Gamers are ditching Radeon graphics cards over driver issues

[urbanman2004]

In my opinion, a lot of the bad press is unwarranted when most of the time, the issues are commonly caused by user error. In no way am I indemnifying AMD b/c they painted themselves as the culprit in this picture, but I will say that their 'delayed' response or lack thereof, diminishes their credibility as reliable. 3x of my systems are fitted w/ NVIDIA cards at the moment: X58 = GTX 680, Z97 = GTX 1070, X570 = GTX 1080TI. Would I be willing to give Radeon Graphics a chance? Maybe in the foreseeable future once a reveal for Big Navi is in the cards (no pun intended ?), but for now what's the point when their current offerings don't justify upgrading for my use case.

S/N: I guess I'm the only one late to the party putting 2&2 together w/ the realization that as long as I've been a member of TechSpot (since 2015), that they and Hardware Unboxed are one in the same. The gallery photos within TS's articles should've been a dead giveaway w/ Steve's showcase rig in the background. You learn something new everyday ?.

 

[m3tavision]

You have no idea how hard is to register on TS these days. Hell, I made an account long time ago, and then with new firefox versions that block tracking and intrusive cookies I could no longer log in here. So these new users might be old readers, you don't need account to read stuff here. This article probably provoked some of them to make an account to comment.

As for the other stuff you wrote, I agree. Just keep in mind that there are basic users that buy card install drivers, use the card. It stops working, starts working again, then stops again, then older drivers don't work either, they RMA. They don't need to know where exactly the issue is, not their job.

edit: also pushing 5600xt, that went through factory overclock last minute, out of spec, is being recommended here widely. That certainly doesn't help the issue. (don't ask me about the details, you have an usual hour long video on GN about it)

You are missing the point.
a) The poll is FUD and doesn't matter, it was trolled by nvidi0ts.
b) This is not a driver issue, it's a conflict issue.
c) The amount of people with said issues is very, very, very little... w/22 on reddit, who had a bad gpu and rma... and most others having freesync issues with framework. If this was a driver issue, then everyone would be having it. (2 things going on with Adrenalin, n00bs & bad cards = issues)


Yes, everyone is aware of 5600 release day bios update, that gave owners more fps before they even plugged in the card. Great bonus for AMD owners. You seem upset how they handled it..? It's fine and you don't need to be alarmed anymore. And the older Radeon card's drivers, become a non-issue because you (as everyone) can chose what drivers they want to run, or roll back too.



You, remind me of all these new people here (We welcome them), but it's funny how They pretend to be so hardware-woke, but have no clue about how often Drivers are released and things get fixed...? So why cryhard about it.

Just look at this title... Everything here is overblown and viral cheerleaders are screaming the sky is falling.... is humorous. GeForce is having their own issues, and driver issues have been happening for 20 years, none of this is news. It's not as widespread as reported... the internet is becoming cnn fake news.

 

[urbanman2004]

My first graphics card back in like 2004 was a AMD card. The drivers were so bad then that I got a Nvidia card and have only been buying Nvidia for the last 16 years...

I believe the brand of my AMD card was XFX.

You don't even know what you're talking a/b b/c AMD didn't even acquire ATI until 2006 which is the current iteration of RTG. I know this b/c the last "AMD" card from ATI I purchased was in 2007-2008.

 

[urbanman2004]

You are missing the point.
a) The poll is FUD and doesn't matter, it was trolled by nvidi0ts.
b) This is not a driver issue, it's a conflict issue.
c) The amount of people with said issues is very, very, very little... w/22 on reddit, who had a bad gpu and rma... and most others having freesync issues with framework. If this was a driver issue, then everyone would be having it. (2 things going on with Adrenalin, n00bs & bad cards.)

All these new people here, all so woke, but have no clue about how often Drivers are released and things get fixed...? For older cards, it is a none issue, because you (as everyone) can chose what drivers they want to run, or roll back too.

Many people are building new rigs, with new mobos and new stuff, there are bound to be conflicts. Same with reviewers... who mismatch hardware more often than anyone else.

