Chat, what is your preferred AMD GPU vendor? I have had mixed results. My biggest gripe is acoustics - squealing, screeching, coil whine, etc. I've had mixed results with PowerColor, terrible results with Sapphire. I have an ASRock Taichi card (7900XTX) that is so large the pcb/frame began to bend and that introduced a noise into the fans. The support bracketry that came with the card was missing all hardware, so I ran without it for a while. Perhaps that is on me. I supported it with a snus can and it has slowly cooked itself back to being straight. I always prefer the aesthetic of the reference cards, but believe the aftermarket manufacturers do a better job with cooling.
I have an RX 6700 XT from AMD themselves and it's great.
The reason I went down that route was that the AIB partners all beef the cards coolers up and thus the dimensions. I build in small SFF cases for travel reasons and usually end up undervolting and downclocking my cards so I really don't need the monster coolers the AIBs are so fond of.
Unfortunately they generally only seem to be available in limited quantities and for a limited time which is a real shame.
I've personally had a good experience with XFX cards. I haven't had that many (not a hardcore gamer), but they've all worked perfectly well over multiple years, and never developed any kind on noise. The youngest is a 5600XT I bought used in 2020.
They have never been top of the line models, but one or two steps down. I've always used "silent" cases, since I hate noise with a passion, but I'm not sure how much that actually changes things.
I have had Sapphire cards for the last 10+ years and have always liked them enough to go back. Maybe I've been lucky, but my cards have been cool and quiet.
On my last build I completely bypassed the issue. I minimized noise and improved thermals by deshrouding the GPU (Zotac Amp 3080) and using 120mm Noctua fans for cooling, as shown in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUaZVpN51Po
In your case, it seems that investing in some case-specific support bracket for $10 would have prevented all issues, so I'm unsure why you propose vendor switching as the solution.
After experiencing coil whining with one game and loud fans after extended perios of full load on the system (CPU+GPU), I switched to an aftermarket all-in one liquid cooling system, like Alphacool Eiswolf. I just think that the standard 3 fans blowing air onto the GPU kill most useful airflow in every PC case and with every vendor that uses this style.
I've had issues on many cards, this was just one example.
Every GPU I have ever had, particularly AMD, have been noisy cards. I have hyperacusis and can hear a butterfly fart a block away, so silence is paramount to me.
I don't even allow deep sleep states on my Intel processors because I can hear it. Modern motherboards are beginning to include "acoustic adaptations" to try and fix, but they rarely work in my experience.
What helped me with the fan noise for extended periods of CPU + GPU load was moving the GPU one PCIE port over. Initially, the GPU was very close to the CPU's heatsink (millimeters away).
I know this isn't always possible with newer CPUs which tend to be stingy with PCIE lanes, but in my case, I have a boatload of them, so I could do it with no issue.
My past two AMD cards have been Sapphire. First, an RX 5700 XT Nitro+ and second an RX 6900 XT Nitro+ SE.
The first was used on a machine on my desk while the latter is in a living room gaming machine. It’s harder to judge the 6900 because of the increased distance from it while running but the 5700 had no coil whine.
The EVGA 3080 Ti FTW3 in the machine at my desk on the other hand can be quite audible at times, particularly during some menu screens in games. It’s a great card otherwise.
I was surprised on how well Mistral's `mixtral` model runs on my work's MBP M1 Max 64GiB. I thought it'd be a total slog but it does work well enough to replace ChatGPT for quite a lot of use-cases.
Just curious if you're using it for gaming or other uses? I find it wild that $300 cards are the cheap end now when buying one for that 10 years ago was spending over 50% of my builds price on an upgrade part. Normally I find used eBay mining cards and run with them for four years.
What distro are you using that it worked out of the box? I threw my 580x on an ubuntu fork a few years ago and had a hell of a time getting it working.
Went from 480 to 7800 on Arch, both Just Worked (install Mesa and that's about it). On the other hand I tried like 3 different 5600s a few years ago, and it was unstable enough that I got it replaced with a 580 (basically a rebadged 480).
You can also buy a used card. Most mid+ cards from the last 5 years are quite capable. I got a 5700 XT to play some games and it’s I think better than any console you can buy? Cost $170 I think. Can do 1440p in most games still
I’ve got a regular RX 6600 (non-XT), and it’s been fantastic for the mostly older and/or indie games I tend to play, even at 1440p.
Eager to know how this will compare. I’d like something beefier than what I have now, but what used to buy you a whole upper-mid-range PC barely covers an upper-mid-range GPU.
