Equivalent nVidia card to this AMD one

[Ryster]

Hi all

I'm looking to replace my MSI AMD Radeon HD 6950 Twin Frozr III Power OC Edition card with an nVidia card of equal or better performance so I can give 3D a go. I've got a Benq XL2410T monitor so now I just need the nVidia card and the 3D kit.

What I want to know is... when comparing the two brands of cards, where does the AMD Radeon HD 6950 fall in the nVidia scale. What's the lowest nVidia card I could buy to equal the performance of my AMD one?

If I have this information, I can then work up the scale and make a choice about how much higher I wish to go depending on price.

I think from looking at the charts here that it's roughly equivalent to a 560Ti, so if I go for a 660Ti for instance, it should give me a nice boost up from what I have now?

Thanks alot.

[Vice]

GTX 660 Ti is slightly faster in some games and slightly worse in others. That would be the card I'd get to equal and just edge out the HD 6950 in some titles. If you want something that will dominate the HD 6950 in every title then get a GTX 670 but I think you'd be more than happy with the 660 Ti.

[Livin in a box]

http://www.hwcompare.com/13186/geforce-gtx-660-ti-vs-radeon-hd-6950/

It's close, but I would say that it's more than likely that the 660Ti will perform better on average than the AMD card.

[Ryster]

Thanks for the confirmation. I've noticed there are several different types of 660Ti, each with different clock speeds. I think I'll go for one of the higher clock speeds and that should see me right :)

[Ryster]

Well, I'm beginning to have second thoughts about switching back to nVidia.

Not only do nVidia not have WHQL drivers available for Windows 8 RTM for the 660Ti, they appear to have no beta drivers either. In contrast, AMD's WHQL drivers were released on the very same day the OS was made semi-widely available via Technet, MSDN, Eval, etc.

[Shane Nokes]

I personally stick with ATi/AMD based cards for the reliability factor. They work a lot more closely with MS than nVidia does. They even helped work on DirectX at certain points.

[Slammers]

There is no better manufacturer, allot of people swear by nvidia cards and drivers, and vise versa. That said, currently the gtx range offers more bang for buck.

What does it matter when the current nvidia win7 drivers are rock solid on win8?

[Shane Nokes]

There is no better manufacturer, allot of people swear by nvidia cards and drivers, and vise versa. That said, currently the gtx range offers more bang for buck.

What does it matter when the current nvidia win7 drivers are rock solid on win8?

Because of the newer driver model in Windows 8. It's not the same as Windows 7. The drivers from 7 work, but don't have full compatibility with 8.

[tsupersonic]

Well, I'm beginning to have second thoughts about switching back to nVidia.

Not only do nVidia not have WHQL drivers available for Windows 8 RTM for the 660Ti, they appear to have no beta drivers either. In contrast, AMD's WHQL drivers were released on the very same day the OS was made semi-widely available via Technet, MSDN, Eval, etc.

So, you're basing your decision to not go with Nvidia just because there are no drivers for an OS that isn't available for consumers?

Also, you're sorta wrong. 304.79 Beta drivers:

This is the second beta driver from the R304 family of drivers and the first GeForce driver to combine support for Windows 8, Windows 7, and Windows Vista into a single driver.

[Shane Nokes]

So, you're basing your decision to not go with Nvidia just because there are no drivers for an OS that isn't available for consumers?

If the person is using a specific OS and the drivers out there don't support the new driver model for that OS & they want to buy now, why wouldn't they buy from a company that already supports the OS?

[Vice]

The Windows 7 drivers work fine in Windows 8 and Windows 8 isn't even on store shelves yet.

[tsupersonic]

If the person is using a specific OS and the drivers out there don't support the new driver model for that OS & they want to buy now, why wouldn't they buy from a company that already supports the OS?

...because the OP is wrong. There are beta drivers from Nvidia that support Windows 8.

[Shane Nokes]

...because the OP is wrong. There are beta drivers from Nvidia that support Windows 8.

...and ATi/AMD already has WHQL certified production drivers already released with full WDDM 1.2 support...which means my point is still valid.

[Vice]

...and ATi/AMD already has WHQL certified production drivers already released with full WDDM 1.2 support...which means my point is still valid.

Clutching at straws really aren't you. This isn't an NVIDIA vs ATi thread. Fact is both companies have drivers that work in Windows 8 and they work fine.

[Shane Nokes]

Well the user was asking about switching to NVidia from ATi, and then stated they were thinking about sticking with ATi due to driver support, so I discussed the fully certified drivers...so it's entirely on topic and I'm not clutching at anything.

I have devices with ATi cards (primarily desktop) in them and devices with nVidia products (laptop, netbook, and Zune HD) in them as well. I don't have a horse in this race. I do know that ATi has a history of working closer with Microsoft on DirectX specs though...so I pointed that out.

Sorry if that ruffles your feathers, but it's a fact.

[tsupersonic]

...and ATi/AMD already has WHQL certified production drivers already released with full WDDM 1.2 support...which means my point is still valid.

