Today we will convince (or maybe not) our dear reader to make a choice in favor of the not-so-popular, but no less interesting AMD Radeon graphics cards. It’s hard to convince someone from the opposite camp to this side, but we’ve collected a dozen arguments and will discuss each of the reasons in more detail.
Content
Lower cost
It is difficult to fight against the monopolist Nvidia, so AMD is forced to dump prices to attract customers. The cost of video cards of the same class from both manufacturers always differs in favor of AMD.
As a rule, Radeon GPUs have a higher gaming productivity per hryvnia, sometimes much higher. Of course, the situation with ray tracing is somewhat different, as it is with work programs, but they remain the most profitable for the vast majority of computer games.
The price drop is also felt more strongly for AMD Radeon, so after a year and a half, stores make serious discounts on «red», although the video cards are still very relevant and «pull» all games.
So far, Nvidia will be sold like hotcakes as long as they keep the price high, and the drop in Radeon prices is due to low demand. That’s why buying AMD is almost always a good deal.
Large storage capacity
AMD Radeon graphics cards usually have a larger amount of video memory than competitors in the same class. The VRAM chips themselves are not too expensive, so the manufacturer does not spare them, generously filling them with memory. Pros the same cost you can get an Nvidia GPU with 16 GB of VRAM or a Radeon GPU with 24 GB of VRAM.
Older generations are no less interesting: RX 6800 with 16 GB has a direct competitor RTX 3070 with 8 GB of memory, RX 6700 XT 12 GB versus RTX 3060 Ti 8 GB, and so on. As practice shows, in poorly optimized ports of AAA games from consoles, this can give a serious advantage, especially in Ultra HD resolution.
Open-source software
AMD Radeon software is open and encourages talented developers to contribute to its improvement. For this, Radeon is respected by Linux fans who love the freedom without restrictions from the hardware manufacturer.
«Console» compatibility
No one has been developing video games for AAA computers for a very long time, but only porting them from consoles that run on super-powerful APU from AMD. Because of this, many games for gaming consoles run well on AMD Radeon, showing better performance than similar Nvidia ones.
To be fair, it is worth noting one important nuance. The trick is that this rule applies mostly (not always) to poorly optimized games that were neither given enough attention nor perfectly adapted to PCs.
In a poorly optimized project, a gamer has a chance that their Radeon graphics card will work better because for a console port, this hardware is closer than «foreigner» Nvidia.
Friendship with AMD APUs
Many users build a computer with integrated graphics. AMD is the leader in this regard, as their APUs have the highest performance in games and beyond. What are AMD’s advantages? Ryzen 5 8600G and Ryzen 7 8700G — are suitable not only for work, but also for a lot of fun.
This is all well and good, but at some point, a gamer will want more productive graphics for fresh AAA projects. In this case, you will have to switch to a discrete solution. Installing an AMD Radeon GPU will be as painless as possible because the driver for the APU and video card is the same.
All the necessary software is already on the computer, you just need to install the video card in the slot and start working. If you use both graphics, displaying images from the motherboard and video card at the same time, then with Nvidia you will have to keep AMD Adrenaline and Nvidia APP on your computer, updating the drivers for each graphics separately.
Compact flagships
Reference models AMD Radeons are smaller than similar ones from Nvidia, especially for flagships. Although the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX is not very quiet, it can be installed in small cases with underclocking and limited TDP to 90% because its size allows it.
You won’t achieve perfect silence under such conditions, but everything will look neat, restrained, and compact. The main thing is to monitor the temperature in ITX cases and there will be no problems.
The photo shows how much smaller the reference RX 7900 XTX is than the RTX 4070 Ti Super in MSI Gaming X Slim (a relatively compact version), and compared to the RTX 4090 MSI Supreme X flagship, the red flagship in the original design is tiny.
Standard connection
The new 16-pin connector for Nvidia graphics cards has disappointed many owners of older power supplies. Because from now on, most RTX 4000 models require a new cable, and not all manufacturers include adapters with their graphics cards.
Low-quality adapters purchased on dubious Internet sites can have fake characteristics (smaller cross-section) and overheat, which often leads to unpredictable consequences.
AMD doesn’t have this problem because you can always connect any of their graphics cards using standard 8-pin cables. It is also interesting that AMD’s flagship Radeon RX 7900 XTX has only two 8-pin connectors in the base version and three in the top modifications.
Difficulties make us stronger
As we’ve already mentioned, AMD Radeon graphics cards are notorious for their less than perfect software and numerous problemsbut they can almost always be solved on their own. Solving problems is what makes people develop, think, and become a better version of themselves.
Each bug with fan speed, driver freezes, or browser artifacts that you overcome makes the owner of an AMD Radeon smarter and more experienced in the field of computer technology, literally.
Friendly community
If there is a problem, it is a friendly one community AMD Radeon will always come to the rescue. Most owners of such video cards bought them quite consciously and knew exactly what they were getting into, so they have a certain level of computer knowledge.
There are incredibly few PCs with AMD Radeon, and the minority always cluster together and have a higher level of social interaction, so communication in Radeon fan groups is usually more active than in similar GeForce communities. If a ray tracing enthusiast attacks you in the comments, the members of the Radeon group will immediately rush to your defense.
These people will always help you with your problems, tell you how to solve them, which video card to buy next, which processor to choose, and much, much more. The small but friendly community is opposed to the monopolist Nvidia, so it holds on tightly to each new member.
They will also be happy to share secrets and unique tricks for fine-tuning Radeon graphics cards: how to do underclocking, how to activate the frame generator at the driver level, tell you about AMD Anti Lag and other interesting options in AMD Adrenaline that a typical gamer might not have guessed.
To spite the monopolist
A monopoly — is always bad because over time it leads to stagnation. Only the end consumer suffers from it, while the megacorporation profits. Just like Apple is the absolute leader in the flagship smartphone market, and Nvidia dominates desktop PC graphics cards.
However, Nvidia’s market share is even larger: Apple 75% vs. Android 25% in the premium segment, and Nvidia sells 75-85% of all graphics cards for desktop computers. Among laptops, the situation is even worse: in 2024, it is almost impossible to find a gaming laptop with a discrete AMD Radeon graphics card. In Ukraine, there are only a few models with Radeon RX 7600S, and they are expensive.
So, in order to prevent monopolists from taking over the world, you need to make searches in Bing, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo to spite Google. Buy expensive Android smartphones so that Apple doesn’t finish off all the flagships to the bitter end, but then change your Google search to another one.
Similarly, buying an AMD Radeon graphics card for a computer makes Nvidia nervous, think about it, and release a better product than they had planned at first. For example, RTX 4080 was supposed to have 12 GB of video memory and a much slower chip, but then this video card was renamed RTX 4070 Ti.
To prevent this from happening, let’s buy AMD Radeon RX 7000 series graphics cards because despite their shortcomings, they have many advantages. As a bonus, we will get a plus in karma for contributing to the antitrust fight, and the highest level of respect from true, true computer enthusiasts.
Our reviews of AMD Radeon video cards:
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