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  1. #1
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    Question Has AMD drivers always been terrible?

    I was using a 5700 and it was horrible at all times. It was fine for the first couple of days but after that, the issues started happening from black screens, freezing, BSOD, etc. The "fixes" were complete and total BS imo. One tech told me to reinstall windows, DDU, etc. Another person told me to disable a PCI-E port no joke. I was also told to roll back windows updates, AMD software, roll back bios lol, uninstall certain games. I was also told to disable free sync which is dumb because why would I disable the only feature of my monitor? Terrible AMD software and support made me return my GPU. I am ordering an RTX 2060 super and will be happy to just plug and play my GPU. Nobody should go through 10 steps in order to have a working graphics card.

  2. #2
    No? Both camps have issues with drivers from time to time, though AMD with less resources can be hit harder for a longer time. There's also a chance that you may have a defective part in your system that is causing your problems. Many GPU problems are mislabled due to bad PSUs.

    AMD did have a real issue late last year though, but for the most part it was fixed from what I've heard.

  3. #3
    The Patient Teokis's Avatar
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    I'm an Intel/Nvidia guy but this post seems very biased and the title is off.

    You should have maybe asked has anyone else had similar issues.
    As far as I can tell, AMD is not "terrible" and offer very strong products. I can't talk about AMD support as I've never interacted with them but I've never
    seen "amd drivers suck" as an issue. I don't really think I've ever seen anyone say "drivers suck" for any of the major brands.

    It's always performance vs cost, or compatibility, and personal bias from people around them.

    Good fun with the super though! Enjoy.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Teokis View Post
    I'm an Intel/Nvidia guy but this post seems very biased and the title is off.

    You should have maybe asked has anyone else had similar issues.
    As far as I can tell, AMD is not "terrible" and offer very strong products. I can't talk about AMD support as I've never interacted with them but I've never
    seen "amd drivers suck" as an issue. I don't really think I've ever seen anyone say "drivers suck" for any of the major brands.

    It's always performance vs cost, or compatibility, and personal bias from people around them.

    Good fun with the super though! Enjoy.
    You really should've paid more attention in March/April, where AMDs GPU drivers were super terrible then. It's possible that there's still lingering issues from that time if the drivers don't get updated often enough

  5. #5
    amd gpu user here....everything is fine
    ~steppin large and laughin easy~

  6. #6
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    Quote Originally Posted by mrgreenthump View Post
    No? Both camps have issues with drivers from time to time, though AMD with less resources can be hit harder for a longer time. There's also a chance that you may have a defective part in your system that is causing your problems. Many GPU problems are mislabled due to bad PSUs.

    AMD did have a real issue late last year though, but for the most part it was fixed from what I've heard.
    Or he just may have an under-powered PSU which is common with many retail box systems. I had issues with a Dell Inspiron XPS 9300 which has only a 300W PSU so I needed to find a GPU that could run on that type of power supply.

  7. #7
    The Lightbringer Shakadam's Avatar
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    AMD certainly had some issues with the RX 5000 series which were gradually worked out. That doesn't mean that it now works 100% with no problems ever, because no GPU ever does that as they are just too complex to iron out every bug and incompatibility that may happen with any of the tens of thousands of possible parts, both software and hardware, in a PC. A large part of what people claim to be driver bugs (for both Nvidia and AMD) are in reality the result of unstable systems, be it PSU issues, unstable memory configurations, or conflicting software.

    That said, I've only had very minor issues with my last 2 AMD GPU's (RX 480 and Vega 56), just like I only had some pretty minor issues with the 2 Nvidia GPU's I had before that.

    This narrative of Nvidia "just works" and "plug and play" is also strange because a quick trip to the Nvidia support forums shows that to be a lie, but the internet hive-mind is weirdly obsessed with instantly ignoring or forgetting any issues Nvidia has while droning on and on about AMD issues even several years later. I honestly don't know why but it's been like that for many years.

  8. #8
    They're no longer terrible, and the ease of going back to old drivers is extremely friendly on AMD. That said, AMD with the 5000 series are, honestly, bad at fixing issues at a timely pace sometimes. Overwatch for example was unplayable on up-to-date AMD drivers for many months earlier in the year (On a 5700 xt anyways); it still has hiccuping issues that AMD don't seem able or keen on fixing despite reports of it.

    However, this happens even on Nvidia side of things (But I don't know about the length of things not being fixed).

