# NVIDIA VS AMD when it comes to driver fact(Who is best for long run)?



## cool.dx.rip (Mar 25, 2013)

Guys,after having research in net i have come to know that Nvidia r more supportive about there drivers then ATI.I have found that Nvidia are still taking good care about there 4XX gpu on the other hand ATI get forgot their past cards when new series gpu released(said it on basis of driver).ATI just take care well their latest models but Nvidia also takes care of past models
.i want best bang for my bucks which also mean long run in my gaming experience.So which brand should my choice.MY configRO core i5 3470
Ram 8GB
PSU 550watt
Monitor 18.5inch led
GIGABYTE - Graphics Card - NVIDIA - PCI Express Solution - GeForce 600 Series - GV-N660OC-2GD
ORRRRR
MSI Global ? Graphics Card - R7850 Twin Frozr 2GD5/OC
Correct me if i m worng.
SOrry 4 BAD english
Thanksssssssssssssssss


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## TheoneandonlyMrK (Mar 25, 2013)

I think this could get messy but imho they are both good at drivers , they both have similar long term driver support (ive both), and both release often for new games.
Id go with yhe cheapest but thats me , does the radeon havea never settle voucher as the free games would seal it for me.


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## radrok (Mar 25, 2013)

nVidia, without any kind of doubt.

I've had multiple experiences with both camps and as far as I can tell you nVidia drivers tend to be more reliable in the long run, especially because AMD drops the balls on older generations.


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## Crap Daddy (Mar 25, 2013)

For one card and with AMD's latest heavy involvement in top games I think they are pretty much even in the driver department. Now you ask us to choose between two cards which are not on the same performance level, GTX660 being the faster card and closer to 7870. I don't think that the GTX660 has around the same price as the 7850. If so, the 660 is the better choice.


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## the54thvoid (Mar 25, 2013)

On single card comparisons both AMD and Nvidia are excellent at driver support.  You will always get grumbles here or there but generally you cannot lose on single card.  You will see better dual card support from Nvidia though.


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## guitarfreaknation (Mar 25, 2013)

Personally, I don't see where all the complaints about drivers are coming from. I haven't had problems running CF with AMD for years, nor have I had any issues running single Nvidia GPU. I guess I just need to try out SLI.


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## radrok (Mar 25, 2013)

guitarfreaknation said:


> I haven't had problems running CF with AMD for years



You must have played 2 games in total then, I mean no offense.


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## EarthDog (Mar 25, 2013)

Been on both... played on both.. reviewed on both. I really have had little problems from either camp. But I swear I hear people hating on AMD a lot more often. Not sure if that is a function of more affordable cards or just some bad experiences however.


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## Lionheart (Mar 25, 2013)

AMD's driver's seem to be getting better but IMO still not as good as Nvidia's


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## MxPhenom 216 (Mar 25, 2013)

neither of them. Either one can release a driver that will cause headaches for people. Lately neither one of them has really delivered consistently good drivers. One release from AMD will be shitty, then NVidia will release one and itll be good, then the next release could be the other way around.


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## erocker (Mar 25, 2013)

radrok said:


> You must have played 2 games in total then, I mean no offense.



I also have run CrossFire quite a bit and haven't had too many problems. You're setup must of been at fault. No offense.

Either way drivers are fine from both sides. If you're trying to decide on a card, check reviews. These threads don't last.


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## LAN_deRf_HA (Mar 25, 2013)

I would say nvidia in the long run, AMD for a quick turn around. AMD said awhile ago they weren't going to do driver releases as often because people bitched about how buggy they were but I haven't noticed much difference in their beta frequency, which is good for getting new game support. That said I still don't know if I'd go back to letting clients use AMD. The issues I was having and their inability to fix them reached critical mass with the 7000 series.


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## erocker (Mar 25, 2013)

LAN_deRf_HA said:


> I would say nvidia in the long run, AMD for a quick turn around. AMD said awhile ago they weren't going to do driver releases as often because people bitched about how buggy they were but I haven't noticed much difference in their beta frequency, which is good for getting new game support. That said I still don't know if I'd go back to letting clients use AMD. The issues I was having and their inability to fix them reached critical mass with the 7000 series.



I had one driver issue with my 7 series about a month after release (not sure which driver version), it's been great ever since. Unless you're talking about the lower end models as I have no experience with them.


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## LAN_deRf_HA (Mar 25, 2013)

erocker said:


> i had one driver issue with my 7 series about a month after release (not sure which driver version), it's been great ever since. Unless you're talking about the lower end models as i have no experience with them.



7950


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## radrok (Mar 25, 2013)

erocker said:


> I also have run CrossFire quite a bit and haven't had too many problems. You're setup must of been at fault. No offense.
> 
> Either way drivers are fine from both sides. If you're trying to decide on a card, check reviews. These threads don't last.



I can tell you I was not the only one with issues there are tons of threads that document about it.

A few examples, CFX in Rift was terrible to say the least, same for Skyrim everything was messed up until they got profiles right and it took an insane amount of time(still has some glitches), Tera is another game where it was unplayable.

Brink? Another crossfire nightmare.

There are always work arounds with Radeonpro to make something out of it but it's always tweaking and it doesn't make your experience as flawless as it should be.

I will not mention Quad (had 4870x2 CFX, 5970 CFX and 6990 CFX) cause that would be stupid to list, not many run four GPUs so I can understand that they are not supported outside of benching.

When crossfirex works, it works well, if the game is supported then you are in for a treat but man when it doesn't it's gonna make you insane.

