Originally Posted by Setix
But the first exception I had was the HD5970. For 600€ I paid (680USD) I had so many problems with drivers and probably bios that I swapped it with 2x GTX295... 2 weeks @ home and already swapped. Was expensive, and absolutely not mature. After 9.12 drivers, still some problems, and you have to tweak some settings manually to avoid lockups and crashes...
So what. ATI released some HD5970 with beta 5 drivers, and 2 a high end price.... in the watercooling forum you can see that some people are affected by issues that don't have to happen on high end products like this. It seems that these cards were not really mature, driver, bios or driver I don't care, I was furious and never do this stupid error again. Early adopting is not for me. I'm just worried about ATI to sell a card still bugged and looking as a beta sample, customers are NOT beta testers if they pay for a product and a service.
So... I'll probably not do it again and for Fermi I'll wait for reviews from others!
So it depends on what people are looking for. But what you say for graphic cards is so true for X86 based systems for example. Without virtualization, a Nehalem based server for standard purposes will be under utilized.
Finally maybe some games like Crysis will still be exceptions... but for the rest...
What's the most important thing for me is to have performance + stability. I prefer to have 10% less frame rate, but no driver issues, no temps issues, no bios issues, no issues because of non mature new features (powerplay?).
In the coming months, what I'll be looking for is how reliable the solutions are. If Fermi offers less power @ same price than ATI, but has a better reputation for stability amd maturity, I'll go for a Fermi. Or... keep my GTXs... will depend on how performance increase and how games and videos take benefits of this.
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