[BitsAndChips]390X ready for launch - AMD ironing out drivers - Computex launch

[S.H.O.D.A.N.]

If its competetive then why AMD lost so much market share after NV launched GTX970/980?

AMD's market woes are almost entirely due to the mining craze. During the most important and influential period of 200 series life, it was either not available or ridiculously priced, destroying any chance for it to establish itself on the US market (and by the end it started to seep into the EU market as well).

The burst of NV market share that people seem to equate with 970/980 is simply a by-product of that.

 

[Cloudfire777]

You are saying NV is competitive? Name 1 videocard NV released since R9 290X/780Ti came out that's truly worth upgrading to besides the $1000 Titan X?

Again RussianSensation:
To you it isnt worth upgrading, but to many many other people it clearly is if you go after Maxwell sales data and the market share they have stolen from AMD.

Think outside that "performance and price is linear" box. It doesnt reflect on sales for Nvidia, time to stop beating that dead horse. I agree that in a perfect world it should be like this, but you won`t find a lot of hardware where that apply.

Even 390X will maybe offer 50% more performance than 290X and the price will be much higher. Even AMD needs to make money on more advanced and difficult nodes. That we are still on 28nm doesnt help either. In fact it makes the chips more expensive because you need more silicon, you are dealing with higher TDP than on 16nm which needs better quality components such as VRMs and better cooling to deal with the TDP which again cost money.

 

[xthetenth]

The highest performance part of the past year has been nvidia marketing. Neither side has been making particularly large steps in performance in reasonably affordable market segments. The biggest thing NV did was pricing the 970, a reasonably powerful card at a good initial price, and so was able to capitalize on the mindshare a new release brings. AMD wasn't able to match that, and it's otherwise been a profoundly uninteresting generation.

 

[RussianSensation]

Again RussianSensation:
To you it isnt worth upgrading, but to many many other people it clearly is if you go after Maxwell sales data and the market share they have stolen from AMD.

Ya, many people buy $400-500 Beats and Bose headphones because they are clueless and don't do research. What's your point?

1. I already linked data that proves that NV did not primarily gain market share from AMD's sales, but it was AMD that primarily gave up its own sales in the channel by not shipping products. The end result is a net gain in market share for NV and a net loss for AMD but why and how it happened matters. You ignored this.

2. Lots of people upgrade to a 960/970/980 but they are not necessarily GTX680/7970Ghz owners. I am not saying that for a GTX460/560/560Ti/6950/7870 owner no Maxwell card was worth upgrading for. However, for GTX680/7970Ghz/780 owner, this has been THE worst upgrading generation of all time. I am not sure how new you are to the GPU industry but if you have followed the GPU sector for 15+ years as I have, it's obvious that 970/980 are THE most disappointing cards released in a long time. Just because they sold well doesn't mean anything if we objectively reflect on the history of NV's cards. Look NV could have easily released a 6600GT or a GTX460 1GB for $550 according to you then because both of those cards beat out their previous gen flagships (5950U and GTX285, respectively). I am just using these 2 as examples but there are countless more.

3. Again, you are missing the point. I am not saying price/performance needs to be linear but some relative basis should be applied. My 7970Ghz is 75-100% faster than an HD6970 OC and my card came out barely 1 year later than the HD6970. It took a whopping 3 years for the Titan X to double 7970Ghz in performance, similar to how 780Ti did over the 580/6970 but 780Ti 'only' cost $699.