AMD right now is a beast on single GPU gaming but CFX really needs to be fixed.


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## redeye (Mar 26, 2013)

Tomb Raider... Nvidia really stepped up to the plate and got the drivers updated for that game... and really they did not absolutely need to.   i am very happy that they fixed (or sped it up) ... the only annoying thing that the driver did was lock-up while playing TR... and while i have not Experienced a lock up yet under the new driver, i think they have fixed it.

AMD seems to be producing good graphics cards now (of course, now that i stop buying them lol, mainly because of mythtv... and linux... with AMD major pain to install amd drivers under linux... With nvidia it is download driver, chmod  775 it, sudo ./ it, and it is done...  
AMD i dont know, i think it is some combo of 'magical' terminal commands, and WOW spells ROFL...)


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## FreedomEclipse (Mar 26, 2013)

well, l have had quite a few driver issues back when i was running with 6970s. sometimes AMD broke the crossfire profiles of certain games that i played which meant that would get some nasty 'ghosting' as the cards were out of sync. 

I have had some microstutter pop up here and there but mainly in ARMA II or BC2. Ghosting rendered my ARMA II unplayable Not only did it cause it to ghost, It would quite often crash and BSOD my system when loading into servers - 3 out of 5 times it would cause BSOD when loading into ARMA II.

Microstuttering in Bad Company 2, and the little end of round movie sequences were often out of sync or some other messed up fo'shizzle which i cant be arsed to remember as I havent touched that game in more then a year.

Bad performance in crossfire for guildwars 2 and a problem where crossfire would disengage when you zoned to a different area but they eventually fixed that. though I still had issues with shadows glitching out and screen tearing when shadows are set to their highest level.

for BF3 Id say the performance was pretty good. I have hardly experienced any microstutter but I know of members who have quite a lot though to be fair, BF3 does have issues with Hyperthreading that can cause problems too but i think they patched that now.


These are just my own personal experiences and also the reason why I shifted over to Nvidia. SLi might not scale as high as Crossfire but even though Nvidia arent totally innocent when it comes to problematic drivers. I have genrally heard a lot more complaints about AMD drivers then Nvidia's and so far games just seem a lot smoother for me even when I started off just running one 680. I am happier then Ive ever been with my systems performance with Nvidia.


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## radrok (Mar 26, 2013)

FreedomEclipse said:


> well, l have had quite a few driver issues back when i was running with 6970s. sometimes AMD broke the crossfire profiles of certain games that i played which meant that would get some nasty 'ghosting' as the cards were out of sync.
> 
> I have had some microstutter pop up here and there but mainly in ARMA II or BC2. Ghosting rendered my ARMA II unplayable Not only did it cause it to ghost, It would quite often crash and BSOD my system when loading into servers - 3 out of 5 times it would cause BSOD when loading into ARMA II.
> 
> ...




Man what you have remembered me... Crossfire on GW2 ouch my eyes.


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## Xzibit (Mar 26, 2013)

Just browsing the GeForce Forums on R314.22





































Flip a coin.


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## radrok (Mar 26, 2013)

Xzibit said:


> Just browsing the GeForce Forums on R314.22
> 
> *snip videos*
> 
> Flip a coin.



Both camps have problem, we get it, still nVidia is more consistent with drivers on the long run especially when supporting older cards.

CFX/SLI? Both have problems, single GPU is the way.


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## tastegw (Mar 26, 2013)

I've used cards from both camps, I rarely see any noticeable problems with either in single card solutions.

In my eyes, both are great companies in their own respective, it only starts getting messy at the higher price points.

Btw, if you can get your hands on a 7870 XT (I think) for around $240US, you will get a great bang for your bucks.


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## Vario (Mar 26, 2013)

They are both good.  Pick whatever fits your budget.


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## RCoon (Mar 26, 2013)

amp281 said:


> They are both *bad*.  Pick whatever fits your budget.



fixed.
literally, flip a coin.
I own cards from both camps, and couldnt care which i chose.


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## tokyoduong (Mar 26, 2013)

Wow. 

Unbiased opinion here:

Single GPU: both are equal
CF/SLI: small(tiny) edge to NVIDIA because they've had this longer and seems a bit more polished. Nothing to make or break a deal though. They both patch problems pretty quick so it's not a problem.

Conclusion: There's only 2 reasons why you would ask this question.
1. You are trying to start a flame war
2. You are still noob status with builds

I hope you register as #2. If that is the case then CF/SLI set up is not for you anyways. I know you definitely don't need this for your whopping 18.5 in screen or your unbranded 550w psu.

Choose the GPU that fits your budget and the games you play.


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## TheoneandonlyMrK (Mar 26, 2013)

tokyoduong said:


> Wow.
> 
> Unbiased opinion here:
> 
> ...



Hows about you all actually read the Op , he admits noobship but is only after one card and doesn't mention xfire or sli at all, like not at all.....don't be neg too noobs..


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## FreedomEclipse (Mar 26, 2013)

theoneandonlymrk said:


> but is only after one card and doesn't mention xfire or sli at all, like not at all.....



I'll admit, I kinda missed this. 


When people ask me about drivers I tend to think about it in terms of SLi or Xfire because thats what I run.

For Single GPU performance. I think they are about the same. Obviously a 7970Giga card is the favorite given its price and performance compared to the GTX680.

so for:

Single GPUs = take your pick, It doesnt matter if you go AMD or Nvidia, both sides are fairly well optimised for single GPU

Dual/Quad/Tri-GPU = Definitely Nvidia for SLi. though when it comes to Quad or Tri SLi/Xfire Both sides can be pretty bad and negative scaling can be problems on both sides.