Who cares if your point is valid? We both came in this thread to help OP, and the fact is that there is a Nvidia beta driver for Windows 8. Like Vice said, this isn't an Nvidia vs ATI thread, nor is it a thread to see which company was first to release WHQL drivers for Windows 8. Windows 8 hasn't been released in the consumer market, and Nvidia will release WHQL drivers for Windows 8. So, quit trolling, or be helpful.

[Vice]

Well the user was asking about switching to NVidia from ATi, and then stated they were thinking about sticking with ATi due to driver support, so I discussed the fully certified drivers...so it's entirely on topic and I'm not clutching at anything.

I have devices with ATi cards (primarily desktop) in them and devices with nVidia products (laptop, netbook, and Zune HD) in them as well. I don't have a horse in this race. I do know that ATi has a history of working closer with Microsoft on DirectX specs though...so I pointed that out.

Sorry if that ruffles your feathers, but it's a fact.

You know what does ruffle my feathers?

When people expect companies to have certified drivers already available for operating systems that aren't shipping and only went RTM a few weeks ago.

NVIDIA just launched new graphics (GTX 660 Ti) which will delay their verification because the drivers to support that card have just been released and ATi's drivers lack PhysX, CUDA and 3D. There isn't as much to verify and update for them because their software stack is so much smaller than NVIDIA's. ATi doesn't release as many drivers as NVIDIA does either. But even when you take all this in to account there has been times where I've used WHQL drivers for all manner of hardware and had issues that were resolved in later released drivers. Just because it's WHQL certified does not guarantee compatibility or stability it just means when Microsoft tried it on a few machines it didn't crash.

Lets not forget that NVIDIA was responsible for probably 30% of all Vista crashes, and those drivers were verified by MIcrosoft. NVIDIA has since fixed those crashing issues but it does bring the WHQL certification system in to disrepute. But then I guess how much verification and testing does $500 per driver really get you? I'm going to say, not a whole lot.

[Shane Nokes]

You know what does ruffle my feathers?

When people expect companies to have certified drivers already available for operating systems that aren't shipping and only went RTM a few weeks ago.

ATi's drivers lack PhysX, CUDA and 3D. There isn't as much to verify and update for them because their software stack is so much smaller than NVIDIA's is. ATi doesn't release as many drivers as NVIDIA does either. But even when you take all this in to account there has been times where I've used WHQL drivers for all manner of hardware and had issues that were resolved in later released drivers. Just because it's WHQL certified does not guarantee compatibility or stability it just means when Microsoft tried it on a few machines it didn't crash.

Lets not forget that NVIDIA was responsible for probably 30% of all Vista crashes, and those drivers were verified by MIcrosoft. NVIDIA has since fixed those crashing issues but it does bring the WHQL certification system in to disrepute. But then I guess how much verification and testing does $500 per driver really get you? I'm going to say, not a whole lot.

I wasn't making this an nVidia vs AMD thread, but pointing out that they had WHQL drivers since the original poster brought it up as something that had them worried. I was staying on topic...but ok fine...let's go there..

AMD actually has OpenCL which is their competitor to CUDA included in the driver bundles...so there goes that point.

The graphics cards actually do handle physics calculations on the GPU, and that's in the drivers as well. They've done this for about 3 or 4 years now. It's just not named PhysX because nVidia owns that name.

3D? Actually AMD does that as well. It's called HD3D.

Driver Release Frequency? Until a couple months ago AMD was releasing 12 new WHQL drivers per year. They stepped back on that to focus on taking more time to test & certify before release as well as allowing for bigger changes between the releases. They now will deliver WHQL drivers on a quarterly basis. That's what nVidia did last year as well. 4 WHQL releases in 2011. So that's about the same actually.

Care to actually make some valid points since you're now derailing the topic? If it keeps going off-topic I will ask the mods to clean it up.

[Vice]

I wasn't making this an nVidia vs AMD thread, but pointing out that they had WHQL drivers since the original poster brought it up as something that had them worried. I was staying on topic...but ok fine...let's go there..

AMD actually has OpenCL which is their competitor to CUDA included in the driver bundles...so there goes that point.

The graphics cards actually do handle physics calculations on the GPU, and that's in the drivers as well. They've done this for about 3 or 4 years now. It's just not named PhysX because nVidia owns that name.

3D? Actually AMD does that as well. It's called HD3D.

Care to actually make some valid points since you're now derailing the topic? If it keeps going off-topic I will ask the mods to clean it up.

I wasn't doing an ATi vs NVIDIA feature comparison mate, I was telling you why NVIDIA takes longer because they include CUDA and ATi do not as it is an NVIDIA exclusive feature. NVIDIA also support OpenCL and Direct Compute so they have one extra thing (CUDA) to support that ATi do not.

And although you can do physics calculations on the GPU by using CUDA, Direct Compute and OpenCL, NVIDIA actually includes a completely separate driver for PhysX as their implementation is actually a physics framework and API that developers can use. Basically the Physics system provided by NVIDIA is inside their own driver package and not something that is included with the games like ATi's "physics" implementation is (If you can call it that since they don't actually have one and simply rely on each developer to write a physics engine which then uses ATi's graphics cards to compute the calculations with).

