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22-Way SteamOS Graphics Card Comparison: NVIDIA Wins Across the Board (phoronix.com)

Posted by Soulskill on from the competitor-is-steamed dept.

An anonymous reader writes: A 22-way AMD Radeon vs. NVIDIA GeForce graphics card comparison on SteamOS 2.0 "Brewmaster" was carried out with one month to go until Steam Machines begin to ship. The article looks at the OpenGL performance of this Debian-based Linux distribution as well as the power/performance efficiency, thermal efficiency, and value of the entire line-up. The results make it pretty clear why the current range of Steam Machines with SteamOS all ship with NVIDIA graphics.

14 of 98 comments (clear)

  1. What else is new? by Sycraft-fu · · Score: 4, Interesting

    AMD has never been able to write OpenGL drivers worth a damn. I dunno why they have so much trouble, but it has been that way forever. Holds true on Windows too. nVidia cards run equal speed in DX and OpenGL on Windows, AMD cards run was faster in DX mode.

    Allegedly the open source drivers would fix it, however it turns out that programming graphics drivers is really hard, particularly when you can't use licensed code, and the drivers have not provided impressive features and performance yet.

    So, as ever, nVidia is the winner because their proprietary Linux drivers are just as fast as their proprietary Windows drivers which is to say damn fast.

    1. Re: What else is new? by Redbehrend · · Score: 2

      Nm found the series which according to Newegg and amazon has tons of issues and AMD issues. Yea I'll stick with my point...

  2. Best? by Coren22 · · Score: 4, Informative

    So, the best price/performance comes out to a GTX 750, so why even bother with a newer card?

    GTX 750 - $109
    GTX 960 - $205
    GTX 970 - $318

    Yet, the reviewer recommends the above 960 or 970 for living room builds. Do you really get that much more performance to spend $100 and $200 more on a video card for a TV?

    The 750 also runs cooler

    750 - 35-54 deg C
    960 - 45-74 deg C
    970 - 34-63 deg C

    which will allow your living room PC to run quieter. I recommend the 750, you will be happier being able to hear your games/movies over the spinning fans.

    --
    APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
    1. Re:Best? by BradleyUffner · · Score: 2

      So, the best price/performance comes out to a GTX 750, so why even bother with a newer card?

      Because you are willing to pay a higher price for more performance? the 750 may have the best price to performance ratio, but some people need / want more raw performance and are willing to pay more.

    2. Re:Best? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      Most current model TV's are at least 60Hz, which is the standard refresh rate for PC gaming. Several are 120Hz or 240Hz, higher than a lot of PC monitors, mostly because they also have 3D option and you need high refresh rate to maintain an acceptable rate when in 3D mode.

      It should be noted that despite having high refresh rates, few >60Hz TVs accept signals higher than 60Hz. It's mostly wasted on frame-interpolation bullshit and, as you mentioned, displaying 3D content via synchronized LCD shutter glasses.

    3. Re:Best? by The+Raven · · Score: 5, Informative

      The 960 was only a barely behind the 750 in performance per dollar... which means you are getting nearly double the performance for that doubling in price.

      Or, to put it another way, the 960 is 90% faster than the 750, for 100% more money. The 970 is 160% faster for 200% of the price. Those are actually great stats... when you normally look at high end cards, you often get 50% faster for 100% of the price.

      Finally, all the games he tested were rather old (common for Linux). If I'm buying a new steam machine now, I don't want to buy one that can play three year old games for $100, I want to buy one that will play next years games.

      --
      "I will trust Google to 'do no evil' until the founders no longer run it." Hello Alphabet.
  3. Re:GPUs are for cows. by mark-t · · Score: 2

    Low poly, or high poly?

    Stuff like this matters.... you need to be more specific.

    --
    File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
  4. Re:ATI Radeon ruined it for me by dejitaru · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Then the issue must have been something else or you got a crap card, because when I built my computer with the same GPU video card (Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 4870) I played the hell out of NFS:MW at full settings.

  5. Re:GPUs are for cows. by friedmud · · Score: 2

    Spherical

  6. Re:ATI Radeon ruined it for me by Osgeld · · Score: 2

    yep played it on a 4850 maxed out no problems, sounds like OP needed to stop "building" computers

  7. Re:AMD is banking on DX12/Vulkan by houstonbofh · · Score: 2

    You did notice that was an article on the Steam Machine, which runs Linux, right?

  8. Re:well by MobileTatsu-NJG · · Score: 2

    So you're gonna buy an AMD card then?

    --

    "I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)

  9. Latest AMD GPus are Fury and 3xx not 2xx, 7xxx by Kartu · · Score: 3, Informative

    And while they are not brand new architecture from AMD, they DO perform differently than 2xx series.
    Yet they didn't make it into the review.
    HALF of the AMD cards reviewed aren't even previous generation, they are pre-previous.

    There is a reason (LiquidVR) Dell/Alienware went exclusively with AMD for Oculus Rift builds, somehow that doesn't matter for SteamOS, eh?
    http://hexus.net/tech/news/sys...

    AMD 380 is the best 200$ card out there at the moment. It beats 960 handily in most games, while consuming 10-30w more (n games)
    390 is within 5% of 980 performance, at a fraction of a price, and 30-40% more power consumption.

    AMDs GPUs are more than competitive at the moment, stop spreading BS.

    1. Re:Latest AMD GPus are Fury and 3xx not 2xx, 7xxx by preflex · · Score: 2

      There is a reason (LiquidVR) Dell/Alienware went exclusively with AMD for Oculus Rift builds, somehow that doesn't matter for SteamOS, eh?

      Correct. That doesn't matter for SteamOS. Occulus announced they were dropping Linux (SteamOS) and Mac support back in May.

      AMDs GPUs are more than competitive at the moment, stop spreading BS.

      Maybe on Windows, but if you RTFA, you'd see that in Phoronix's tests, the $650 R9 Fury X was regularly outperformed by a $120 GeForce GTX 750 on SteamOS.