There are rumors AMD won't do high end cards anymore. So 7900xtx becomes the last one to compete with NVidia on that front.
Honestly, after owning 7900xtx for one year, I find it difficult to saturate it with tasks. I only play non-graphics heavy games like rimworld or aoe2de. Sometimes I play Hogwards Legacy with my partner, and the performance there is not the highest imaginable. But I read online that is because the game is not well optimized. Perhaps, you don't even need more powerfull graphics, since games are oriented at mid-market anyways.
>There are rumors AMD won't do high end cards anymore.
No there aren't. There are rumors AMD isn't doing a high end card for the next generation. That isn't the same thing.
In any case, graphics cards are improving faster than the ability to make use of the power, especially with upscaling technology. Now that "midrange" cards are able to hit 144hz at 1440p with maximum graphics, the market for high-end is probably going to dry up a bit, at least until full path tracing is viable, or 4k monitors get cheaper.
What would make sense for AMD is to spend less time on fancy hardware architectures (dual-chip GPUs) and more time focusing on getting AI working well, improving their software stack, and not having issues like the "power bug" that supposedly held back the 7000 series GPUs from reaching their intended performance goals. I expect that's what they're doing.
The rumor is that RDNA 4 is a mulligan gen for AMD while they get chiplet based GPUs ready for RDNA 5 in 2025. While Nvidia is going fully monolithic for Blackwell and won’t be using chiplets until at least the 6000 series. So there’s a chance AMD could actually pull out in front of Big Green in two years.
The Dell is mostly just for productivity as there is a tonne of real estate. I have ADHD and I get totally distracted when I don’t have all the windows on the same screen, then my chain of thought slips and I can’t remember what I am doing. I still get this on the 8K screen, but it’s more manageable.
Of course, I cannot go to native resolution because the windows are so small I can only read anything - 200% is good for me. I found it 2nd hand off eBay for a good bit less than what you said.
Meanwhile, the AMD Radeon RX 7600M XT GPU exists and is used in both new portable eGPUs: the GPD G1 (which I own) and the ONEXGPU which is being crowdfunded right now. It is a slightly more powerful version of the 7700S. I am sure this naming makes sense and it's only me who misses something.
One of the reasons I never ever consider AMD hardware when I'm looking to buy something is because the naming schemes do not make any sense.
For example: Did you know some Ryzen 7000 CPUs, introduced with the Zen 4 architecture, are Zen 2 and Zen 3 and also Zen 3+?[1] Did you know Ryzen 3000 spans Zen, Zen+, and Zen 2?[2]
And here's the kicker: Ryzen 5000 is the 4th generation of Ryzen CPUs, based on Zen 3 which is the 4th generation of Zen, except the Ryzen APUs which are based on Zen 2 which is the 3rd generation of Zen.
Oh by the way, Zen 4 is the 6th generation of Zen.
Yeah. I very sincerely ain't got time for this fucking nonsense.
Intel is not any better with their increasingly long number names. I guess Apple so far has followed a logical numbering scheme but they only have a few SKUs compared to hundreds from AMD and Intel
From Ryzen 7000 forward, the third number is the core generation, and this weird mixing is only true outside desktop too (see the 5600X3D).
That's also because AMD keeps die shrinking older generations of processors (i.e. the Steam Deck), but not as far down as Zen 4 because they're still capacity limited there. So it makes sense to keep 6-7nm designs alive for longer.
> Yeah. I very sincerely ain't got time for this fucking nonsense.
aye, is also most of what you said. if following a naming schema is too hard for you mon ami then stop buying hardware independently and pick up whatever Alienware is releasing this quarter.
Readit News
I have an RX 6700 XT from AMD themselves and it's great.
The reason I went down that route was that the AIB partners all beef the cards coolers up and thus the dimensions. I build in small SFF cases for travel reasons and usually end up undervolting and downclocking my cards so I really don't need the monster coolers the AIBs are so fond of.
Unfortunately they generally only seem to be available in limited quantities and for a limited time which is a real shame.
It's so bad I thought my card was defective the first time I heard it. It's usually fine if I cap framerate to a reasonable number though.
They have never been top of the line models, but one or two steps down. I've always used "silent" cases, since I hate noise with a passion, but I'm not sure how much that actually changes things.
After experiencing coil whining with one game and loud fans after extended perios of full load on the system (CPU+GPU), I switched to an aftermarket all-in one liquid cooling system, like Alphacool Eiswolf. I just think that the standard 3 fans blowing air onto the GPU kill most useful airflow in every PC case and with every vendor that uses this style.