If Titan was cheaper - Im sure there would be more people running with them as they are currently the single most powerful GPU and that cuts out a lot of issues with drivers.


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## tokyoduong (Mar 26, 2013)

theoneandonlymrk said:


> Hows about you all actually read the Op , he admits noobship but is only after one card and doesn't mention xfire or sli at all, like not at all.....don't be neg too noobs..



Or you should read the OP because nowhere does he admits he's noobish. He doesn't say he's after one card either. He says which card for the "long run". That means different things for different people but CF/SLI option later is there more often than not.

He got the driver support info wrong. AMD and NVIDIA support old gen cards the same which is none or next to none. No difference in single GPU quality. The only difference being CF/SLI and phyX/Cuda

I'm not bashing noobs but this is a flame bait thread and it doesn't really belong here. There's graphics card forum for that. Regardless, the answer is already in many threads in these forums. If you actually read the whole thread, you would see the mini flame war already started somewhat.

This should just be closed.


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## the54thvoid (Mar 26, 2013)

Nice article at Anandtech about AMD and the frame issues.  Relevant to OP's point about drivers.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6857/amd-stuttering-issues-driver-roadmap-fraps


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## TheoneandonlyMrK (Mar 26, 2013)

tokyoduong said:


> Or you should read the OP because nowhere does he admits he's noobish. He doesn't say he's after one card either. He says which card for the "long run". That means different things for different people but CF/SLI option later is there more often than not.
> 
> He got the driver support info wrong. AMD and NVIDIA support old gen cards the same which is none or next to none. No difference in single GPU quality. The only difference being CF/SLI and phyX/Cuda
> 
> ...



Dont suppose anything fella, I read but did not jump onto the flame war.
And I posted earlier than most ,a reasonable reply which wasnt injected with my supposition or what I think he wanted but didnt ask for.

there are mods for thread closeing so why you think your the authority is beyond me btw


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## najiro (Mar 26, 2013)

I am a GTX 660 user and right now I can tell it it's way better than the 7850 and it is close to a 7870 performance. Also, if you have the guts to unlock the bios and max out power limit to 150% and ramp up the voltage to 1.21 volts... you are looking at a stock GTX 660ti performance....
http://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/4503653


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## MxPhenom 216 (Mar 26, 2013)

tokyoduong said:


> Wow.
> 
> Unbiased opinion here:
> 
> ...



If its not that much of an issue, why even mention it?


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## Steevo (Mar 26, 2013)

Why is this thread still open? 


I guess it hasn't escalated into a flame war yet.


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## BrooksyX (Mar 26, 2013)

Never had a problem with either driver. I mostly buy ati/amd cards but have had a few nvidia cards in between.  No issues with crossfire either. Never have done sli.


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## digibucc (Mar 26, 2013)

BrooksyX said:


> Never had a problem with either driver. I mostly buy ati/amd cards but have had a few nvidia cards in between.  No issues with crossfire either. Never have done sli.



same


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## Tatty_One (Mar 26, 2013)

radrok said:


> You must have played 2 games in total then, I mean no offense.



Make that 4 games then as it applies to me also   Had 4850's, 4870's and 5850's in C/F and never had an issue.  Only had SLi once and that was with a pair of 8800GT's on an NVidia chipset motherboard (780i) and it was a nightmare!  But we all have different experiences.

As for drivers, got both AMDand Nvidia (got a 560Ti in 2nd PC) and both have been well supported by both camps, perhaps there have been "support" issues with older gen AMD cards not benefitting from more recent updates however I think that is equalled out by the amount of driver releases AMD supply which in my fairly limited experience appears to be more often than NVidia.

The age old compatibility issue with AMD and C/F will no doubt continue, is C/F not more versitile though?  I am talking model cards compatibility, I did breifly run a 4870 with a 4850, I can't speak for NVidia now as it's been a while since my SLi days but back then I don't think I could have run a 8800GT with an 8600GT?


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## cadaveca (Mar 26, 2013)

My Crossfire problems never end. I so just want Eyefinity and Crossfire working well, with decent performance, doesn't seem possible for me. I'm not the only one with these problems, and I guess a big part of it is that hardfware just isn't quite fast enough to deliver the performance I'm looking for. Simply, I expect too much.

I'd too afraid to try NV for my needs though. I actually have more faith in Nvidia drivers.. I'm just afraid of being disappointed.

Overall, things are pretty good, but at least once a month I find a title or two that in Crossfire gives me motion sickness. I am definitely more sensitive to this than others, but when it happens to the one game I play all the time, it is a big issue for me.

I could post 1000's of words on the problems, some get fixed, new get introduced. I even stopped overclocking to try to eliminate problems, and still, issues abound.


The difference, for me right now, is that AMD is pretty open about it's issues right now. Nvidia..not so much, but they are definitely more open than in the past. Really, I just want the blame game to end, and for these companies to be honest about the issues they encounter.


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## erocker (Mar 26, 2013)

Maybe we should get off the CrossFire/SLi thing, I don't think that's the OP's intent?

*This thread is getting closed down today at some point as the OP hasn't chimed back in or asked any specific questions on the subject. So if anyone has any "mind blowing" points to make, make them sooner rather than later.


