Radeon vs Geforce, what can I expect?

If you're looking for the best bang for the budget, and around the RTX 2060 mark, it's better to get the RX 5700 due to price vs performance. If you can get the 5700xt for a few more bucks, iirc it can even reach 2070 Super performance. However, Radeon does not have a dedicated raytracing capabilities for now (apart from some software engines update that enables non RT cores to process raytracing). So if you can get by without raytracing, and need the GPU right now I'd recommend the Radeon counterpart instead.

If you are willing to wait for a few months though, there's some rumours about Big Navi and their next Radeon lineup with raytracing capabilities to release next year.

AMD cards from last year are a joke and buying one now, when new ones that won't be a joke are so close to being announced, is like throwing money in the toilet. The last part also applies to nvidia cards.

This might not be helpful to you but just in case: don't get AMD card if you plan to do 3D renders. If you buy the gfx card strictly for gaming then it's worth reconsidering otherwise forget it, basically all the render engines are for NVIDIA.

Honestly I would wait for 3xxx series of Nvidia (should be at the end of year) for now 2060 would be great choice if You need to get gpu. As it goes for AMD RX 5700 is only real option but drivers of Radeon are not so great. There is Nvidia gsync and AMD freesync thing on screen if you want to takie it into consideration.

Radeon generally gets better over time. They really improve their drivers even for old cards.
Geforce usually stays stable. You'll get what you get in the first time.
Incompatibility? Both have their disadvantages and advantages, so focus on what you're going to do most.
No raytracing on Radeons so far (searched this when I was between a 2070 and a 5700).

I have RTX 2070 when they came out and I have never had any problems in any game with graphics and all was smooth even all VR games.

Before this Geforce card I had only Radeon cards and there were sometimes problems with drivers, but with nVidia I had no problems and also I have never tried to do something manually, it is just working perfectly.

For me I am voting for Geforce cards.

RTX2070 is great only if you need so much power for VR games, if you do no play VR games, you can pick something cheaper.

For years i used AMD Radeon cards, like 7950, R9 390 and Vega RX 64.
I always liked the low price and what you get for that money..and also the benchmark overlay tool is really great...but with the last two cards i noticed lots of problem with the drivers and sometimes black screens when drivers where brand new... so it got me so much pissed!! that i changed to an Nvidia RTX 2070 Super. It was much more expensive, but i never had any problems with it and no driver issues so far.

AMD CPUs are good, but for graphics cards i stick to Nvidia for now.

nVidia Geforce RTX 2060 8Gb, but due to not being able to find a matching monitor of my wanted features

hol' up

Are you concerned that you can't find a G-Sync monitor that you are interested in or can afford? If so, you should know that Nvidia has started supporting freesync and formally certifying more Freesync monitors that weren't made for G-Sync. ____sync considerations aside...

You should do some research on Nvidia's DLSS though, which has been shown recently in benchmarks of Death Stranding to give insane FPS improvements at 4K and even at 1080p. AMD has something similar called RIS which unlike DLSS does NOT have to be built into a game, as it is game-agnostic but may not handle as much as DLSS does - I'm not sure since I haven't read up on RIS much or its benchmarks.

IF you can wait you should wait a few months. The new round of nvidia cards is confirmed to september, and the new navi (amd) will be coming around the same time as well (sooner or later). IF some of the leaks are true the new generation of cards will be noticiably better then the upgrades seen in the past years- meaning the jump will be bigger between current and next gen then the jump we had from the previous to the current one.
Regardless if they will be that good and even if you cant pay the higher buck for the new gen cards, their release will mean the previous ones (like the 2070 and 5700) will get cheaper

Dont buy nvidia thinking about ray tracing, not yet. What i mean is the current ray tracing on the rtx cards sucks. Heck theres some quote from some engineer that worked for nvidia saying so- whats in rtx 2060-2080 was too early and underdeveloped, nvidia pushed the tech earlier to drive more sales and claim they came with ray tracing first but the next cards will have much better ray-tracing. The cards are still very good, the DSSL from nvidia is awesome (Amd have RIS, but dssl is nicer) but Nvidia is overpriced. Heck, the rtx cards are pretty much the old ones with slight better clocks (if that much) with the underdeveloped ray tracing tackled on top. Look up for benchmarks of the 1080 ti for 2019 and 2020 - its performing the same (some times better) then the newer rtx 2080, and the 1080 ti came in 2017.