You keep talking about sales, sales, sales. Did you ever realize that because CPUs/CPU platforms now last longer than ever that PC gamers have much more disposable income to spend on GPUs? Also, with underpowered consoles and cheap Steam/GOG/Origin games, there is more incentive than ever to build a gaming PC. With lower end GPUs (sub-$150) offering such mediocre performance, it's not surprising that the demand for $250-350 GPUs will increase. None of this changes the facts that GTX970/980 are absolutely mediocre and disappointing performance videocards looking back at NV's own history and not even discussing ATI/AMD. If we put aside the marketing perf/watt metrics, 970/980 are mid-range cards, through and through. For those of us who buy high-end cards, they are about as exciting as a GeForce 6600GT or a GeForce GTX460. Yes, those were good cards, but nothing jaw dropping because we all knew back then the high-end value was 6800GT/X850Pro and GTX470/5850. The difference is NV has delayed those cards this generation and AMD is dragging its feet with 390 series. In the past, this would have never happened. Historically speaking 980 is a x60 series card, aimed at the $250-300 price segment. By now R9 290X level of performance is also dead-on next gen mid-range and at least its $290 pricing reflect that.

Another way to look at things, if someone bought an after-market R9 290 for $400 or even a $650 GTX780, 970/980 are an easy skip. Neither AMD nor NV delivered a true high-end successor for those at the $400-650 price point, yet - but they will with R9 390 nonX/390X and GM200 6GB. Once that happens, I will tell you, I told you so that 970/980 were overhyped.

The highest performance part of the past year has been nvidia marketing. Neither side has been making particularly large steps in performance in reasonably affordable market segments. The biggest thing NV did was pricing the 970, a reasonably powerful card at a good initial price, and so was able to capitalize on the mindshare a new release brings. AMD wasn't able to match that, and it's otherwise been a profoundly uninteresting generation.

Exactly. I realize that gamers have short memory but I am shocked at how bad that memory is. All it takes is 10 min to look back at NV's history and one realizes immediately NV always released a mid-range next gen videocard that was as fast or faster than the last generation's flagship. There is literally no exception to this rule. The difference is with GK204 and GM204 NV raised the price from the historical $229-299 for mid-range cards to $500-550. Maybe the younger generation of 16-22 year old gamers aren't aware of this which is why they think a $550 980 with 8-15% more performance than November 2013 R9 290X/780Ti is somehow revolutionary. In the past, that would have 100% been called a 960Ti and it would have cost $249, maybe $299. :thumbsup: NV basically realized that most PC gamers don't follow the GPU industry closely and took full advantage of it by bifurcating a generation into 2 flagships - GK204/GK110 and GM204/GM200. It's unbelievable that 2nd generation in a row and some PC gamers are still not willing to accept this and are somehow defending these new pricing brackets. If NV pulled something like this off during GeForce 6 or 8 generation, the entire forum would have ridiculed them.

Imagine an 8800GT or 6600GT selling for $550, just because both smashed 7900GTX (last gen flagship) and 5950U (last gen flagship) into the ground.

5950U debut MSRP = $499
Next-gen mid-range that is faster 6600GT = $199.
Today, NV would have called this card 6800GT/Ultra and priced it at $550. :whiste:

I am not even that old but I pay attention to the past because it helps me brush off marketing BS like perf/watt that's used to "justify" $500+ price tags on mid-range chips.

 

[96Firebird]

However, for GTX680/7970Ghz/780 owner, this has been THE worst upgrading generation of all time. I am not sure how new you are to the GPU industry but if you have followed the GPU sector for 15+ years as I have, it's obvious that 970/980 are THE most disappointing cards released in a long time. Just because they sold well doesn't mean anything if we objectively reflect on the history of NV's cards.

The 970 is ~50% faster than the 680 @1440p (TPU), seems like a decent upgrade to me...

If not, then if the 390X is 50% faster than the 290X, I guess it won't be such a great upgrade...

And saying sales isn't an indicator of a great release (or reviews for that matter), I'm not sure if you live in the real world.

 

[blastingcap]

Exactly. I realize that gamers have short memory but I am shocked at how bad that memory is. All it takes is 10 min to look back at NV's history and one realizes immediately NV always released a mid-range next gen videocard that was as fast or faster than the last generation's flagship. There is literally no exception to this rule.

Extrapolation from the past is pointless when circumstances change.

