AMD/ATI Video Drivers: Unsafe At Any Speed 261
An anonymous reader writes "CERT/CC has called out AMD for having insecure video drivers. AMD/ATI video drivers are incompatible with system-wide ASLR. 'Always On' DEP combined with 'Always On' ASLR are effective exploit mitigations. However, most people don't know about 'Always On' ASLR since Microsoft had to hide it from EMET with an 'EnableUnsafeSettings' registry key — because AMD/ATI video drivers will cause a BSOD on boot if 'Always On' ASLR is enabled."
Re:Crappy AMD drivers?! (Score:4, Interesting)
HAHAHA! I have had so many piss poor nvidia cards in the last few years that I switched to AMD now and havent looked back. IMHO the last good card that nvidia made was the 8800. I have a pile of broken 2xx cards in my desk that I am looking at right now. They seem to last a few months to a year. RMA'd cards from MSI and asus always come back and work for a few more months before failing to POST or creating graphics errors.
Things change people. ATI drivers are not even that bad anymore. Sure they update a bit much and nag you to update, however they are stable and I have had less problems with my current 6850 then any nvidia card since 8800 was popular. I think the reason was poor solder, or too heavy heatsyncs warping the cards or something on the 2xx series. Perhaps they have fixed it now with there newest cards but fuck if I am switching back till ati lets me down!
This is how the video card game always plays. Someone starts slipping and someone else takes the lead. For me, reliability is the best benchmark. Nvidia as I said has been shit so they lost me (and everyone i recommend cards to) as a customer. My 6850 has been rock solid since i purchased it. Not even any driver crashes! And yes I am aware that for the last 10 years ATI had crap drivers. This has been mostly fixed with their windows 7 drivers, so thats a few years ago now.