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  • Sivar - Friday, November 30, 2018 - link

    I want to get an AMD card because of nVidia's ridiculous insistence on supporting only the extremely expensive, poorly supported GSYNC refresh sync tech, but I will stick with nVidia until AMD learns to write drivers.
    I have had 5 generations of AMD/ATI card since 1998 and every time the drivers, not the hardware, made me vow to avoid the cards for all time. Then, years later, I forgive the company and have an additional, though different, bad driver experience.
  • Death666Angel - Friday, November 30, 2018 - link

    9500@9700Pro, 3870 X2, 4670, 5770, 7970, 290x, 6950@6970
    All fine. :)
  • r3loaded - Friday, November 30, 2018 - link

    AMD's drivers are good now, it's just that Vega is so utterly trounced by Pascal and now Turing it's not even funny.
  • imaheadcase - Saturday, December 1, 2018 - link

    You kinda just showed why Gsync is not expensive though. You literally would have to get a new card to use freesync anyways. So its a "tax" just to use freesync if already have a nvidia card.

    What are you on about "poorly supported Gsync refresh sync tech"? Its supported on pretty much all the best monitors.
  • a5cent - Saturday, December 1, 2018 - link

    @imaheadcase

    You mean like the LG 34GK950G, where the built in G-SYNC module has crippled the monitor?
    Compared to the FreeSync supporting LG 34GK950F, the G-SYNC version achieves only 120 Hz rather than 144 Hz, it lacks an sRGB emulation mode and can't support HDR10. Despite lacking all of this, the G-SYNC tax it more expensive.

    It's simply no longer true that the best monitors support G-SYNC, even if you're paying a higher price for them.

    The DP1.2 G-SYNC module is simply outdated as it lacks the features mentioned. The newer DP1.4 G-SYNC module doesn't seem ready for widespread adoption and even if it was, it currently seems to be priced out of the market.

    If consumers start viewing HDR as a must have feature, then G-SYNC looks dead in the water to me (not possible on DP1.2 module and far to expensive for most on DP1.4 module).
  • Spunjji - Sunday, December 2, 2018 - link

    That's some seriously screwy logic right there. It's still a tax even if you already have an Nvidia card, because you still pay more for exactly the same hardware with a GSYNC module.

    I have seen this "logic" trotted out a few times now and it never gets less circular.
  • Typo - Saturday, December 1, 2018 - link

    voodo 3, kyro 2, geforce fx 5200(worst mistake ever), radeon 9800 se (soft-modded to pro), geforce 6600gt, geforce 8800gts, radeon 5850, geforce 770m, rx 290, geforce 1070ti . All companies have there share of software bugs. GCN has been around for a while now. I have a hard time believing their drivers haven't been polished into a diamond yet. After switching from my 290 to my 1070ti the first thing that I noticed was how archaic Nvidia's drivers appear. AMD updated their UI a while back and its taken me a while to get reused to the blast from the past UI Nvidia's been using. Otherwise stability wise none of my recent cards have suffered any major software related bugs.
  • Spunjji - Sunday, December 2, 2018 - link

    Can confirm this, I regularly switch between manufacturers. Nvidia are currently marginally more clunky and definitely contain more useless crap than AMD (seriously, I don't want to have to manually tell the driver to NOT install 3D vision Every. Damn. Time). Realistically though once they're installed it's much of a muchness.
  • BurntMyBacon - Monday, December 3, 2018 - link

    TLDR: Both nVidia and ATi/AMD have had their share of driver issues. They are generally better now than they were in the past. There is no longer a clearly superior company in regards to driver quality.

    I can only comment with certainty about cards I have experience with. Ignoring cards from other companies as irrelevant to the discussion of driver nVidia vs ATi / AMD driver quality, I have extensive experience with discrete cards from both manufacturers: Rage Pro, Riva TNT2, Rage 128 Pro, Radeon, GeForce 3, GeForce 4 Ti4200, Radeon 9700 Pro, GeForce 6800 Ultra, Radeon X1900XT, GeForce 8800 GTS 512, Radeon HD 4870, GeForce GTX 260, GeForce GTX 470, Radeon HD 5870, Radeon HD 6870, Radeon HD 6970, Radeon HD 7970GHz, Radeon R9 290, GeForce GTX 780Ti, GeForce GTX 1080, Geforce GTX 1080Ti, Vega64. I have second hand (family/friend/client support) experience with many others besides.