The demand for high-end GPUs has stopped growing much. Furthermore, costs are rising as nodes shrink. The only way you are going to keep profits up is by charging your remaining users more for each incremental improvement. Both AMD and NV are trying to reset what it means to be a flagship GPU, like the $550 initial pricing on 7970s and the $500 price on GTX 680.

Would AMD and NV need to do that kind of stuff if demand were growing or if their cost were dropping? No. But consider these factors:

- Slower and more expensive nodes (see http://www.extremetech.com/computin...y-with-tsmc-claims-22nm-essentially-worthless and other articles)
- Decline in demanding games that push GPUs
- Resolution growth slowed way down and the VAST majority of gamers even today are on 1080p or lower

You can't just say oh well CPUs cost less now so you can spend money on GPUs instead. It doesn't work that way when many people just shrug and spend that money on a smartphone or Kindle or movies or something else.

The rational thing to do if you don't like a card's price/performance ratio is to simply not buy it. Whining about marginal improvements and higher prices is pointless. Vote with your wallet instead.

 

[HurleyBird]

The 970 is ~50% faster than the 680 @1440p (TPU), seems like a decent upgrade to me...

If not, then if the 390X is 50% faster than the 290X, I guess it won't be such a great upgrade...

Not that I agree completely with Russian, but if you're going to compare the 390 to the 290 you should also compare the 970 to the 780, not the 680.

 

[RussianSensation]

The 970 is ~50% faster than the 680 @1440p (TPU), seems like a decent upgrade to me...

Right because NV stopped optimizing drivers for Kepler and Kepler is crap in compute. Look at 970 vs. 7970Ghz. My cards are clocked way higher than the 7970Ghz. 970 is not an upgrade for me, sorry.

If not, then if the 390X is 50% faster than the 290X, I guess it won't be such a great upgrade...

In your response you completely lost track of the time. 7970Ghz is 3 years old, but when R9 390X comes out, R9 290X will be slightly more than 1.5 years old. It's one thing to have a card 50% faster than another 3 years later and another to have a card 50% faster in just 1.5 years. Please pay attention to context.

And saying sales isn't an indicator of a great release (or reviews for that matter), I'm not sure if you live in the real world.

I don't work for NV or AMD or Intel. Therefore, if these firms manage to sell overpriced products and sell them well, good for them. I judge CPU/GPU purchases objectively which means looking at time, price/performance and history. If 960 sells 1 billion units, I could care less.

The rational thing to do if you don't like a card's price/performance ratio is to simply not buy it. Whining about marginal improvements and higher prices is pointless. Vote with your wallet instead.

Agreed. It's just amazing how this forum shifts goal posts. Just 3 years ago, they bashed HD7970 and ignored HD7970 OC but today 970/980 are defended despite 980 bringing the smallest generational jump of any next gen $550 GPU of all time. No next generation $500+ GPU ever failed as hard as the 980 did in terms of performance and price/performance. From that point of view, it's the worst card ever made by NV/ATI/AMD at the $550 price level. Never have AMD/NV/ATI brought so little performance increase with a next gen $500+ card. And just because I happen to be realistic and do my research and ended up on the unpopular side of the GPU upgrade path, I get called out for being an AMD marketer for the last 3 years. :whiste:

I agree with you and I am voting with my wallet. I skipped 290/290X/970/980 as they are not true next generation "$550" upgrades from 7970Ghz imo. My point is AMD has been criticized this whole generation for not being competitive but NV also has not released the best card of its line-up, the ace - GM200 6GB. All those people who criticized HD7970, they are rocking GTX970/980/Titan cards this generation.

But consider these factors:

- Slower and more expensive nodes (see http://www.extremetech.com/computing...ally-worthless and other articles)

This point doesn't work. NV's margins have increased from mid-30s to mid-40s to 53-56% now. At first I also believed that lower nodes would be more expensive but the increase in price for lower nodes does not in any way correlate to the increased prices of today's cards. NV's profit margins stand firmly at 54-55%, historical record!

