia will adapt. If not, they will die, and I don't see them going away any time soon.

 

[explodatron]

Thanks for the answers guys. Guess I will just stick with my 670s and see what the future brings. If AMD really does pull ahead with the consoles and everything, then maybe I'll go AMD in the 8000 series.