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The last Nvidia GPU I owned was back in 2004. Since then, I've owned ATI/AMD GPUs: 3650, 5570, and a 6850. I wouldn't say I'm biased toward either side, I just buy whichever card offers the best bang-for-my-buck at time of purchase. I recently purchased a GTX660 and am a little disappointed in both the look and limited functionality of the Nvidia control panel. Namely that the Nvidia control panel (NCP from here on) UI doesn't look like it's changed in a very long time. There also seems to be some general settings not available on NCP that I had in Catalyst Control Center (can't give any specific examples at this time), but that may be due to my inexperience navigating the NCP. Also, CCCC even offers the user some overclocking/tweaking/monitoring/fan control options whereas you seem to have to employ a 3rd party program to accomplish these same things on Nvidia GPUs.

So what gives? Am I missing something?

Nah, the NCP is pretty bare bones. It's functional for a specific task and they expect you to use third party for outside of that.

My poison of choice is NVIDIA Inspector for tweaking (it can OC too, but I don't OC). From there MSI Afterburner and EVGA Precision both offer advanced fan control, OC'ing, video capture, and real time metrics in an overlay. The metrics in the overlay is something I really enjoy, especially as an SLI user.

Haven't used CCC since giving up my 4870 for a GTX 295 in 2010, but I can't help but feel the complete opposite way than OP does.

Granted it's been 3 years, but from day 1 on the 295 I felt like the NVCP was about 100 levels above the CCC in terms of tweaking individual settings on a per-game basis and setting up multi-monitor support. Not to mention how easy it is to create custom screen resolutions in the NVCP, whereas I had to use 3rd party application called PowerStrip to accomplish this on my Radeon of years past, and have to re-create all of my custom resolutions every time I updated my display driver for the 4870.

I don't think I will ever miss CCC. Perhaps things have changed, but after moving on to the green team with the 295 and then a 670 last year, I feel CCC pales in comparison to the NVCP. PrecisionX is awesome too.

Sure, NVCP isn't the sharpest looking interface in the world, but it does everything it needs to and nothing it doesn't.

*shrug*

Having recently moved from a 5770 to a GTX 660, I dont' feel any major shortcomings in the NCP UI.

However, multi-monitor support is very lacking. To get my dual-monitor setup working as I wanted it, I had to download quadro drivers and use a crack to get nview working, and on top of that, install multi-monitor to get taskbar spanning.

For OC'ing I use EVGA Precision X - I do like the real time metrics and fan controls. Despite all my best efforts, I was never able to to get the OC controls to show up for my Sapphire 5770 card in CCC, so I didn't feel the drawback with nvidia's lack of OC tools in the drivers.

With the proliferation of multi monitor setups at home and for gaming, I think nvidia needs to work harder on multi-monitor tweaks and tools. Since I replaced my radeon before adding the second monitor, I can't attest to AMD's recent efforts in this department.

I haven't had any problems with either NVidia's Control Panel or Catalyst Control Center.

Voldenuit wrote:

Having recently moved from a 5770 to a GTX 660, I dont' feel any major shortcomings in the NCP UI.

However, multi-monitor support is very lacking. To get my dual-monitor setup working as I wanted it, I had to download quadro drivers and use a crack to get nview working, and on top of that, install multi-monitor to get taskbar spanning.

For OC'ing I use EVGA Precision X - I do like the real time metrics and fan controls. Despite all my best efforts, I was never able to to get the OC controls to show up for my Sapphire 5770 card in CCC, so I didn't feel the drawback with nvidia's lack of OC tools in the drivers.

With the proliferation of multi monitor setups at home and for gaming, I think nvidia needs to work harder on multi-monitor tweaks and tools. Since I replaced my radeon before adding the second monitor, I can't attest to AMD's recent efforts in this department.

What the heck are you trying to do? I run multi-monitor on an Nvidia GPU at home; have for years, never had any problems!

For multi-monitor settings, I use whatever is included in the OS, not NCP or Catalyst. Seems I'm screwed on WinXP, but the user doesn't care so...

auxy wrote:

What the heck are you trying to do? I run multi-monitor on an Nvidia GPU at home; have for years, never had any problems!

I want taskbar spanning across both displays. nview on my work laptop with quadro lets me do this, but even with nview working thru a hack on my geforce, the option is greyed out on non-professional cards. So I use dual monitor.exe to replicate the taskbar (similar to multimon from the xp days). Meanwhile, I have nview so I can set up a custom task switch out of windowed fullscreen modes for games that lock the mouse cursor from moving onto the second display (useful for browsing on secondary display while playing).

I just moved from a 6850 to a 670 and I like Nvidia GeForce Experience console much more than CCC.

Yep the NV CTRL Panel still looks like its based on 16bit colors and I feel it needs a face lift. As for functionality, It works fine for me.

As someone previously stated Nvidia inspector adds manual fan control and overclocking to the NV Ctrl panel....I think
I know i can overclock and all that jazz in NV cpl. but i prefer Afterburner Since i use a aggressive fan profile that ramps my fans up quickly up to 100% at 55 degrees since i game with headphones. The only time they Get near 50c is gaming or using cuda in dvd fab or some other general purpose GPU use over 50%. A 35+ GB bluray stream wont make them get near 50c so when I am watching blurays my system is silent.

I have 4 120mm cougars vortex fans in my Coolermaster HAF922 , 2 in the side panel blowing directly on both video cards and motherboard VRMs/ Socket area, 2 on my 120mm water radiator. Then in the top and front i have the stock 200mm 900 rpm fans that came with the case that are silent. All hooked to my fan controller so i can let them run at 40% speed unless I am gaming or Video converting ETC. They could blast away at 100% and still be silent but I feel since i run it 24/7 it will help save the fan bearings. Ops I forgot i have a 120mm Enermax magma in the bottom of the case in front of the PSU as another intake. I love the vortex and magma fans. Vortex fans seem to be built better and have a absurd 300,000hr lifespan, but the enermax magma works just as well and silent along with pretty much the same CFMs but I had one die on me "making noise"
So i have plenty of airflow:)

Voldenuit wrote:

auxy wrote:

What the heck are you trying to do? I run multi-monitor on an Nvidia GPU at home; have for years, never had any problems!

I want taskbar spanning across both displays. nview on my work laptop with quadro lets me do this, but even with nview working thru a hack on my geforce, the option is greyed out on non-professional cards. So I use dual monitor.exe to replicate the taskbar (similar to multimon from the xp days). Meanwhile, I have nview so I can set up a custom task switch out of windowed fullscreen modes for games that lock the mouse cursor from moving onto the second display (useful for browsing on secondary display while playing).

Sounds like you need to switch to Windows 8!

Also, AutoHotKey can force windows to "borderless fullscreen" mode, so you can enjoy fullscreen gaming without the game screwing up your refresh rate and/or resolution. Almost all games play nice with this and it's just so much better.

NCP isn't pretty but it gets the job done, and most users don't spend much time messing with graphics settings once the system is up and going. I rate it similar to Catalyst in terms of overall utility, though Catalyst does handle multiple monitors and swapping out displays a lot better than NCP.

Honestly even though I don't find the Nvidia control panel to be especially objectionable, I actually use Nvidia Inspector for most of my faffing about with driver settings.