- Decline in demanding games that push GPUs

Again, doesn't align with reality. NV's overall GPU sales today are very similar to what they were 3-4 years ago.
http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=37293492&postcount=218

But in the same time frame profit margins grew 75%! Ironically, NV's lead over AMD has actually shrunk from Fermi to Kepler to Maxwell generations but NV is charging way more for similar category products. Marketing FTW.

- Resolution growth slowed way down and the VAST majority of gamers even today are on 1080p or lower

That would support less gamers upgrading to 960/970/980 from older GTX600/700 or HD7000 cards though.

You can't just say oh well CPUs cost less now so you can spend money on GPUs instead. It doesn't work that way when many people just shrug and spend that money on a smartphone or Kindle or movies or something else.

5 years ago people were also buying tablets and smartphones. The cost of a smartphone in the developed world stands at $0-300 on a contract while in the developing world it's still $300-850+ as was the case 5 years ago. Most people aren't buying tablets every 2-3 years anymore. There is more discretionary income left over for GPUs because modern Intel CPUs last 4-5 years. That was not the case during Pentium 1-4 days or Core 2 Duo/Quad transition. Today even a Core i7 920 / 860 @ 4.0Ghz can be paired with a GTX970/R9 290X and it would be a very good gaming experience. Because anyone with a 3-4 year old i3/i5/i7 can just go out and buy a $300-350 card and their PC is all of a sudden up-to-speed for the latest PC games, while recognizing that $350 modern consoles are underpowered, I bet a lot more PC gamers don't mind getting a $300-350 mid-range GPU. But if we look at say $200 GTX960, the price/performance increase it brought over old gen R9 280 or GTX760 is simply awful, the worst of all time for a next gen $200 NV card.

That means anyone buying CPUs such as i5 2500K or newer had little to no incentive to upgrade the CPU platform, which means every year they could have spent their upgrade budget on a new GPU. Intel even admitted that CPU upgrade cycles are not nearly 5 years.

My main point is NV is being let off the hook too easily while AMD is absorbing all of the blame it seems. Fact is NV is just as responsible since they blatantly released mid-range GM204 for $550 and now a $1K Titan X while they know once both of those are milked, they will finally release GM200 6GB at $550-700 once AMD forces their hand. It's just interesting some gamers get so offended and don't want to admit that NV straight up milked the first half of this generation because I suppose they would be admitting that "they got milked" and no one wants to admit that. It's impossible to test but if GTX970/980 were "AMD" cards, I have no doubts they would have been ripped apart by the media and forums as way under-delivering next generation performance. To charge $550 for a 980 was a highway robbery that NV got away with. It makes me sad as someone who followed the GPU industry for 15+ years that PC gamers didn't care and still bought it knowing it was always a mid-range Maxwell card. I guess I expected the PC community to raise some eyebrows at NV for trying to pull off a stunt like that after seeing 680-> 780 -> 780Ti but boy I was 100% wrong expecting the PC gaming community to stand up and vote with their wallets. It's just hilarious to see so many people criticizing R9 390X for being 'late', but hardly word is mentioned about GM200 6GB being late or how much of a rip-off the 980 was from day 1.

 

[Cloudfire777]

Its gonna be funny to see the performance and price arguments once the price for 390X is revealed. One page back and the guy who posted the 390X slide said 390X price for the WCE is suppose to be $899. Several sites rumored $700++ for 390X earlier so it seems they all somewhat agree

What will the "OMG we paid $500 for top GPUs earlier, how greedy!" people say about AMD then? And you get say 50% more performance than 290X but for 200-300% the price. My magic 8 ball says these people will suddenly think its ok. Its just when Nvidia charge that its not ok.

Double standards and finding something to argue about, I`d say

 

[exar333]

I am interested in the 390/x, but AMD better release this before the 980Ti arrives, otherwise they shouldn't bother.

Hoping we get some performance previews soon...(real, not fake )

 

[RussianSensation]

What will the "OMG we paid $500 for top GPUs earlier, how greedy!" people say about AMD then? And you get say 50% more performance than 290X but for 200-300% the price. My magic 8 ball says these people will suddenly think its ok. Its just when Nvidia charge that its not ok.