  9. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by Shakadam View Post
    This narrative of Nvidia "just works" and "plug and play" is also strange because a quick trip to the Nvidia support forums shows that to be a lie, but the internet hive-mind is weirdly obsessed with instantly ignoring or forgetting any issues Nvidia has while droning on and on about AMD issues even several years later. I honestly don't know why but it's been like that for many years.
    I dont know man, as someone that builds lots of PCs for generally people on a budget, which means very often, have to go for VFM instead of the actually best option for them i can definitely say that AMD has a lot of issues.

    There was a period was example i only put R9 280X for everyone because the price was absurdly low in our country, realistically, 3 years after most if not all of them had issues and had to be replaced, all models, Sapphire, XFX, all simply started having issues, black screens, usual dying VRAM, etc.

    My own personal experience, i bought a 5850, BSOD out of the box, if i recall that model had major undervolting issues one of their batches, the shop literally sent them all back, and 5 years later, when i went to buy a R9 270X for a family member, BSOD right after the drivers cause of overvolting issues on that Sapphire model, both times went back, got a 8800GT and a 760 on the next one.

    Or the 5700XT issues that appeared 6 months ago, they are plaguing a few models, while some others (more expensive options) seem to not have any.

    So, as someone with half a brain, i know all these hardware faults arent exactly AMD, cause Nvidia cards at time have some same issues (Had a Palit batch of 960s with voltage issues as example) which simply means its the reselling companies fucking up, probably cheapening out on components or terrible voltage scaling when combined with the drivers and not the GPU manufacturer.

    But the driver issues are 100% legit in favor of Nvidia and they are much more stable on a decent, well taken care off PC.

    So, personal experience of 12 years of dealing with this shit? Stay away from AMD if you can afford it, but its literal RNG what problems you might have.
    Last edited by potis; 2020-06-30 at 11:41 AM.

  10. #10
    The short answer is, yes. The long answer is yes.

    Nvidia has always (far as I can remember, past 20+ years) been far far superior when it comes to drivers and stability.
    That's has sorta been their bread and butter to make up for well, other areas.

  11. #11
    Quote Originally Posted by tomten View Post
    The short answer is, yes. The long answer is yes.
    This /10char
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  12. #12
    In my experience AMD/Ati GPU drivers are by far the worst thing about their gpu products.

    Had two ATI GPUs, each used for several years, and had a ton of issues in most games i played at the time which were confirmed as "AMD only" but never fixed.

  13. #13
    Quote Originally Posted by MatthewOU2015 View Post
    I was using a 5700 and it was horrible at all times. It was fine for the first couple of days but after that, the issues started happening from black screens, freezing, BSOD, etc. The "fixes" were complete and total BS imo. One tech told me to reinstall windows, DDU, etc. Another person told me to disable a PCI-E port no joke. I was also told to roll back windows updates, AMD software, roll back bios lol, uninstall certain games. I was also told to disable free sync which is dumb because why would I disable the only feature of my monitor? Terrible AMD software and support made me return my GPU. I am ordering an RTX 2060 super and will be happy to just plug and play my GPU. Nobody should go through 10 steps in order to have a working graphics card.
    Yes the ATi side of AMD has always had awful drivers, this goes back years (10+) where 3rd party drivers performed better.

  14. #14
    Quote Originally Posted by potis View Post
    I dont know man, as someone that builds lots of PCs for generally people on a budget, which means very often, have to go for VFM instead of the actually best option for them i can definitely say that AMD has a lot of issues.

    There was a period was example i only put R9 280X for everyone because the price was absurdly low in our country, realistically, 3 years after most if not all of them had issues and had to be replaced, all models, Sapphire, XFX, all simply started having issues, black screens, usual dying VRAM, etc.

    My own personal experience, i bought a 5850, BSOD out of the box, if i recall that model had major undervolting issues one of their batches, the shop literally sent them all back, and 5 years later, when i went to buy a R9 270X for a family member, BSOD right after the drivers cause of overvolting issues on that Sapphire model, both times went back, got a 8800GT and a 760 on the next one.

    Or the 5700XT issues that appeared 6 months ago, they are plaguing a few models, while some others (more expensive options) seem to not have any.

    So, as someone with half a brain, i know all these hardware faults arent exactly AMD, cause Nvidia cards at time have some same issues (Had a Palit batch of 960s with voltage issues as example) which simply means its the reselling companies fucking up, probably cheapening out on components or terrible voltage scaling when combined with the drivers and not the GPU manufacturer.

    But the driver issues are 100% legit in favor of Nvidia and they are much more stable on a decent, well taken care off PC.