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## cadaveca (Mar 26, 2013)

erocker said:


> Maybe we should get off the CrossFire/SLi thing, I don't think that's the OP's intent?
> 
> *This thread is getting closed down today at some point as the OP hasn't chimed back in or asked any specific questions on the subject. So if anyone has any "mind blowing" points to make, make them sooner rather than later.



That's where the drivers suck for me. It's not a "thing"..it simply qualifies where the problems I have are.


If you want to talk about single GPU, single monitor, AMD drivers are great, and I see no reason that Nvidia would be any better.


You cannot discuss drivers and avoid part of how the drivers work, after all. At least, AMD has now stated that Crossfire overall will remain as is until July. Funny, I said a while ago I'd give them 4 months...

 Ithink you're right ,erocker, because AMD admits their drivers have issues right now, but are working to fix them, there's no point in discussing who is better or not for the long run. Nobody can tell at this point.


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## radrok (Mar 27, 2013)

cadaveca said:


> If you want to talk about single GPU, single monitor, AMD drivers are great, and I see no reason that Nvidia would be any better.



Agreed, single GPU experience on AMD/ATI is not much different from nVidia.




cadaveca said:


> You cannot discuss drivers and avoid part of how the drivers work, after all. At least, AMD has now stated that Crossfire overall will remain as is until July. Funny, I said a while ago I'd give them 4 months...



This is also why I've waited before upgrading to 7xxx series, I am a bit of an ATI fanboy and I hoped they'd solve CFX issues in a reasonable timeframe, I'd have bought a couple 7990s without any hesitation if they did.

Then Titan came and solved my problems with a single big die.


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## LAN_deRf_HA (Mar 27, 2013)

If you want to know whats up on the driver front for AMD I really recommend that Anandtech article.


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## Batou1986 (Mar 27, 2013)

cadaveca said:


> At least, AMD has now stated that Crossfire overall will remain as is until July.



Really so maybe in July I an pull my other 6870 out of its box again ?

On topic from a drivers standpoint both work fine on single card setups its CF/SLI where driver support seems to die with age.


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## cadaveca (Mar 27, 2013)

radrok said:


> Agreed, single GPU experience on AMD/ATI is not much different from nVidia.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Yeah, but you know, single 7970 @ GHz clocks works well for most of my needs, actually. Single monitor, that is.



LAN_deRf_HA said:


> If you want to know whats up on the driver front for AMD I really recommend that Anandtech article.



Yep, they make it pretty plain, but at the same time, there is a bit of slant presented as well. Just a little. 



Batou1986 said:


> Really so maybe in July I an pull my other 6870 out of its box again ?
> 
> On topic from a drivers standpoint both work fine on single card setups its CF/SLI where driver support seems to die with age.




Yeah, they kinda stated that there would be a big update in July for Crossfire ,and that they are dealing with issues as they come across them. The main issue for me with this is that there are literally hundreds of titles in my game catalogue that still have issues of one sort or another, and issues I can directly attribute to AMD's driver for one reason or another, like a previous version working fine, or whatever.

To me, there's a reason why both Twitter and Facebook corporate presences exist, and I'm sure those that manage both for any company see that the sort of traffic presented by users is quite different. I only mention this because to truly answer the OP's question, we kind of need to look at who has the best system in place for getting bug reports, and who has the best track record of dealing with them. But there are so many different types of data in that, problems AMD knows about, problems they don't...I'm sure NVidia has similar issues at times as well.

There's no real choice here.


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## radrok (Mar 27, 2013)

cadaveca said:


> Yeah, but you know, single 7970 @ GHz clocks works well for most of my needs, actually. Single monitor, that is.



Tbh I fully agree, still there are some titles that give the 7970 a bit of headache at our res though, I recall you have a big 30" (man this came out so wrong )

I just bought Titan to try out nVidia, last time I've been on green camp was years ago.


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## brandonwh64 (Mar 27, 2013)

Drivers for me even in Xfire have not been bad at all (with the exception of a beta driver). Only in Xfire I see an issues with a game or two not utilizing cards like it should.


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## erocker (Mar 27, 2013)

radrok said:


> Tbh I fully agree, still there are some titles that give the 7970 a bit of headache at our res though, I recall you have a big 30" (man this came out so wrong )
> 
> I just bought Titan to try out nVidia, last time I've been on green camp was years ago.



What titles are these?


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## radrok (Mar 27, 2013)

On top of my head?

Crysis 3, Metro2033 and my insanely modded Skyrim.

Some other games are just minimum frame rates but that's more CPU than GPU.

7970GE is perfect for the rest of the games.


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## cool.dx.rip (Mar 27, 2013)

theoneandonlymrk said:


> Dont suppose anything fella, I read but did not jump onto the flame war.
> And I posted earlier than most ,a reasonable reply which wasnt injected with my supposition or what I think he wanted but didnt ask for.
> 
> there are mods for thread closeing so why you think your the authority is beyond me btw



thanks mate for understanding me.i don't want to make any fight ot flame war but just lack of attention and language knowledge may be i can't make it clear to u.
BTW:i m asking it about single card.i will not Crossfire in my rig.thanks and sorry if i really make any flame war.Sorry MOD


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## cool.dx.rip (Mar 27, 2013)

Last time asking u which would be better for me 7850 or 660 oc.
I will use only one card and no crossfire in my life maybe.long run means in my words is it will not have big prob while playing games in future about 5-6 yrs.


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## tokyoduong (Mar 27, 2013)

cool.dx.rip said:


> Last time asking u which would be better for me 7850 or 660 oc.
> I will use only one card and no crossfire in my life maybe.long run means in my words is it will not have big prob while playing games in future about 5-6 yrs.