Everything here is overblown and viral cheerleaders are screaming the sky is falling.... is humorous. GeForce is having their own issues, this has been happening for 20 years, none of this is news.

Couldn't have said it better myself. After building PC's on my own since 2007, I've ran into my fair share of troubleshooting issues across the spectrum, whether it be caused by products from Intel, AMD, NVIDIA, aftermarket board partners, or 3rd party PC peripheral manufacturers. All I gathered from what I've seen so far are trivial rants from douche fanboys or a bunch of newbs who have no clue what they're doing ?

 

[urbanman2004]

Techspot best graphic cards 2020 article has been revised to accommodate the driver issues with AMD

About time though, people voted with their wallets and 2060 Super and 2070 Super have always been the better cards according to Steam Hardware Survey

Steam Hardware Survey
Note: These 4 GPUs were all released on July 2019, meaning 2060S/2070S have had higher market adoption rate.

I would definitely take those stats w/ a grain of salt and not take it to heart. I decline those surveys every time Steam sends them my way and I have 3 rigs w/ NVIDIA GPU's not shown from your screenshot.

 

[krizby]

Couldn't have said it better myself. After building PC's on my own since 2007, I've ran into my fair share of troubleshooting issues across the spectrum, whether it be caused by products from Intel, AMD, NVIDIA, aftermarket board partners, or 3rd party PC peripheral manufacturers. All I gathered from what I've seen so far are trivial rants from douche fanboys or a bunch of newbs who have no clue what they're doing ?

Poll is literally the fairest way to ask for public opinion, pick your president ? Poll; leaving the EU ? Poll. Or would you rather Big Brother picking out your next GPU purchase ?
There will always be newbs and trolls and mismatch configuratons in both AMD and Nvidia camps, they balance each other out and make little difference to the end result.
Personal experience is not solid evidence, wanna prove something ? make a poll with enough sample size (59K vote is plenty). Even Der8auer has to ask his audience for a survey to prove that 50% of Ryzen 3000 did not reach their advertised speed.
Ryzen 3000 boost survey
(AMD later fixed this via Bios update)

I would definitely take those stats w/ a grain of salt and not take it to heart. I decline those surveys every time Steam sends them my way and I have 3 rigs w/ NVIDIA GPU's not shown from your screenshot.

Steam Hardware Survey track a portion of 125 millions active users, I don't think 3 machines is enough to make any minuscule difference.
Valve Fixes The Steam Hardware Survey

 

[urbanman2004]

Poll is literally the fairest way to ask for public opinion, pick your president ? Poll; leaving the EU ? Poll. Or would you rather Big Brother picking out your next GPU purchase ?
There will always be newbs and trolls and mismatch configuratons in both AMD and Nvidia camps, they balance each other out and make little difference to the end result.
Personal experience is not solid evidence, wanna prove something ? make a poll with enough sample size (59K vote is plenty). Even Der8auer has to ask his audience for a survey to prove that 50% of Ryzen 3000 did not reach their advertised speed.
Ryzen 3000 boost survey
(AMD later fixed this via Bios update)


Steam Hardware Survey track a portion of 125 millions active users, I don't think 3 machines is enough to make any minuscule difference.
Valve Fixes The Steam Hardware Survey

Based on your logic, all of those numerous polls with more of a sample size than what you just mentioned said that Donald Trump wasn't gonna win the 2016 US election should matter too, huh? Lmao

Also stay on topic, buddy since my original point of contention was based on GPU's, not CPU's, which is what this article's entirely a/b so your "Ryzen 3000" statement is irrelevant, but since you wanna go there, I could give 2 f**ks a/b the "advertised speed" you're referring to since I don't OC my 3700X so I'm fine w/ 3.6GHz. Gamers these days I tell you, are so limited in scope and point of view. Read a book or something to expand your knowledge.

track a portion of 125 millions active users

You just proved my point w/ your comment, smh.