Every GPU I have ever had, particularly AMD, have been noisy cards. I have hyperacusis and can hear a butterfly fart a block away, so silence is paramount to me.
I don't even allow deep sleep states on my Intel processors because I can hear it. Modern motherboards are beginning to include "acoustic adaptations" to try and fix, but they rarely work in my experience.
I know this isn't always possible with newer CPUs which tend to be stingy with PCIE lanes, but in my case, I have a boatload of them, so I could do it with no issue.
And yeah, with the monster-sized high-end GPUs, you'll need to take some precautions no matter the brand.
The first was used on a machine on my desk while the latter is in a living room gaming machine. It’s harder to judge the 6900 because of the increased distance from it while running but the 5700 had no coil whine.
The EVGA 3080 Ti FTW3 in the machine at my desk on the other hand can be quite audible at times, particularly during some menu screens in games. It’s a great card otherwise.
EVGA used to be go-to vendor for Nvidia but since they're gone I'd settle for Gainward and its derivatives (Palit, Galax, KFA2)
16GBs of ram don't come out often at that price range.
Dead Comment
Not sure what became of my Radeon 7200 but I have a sweet Radeon HD 7770 (GHz Edition!!!) that still works.
A bit sad about the TDP, from 160W to 190W, but the price remains cheap at $329
I plan to upgrade to a bigger screen so this looks like the perfect upgrade for me
What distro are you using that it worked out of the box? I threw my 580x on an ubuntu fork a few years ago and had a hell of a time getting it working.
The natural consequence of printing a ton of money
> I threw my 580x on an ubuntu fork a few years ago
I’ve found AMD cards to be the most stable under Linux
My gaming setup runs on Arch Linux, i had a RX 580 just before that one, i don't remember having issues setting it up
2. Low-end GPUs have been/are being attempted to be mostly replaced by APUs (at least on the AMD side) which kinda makes sense.
3. Normal pricing has gone outta the window ever since the NFT craze (or demand if you wanna put it that way) and now the AI craze.
Eager to know how this will compare. I’d like something beefier than what I have now, but what used to buy you a whole upper-mid-range PC barely covers an upper-mid-range GPU.
Honestly, after owning 7900xtx for one year, I find it difficult to saturate it with tasks. I only play non-graphics heavy games like rimworld or aoe2de. Sometimes I play Hogwards Legacy with my partner, and the performance there is not the highest imaginable. But I read online that is because the game is not well optimized. Perhaps, you don't even need more powerfull graphics, since games are oriented at mid-market anyways.
No there aren't. There are rumors AMD isn't doing a high end card for the next generation. That isn't the same thing.
In any case, graphics cards are improving faster than the ability to make use of the power, especially with upscaling technology. Now that "midrange" cards are able to hit 144hz at 1440p with maximum graphics, the market for high-end is probably going to dry up a bit, at least until full path tracing is viable, or 4k monitors get cheaper.
What would make sense for AMD is to spend less time on fancy hardware architectures (dual-chip GPUs) and more time focusing on getting AI working well, improving their software stack, and not having issues like the "power bug" that supposedly held back the 7000 series GPUs from reaching their intended performance goals. I expect that's what they're doing.
But the real dream is the tv which plays 4K at 120hz.
If you at least want to future proof your graphics card, surely you’d want to know about 4K support at the very least.
Of course, I cannot go to native resolution because the windows are so small I can only read anything - 200% is good for me. I found it 2nd hand off eBay for a good bit less than what you said.
For example: Did you know some Ryzen 7000 CPUs, introduced with the Zen 4 architecture, are Zen 2 and Zen 3 and also Zen 3+?[1] Did you know Ryzen 3000 spans Zen, Zen+, and Zen 2?[2]
And here's the kicker: Ryzen 5000 is the 4th generation of Ryzen CPUs, based on Zen 3 which is the 4th generation of Zen, except the Ryzen APUs which are based on Zen 2 which is the 3rd generation of Zen.
Oh by the way, Zen 4 is the 6th generation of Zen.
Yeah. I very sincerely ain't got time for this fucking nonsense.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryzen#Mobile_6
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryzen#Ryzen_3000
That's also because AMD keeps die shrinking older generations of processors (i.e. the Steam Deck), but not as far down as Zen 4 because they're still capacity limited there. So it makes sense to keep 6-7nm designs alive for longer.
> Yeah. I very sincerely ain't got time for this fucking nonsense.
aye, is also most of what you said. if following a naming schema is too hard for you mon ami then stop buying hardware independently and pick up whatever Alienware is releasing this quarter.