660 oc is significantly faster than 7850 and also cost more. There is nothing you can buy now that will last you 5-6 years.


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## digibucc (Mar 27, 2013)

tokyoduong said:


> There is nothing you can buy now that will last you 5-6 years.



that's not exactly true, it could last, and work, and still play new games - but at a low res with low effects. It's not guaranteed with the rate technology changes, but it has happened before and will happen again that a top of the line card today still handles games 5 years later.


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## Geekoid (Mar 27, 2013)

*Nvidia all the way*

I've done it myself too many times. I've looked at the Radeon cards and compared the "bang for buck" and gone with the card thinking they will have sorted out their drivers. Every time I've been wrong. For me it doesn't matter how fast a card is now - I just want it to let me play my games smoothly and without awful graphics issues, such as artifacting.  So my opinion would be Nvidia drivers are far superior (they work)!


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## tokyoduong (Mar 27, 2013)

digibucc said:


> that's not exactly true, it could last, and work, and still play new games - but at a low res with low effects. It's not guaranteed with the rate technology changes, but it has happened before and will happen again that a top of the line card today still handles games 5 years later.



so you want a space heater that eats massive watts just to play games at low res and low details?
a lot of sacrifices just to be somewhat right. I wouldn't exactly call that working especially since driver support is nonexistent at that point.


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## digibucc (Mar 27, 2013)

i'm still using my 5850s that came out it 2009. they handle all new games, most at high settings. normally I just turn down shadows & aa and they work. Skyrim with enb and HD textures, etc. name a game that's not modern warfare and i'm playing it at mostly high settings on 2x4 year old cards in crossfire.

it has nothing to do with me wanting to be right man, i was just speaking as I see it. take it as you will.


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## Dent1 (Mar 27, 2013)

digibucc said:


> i'm still using my 5850s that came out it 2009. they handle all new games, most at high settings. normally I just turn down shadows & aa and they work. Skyrim with enb and HD textures, etc. name a game that's not modern warfare and i'm playing it at mostly high settings on 2x4 year old cards in crossfire.
> 
> it has nothing to do with me wanting to be right man, i was just speaking as I see it. take it as you will.



Using my 5850 CF too, even after all this time today's midrange cards struggle to keep up. My games play maxed out. (Max Payne 3, BF3, Serious Sam 3 BF£, Skyrim). I have no reason to upgrade.

Also had my Athlon II X4 since 2009, runs like butter. Still has another couple of years in it. Already been 4 years, 5-6 years should be a breeze!

Whilst I do agree I am in the minority, I was careful with my component selection and as very fortunate that games stopped pushing the hardware as of late.


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## digibucc (Mar 27, 2013)

Dent1 said:


> Whilst I do agree I am in the minority, I was careful with my component selection and as very fortunate that games stopped pushing the hardware as of late.



exactly.


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## tokyoduong (Mar 27, 2013)

digibucc said:


> i'm still using my 5850s that came out it 2009. they handle all new games, most at high settings. normally I just turn down shadows & aa and they work. Skyrim with enb and HD textures, etc. name a game that's not modern warfare and i'm playing it at mostly high settings on 2x4 year old cards in crossfire.
> 
> it has nothing to do with me wanting to be right man, i was just speaking as I see it. take it as you will.





Dent1 said:


> Using my 5850 CF too, even after all this time today's midrange cards struggle to keep up. My games play maxed out. (Max Payne 3, BF3, Serious Sam 3 BF£, Skyrim). I have no reason to upgrade.
> 
> Also had my Athlon II X4 since 2009, runs like butter. Still has another couple of years in it. Already been 4 years, 5-6 years should be a breeze!
> 
> Whilst I do agree I am in the minority, I was careful with my component selection and as very fortunate that games stopped pushing the hardware as of late.



Once again, you are bending the truth to be somewhat right. The 5850 launched at the end of September in 2009. We are in late March of 2013 so it is about 3.5 years. A far cry from 5-6 years. That fact alone would already reject your statement.

As availability was tight and the high msrp + markup, I highly doubt that you even bought it at launch. Even if you did, I have extremely high doubt that you bought 2 for CF. 

Let's say you bought the 5850 a few months later from launch(~3 years ago) and then bought a second one for crossfire some 6-12 months  later. So now your CF set up is really more like 2.5-2 years old and this is the most likely case.
There is a possibility of someone buying 2 5850s on launch and paid $700+ for it but those people will not sit on it for 5 years. In fact, after 5 years, your card would already fail or new games, windows, apps, etc... are so glitchy with it that you will probably ditch it before the 5 years. Now you have a power hogging CF set up that is glitchy and you can only play the new titles on medium at best if CF scales.

So I'll make a bet with you. Stick with your CF set up for 2 more years. Then try to play the latest 3 new AAA titles(not some budget game using quake 3 engine) of early 2015. If you can average 30+ on default high preset of the games then I will buy you the latest CF/SLI set up available at that time. Of course at standard resolution(at least 1080p) too instead of 480p.


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## digibucc (Mar 27, 2013)

tokyoduong said:


> Once again, you are bending the truth to be somewhat right.



you are 100% right, I am totally wrong. My points were invalid and unworthy, and I should have recognized that immediately. Any piece of hardware that is deemed too old should be burned regardless of whether it works for the owner, or whether or not they have the money to replace it.

so the only decision now is what's the cut off point? 6 months is a little fast but maybe a year is still new enough? 3 years? does it depend on the card, and what you use it for? does it vary depending on a multitude of factors? does that mean that you made and are now defending an extremely general statement and not even allowing someone else the slight possibility of introducing an alternative point of view?

whatever dude, i am done with this. have fun arguing with yourself.