 

[Evernessince]

Poll is literally the fairest way to ask for public opinion, pick your president ? Poll; leaving the EU ? Poll. Or would you rather Big Brother picking out your next GPU purchase ?
There will always be newbs and trolls and mismatch configuratons in both AMD and Nvidia camps, they balance each other out and make little difference to the end result.
Personal experience is not solid evidence, wanna prove something ? make a poll with enough sample size (59K vote is plenty). Even Der8auer has to ask his audience for a survey to prove that 50% of Ryzen 3000 did not reach their advertised speed.
Ryzen 3000 boost survey
(AMD later fixed this via Bios update)


Steam Hardware Survey track a portion of 125 millions active users, I don't think 3 machines is enough to make any minuscule difference.
Valve Fixes The Steam Hardware Survey

It really depends on how the polls are conducted, the questions asked, the people asked, ect. There are many polls being made designed to be misleading or produce a certain outcome. If I conduct a poll as part of a company to asses our environmental impact as required by the government, it's in my best interests to ask questions that are hard to get a negative response to and to ask people who are favorable or don't care about pollution. Like in the TechSpot poll as well, splitting the vote is also a typical tactic used wherein you ask a question where a voter might choose multiple answers but is only allowed one (TechSpot poll does this). Vague questions (Also like the techspot poll) are also a no-no. If the goal of your poll is to determine if people are in fact having the described issues with their radeon cards, you should ask that question directly and non-ambiguously. Making questions overly open just leads to misreporting.

Der8auer's poll was interesting because it shows how polls can be misleading in hindsight. After all, you can't really blame anyone for what they don't know. After the whole thing became an issue AMD came out and stated that utilities like HWInfo don't capture frequencies anywhere near quick enough to actually show each and every frequency change. The only thing AMD's boost fix bios did was make the frequencies stick longer so that the enthusiasts who populate Der8auer's channel don't freak out when their reporting utility can't keep up with the rapid changes AMD processors can make. It makes sense too, AMD processors can adjust the entire power state every 1ns, let alone singular values like frequency and voltage.

 

[Boshum]

Electronics fail in strange ways, sometimes you get sparks and flames and other times you get intermitent unexplained problems.
The fact is that you at some point conneted a grounded device to an ungrounded device!
The manufatures manuals suggest unpluging everthing before connecting equipment but they don't say why!.
I am a electronics technician and have grounded all of my eletronics to avoid this problem.
If your interested, do a google search for sparking HDMI or sparking USB and you will see the destruction going on when conneting grounded to ungrounded devices.

I will try to do that from now on. Is it your opinion then, that it could not have been the drivers or hardware causing some kind of GPU malfunction that could have destroyed the screen? Perhaps thru a spike in refresh rates or some other problem?

 

[Danny101]

I had the same problem with an ASUS PCE-AC68 and a 750 Ti. This was on my testing rig. The fix was to use newer broadcom drivers not provided by ASUS. Apparently a windows update caused the issue but ASUS never updated the drivers on it's website where as the chipset manufacturer did.

Huh. I also have an Asus WiFi card that kept losing connection. I just put it up and on ice hoping one day a solution will arise. I just figured it was going bad after 3 years of use. I'll look into it later and see if this fixes it. In the mean time, I just use a USB one. Never really liked that solution much except for the ease of switching from device to device which is funny because I never really do.

 

[krizby]

It really depends on how the polls are conducted, the questions asked, the people asked, ect. There are many polls being made designed to be misleading or produce a certain outcome. If I conduct a poll as part of a company to asses our environmental impact as required by the government, it's in my best interests to ask questions that are hard to get a negative response to and to ask people who are favorable or don't care about pollution. Like in the TechSpot poll as well, splitting the vote is also a typical tactic used wherein you ask a question where a voter might choose multiple answers but is only allowed one (TechSpot poll does this). Vague questions (Also like the techspot poll) are also a no-no. If the goal of your poll is to determine if people are in fact having the described issues with their radeon cards, you should ask that question directly and non-ambiguously. Making questions overly open just leads to misreporting.

Der8auer's poll was interesting because it shows how polls can be misleading in hindsight. After all, you can't really blame anyone for what they don't know. After the whole thing became an issue AMD came out and stated that utilities like HWInfo don't capture frequencies anywhere near quick enough to actually show each and every frequency change. The only thing AMD's boost fix bios did was make the frequencies stick longer so that the enthusiasts who populate Der8auer's channel don't freak out when their reporting utility can't keep up with the rapid changes AMD processors can make. It makes sense too, AMD processors can adjust the entire power state every 1ns, let alone singular values like frequency and voltage.

