NVidia 580M VS AMD ATI 6990M on Alienware - Missed points

The debate of NVidia VS AMD ATI has been discussed here quite a bit and based on the discussion here I chose the AMD ATI 6990M for my Alienware M17X R3 and having the laptop for 3 months now I can confidently say...

It's one of the biggest mistakes I've made in my computer buying history.

AMD improving on it's driver is a lie.
Drivers still has install / uninstall problems.
You have to go in, clean up the registry, rip out the Catalyst Control Center and other stuff to do a complete uninstall and reinstall.

Third party software vendors don't support AMD graphics cards as well as NVidia. Example: Any Video Converter for converting video formats quickly and easily supports hardware acceleration for NVidia CUDA but not AMD.

There are open support tickets for other video editors not being able to take advantage of AMD hardware acceleration.
Corel Video Studio and Cyberlink PowerDirector being two biggest.
They're open tickets and nobody at both companies seem to know what the problem is. Their software is suppose to support AMD ATI 6990M hardware acceleration. My best guess is that the AMD driver is not doing what it's suppose to.

My other laptop with NVidia graphics cards has none of these, gotta install AMD AVIVO? crap and such I have to deal with.

So I just wanted to point this variable out besides the game performance difference.
Maybe one day you will wanna upload some vids to YouTube or convert it to MP4 to show friends.

Don't make the mistake I made and regret every time I see a "Hardware Acceleration" button greyed out because I chose to save lousy $300 on a $3000 laptop.

 

Ignore any GPU based tool. It's not going to be better in quality, nor faster than the Intel Quick Sync supporting tools your laptop CPU supports. It's also not going to be better in encoding quality vs good CPU based tools, like Handbrake.


As for drivers, AMD mobility has a few more decades to go, IMO. And then some.

Then, I'll consider them for a low end APU setup. Honestly, they are ridiculously behind in the switchable GPU portions (functionality there for the newest version of "BACON" switching, only works somewhat), and their developer relations are not.... great. Not only that, even though I can technically update the drivers of my SA, the Intel side is let down by AMD's lack of relations with Intels driver team (something nVidia got over a LONG time ago).

Only reason why I'm putting up with this HD6630m, is because there is pratically no other laptop like the Vaio SA, otherwise, I would of switching in a heartbeat.

 

Looks to me that you registered here on NBR to start a flame war, but im gonna be nice and give you a chance.

Most if not all the required software needed should already be bundled inside AMD Catalyst, just like Nvidia have done.
This is why most drivers take so much space.

Also most software developers are moving away from CUDA or even AMD Stream because OpenCL and DirectCompute are standards that works nearly the same different hardware.
I triend GPU accellerated video encoding and while its fast the end results are far from perfect.
GPU accellerated video encoding works fine on my HD 6970m on my Clevo and is properly utilized when i move files from my PC to my Android phone.
Makes it fast and easy to move a digital copy of my DVD collection for portable entertainment.

I cant say anything regarding switchable graphics but both AMD and Nvidia have their flaws.
There are many threads in the gaming subforum here regarding Optimus not working or AMD placing OpenGL rendering on the IGP instead of the discrete GPU.

If its all that bad why dont talk to Dell about changing the GPU inside to Nvidia.
Cant be all that hard unless they use different mainboards because of the difference in switching technology.

 

I never had any driver issues with the AMD cards that I've owned, I've had a 5850m and a 4870. The only Nvidia card that I've owned is the GTX 560 ti 448 core and I've had driver issues since day one. Luckily there are beta drivers that work for my card, but I don't see how Nvidia can release a card and ship it with a cd with drivers that don't even work for it. CUDA and PhysX have very limited software support and are just marketing tools so that they use to make their products seem superior to AMD. And lets not forget how buggy Nvidia optimus is.

 

Then remove the 6990m and post it in the marketplace. It will sell. Im currently looking for a 6990 and would take it off your hands.

 

jkim, i hate to say it, but you are doing something wrong bro...why is it that some people have no issues installing amd drivers, while others like you seem to have endless issues...its becuase you're doing something wrong.

i've installed 11.7, 11.8, 11.9 11.10, 11.11c, 12.1,.2,.3 previews and i've just used the included software manager each time and installed over the previous version. Never had one single BSOD, never had a problem. Never had to rip out the catalyst control center (i don't even know what that means)...

Instead of a rant, post something in the alienware forums and we'll help you figure it out

BUT

it doesn't matter, because if you had spent the additional $300 on the 580m, you'd be posting here about how nvidia sucks, about how the two stage throttling on the 580m is terrible and how you should have bought the 6990m

 

Well the are specifically designed to install on top of each other. Running a third party program that trawls through the registry is just asking for issues.

 

I think the OP does have a valid point about AMD driver installation. IMO
nVidia is better regarding APPLYING drivers.

I like AMD and have had several but even my current 5870M requires that
I do a command-line uninstall before new driver install. Wont work otherwise.
A issue like this would never keep me from buying a card from any
maker.

I am ready to replace my machine but I am waiting to see what nVidia
will REALLY release. Most likely will end up going with another AMD card
as their price/performance is just too good to pass up the last couple
years.

If nVidia is more competitive I will definitely consider them.

