AMD vs Nvidia – Which GPUs Are Better?
With the most recent developments in the tech world, buying a GPU is akin to finding gold on the sidewalk – almost impossible. Let us still imagine that you would be an extremely lucky person that could buy a GPU, which one would you go for AMD or Nvidia?
Today we will give you a quick rundown of the most important aspects of the GPU market rivalry and hopefully help you select a GPU well suited for your needs!
AMD vs Nvidia – Performance
When it comes to the 3000 series, Nvidia GPUs simply stunned everybody with their generational uplift in performance, but in a way, everyone was expecting Nvidia to pull something like this off.
What was completely unexpected was the Radeon vs Nvidia battle for market shares once AMD announced their Radeon 6000 GPUs. People were hoping AMD would deliver something exciting, but nobody expected just HOW exciting the new Radeon GPUs would be.
The current AMD vs Nvidia GPU stack looks like this:
- 3090 vs 6900XT – Titan alternative, 8K gaming
- 3080 6800XT – 4K gaming
- 3070 vs 6800 – 1440P 144Hz gaming
- 3060/3060TI vs 6700XT – 1080P 144-240Hz gaming
The amazing thing about this rivalry is that now Radeon is not simply a cheaper, less powerful alternative, but actually trades blows with Nvidia in all categories with the FPS differences being very close.
At the top end, the 3090 is still the fastest GPU available on the market but the 6900XT is a more bang-for-buck-oriented option that could make more sense for certain people and builds.
The 3080 is also faster than the 6800XT with around 6.5% more performance but with a 50$ higher MSRP as well.
The situation continues to be similar down the GPU stack with the cost per frame being similar, but with Nvidia pulling slightly ahead in most comparisons in terms of pure performance.
If you are currently analyzing which GPU to buy from a performance-only perspective then the Nvidia vs Radeon GPU stack seems evenly matched and you should really get whatever is available to you in your region, or whatever GPU is closer to its MSRP.
Nvidia vs AMD – Driver Stability
If until now the GPU comparison looked fairly even, then when it comes to the driver stability and performance there is only one clear winner – Nvidia. Unfortunately for the Radeon GPUs, even though their hardware is truly impressive, the drivers used for them are somewhat underwhelming.
Nvidia GPU drivers boast continuous improvements in stability and FPS with little for the consumer to be afraid of. Meanwhile, Radeon drivers have always been known to be unstable and this did not change for the 6000 AMD series.
Nvidia has also implemented many driver-level improvements for gamers like Low Latency mode and even their newer Nvidia Reflex, which greatly reduces latency in games.
So if you want an experience with no hiccups, where you plug in your GPU, install your drivers, and have the best possible experience, then Nvidia is the GPU for you.
Nvidia vs AMD – Features
Another big reason why you would want to sway towards the Nvidia GPUs, which can be a tad bit more costly, is because of the features that these GPUs come equipped with. The 3000 series Nvidia cards have improved ray tracing support and DLSS technology that gives them a huge hand over the AMD cards.
AMD does possess some limited ray tracing support but the performance is greatly reduced by comparison, moreover, there is no similar technology to DLSS available to the public currently for the AMD consumers.
Added to the previous points is the introduction of the NVENC encoder that Nvidia cards come equipped with. If you are a streamer currently or would want to explore the streaming world, there is no better GPU to buy for you than an Nvidia GPU.
The NVENC encoder is extremely efficient, making gaming and streaming on one single PC at high FPS a manageable task! On the flipside, AMDs streaming encoder is simply put a dumpster fire and should never be touched…
Nvidia vs AMD – Conclusions
Although it seems that in this generation of GPUs AMD has finally caught up to Nvidia in terms of performance, when it comes to the overall package, including the extra features, driver stability, and encoding options, Nvidia still seems to be the better option once again.
If you do not care about ray tracing and do no stream, then the Radeon 6000 series are still a very good option for you to purchase and should not be discarded completely.
Overall, all of the advice above applies when the GPU stock normalizes. Until then, some of us will have to survive with integrated graphics and some will have to overclock until their GPUs hit 100C.