    Driver quality from ATi early on was pretty poor, though they did a better job with mulitmedia than nVidia. I was a big fan of the All-In-Wonder Series of cards. nVidia generally had better driver quality early on, but lacked the multimedia prowess of the ATi counterparts. Over time ATi got better and nVidia had an odd hiccup or two bringing them to a rough parity. Though, nVidia has closed the gap on the multimedia side as well. Multi-card support has generally been a crap shoot, though nVidia was definitely superior up until recently. In recent memory, the two companies have gone back and forth on the driver quality issue, but have generally been pretty good with the odd issue here and there. My most recent driver failings were related to Pascal drivers (one of which is still outstanding with FFXV, but can be worked around). I have two near identical monitors from Asus that support G-Sync/FreeSync. The performance between the two is not appreciably different. Blind testing with friends on a Vega64/FreeSync and a GTX 1080/G-Sync setup revealed no strong bias with Ashes of the Singularity, Warframe, Deus Ex Mankind Divided, Batman Arkam Knight, Stalker Call of Pripyat, and Assassin's Creed Origin. Another interesting note is that friends with strong biases (fanboy's even) of both ATi/AMD and nVidia more often than not picked the opposing team as the best experience. That said, nobody really felt the experience varied appreciably between the two setups. This "testing" took place recently (Saturday Nov. 24) to help prep for Cyber Monday deals.
  • Dizoja86 - Friday, November 30, 2018 - link

    Gotta love how Freesync displays make up 95% of the variable refresh display market when only 30% of discrete GPU users are actually using AMD hardware.
  • Inteli - Friday, November 30, 2018 - link

    Freesync is royalty-free, where GSync requires proprietary hardware on the display side. Freesync is also part of the DisplayPort 1.2 standard, while GSync isn't. Is it really that surprising?
  • jordanclock - Friday, November 30, 2018 - link

    Yeah, to go from DP1.2 certification to FreeSync isn't much, but being able to slap that name on the box is probably a good driver of sales, if only to avoid being the only monitor in a given segment that doesn't have some sort of variable refresh option.
  • DPete27 - Friday, November 30, 2018 - link

    After recently wading into the cesspool that is TomsHardware forums, I've been amazed at the almost ubiquitous endorsement of Nvidia GPUs of all levels of performance with no regard to value (price/performance). Given that, I have a better understanding for why Nvidia has the abnormally large market share they do.
  • Spunjji - Sunday, December 2, 2018 - link

    This x1000. Poor arguments, circular justifications and logical abominations abound. It's even worse on sites like WCCF.
  • BurntMyBacon - Monday, December 3, 2018 - link

    nVidia could decide at any time to support DP adaptive sync for their desktop cards (as they already do for G-Sync laptop displays). It is a known open standard and there are no license fees, royalties, or other barriers to entry for nVidia. They have all the necessary hardware in place to support it on existing cards, they just need to enable it via software. Even though the monitors are branded FreeSync, the technology is still DP adaptive sync so that 95% of the VRR displays would be useful to nearly the entire market. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said about G-Sync monitors. Even in the unlikely event that nVidia decided to allow AMD to create G-Sync compatible hardware, and the even more unlikely even that they decide not to charge for the access, only future cards would be able to implement the necessary changes to take advantage of it.
  • HOSH - Friday, November 30, 2018 - link

    I have to wonder where out G-Sync version of this one and another couple are, as even if they cost more, they are worth the difference.

    And yes agreed it is easy for them to get the DP 1.2 and then just the little more for the FreeSync, so it is something for them as an extra selling point.
  • Spunjji - Sunday, December 2, 2018 - link

    "as even if they cost more, they are worth the difference"

    How?
  • DPete27 - Friday, November 30, 2018 - link

    And which FS2 displays are 72-144Hz exactly?

    AFAIK, the only panel that is being used in FS2 displays are the Samsung curved VA panels inside the C32HG70 and C27HG70 which match the specs of this display exactly.
  • Jad77 - Saturday, December 1, 2018 - link

    LG has similar 32" monitors, using flat VA panels. The Freesync 2 version can be bought for around $400. I can't find the LFC numbers so I don't know how this monitor competes.

    So is putting goofy LED's on the (unseen) backside of a monitor a thing now?
  • Jad77 - Saturday, December 1, 2018 - link

    One preview reports the 32GK850F-B's Freesync range as 40 - 144Hz, LG hasn't posted the spec though.
  • BurntMyBacon - Monday, December 3, 2018 - link

    Would you prefer the "goofy" LEDs on the (seen) frontside instead? No thanks.

    Joking aside, if they are anything like Asus's previous setups, you'll (thankfully) be able to turn them off.

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