AMD does not include 3D functionality like NVIDIA does. NVIDIA again provides specific 3D drivers inside their driver bundle which enables all games to run in 3D mode by default when you use a supported monitor and the NVIDIA 3D Glasses, again another driver which is included in their driver bundle and needs verification. To use 3D on ATi you must purchase 3D software separately at your own expense and of course these are not included in their driver package like NVIDIA's are.

All my points are valid if you had actually read them objectively.

[farmeunit]

When people expect companies to have certified drivers already available for operating systems that aren't shipping and only went RTM a few weeks ago.

NVIDIA just launched new graphics (GTX 660 Ti) which will delay their verification because the drivers to support that card have just been released and ATi's drivers lack PhysX, CUDA and 3D.

People should expect certified driver because it was in beta for a while, and it is officially out in some channels, although not retail.

Also AMD does have OpenCL (equivalent to CUDA) and 3D. They don't have PhysX exclusively, but it have been made to run on AMD hardware.

[Shane Nokes]

Who cares if your point is valid? We both came in this thread to help OP, and the fact is that there is a Nvidia beta driver for Windows 8. Like Vice said, this isn't an Nvidia vs ATI thread, nor is it a thread to see which company was first to release WHQL drivers for Windows 8. Windows 8 hasn't been released in the consumer market, and Nvidia will release WHQL drivers for Windows 8. So, quit trolling, or be helpful.

It's valid because the OP (the one who actually was asking the questions) mentioned that they weren't sure if they wanted to switch brands due to WHQL drivers not being available. Mentioning that AMD does indeed have a set of WHQL drivers is fully on-topic. Dragging us all off-topic to call me a troll however, is NOT on-topic.

[Vice]

People should expect certified driver because is been in a beta for a while, and it is officially out in some channels, although not retail.

Also AMD does have OpenCL (equivalent to CUDA) and 3D. They don't have PhysX exclusively, but it have been made to run on AMD hardware.

Read my post directly above yours to clear up why I explained about the PhysX thing. Again I was not doing a feature comparison I was telling you why NVIDIA take longer as they include more stuff in their driver bundle.

And you can't expect NVIDIA to have a WHQL driver for a graphics card released a week ago. ATi has not released a new card in quite a while.

[Shane Nokes]

I wasn't doing an ATi vs NVIDIA feature comparison mate, I was telling you why NVIDIA takes longer because they include CUDA and ATi do not as it is an NVIDIA exclusive feature. NVIDIA also support OpenCL and Direct Compute so they have one extra thing (CUDA) to support that ATi do not.

And although you can do physics calculations on the GPU by using CUDA, Direct Compute and OpenCL, NVIDIA actually includes a completely separate driver for PhysX as their implementation is actually a physics framework and API that developers can use. Basically the Physics system provided by NVIDIA is inside their own driver package and not something that is included with the games like ATi's "physics" implementation is (If you can call it that since they don't actually have one and simply rely on each developer to write a physics engine which then uses ATi's graphics cards to compute the calculations with).

AMD does not include 3D functionality like NVIDIA does. NVIDIA again provides specific 3D drivers inside their driver bundle which enables all games to run in 3D mode by default when you use a supported monitor and the NVIDIA 3D Glasses, again another driver which is included in their driver bundle and needs verification. To use 3D on ATi you must purchase 3D software separately at your own expense and of course these are not included in their driver package like NVIDIA's are.

All my points are valid if you had actually read them objectively.

/Facepalm. Done with this thread. OP, if you have questions contact me via PM's. I'm going to let the peanut gallery amuse themselves with their bad research skills.

Congratulations btw Vice...you managed to post a screenshot below that didn't refute anything I said. I never denied that those items were in the drivers... /GolfClap.

[Vice]

/Facepalm. Done with this thread. OP, if you have questions contact me via PM's. I'm going to let the peanut gallery amuse themselves with their bad research skills.

:)

[tsupersonic]

It's valid because the OP (the one who actually was asking the questions) mentioned that they weren't sure if they wanted to switch brands due to WHQL drivers not being available. Mentioning that AMD does indeed have a set of WHQL drivers is fully on-topic. Dragging us all off-topic to call me a troll however, is NOT on-topic.

NO, it's not valid, because you can't get it through your head Nvidia (or any other company) does NOT have to provide WHQL drivers for an OS that is not publicly available to the consumers yet. Do you really think Nvidia won't have WHQL drivers leading right up to the W8 release (W8 release is October 26th)? Of course they will, they have already gained Windows 8 driver certification! If OP does decide to switch to Nvidia, then great, they won't have to worry about drivers for W8. You're not reading my posts completely, and just trying to toss in useless facts about ATI (AMD), and trying to turn this thread into Nvidia vs. ATI. Bottom line is, Nvidia WILL have drivers for Windows 8. Good luck to whatever path you take OP.