Testing RYZEN 3000 Boost Fix
AMD Ryzen Boost Frequency Fix Benchmarked
Der8auer did force AMD to come out with bios that increase the boost clocks by 25-100mhz with tangible performance improvement to single core operation, there is no denying it there. AMD acknowledged the situation when enough sample tests were presented to them and they fixed it. Polls like this is the quickest way to attract public attention and make corporation to finally fix their turd. If AMD stayed the way it it, you will be using last year driver probably forever.

 

[Evernessince]

Huh. I also have an Asus WiFi card that kept losing connection. I just put it up and on ice hoping one day a solution will arise. I just figured it was going bad after 3 years of use. I'll look into it later and see if this fixes it. In the mean time, I just use a USB one. Never really liked that solution much except for the ease of switching from device to device which is funny because I never really do.

I'm not sure if all ASUS wifi cards have a broadcom chipset but this is what you are looking for:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Windows10/comments/47kw5a

While it could be just a card going bad, it certainly can't hurt to try the driver.

 

[Evernessince]

You have no idea how hard is to register on TS these days. Hell, I made an account long time ago, and then with new firefox versions that block tracking and intrusive cookies I could no longer log in here. So these new users might be old readers, you don't need account to read stuff here. This article probably provoked some of them to make an account to comment.

As for the other stuff you wrote, I agree. Just keep in mind that there are basic users that buy card install drivers, use the card. It stops working, starts working again, then stops again, then older drivers don't work either, they RMA. They don't need to know where exactly the issue is, not their job.

edit: also pushing 5600xt, that went through factory overclock last minute, out of spec, is being recommended here widely. That certainly doesn't help the issue. (don't ask me about the details, you have an usual hour long video on GN about it)

It's really not hard at all to create a new account. The problem isn't per say making an account, it's the fact that they can post everywhere immediately. A lot of other websites put time restrictions, posting restrictions, ect on new accounts. Not using those is just asking for trouble.

 

[bigless]

Why aren't people using DDU to clean install their drivers?
....

Ppl without personal experience with RDNA, please stop giving advices and blaming ppl. DDU was first thing I did and I am facing issues anyway. Just check release note's since July 2019. Basically, they release new features or minor fixes(f.e. VR which affects 0.03% users) and add/keep serious issues in footer. Every development team is priority driven at first place, but there is one team...

 

[bigless]

Look at how many brand new nVidia fans have appeared here, because of this article.

So many new faces, that are just badmouthing AMD out of nowhere. As if these people didn't have accounts anywhere, on any forums, until they bought a 5700..? Who are all these people, that everyone is claiming is having a new Adrenalin issue?

Even the people on reddit with legit issues, are finding out it's a hardware conflict, and/or an actual bad card (bad memory). Or they don't cycle their monitor after new freesync updates, etc.

Exactly! I guess, exactly this kind of thinking has whole AMD GPU driver team. "Who are all these ppl sending us tickets? Where do they come from?? They must be troublemakers paid by Nvidia! Lets delete it...mm..no it doesn't look good. I got it! Just list these issues under Known issues..so we know about them, they know about us that we know about them and everyone is happy!"

 

[Ludak021]

It's really not hard at all to create a new account. The problem isn't per say making an account, it's the fact that they can post everywhere immediately. A lot of other websites put time restrictions, posting restrictions, ect on new accounts. Not using those is just asking for trouble.

you don't understand, TS likes to (allegedly) put tracking cookies, ads and god knows what, which adblocker and FF don't allow and you can't even log in, let alone register. And since their site is the only one I came across with this problem my conclusion is obvious. I had to use another browser to reclaim my my account while allowing all their ads and cookies.

 

[CharmsD]

I still don't understand how you have issue with the 48% figure when you yourself should have been included in it. You were suggesting using a stable driver that is 2 months old, meaning there are serious problems with drivers that have been releasing in the past 2 months.