The reason that happens have to do with architectures- the 1080 ti and previous nvidia cards used the pascal architecture and most games to this day have pascal in mind. Very few (like red dead redemption 2) were made with the latest nvidia architecture (turing), so only in those you see the 2080 performing better then the older 1080....
BUT, frankly it doesnt matter- september new cards are coming from both nvidia and amd and both have even newer different architectures. So dont expect any new games investing too much in optimizing their games for a turing card (2060-2080)

The best money for performance right now is amd, i just got an 5700 xt and its on par with a 2070s, at a much better price.
Still some games (far less then in the past) run better on nvidia simply because of partnerships with developers (favoring the nvidia architecture), while a few favor the amd

My old machine had a major failure and i impulse bought the new one, if i knew i would have waited until september if i could...

Also were on the verge of a possible major turn of tables- both xbox series x and playstation 5 were built with amd tech, and they will release with the new navi (the tech of the upcoming amd cards). So we could see most next gen games performing better on amd cards, simply from developers optimizing for amd. The best results will come from amds next cards, but thanks to similar architectures and drives and how amd support older cards my bet is older amd cards will be performing good too- probably seeing some better support and results on next gen games then older pascal nvidia cards.

It has also leaked that nvidia didnt secured 7nanometer chips (smaller, better power-heat performance), chosing to using samsungs 8nanometers instead (considerably worse), while amd got everything in 7nm and maybe even 7nm+. So point is Nvidia has been better at gpus for many years, but the gap got smaller and smaller and this time around amd secured the best chips and the two big consoles on their side. So even if Nvidia still have a better overall architecture and engineers the difference will be smaller, they will be on par... or amd will surpass nvidia in 2021.

Ray-tracing via directx is also coming, and we dont know if and how amd will handle ray tracing via hardware, but they probably will- both xbox series x and playstation 5 feature raytracing and both are using amds new navi graphics. So we know the next nvidia cards will have better ray-tracing, but chances are amd will also feature ray-tracing on next cards or that ray-tracing via directx will be enought for that to not even matter.

TLDR:
-dont get rtx cards for ray-tracing, only the dssl is good. next cards will do better
-wait the new cards if you can
-if you cant wait an 5700 xt (amd) would give you the same performance for cheaper
-amd MAY be better future proofing (console ports performing better on amd)

wait for the next gen cards to be released but also know this, when something is released and you buy it, within a month or so, another better alternative will come up from the same manufacturer or competitor so always try to get exactly what you need

I built a new pc last month and got AMD 5600 XT - price comparable to RTX 2060. I love my 5600 xt and am gaming away happily at 1080p

With an X570 mobo/chipset and an AMD 3600X CPU, the 5600 xt takes advantage of the new PCIe 4.0 architecture for a great boost in data speed. If you don't have an x570 board, that won't matter to you.

If it's G Sync vs Freesync that you are concerned about, read through this article: https://www.tomshardware.com/features/gsync-vs-freesync-nvidia-amd-monitor Basically, it hardly matters.

If you are gaming at 1080p, either the 5600 xt or the RTX 2060 are top of the line - higher end cards won't show a ton of improvement of experience at 1080p, they are mostly going to be useful for VR or higher resolution gaming.

If you don't care much about ray tracing you can save money going for a GTX 1660 Super, the difference with the RTX 2060 is not that much I believe. Or, as other says, wait for the new ones.

I've only recently went back to Nvidia, but not because I encountered issues with AMD, just because I got a great deal on the card. With that said, I can say you'll have a good experience regardless of which side you choose, so long as you don't do anything stupid. Either the 2060 Super or the RX 5700 XT would serve you well, just go for whichever is better value in your region.

Edit:

• Always make sure to remove old drivers before installing new cards, use DDU if needed (I've never had to personally).
• Despite what people say about always having drivers up to date, I disagree. If it ain't broke, don't fix it, only update when required, and check reddit to see if people have reported issues with recent drivers. This way you know which available driver is the safest bet.