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## Mr McC (Mar 27, 2013)

Asking which brand is better is not the question to pose, but rather, within your budget, you should simply attempt to determine the best card available at any given time. Feel free to transpose this newfound knowledge to any grocery shopping that you might engage in.


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## TheoneandonlyMrK (Mar 27, 2013)

cool.dx.rip said:


> Last time asking u which would be better for me 7850 or 660 oc.
> I will use only one card and no crossfire in my life maybe.long run means in my words is it will not have big prob while playing games in future about 5-6 yrs.


Im going to stick with the radeon, amd apis will rule the next 7-10 years of gameing and the radeon isn't short of direct compute power like the nvidia card ( will be extensively used in the future) so games will run better in 3 years, tokyodoung ill be keeping my xfired fives and they will piss a game on high Still in two years,  games evolve so slow id expect them to play still in another five , after all where is the average spec going to be, its not going to be galactic in  five years, itll be 8 core cpu and dual Apu gfxs.
Tokyodoung ,, your bordering on troll levels of neg and nonesense , retort away ill be pming you here in, as this constant amd v nv thing is Bs


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## Dent1 (Mar 27, 2013)

tokyoduong said:


> Once again, you are bending the truth to be somewhat right. The 5850 launched at the end of September in 2009. We are in late March of 2013 so it is about 3.5 years. A far cry from 5-6 years. That fact alone would already reject your statement.



Nobody said I had my 5850 CF for 5-6 years.  I said I had my Athlon II X4 for 4 years. 

Also, digibucc never said he had his 5850 CF for 5-6 years. He said the 5850 is 4 years old.

Where did you get 5-6 years from?



Dent1 said:


> _Also had my Athlon II X4 since 2009, runs like butter. Still has another couple of years in it. Already been 4 years, 5-6 years should be a breeze!_





digibucc said:


> _name a game that's not modern warfare and i'm playing it at mostly high settings on* 2x4 *year old cards in crossfire._




---------------



tokyoduong said:


> There is a possibility of someone buying 2 5850s on launch and paid $700+ for it but those .



Huh $700+????

The release price of the 5850 was $259 each.



> This puts the average retail price at $279, $20 up from the launch SRP of $259. Unfortunately, availability, though slightly increased, remains poor at best.



Read more: http://vr-zone.com/articles/price-increases-for-ati-radeon-hd-5850/7956.html#ixzz2OliijVSI



tokyoduong said:


> Now you have a power hogging CF set up that is glitchy and you can only play the new titles on medium at best if CF scales.



Even a single 5850 is as powerful as some of the midrange cards today. A single 5850 would faster than the ATI 6850, GTX 650ti and on par with the 6870 and 7790!  Even as as single card its fast enough to play today's games at high not medium. 

Infact, crossfired the 5850 is actually a fair bit faster than your 7850, even with its age and glitches


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## tokyoduong (Mar 28, 2013)

Dent1 said:


> Where did you get 5-6 years from?



From me stating hardware lasting 5-6 years is a dream and doesn't happen in real life. And by that i meant, adequate performance and driver support.  Then you two clowns reply with "my blahblahblah is bought in 2009...." Chances are you didn't even buy it in 2009 and even slimmer that you bought 2 for CF.

BTW the maximum possible time you could've possibly own a 5850 is only 3.5 years. That's about 2 years away from the 5-6 yrs estimate.



Dent1 said:


> Huh $700 ????
> 
> The release price of the 5850 was $259 each.



Yes MSRP was 259 for 5850 1 GB card at launch. The only cards available to buy were the $350+ ones and those didn't last long either. Unless you preordered or sat on the comp waiting for it to pop up on newegg, you most likely couldn't even buy one without the 100+ premium. Weeks after launch, prices went back down to the high 200s.



Dent1 said:


> Even a single 5850 is as powerful as some of the midrange cards today. A single 5850 would faster than the ATI 6850, GTX 650ti and on par with the 6870 and 7790! Even as as single card its fast enough to play today's games at high not medium.
> 
> Infact, crossfired the 5850 is actually a fair bit faster than your 7850, even with its age and glitches



A single 5850 is slightly faster than a 6850 at launch because AMD switch the numbering system. After patches, 6850 seems to be slightly faster on the newer games with newer engines. AMD had already stopped supporting 5000 series. In 2 years, you have to be retarded to keep using it. 

A CF 5850 will be marginally faster than a 7850 while having plenty of bugs and wasting energy. I paid $140 for my 7850 after $20 MIR. I can buy 8850/9850/etc... every cycle and still come out much less than 2X high end cards and hoping for it to last 5+ years.

Let me fix your statement. "Infact crossfired, 2 X 5850 is actually a fair bit faster than your 7850, if CF scales correctly and there are no glitches"


Back on topic

He asked for a solution that will work for 5-6 years without changing parts. The answer is that is not possible. 
And no spending a ton of money now just to have so-so performance in 5 years, no driver support, glitches/bugs, and burning up energy like crazy is not considered working. 
Stop giving people bad advice.


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## jihadjoe (Mar 28, 2013)

My 8800GT is still supported! 
=)


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## tokyoduong (Mar 28, 2013)

jihadjoe said:


> My 8800GT is still supported!
> =)



I guess my 4850 is still supported too because it's also in the latest driver package.