Forgot what he said? On the internet everyone can become a professional pollster or poll critiquer. A stunning 98% of business polls are conjoint analysis on the nature of which "attributes" are desirable to a customer.

• Like Toast? Y or N
• Like Jelly? Y or N
• Red Jelly? Y or N
• Purple Jelly? Y or N

Purple Jelly Inc., wants to see nothin' but YYNY. That's it, that is what business do.
"Don't tell me about bad stuff, I don't want to know", said the CEO.

Has AMD or any other tech-product company recently asked "what's up with your brand new $BAD-hardware?" They will never ask customers about problems publicly, when pressed, they apologize to the "few" who were affected and fake-promise that a fix is coming, which seldom/rarely does.

When AMD software and hardware issues are brought up - that has been a constant for over a decade, it's a war-call to AMdidots to pronounce forum users as quackars, noobs, bots, and to proclaim madly "fake accounts recently created, those people must be paid shills!"

Quote: "So many new faces, that are just badmouthing AMD out of nowhere. As if these people didn't have accounts anywhere, on any forums, until they bought a 5700..? Who are all these people, that everyone is claiming is having a new Adrenalin issue" ​

Mansplainin' more virulent than Corona Covid-'020 vintage influenza.

The question with the poll was: "With your CURRENT graphics card, have you experienced any serious GPU driver issues in its lifetime? This might include persistent game crashes, black screens, system hangs, broken features, fan issues, clock speed issues, etc."

Maybe 5% of AMD user might have had game crashes, black screen, system hangs; but pretty much the majority of AMD users are suffering from the broken feature (enhanced sync, freesync, PCIe 4.0, Wattman, etc...), fan issues (widely reported), clock speed issues (low 1080p performances).

In his video "Can We Still Recommend Radeon GPUs? AMD Driver Issues Discussed"
the view count is 158,637 since Feb 13, 2020.
There are >4,500 comments posted (as of this morning), so after tallying 1000 complaints posted by the viewers - specifically on "NEW" Radeon 5x video card's problems, 5% seems to be far to the left.

Que linxidots: "but but amd workie-workie fine". Sure champs, noted.

 

[3ogdy]

Not funny at all: Rocking an HD6950 CF setup I experienced the same issues even though I haven't received updated drivers in a while for these GPUs. I removed the 2nd GPU and problems are not as frequent but they persist.

Most common issue: screens go into sleep mode and after a while the PC freezes. No way to wake it up without a hard reboot. Nothing in Event Viewer to help me out with that either. I can see the system is frozen because the clock on my G15 freezes. Sometimes the system freezes even with the screens on.
Next most common: Displays through DP show a distorted image after waking up. Problem is solved by turning the main screen off and then on again. Obviously, a GPU issue.

Seeing this as an AMD user certainly doesn't make me want to consider an AMD GPU for my (much needed) upgrade.

 

[3ogdy]

The conspiracy theorist in me almost believes that there is code in place either natively in Windows or in some nvidia/intel driver which purposefully destabilizes their cards. I just don't see how they can be so good in other aspects yet consistently botch the drivers, ruining the user experience.

Well, I have the black screen issues on an all-AMD system. Whose drivers are harming my GPU drivers now? Microsoft's? Had it been the case, most people would've experienced the issues, right?

 

[Dimitrios]

Not funny at all: Rocking an HD6950 CF setup I experienced the same issues even though I haven't received updated drivers in a while for these GPUs. I removed the 2nd GPU and problems are not as frequent but they persist.

Most common issue: screens go into sleep mode and after a while the PC freezes. No way to wake it up without a hard reboot. Nothing in Event Viewer to help me out with that either. I can see the system is frozen because the clock on my G15 freezes. Sometimes the system freezes even with the screens on.
Next most common: Displays through DP show a distorted image after waking up. Problem is solved by turning the main screen off and then on again. Obviously, a GPU issue.

Seeing this as an AMD user certainly doesn't make me want to consider an AMD GPU for my (much needed) upgrade.