By following those simple rules, I've not had any issues in ages. The only issue I've ever had was with a Radeon 9250 back in like 2006, it would not render textures properly in Titan Quest. Since then, I've never had issue with anything. Also, I have to note since I see it said all the time that Nvidia runs cooler, in my recent experience, that's a load of crap. Really what it comes down to is the manufacturer that makes the card, and the quality of their heatsink/fans, as well as default fan curves. In the end, with custom fan curves, you can have them run about the same, in fact my AMD was cooler than my current Nvidia. One thing I will say though, Nvidia fans tend to be more quiet, but this is based on limited experience, again it could have come down to the manufacturer.

Thanks EVERYONE for your input and comments. I learned a lot in this thread that I wasn't getting from articles that suppossed I had some base and knew some stuff, so I wasn't learning that much.

The thing is that I want adaptive sync for gaming. And most monitors have Freesync, few have VESA Adaptive Sync and/or G-Sync. I found a wonderful monitor and it's so good and such nice price that I prefer to change to Radeon to have that monitor, than keep hopelessly trying to find something of those features but with G-Sync or Adaptive Sync. Actually I've been told by an LG provider that most monitors I'll find here (Spain) will have Freesync, with few options for the other, and indeed it's true. So right now considering the Radeon 5700xt with that monitor.

I should have put a giveaway but I was short in time and I didn't think of it. I can't right now, but if people keep putting some more ideas, I'll add one tomorrow.

Thanks again! Have a nice weekend.

I've actually been very impressed with the Nvidia NOW for PC's and other devices.

My internet connection is great for my area and I'm about 20ms from the NOW data center. I've only used the free NOW on my PC and I'm starting to think I would rather spend $60 a year than buy a new video card every 3 years. I dont play FPS games much anymore, but my experience in my location felt spot on.

Now if I had spotty internet, I'd change my opinion.

https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce-now/

The new DLSS is geforce only? That sees to be making 4k gaming a reality for a lot of people.... check that out if you have a 4k monitor?

You can expect horribly broken drivers that they promise to fix but don't for years. That has always been my experience with Ati/AMD.

i got the 5700 and i got to say the drivers have only gave me problems.

As has already been mentioned, a new generation of cards from the two companies should arrive in a couple of months, so it may not be the best time to buy. The lower end cards tend to appear later, so the 2060 replacement could potentially appear next year. That said, since you're talking about an 8GB 2060, I assume you mean the 2060 SUPER, a $400 card, and my guess would be that at least on the AMD side these will be released this year. Next gen AMD cards will have the same technology as next gen consoles, and include ray tracing and all the other DX12 Ultimate features. They will also have faster "AI support", which could open the way to DLSS-like features (though that is not guaranteed, of course).

I'd say that if you plan to keep the card for years then buying near the end of a generation isn't a good idea, and it's worth waiting a few more months to at least see what the new architectures bring. (Even if mid-range cards aren't released up front, you could then decide it an extra wait is worth it.) Waiting might also help you save a little more and buy something a little more powerful. If, on the other hand, you think you might buy another card in about two years time, then the choice doesn't matter that much.

As for current cards, at the $400 price point, AMD's 5700 XT performs better (on average) than NVIDIA's 2060 SUPER (see this for example). In the long run I'm not sure it'd continue to be true, as the 2060 implements several technologies which are part of DX12 Ultimate, and that game developers will likely use in the future, since they'd be available in next gen consoles. I'm not talking only ray tracing (which mainly slows things down, though it adds visual quality), but performance features like variable rate shading.

Nvidia cards usually use a lot less power, which also means less heat. I am saying "usually" because apparently, they just plan to release a completely new power pin layout for their upcoming cards that can draw up to 600 Watts. It is an indicator that they are doing what Intel does currently (and AMD did in the 2010s), adding more power and heat to the same thing to make it run better. Then again, maybe not. At any rate, their current lineup is rather energy-efficient.
Their drivers are a joke, but people are used to that since they have regular driver issues for nearly 20 years now. On the plus side, if you are not playing the latest games, you can stay on a driver version for 12-24 months with no issues. So, once you find one that works, you can stay on it.
They support hardware-accelerated ray-tracing and they have their own encoding engine as well. The former one is only useful from RTX 2070 and up since it still drops framerate massively, the latter one is very useful if you stream or do video work. On Windows, their cards also do noticeably, but not significantly better at rendering and similar graphical jobs.
Their cards have good overclocking capabilities and the driver software dashboard is rather straightforward and intuitive to do it, even if you barely know what you are doing.
Since they enjoy a very large market lead, the flipside is that they always have only ONE card that has humane pricing (currently, it is the GTX 2060 family), the rest are ridiculously overpriced, because they can afford it.
On the slightly moral side of things, they always make everything proprietary and use their market share to muscle their stuff on everyone, asking money for it. This is why GSync monitors cost a lot more, they ask a lot of money for the support. This is also why almost no Linux gamer ever touched them with along stick, they are so stingy they never properly supported the open-source drivers Linux needs. They changed their stance only because Google is now forcing Linux a bit more into the center of video gaming, so, again, they smell money. Essentially, they act like the stereotypical money-grubbing greedy asshole company.

