intel/nvidia or amd/radeon

[kalniel]

hey all, Ive got a nvidia GTX 670 and I also have a spare radeon 6850 kicking around..

I have x2 PCI-E slots can i put them both in and use the 670 as my main card for games etc but also use the 6850 for foldinghome?? is this possible?

A point of etiquette: It's considered a bit rude to bump a thread that's over a year old with a question of your own that's not really related to the original post.

But to answer your question, it is possible, but not easily because the drivers don't play nicely together. The hassle may or may not be worth your time.

[Ezekeal]

if u prefer cooler card go with the nvidia else go with the radeon

[kalniel]

if u prefer cooler card go with the nvidia else go with the radeon

Why's that? AMD Pitcairn cards for example run cooler than many nVidia cards. You need to be a bit more specific.

[DB007]

If its AMD vs Intel CPU - always go the the Intel CPU.
You'll thank yourself later when the single threading performance outshines in games.

The GPU you'll be looking to replace every few years - but that CPU may end up running 4yrs (if you're lucky) and still provide enough OOMPH for most things you'll be throwing at it.

[watercooled]

That difference is also grossly over-exaggerated, especially when factoring price into the equation. The CPU isn't commonly a significant bottleneck in gaming anyway, and many games requiring CPU performance are well-threaded nowadays anyway.

Many places 'proving' the difference deliberately run the games at stupidly low settings to move the performance bottleneck from the GPU to the CPU.

DX12 is likely to significantly improve CPU loading too.

[Splash]

If its AMD vs Intel CPU - always go the the Intel CPU.
You'll thank yourself later when the single threading performance outshines in games.

The GPU you'll be looking to replace every few years - but that CPU may end up running 4yrs (if you're lucky) and still provide enough OOMPH for most things you'll be throwing at it.

Do people really replace GPU so regularly? The systems I'm using at the moment is 3years+ old and I'm only just now seeing things that require more than the HD7970 and i7-2700K. I can dial back from maximum settings and play everything with no issues still, and don't expect to need to upgrade for at least another 9 months (and probably double that). Even then I think I'll probably just build a new machine rather than playing the min-max game of upgrading individual components.

If anything the limiting factor for me is the amount of RAM - 32Gb is getting tight for some of the labwork I do these days.

[jm101]

AS long as the unit works acceptably, I see no reason to replace items. For me, video processing is a big deal and the Intel quicksync unit is great. For my few games, I also have a ATI 7850 installed which does all I want of it.

[watercooled]

Quicksync is pretty rubbish for transcoding, unless there's a reason you want to keep the CPU free. x264 on a faster preset will match it in speed and better it in quality. At slower settings, there's simply no comparison.

[shaithis]

That difference is also grossly over-exaggerated, especially when factoring price into the equation. The CPU isn't commonly a significant bottleneck in gaming anyway, and many games requiring CPU performance are well-threaded nowadays anyway.

There is one scenario where the Intel does really shine and many people will be in that situation: Playing Blizzard titles.

Blizzard have a track record with loading up the CPU instead of the GPU, personally I think it's due to their style of low-poly-high-texture-detail graphics.....or perhaps its that they are the original PC/Mac dual-format supporters.....I dunno.....but many CPUs really show their weaknesses when running their games.......in fact the last 2 weeks I've been getting annoyed with my mate who keeps slowing our SC2 games down on his overclocked Q6600....and this is early/mid game....late game it's constant slowdown from him

[watercooled]

Yeah there are bound to be a couple of games which strongly prefer one architecture over another. I remember on the Nehalem release, while most games performed similarly or better on the new architecture, there were a few which ran significantly better on Core, probably down to the much larger L2 cache.

If you're going to be playing primarily a select few games then it probably pays to look into performance of those.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Blizzard games tend to be more CPU limited but apparently on some tech forums its more important what card you have!

[russelllongy]

check out my pc build specs i built this from ground up all new parts for quite cheap

[stefan_965]

Depends what type of games you wanted to run. AMD is cheaper but that doesn't mean it won't perform as well as nvidia.

[OutcasT]

Intel CPUs as they are stronger core for core. AMD and Nvidia gpu, AMD are more price to performance, NVIDIA is good aswell, but the 960 isnt great as there are AMD card that out perform it at a similar price.

[Edii]

Typically it's Intel/Radeon for me, I have had instances when that has been different though.

8800GT comes to mind, I believe I was Intel/nVidia then.. maybe, the timelines mix up for me since I do remember having a Phenom X3 with a 4th core unlocked but I am not sure if it was at the same time, I owned a 8800GT for about 5 years, it definitely was the maximum value hardware I've ever purchased in my life, will anything ever match that? Probably after the dust on 4k settles and becomes more affordable so about half a decade from now.

Ever since the i5/i7 though Intel's been killing it in the CPU market, I don't know what to expect of Zen since I haven't read of it much but I'll be with Skylake this winter since my i5 2500k just needs to get out ma face really, even though I could probably squeeze another year or two out of it.

ATM though, as in today right now Intel/nVidia seems a winning formula for mid high to straight up enthusiast systems, when you go lower you may look at Radeon cards and 'maybe' AMD CPU's but for example high AA 1080p gaming GTX 970 is king of, and that's further enforceable by adding another in SLI, should last you a good few years for 1080p gaming and then the 1440p or 4k ship may appear and you may wish to board.

[Stormsys]

If you can fit it in your budget Intel/Nvidia is a great option. that said amd is provides better low-budget options.