 

You have to do a command line uninstall? :/

 

Meaning cannot use Catalyst directly to update drivers. Need to
uninstall Catalyst from the Catalyst install directory ( not Windows
uninstall ) and then I can apply re-install catalyst and the newer drivers.

Maybe something with my machine but when I was searching for
a solution there are many many examples of people having issues.

That is why someone earlier mentioned doing a complete clean before
installing.

 

/shrug

I have both AMD and Nvidia GPUs in my desktops... my laptop is Nvidia, but I work on many that have AMD.

On the point of drivers... the OP is correct.
AMD has some ways to go before it catches Nvidia's ease-of-use, flexibility, and backwards support.

AMD DOES do a better job of supporting the newer hardware as it comes out, but once Nvidia releases an official release... it will be fully supported for some time to come.

I recently installed an ancient 6600GT AGP... it was fully supported in Nvidia's latest release.
The reason why I was installing the 6600 AGP was because the newer and more potent AMD 9800 Pro was unsupported by current drivers and the only legacy drivers I could find were not stable.

Does any of this mean I won't buy AMD? certainly not... but Nvidia's drivers have better support and are easier to use.

 

Sadly AMD decided to kill off all suport for Dx9 class GPUs, mobile and desktop.
I retired my X1600m to linux and thankfully the Gallium3D based open source driver is superb.

 

im running 2 of them with no issues on my end =]

 

Ive owned over 30 graphics cards going right back to the 2900xt through to 8800ultra's, gtx470's, 6950s, 5870m's, gt 335m's etc I can confidently say I have had a much better experience with nvidia drivers. Aside from the bad performance/stuttering on the green side occassionally they are never a pain to tweak or install unlike the amd's ones.
For those of you that say "ive never had a problem with x amount of drivers" well you obviously have never owned enough to know there are problems on BOTH sides. With that said on my personal experience the green side has given me a LOT less headaches.

Now back to the topic...
I think the 6990m is a better buy because the 580m just has too many problems, however if you can get the software side to work you will enjoy it. I also find mobile drivers are inferior compared to desktop ones although I only had a few problems with my 5870m (much less than my old desktop 5870). I think you should give it a bit of a chance, unless there is a problem with the actual card itself.

 

This times a million. I skipped a couple generations of video cards so I'm hoping they got much better but I remember the days of having to use laptop2go drivers cause the manufacturer/Nvidia drivers would be horribly out dated.

 

I have used both vendors for a while, and I have had issues with both. From AMD I have had issues mostly on the desktop area, and mainly from particular vendors like Gigabyte or HIS.

From nvidia, I had more issues with mobile GPUs, mainly the 9500m GS which was marred with a horrible downclock issue. The best GPU from nvidia I ever had was the 9800m GS, which never really gave me trouble.

From AMD, the Rage Mobility 8MBs, and the HD4650 gave me trouble with drivers.

My current HD5870m has been a godsent.

 

I never had any problems with my 4650m in my 1747 and I have played lots of games on it over the last 2 years. On my 6990m I have had some driver install problems but think thats dells fault same as the overheats.

 

Please try and be constructive. Some posts have been deleted.

OP: If you're having trouble with your laptop, posting a thread about your specific issues and asking for help is a much more constructive way of getting help. Your post is borderline flaming, which is against the forum rules. I may just close this thread since I don't see much purpose for it.

 

To be honest crash I think it's a shill account bought by Nvidia :/

 

I will confirm this, I got the 580m, I wish I had got the 6990m. The 580m has a lot of really annoying issues that effect it in everyday use. I would much rather have a driver issue once every few months when I update, rather than constant problems of throttling and optimus every single day.

 

listen to him bro, this is what we do in m17x forum 580m has been plagued with many problems too, what I see is, this is computer, and there does not exists a single brand without any problem.. some amd users are cursed, as well as some nvidia users are cursed, also amd has a somewhat better performance in games (especially dx9 games) so I wouldn't mind working a little harder to have drivers working properly, and as slick is saying, we have a ton of people in m17x forum using 6990m flawlessly (I am a big nvidia fan btw )

 

Wow, touchy subject.

I chose the 6990M based on posts here but the graphics encoding hardware acceleration was never discussed. And I think it's an important factor in choosing a video card.

Hence bringing it up.

It's just my Guess that it's the AMD driver.
Since Corel and Cyberlink state that they both support AMD graphics cards (Cyberlink with addition of AVIVO.)

Corel support recommended ripping out all the AMD drivers, Catalyst and what not. It's such a pain that after the first time, I don't want to do it again.

After over 2 decades of working in computing field and messing with self built machines, I just like to get my stuff done and move on. Like get my videos encoded and uploaded for rest of the family to enjoy.

BTW switching to CPU graphics enabled hardware decoding for both software but still no hardware encoding.
with Cyberlink even with addition of AVIVO (Which AMD now just calls Media Codec Package) it won't even encode in MP4 format.

So if you successfully create MP4 (H.264) videos with Cyberliink PowerDirector with AMD 6990M graphics, please share what you did/installed/version of packages you have, etc.)

Moderator, sorry if I'm off subject here.

 

The first post you made on NBR does look like some mad flamebait crazy fanboys usually post.

I can confirm that Sony Vegas 11 recognizes my HD 6970m so i can use GPU assisted video encoding.