    So, personal experience of 12 years of dealing with this shit? Stay away from AMD if you can afford it, but its literal RNG what problems you might have.
    Pretty much my experience aswell. AMD has had more hardware issues overall too. For Nvidia we have G8x and G9x series GPU issues (pretty much manufacturing oversight which wasnt discovered until a shitload was made already), GTX 400 and 500 series heatspreader and power consumption woes, memory voltage regulator issues on some 700 and 900 series and that's about it. For AMD we had hardware issues with pretty much every single series: the substrate/silicon separation issues that date back all the way to first GCN chips (and first x64 chipsets for the desktop and mobile for that matter) - same issue Nvidia was having with G8x and G9x series (and Intel with their ICH6-9 series southbridges) which got fixed relatively fast after discovery, but AMD hasnt fixed this until Polaris/AM4. What's worse is that A-series mobile APUs are still being produced with that flaw (dont buy that shit, but that's probably obvious since those still use 2011 architecture anyway). Then we add badly designed reference boards and the fact that some board partners were allowed to build custom boards that were even worse than reference, and this is still happening... this post is too long.
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  15. #15
    Haven't had many parts go defective since I started developing a moderate interest in computing some 20 years ago. The only defective components I did encounter were ATI and AMD cards; artifacting, driver problems, over heating, etc.

    Does this mean that current AMD cards are horrible? I don't know. What I do know, is that I've never had any issues with Nvidia cards and for this reason have always been able to resel them which used to be a big deal, as a student on a budget. Now I just don't bother with anything AMD, eventhough I know their CPUs are pretty great; Intel and Nvidia have always worked and I'm not on a budget, so I'll go with what provides performance and quality, regardless of the 'premium' you allegedly pay for it.
    success comes in the form of technical solutions to problems, not appeals to our emotional side

  16. #16
    The reason why i change from AMD to Nvidia years ago because drivers was so bad

  17. #17
    Quote Originally Posted by MatthewOU2015 View Post
    I was using a 5700 and it was horrible at all times. It was fine for the first couple of days but after that, the issues started happening from black screens, freezing, BSOD, etc. The "fixes" were complete and total BS imo. One tech told me to reinstall windows, DDU, etc. Another person told me to disable a PCI-E port no joke. I was also told to roll back windows updates, AMD software, roll back bios lol, uninstall certain games. I was also told to disable free sync which is dumb because why would I disable the only feature of my monitor? Terrible AMD software and support made me return my GPU. I am ordering an RTX 2060 super and will be happy to just plug and play my GPU. Nobody should go through 10 steps in order to have a working graphics card.
    There is a long standing joke that AMD drivers have always been terrible.

    Look I used AMD graphics cards for 10 years before switching to Nvidia, and the majority of that time, they were terrible (the drivers not the cards).

  18. #18
    Quote Originally Posted by Heavens Night View Post
    There is a long standing joke that AMD drivers have always been terrible.

    Look I used AMD graphics cards for 10 years before switching to Nvidia, and the majority of that time, they were terrible (the drivers not the cards).
    I seriously doubt this. RX5700 drivers have been awful, sure, but stuff like R9 280 / 290 / RX400 / RX500 have been pretty flawless in driver performance. Mostly dumb people playing around 'overclocking' without the slightest clue, thanks to NVIDIA running their simplified 0 IQ OC interface. AMD's cards have been much more power hungry and hence volatile in terms of user-input settings for a decade.

  19. #19
    Quote Originally Posted by Gouca View Post
    I seriously doubt this. RX5700 drivers have been awful, sure, but stuff like R9 280 / 290 / RX400 / RX500 have been pretty flawless in driver performance. Mostly dumb people playing around 'overclocking' without the slightest clue, thanks to NVIDIA running their simplified 0 IQ OC interface. AMD's cards have been much more power hungry and hence volatile in terms of user-input settings for a decade.
    Honestly, I don't care you if doubt it or not. I used them for 10 years, my experience with their drivers was mostly poor to really crappy, and no I wasn't a "dumb" person playing around with overclocks.

  20. #20
    Quote Originally Posted by Heavens Night View Post
    Honestly, I don't care you if doubt it or not. I used them for 10 years, my experience with their drivers was mostly poor to really crappy, and no I wasn't a "dumb" person playing around with overclocks.
    Then again every Nvidia card I've had has broken after normal use. Do I think Nvidia cards are crap. No. Last card that blew up was over 6 years ago, I can draw no conclusion of their current line-up or build quality based on that previous experience. And even if I had my card blow up right now. I wouldn't put it up to every Nvidia card is crap built.

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