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## digibucc (Mar 28, 2013)

tokyoduong said:


> Stop giving people bad advice.



we wouldn't be giving it if it seemed like bad advice. Of course it's more efficient to ride the curve and update every 2 years or so - but only enthusiasts do that. yes we are an enthusiast site but a lot of the questions we get are from the exact opposite.

So I would say to you don't assume that everyone is in the same position as you - financially or mentally - regarding how often it's worth it to upgrade their machines. when someone asks a question i try to make sure all sides are seen. it was already clearly not likely, what did I say:



> that's not exactly true, it could last, and work, and still play new games



and then continued to note the negatives of it. you act as though I recommended it, when all I did is state the technical possibility so that the situation was clarified. what exactly did i say that was not true?

EDIT:


tokyoduong said:


> I guess my 4850 is still supported too because it's also in the latest driver package.



and why not? codblops 2 requires at minimum a 3870! yes it's a cherry picked example but a pretty damn good one. only the most popular game in existence. and it's requirements are lower than yours!

Of course then the discussion could shift to that being a reason that 5850s still work in itself. when they can port games to low end hardware and make $$$, there is no need to make more demanding games. that's a different discussion though.


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## TheoneandonlyMrK (Mar 28, 2013)

tokyoduong said:


> From me stating hardware lasting 5-6 years is a dream and doesn't happen in real life. And by that i meant, adequate performance and driver support.  Then you two clowns reply with "my blahblahblah is bought in 2009...." Chances are you didn't even buy it in 2009 and even slimmer that you bought 2 for CF.
> 
> BTW the maximum possible time you could've possibly own a 5850 is only 3.5 years. That's about 2 years away from the 5-6 yrs estimate.
> 
> ...


Back under tbe bridge you ,,,,; troll, 5 series xfire is glitch free for me tut uuuu im nay bitein


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## overclocking101 (Mar 28, 2013)

I have jumped to ati from nvidia nvidia from ati so many times, I will say in my experience Nvidia has driver support longer for their cards AND I have never had the power down issues and profile issues and screen flashing issues with nvidia like I have with ATI. for me ATI sounded good but was more headache then anything. I got my 560 2gb a year ago and installed the driver. no issues no needing a hotfix or beta driver no problems in over a year.


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## Dent1 (Mar 28, 2013)

overclocking101 said:


> no issues no needing a hotfix or beta driver no problems in over a year.



I've been using Nvidia and ATI over the last decade. Experienced small issues with both. In the last few years i've been using ATi exclusively, 4850 CF and 5860 CF and I've never had to use a hotfix or beta driver. It just worked.




tokyoduong said:


> A single 5850 is slightly faster than a 6850 at launch because AMD switch the numbering system



Link or it didn't happen. There is no review which shows the 6850 consistantly outperforming the 5850. The 5850 is closer to the 6870, no drivers or tweak would be enough to change that fact.


Link please.




tokyoduong said:


> A CF 5850 will be marginally faster than a 7850 while having plenty of bugs and wasting energy. I paid $140 for my 7850 after $20 MIR. I can buy 8850/9850/etc... every cycle and still come out much less than 2X high end cards and hoping for it to last 5+ years.
> 
> 
> Let me fix your statement. "Infact crossfired, 2 X 5850 is actually a fair bit faster than your 7850, if CF scales correctly and there are no glitches".




I've never experienced any bugs in my 5850 CF. Sorry.

Also the 5850 CF is a fair bit faster. Not marginally faster. 

If I'm honest I was actually being polite. The 5850 CF would abolishes the 7850.

The 7850 can't even out perform the ATI 5970 from 2009, whereas teh 5850CF is on par.

To put things in to perspective. The Nvidia GTX 570 from 2010 out beats the 7850 easily. The 5850 CF destroys the GTX 570.

The 7850 isn't even competition for the 5850 CF.


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## tokyoduong (Mar 28, 2013)

Lol there's a ton of people here that will disagree with you about CF/SLI problems. 
5850 is about 80% performance of a 7850. If I give you an average of 50% improvement with CF then you would still be only 20% faster than a 7850. I wouldn't call that destroying anything considering the negatives you have to endure like price, heat, power, bugs. 
I lost interest since you don't even compare cards in the same league. 570 to a 7850? The 570 still cost much more than a 7850 today. Maybe the # system change from 5k to 6k series confused you.

Anyways, the original statement is it won't last 5-6 years and still be able to play new games. Which is still true. Stop trying to change the timeline and whatever to make yourself right. Right now, your 5850 is 3.5 yrs at the oldest if you bought on launch day. AMD officially announced it won't be supporting 5k series anymore. Please tell me how many glitches/bugs your CF will have in 2 years without driver support. Every time a new game is launched, there seems to be a basket of bugs that comes with it and especially with CF/SLI. I'm sure you will buy a new card before then. 

I'll  compare my 7850 to your 5850 CF in 2 years and we'll see which one still works right.


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## BiggieShady (Mar 28, 2013)

This is a list of benchmarked games here on TPU that have some issues with crossfire:


Assassin's Creed 3
F1 2012
Hitman Absolution
Skyrim
World of Warcraft

These games were excluded from the latest performance summary, to fairly compare CF to SLI.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think there were no bugs or glitches, only scaling issues.


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## Dent1 (Mar 28, 2013)

tokyoduong said:


> Lol there's a ton of people here that will disagree with you about CF/SLI problems.