AMD cards need more power. The current Navi line is a lot better in this regard. However, due to demand (partly still from cryptominers), their price range can be worse than one should hope for.
For a good while now, they cannot offer anything beyond the top of the middle range. Granted, this performance point is where most gamer's wallet runs out anyway. If you can live with the fact that you get a decent mid-range card that will never be anything more, you can live comfortably with it.
They used to release driver updates once in a blue moon. Now they usually do a monthly release, but they regularly rely on a hotfix within 72 hours to fix an unseen error. On average, they have a lot fewer fucked-up driver than Nvidia: AMD keeps it around 12-15/year, Nvidia can reach the same amount in 3-4 months if they are on a streak. Still, only update drivers on AMD if you feel a game running suspiciously bad, and try to update to a driver that has a .2 at the end (it always means the second driver of the month, so it is a fixed version). However, and that is an important thing, getting rid of a bad driver means you must use DDU. Nvidia knows their drivers are fucked-up and reverting is easy. AMD reverts are impossible. If you have an issue, get ready for a 25-minute hassle.
Their driver dashboard is abysmal. Basic functions are easy, but if you want to tweak or, gods forbid, overclock, then good luck.
Also, their sensors are bad. Temperature is usually almost around the true values, but their fan reports are always, always false. Thank heavens all manufacturers that deal with their GPUs balance the card around their own lab tests.
The current Navi cards are almost impossible to overclock. If you get +5%, you can thank all your deities for it.
Their price/performance almost always tops the charts. Nvidia usually delegates one card to the top10 of such a list, the rest is always AMD. Since they are the underdog on the market, they use competitive pricing. If you are on a budget and cannot get the "good balance" Nvidia card, AMD will always give you the best thing for your money. Assuming you don't want anything more than mid-range.
They are much more prone to go open-source. FreeSync is, well, free. The much-loved Vulkan API not only tends to run great on their cards thanks to their physical architecture, but it is partly based on their own work. They are also pretty much the only choice for Linux and de facto the only choice for Mac gamers. On the flipside, since they get no money for these, their solutions get fewer features and updates.

I have a Sapphire VGA Radeon RX 5700 XT 8G Pulse for 7 months, therefore I'd like to share a few words about my experience.

In the beginning, I was a bit skeptical about my purchase, because I had strictly NVIDIA cards for many years and because of what others were saying about the drivers. It took me a few days to get the hang of the Radeon Software and there were some black screen issues from time to time. However, now with the Radeon Software 2020 Adrenalin Edition and the updated drivers everything works perfectly. To be honest I prefer this interface way more if I have to compare it with the atrocity called GeForce Experience... In case you're a streamer, it is very easy to adjust the settings for your streaming needs and by just hitting a "hotkey" the stream is sent to your favorite steaming platform. The same applies for most other uses like local video recording, so there's nothing else I'm missing from NVIDIA (for example shadowplay).

For the price/performance ratio (369 euros back in November 2019), I couldn't find anything else in NVIDIA's line up to stay "loyal" to them. Performance wise I'm very happy about it, plus I'm even more happier by the fact that it works great in Linux as well as in macOS (hackintosh).

Nvidia is already discontinuing production on the 2000 series cards in preparation for the September launch of the 3000 series.
AMDs new cards will have raytracing tech unlike the current ones.

Just wait for now, don't throw your money away.

Yeh ,AMD have been slow with the raytracing cards.
I've always used AMD cards and i game 24/7.
Would be nice to have some raytracing cards from AMD.
Though to be fair ,not many games actually use ray tracing atmo so i don't think it's that big a deal right now tbh.
A well made enjoyable game is what i want first and foremost
Raytracing means nothing if the game is crap :)

dlss will be/already is a bigger game changer then ray tracing