What to do with AMD/ATI?

As you might notice, I am somewhat of a newcomer to these forums. In fact, I have only really been researching laptops for around a year now (Probably averaging at least an hour a day.... don't want to know what that adds up to). Needless to say, I was enamored with the 7970m when it first came out. I was about ready to order, then came news of the 680 being in the works plus the issues with the first batch of 7970s.

I have long been a nvidia fanboy (At least I come out and say it) but I decided to keep an open mind. After all, the 7970 is supposed to be nearly as powerful as the 680, and for less than half the price! So, I have waited, waited, and waited some more. Now the 680 is dropping in price, but is still way out of my reach (I am in highschool... so money is not the most plentiful resource I have). Plus, there are now more and more issues related to the 7970m that are driving me, and probably many others away.

After even more research, a phone call or two with my reseller of choice (LPC-Digital, very knowlegable and good at answering questions) it seems as though this isn't the first time there have been issues with AMD graphics cards. Also, it seems as though it is not the card itself, but instead the drivers causing the problems.

I understand that the reason Nvidia cards cost more is because they are more reliable and have better drivers. This seems to be because their empoyees are better trained and more experienced. Thus, it costs more to employ them. You would expect this to mean that the cards they produce are superior to those made by AMD. This is indeed the case, but not exactly how you would expect. It seems that there cards are better simply because they actually work!

So, what I am wondering is, if it is as bad as it seems, is what to do about AMD. Obviously, very few people will buy a semi-broken card. Thus, a boycott isn't really the answer. Also, you might have noticed a thread that has been made to allow users to report their problems with the hope of the additional data making it easier to fix the problems. This gives the impression that this will be fixed, and maybe even resolved in the future.

What do you think?

 

Get the 7970M with an option of switching to a 680m if the 7970m problems persist.

 

Just don't get the 7970m then? It's very simple. Choose one or the other. No need to talk of boycotts or nonsense like that. And AMD's drivers aren't as bad as Nvidia fanboys would have you believe. I've used both AMD and Nvidia over the years and AMD's drivers now are a lot better than before. Just because they have one mobile card that doesn't have an official driver yet is no reason to wonder what needs to be done about them. I find it interesting how the 7970m and the 680m perform so close to each other despite not actually having an official driver.

 

Actually 680M doesn't have an official driver yet, NVIDIA is taking long this time too. Just there's no serious issues on the GTX680M so far.

 

Its really simple:

Nvidia have waaaay bigger driver team and they use waaay more funds on drivers/quality control than AMD. This costs. Therefor Nvidia products cost more and Nvidia can afford to work closely with game companies. This again ensure less problems and more stable GPUs.

Intel have waaaay bigger pile of money than AMD, plus Intel is a generation ahead of AMD with CPUs, so AMD just can`t cut it on high end CPUs against Intel.

Short story: AMD is fighting against two companies, one for GPUs and the other one for CPUs. Nvidia fight AMD, but not Intel (atleast not much yet). Intel fight AMD, but not Nvidia.

Poor AMD up against two giants

 

That could be because they have already gone through making optimus work, which took some time, whereas AMD have only just introduced enduro.
As far as drivers go, I'v had no issues at all with the 6970m. The problems with the 7970m will hopefully be fixed soon as it's much better value than the 680m. We need the competition in the market.

 

The boycott is already happening. People are spending $250-300 more for a card with similiar stock performance but no real issues.

 

For every person here that chooses 680M over the 7970M, each one is putting pressure on AMD and Clevo to deliver. In other words, you're doing us a favor and helping us 7970M owners out. Do NOT buy 7970M if you have the budget for a 680M.

 

I think I should continue to play games with smooth framerate with AA on and the highest settings and have a blast.

Yup, I think that's what I'll do. Have fun with your boycott while I play awesome games. Off to play some ME3 MP, hopefully get some useful upgrades this time.

I've yet to find a game where I can't play it at the absolute max settings other than Witcher 2 that has the insane uber-sampling, with AA on and have smooth framerate, without hiccups or hitches. I'm not going to cry about always having at least 30+ FPS by boycotting. Drivers will come, I don't need to boycott just because I don't have 60 FPS constant. Have fun with your boycott.

 

The OP was a tad silly, if not naive, but your response is childish and spiteful as if you have something to prove to everyone. It has no place in a forum like this.

It's great if you happen to have good performance on your particular card, it doesn't mean everyone else is, and it certainly doesn't mean most people are getting the performance they paid for.

That being said, AMD needs our support. And we need AMD to stay in the market and remaing competitive. In this kind of industry, if AMD go bust or decide to close up shop, it will be close to impossible for a new competitor to spring up either against Nvidia or Intel. And that could be very bad news for all of us.

I really hope the 7970m outshines the 680m and becomes the card for price/performance of this generation. It's very important that it does. Infact I'm strongly considering swapping out the 680m to 7970m for the order I'm about to place today, despite having the cash for 680

 

I think the question is rhetorical, so I gave a response to match it. What to do with AMD? I bought it to play some games, and well, I'll continue to do so. Especially since there isn't a game out there it won't run on max right now. And this includes the issues with Enduro, yeah that's how blown out of proportion this Enduro problem is. It doesn't stop the 7970M from playing every single game out there on max settings.

 

Yeah I can play them on max settings, but with some games fps will be very poor.

Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk 2

 

It's exactly these sort of responses that would give AMD an excuse not to fix the problem. People content with sub-par performance.

Added to that, if you believed the question to be rhetorical why did you answer it?

 

Yeah that's not a boycott. That's just regular, healthy marketplace competition working.

A boycott would be if noone bought AMD products until the 7970M drivers worked properly.

 

Unfortunately, it looks like I didn't really get my point across well..... (Probably should stop posting when I really should be sleeping)

So what I mean is, it is pretty much a common consensus that the 7970, although still a powerful card, is not performing to the standard that was expected. I am new to dealing with computers in depth, thus I do not know what is to be done in this sort of situation.

Thankfully, discussion has been leaning that way anyways. I will try to do better with making my ideas comprehensible next time.

 

To the OP (DPV) I would like to say that I am very impressed that while in high school, you have the maturity to research powerful laptops, and not just buy what everyone else is buying. Second, I think you did well in stating your questions.

You are not alone in wondering about these issues, despite the occasional user claiming they and they alone have the know how to use the card and therefore the issue is not the card, but the users.

However, there are several points to consider.
1) AMD has provided an extremely powerful card that even with current issues blows away for the most part past cards
2) Between AMD and Clevo/Sager, one would hope that they are now working on this, so at some point it will have resolution
3) next time know going in, being an early buyer of the "cutting edge" can be painful. This goes not just for AMD or GPU's, but also any other new hardware (see early IB release). nVidia has had their issues, as have Intel. So maybe next time, just wait a couple of months before buying so you can see how it all shakes out.

I commend you on your maturity, and don't take to heart what some on here say, people tend to get defensive over huge companies they have spent a bundle on. I have both red and green cards. Both have cost me a lot of green over the years. My loyalty goes to the one that works for what I need it for, and sometimes that changes for me.

In the end, I hope all works out for everyone with the 7970m. It is not right that you bought something with certain expectations of how it will perform (expectations sold by the manufacturer). But even if nothing changes, it still seems like a heckuva card. Unless I am wrong, it will blow away my 485m, and I am very happy with it.

Sorry to all for the TL;DR version. Sometimes it is hard to be concise.