In this thread alone theoneandonlymrk and digibucc and myself are running 5800 series in CF without CF issues and bugs.

I'm not too fussed if ATI have slowed down with the support. The current drivers run perfect. Why fix perfection.


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## tokyoduong (Mar 29, 2013)

So we got 2 biased 5850 CF owners reporting no issues? Great sample set. Try googling "5850 crossfire bugs glitches"

Last I checked, scaling issues are bugs. At least when I was still writing software, that's what I would call it since I would have to debug the performance loss because it did not work properly. 

Did you even look at the release notes on the driver suite? They fixed a lot of CF bugs, gltiches, performance issues. I don't see how anyone can say CF doesn't have problems when the manufacturers themselves admit there are problems. 
Maybe you waited until you it's fixed before you play the games because I would do the same, but that doesn't negate the fact that it has much more problems than a single card solution. 

Again, stop going on about your perfect 5850 CF set up and whatever. No hardware will last 5-6 years while adequately and reliably work with the newest games. Even if you CF/SLI to keep up with performance, the amount of bugs, glitches or scaling issues will kill your gaming experience. 
Wait 2 years for your 5850CF to meet the 5-6 years timeline and then play the 3 newest games. I promise you that you will have problems with at least 2 of them.

Who CF/SLI for longevity anyways? People only do that for performance.


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## TheoneandonlyMrK (Mar 29, 2013)

tokyoduong said:


> So we got 2 biased 5850 CF owners reporting no issues? Great sample set. Try googling "5850 crossfire bugs glitches"
> 
> Last I checked, scaling issues are bugs. At least when I was still writing software, that's what I would call it since I would have to debug the performance loss because it did not work properly.
> 
> ...



So you know what glitches 3 guys are having better than they do despite not having the hardware,  we all get what your saying but your pushing your point too hard and its wrong my old  3870 xfire set lives on and is still game capable though it's low settings now.

Optimisation stops but once the dtivers stop changeing the devs have a fixed point to build there games around = less issues anyway , and all those issues like lauras hair going crazy get fixed by the dev , well  13.3 helped too which is strange since fives are unsupported in your eyes
Rubbish meet here one and a half years from now to be embarrassed .ta


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## Jack1n (Mar 29, 2013)

Well i never owned an Nvidia card so i cant really give a valid opinion,all i can say is that i have never had issues with Amd drivers.


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## Batou1986 (Mar 29, 2013)

In synopsis some AMD cards run fine some don't in CF with newer drivers it all depends on your specific system.
My 6870's for example don't run right on my system with new drivers but other ppl with different MB/CPU have no issues with 6870 CF.

If I recall correctly OP said he wasn't planning on going CF/SLI so this is irrelevant to the thread.


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## tokyoduong (Mar 29, 2013)

A few people comes in to say they've never had problems but every month AMD and NVIDIA comes out with drivers and notes saying they've fixed a bunch of bugs lol. Just because it didn't happen to you doesn't mean it doesn't exist! Unless you are going to tell me that companies just make up problems to solve and burn money?


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## Dent1 (Mar 29, 2013)

tokyoduong said:


> A few people comes in to say they've never had problems but every month AMD and NVIDIA comes out with drivers and notes saying they've fixed a bunch of bugs lol. Just because it didn't happen to you doesn't mean it doesn't exist! Unless you are going to tell me that companies just make up problems to solve and burn money?



Not all bugs are major, and not all bugs are noticeable by the end user. Nvidia or ATI may fix a bug that the end user didn't know existed. 

Not all bugs are CF or SLI related. You are acting like CF ensures a bug riddled experience. 

Also if ATI release a hotfix saying "improved crossfire  performance on Tombraider" - It doesn't mean the previous performance was underperforming.


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## LordJummy (Mar 30, 2013)

erocker said:


> I also have run CrossFire quite a bit and haven't had too many problems. You're setup must of been at fault. No offense.
> 
> Either way drivers are fine from both sides. If you're trying to decide on a card, check reviews. These threads don't last.



Going to have to agree here. I've run SLI & CF with multiple different cards since several generations back. At this point AMD's drivers really are about equal. I haven't had any real issues with my crossfire eyefinity setup. I'm now running 3 x 27" IPS panels and haven't had a single driver issue for quite some time.

Both camps are pretty damn solid these days...


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## cadaveca (Mar 30, 2013)

LordJummy said:


> Going to have to agree here. I've run SLI & CF with multiple different cards since several generations back. At this point AMD's drivers really are about equal. I haven't had any real issues with my crossfire eyefinity setup. I'm now running 3 x 27" IPS panels and haven't had a single driver issue for quite some time.
> 
> Both camps are pretty damn solid these days...






OK then, I give up.



All hail AMD and their great drivers that they admit are broken.


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## LordJummy (Mar 30, 2013)

cadaveca said:


> OK then, I give up.
> 
> 
> 
> All hail AMD and their great drivers that they admit are broken.



Jesus, no wonder I didn't log in to this forum for a long long time. 

A little dramatic, don't you think?

I clearly stated they're equal. There will always be issues on both sides. Let's not cry about it too much.

PS: What exactly is "broken" on AMD's side. I am genuinely asking, as I don't keep up with the latest GPU news anymore. I haven't experienced any problems with the past several driver updates on my AMD rig...


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## erocker (Mar 30, 2013)

This thread is well overdue for a closure, since we generally don't encourage these types of things to begin with. Also, the OP hasn't chimed in so I think they got whatever information they need.


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