I had this problem maybe 1-3 times ( while back ) with my RX 560 4GB OC card after owning it for 2-3 years. My drivers are old and games play stable. FARCRY 5 ULTRA settings on 1080p with a Phenom 965 X 4, 1TB HDD, 8GB of oc DDR2 ram I get around 40-57FPS and my drivers are embarrassing old -------------------------------> 17.10.1 and Driver Packaging Version 17.30.2822-171005a-318722e- CrimsonReLive

It happen if it was in SLEEP mode for a long time, it wouldn't wake up and the screen was black.

 

[tom111]

I never had any Problems with my 290X on Windows.
Currently I am using a Vega 64 LC on maOS.

 

[Evernessince]

you don't understand, TS likes to (allegedly) put tracking cookies, ads and god knows what, which adblocker and FF don't allow and you can't even log in, let alone register. And since their site is the only one I came across with this problem my conclusion is obvious. I had to use another browser to reclaim my my account while allowing all their ads and cookies.

Hmm, odd. I use firefox and have no such issues.

 

[Evernessince]

Has AMD or any other tech-product company recently asked "what's up with your brand new $BAD-hardware?" They will never ask customers about problems publicly, when pressed, they apologize to the "few" who were affected and fake-promise that a fix is coming, which seldom/rarely does.

I should probably point out that a good chunk of companies do address problems publicly. Valve addressed Index stick drift issues, sounds issues, ect with customers directly on reddit. It's fairly common and AMD does it too.

There are definitely companies that don't but the number the companies engaging directly with customers have gone way up since the beginning of sites like reddit that allow direct interaction.

Of course, they won't respond to a hyperbole laden post like the one you came up with above. Like you'd expect, many assess the situation and then make a move. It doesn't make much sense to overstate the problem without the facts. You seem to be under the impression that it would be wise for companies to take action first, think later.

People who read the Tech news often wonder if companies have nothing but issues with their products and of course, that idea is incorrect. People having fun playing games on their video cards or new Valve Index headset don't make the news and thus the news has a propensity to trend towards the negative. Problems are what get the clicks, this is fact.

 

[Dimitrios]

I should probably point out that a good chunk of companies do address problems publicly. Valve addressed Index stick drift issues, sounds issues, ect with customers directly on reddit. It's fairly common and AMD does it too.

There are definitely companies that don't but the number the companies engaging directly with customers have gone way up since the beginning of sites like reddit that allow direct interaction.

Of course, they won't respond to a hyperbole laden post like the one you came up with above. Like you'd, expect, many assess the situation and then make a move. It doesn't make much sense to overstate the problem without the facts. You seem to be under the impression that it would be wise for companies to take action first, think later.

People who read the Tech news often wonder if companies have nothing but issues with their products and of course, that idea is incorrect. People having fun playing games on their video cards or new Valve Index headset don't make the news and thus the news has a propensity to trend towards the negative. Problems are what get the clicks, this is fact.

Well said. This can relate to car issues. Only the bad get heard and put on scrutiny.

 

[Irata]

Poll is literally the fairest way to ask for public opinion, pick your president ? Poll;...

The problem with polls is that it's people who are interested in this topic that will reply to this in the first place. And those who are - for whatever reason - particularly interested will maybe reply more than once to push their agenda.

The second problem is that you are assuming people are both mentally sane and do not have an agenda or even commercial interests.

Yeah, sorry, the internet has done a great job giving the united village *****s of this world a platform. There may be one or two per village but the world has many, many villages...

Just look at this forum - how many people signed up to post about their poor experience with "ATI" / AMD cards many, many, years ago. Does this seem normal to you in any way ? Why do they even feel the need to "save" people from the evil AMD cards ?

Then go to places like Wccftech where you have several people with multiple aliases / accounts spreading their fud and trolling and you can tell they are doing this on other sites as well. Also, "but their drivers are bad" is the standard line used against AMD for ages.

This is why I personally do not take this that seriously. Now, if the article writer had said "yes, I have had these problems, many of my friends and family have had this problem" it would be different. But the author said the exact opposite.

Do you think it is that difficult to spam a poll ? Statistics by time and IP address would be very interesting here.

Again, not saying that there aren't people having problems, but I think this is being blown out of proportion.