Double standards and finding something to argue about, I`d say

Today in the US, a GTX980 costs nearly 100% more than an R9 290X for only 8-15% more performance. Way to miss the part where in some countries like mine (Canada), an R9 290 costs $328 CDN after tax while GTX980 costs $820 CDN for only 20-25% more performance. Last time I checked that's 250% more expensive for just 25% more performance. :whiste:

Also, way to ignore R9 390 non-X which won't be $700 but historically AMD's 2nd tier card offers 90% of the flagship performance once both are overclocked. Regardless, at least those R9 290X/780Ti owners will have something truly worth upgrading to that will actually impact their gaming experience and it won't cost $1K like the Titan X.

Well duh, then they'll say, "Well look, we get 90% of Titan X performance it's $150-200 cheaper! FTW!" and completely ignore the fact it's still $800. :thumbsup:

Right, by the time this thread is done R9 390X will climb to $999 and R9 390 non-X won't even exist. Let me write that down so I don't forget come June.

Wait, didn't you at one time have 680 SLI? Oh right, after-market $280-300 HD7950 OC was just as fast as a $450 GTX680 2GB. I guess you forgot that happened too because you don't buy AMD cards.
http://www.legionhardware.com/artic...z_edition_7950_iceq_xsup2_boost_clock,13.html

The difference in power consumption is utterly uninteresting from a enthusiast gamers perspective. Its so sad to see it repeated as its an excuse for flat out pathetic performance increase. In my world its all 7970 performance 3.5 year after. Not in 20 years have i experienced anything like it. Ofcource its the same for nv as amd so its alike but saying 50/100 w makes a difference is just sad from the enthusiast perspective imo. I hope we will see some solid gains/€£¥$ this year or its like having a console.

But perhaps the future is like that. But then lets describe it as it is and not lipsticking it.

Perhaps we can hope for some asynch shader in bf5 to get the gains. We need some progress and not for 1000$/€.

Seconded. If R9 390X uses 1W of power and is only as fast as an R9 290X, I could care less. The greenpeace power saves the world crowd can rejoice -- in a year my clothes dryer/hanger rack saves more electricity/power than any GPU SLI/CF combination upgrade ever could. Oh, and I also help with CO2 emissions and fossil fuel burning because if I need to buy something at a convenience store 30 min away, I actually walk. My kettle has settings where I can even adjust how hot I want the water to boil so that I am not unnecessarily over-boiling to 200F when not needed. When my gf tries to use a 1600W hair dryer in the morning, I stick her head outside to save the world, even in winter.

I am amazed we don't have a sub-forum section titles Anti-overclocking Brigade. Next thing you know the greenpece hippie movement will try to tell us that the Core i7 920 @ 4.0Ghz is no longer one of the most legendary CPUs ever made because it melts ice caps in the Arctic.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/overclock-core-i7,2268-10.html

Can you foresee the headline of the future now? AMD still allows overvoltage on their GPUs? OMGBBQ! That's so harmful to the environment. NV, they care, which is why they voltage locked our GPUs so we save electricity, which saves baby seals!

Poor Intel, what were they thinking with those K and X series overclocking CPUs?

Kit-Guru has a discussion about Titan X, 390X and FreeSync/GSync and they touch upon real world gaming differences between 2 systems where the GPU's power usage is 100W apart -- it amounts to pennies in the real world unless you game 10-12 hours a day.

News at 11 - how to save on power with your paper shredder.
----

Look, bottom line is it's in our best interests that AMD's R9 390 series is competitive because it will force NV to introduce cut-down and even faster GM200 6GB chips. In the end, the entire market wins. IMO, we really need both GM200 6GB and R9 390 series because right now we are stuck between a mid-range 980 at $530+ that's barely better than a $300 R9 290X, and a very expensive $1K Titan X. The market is totally unbalanced at the moment and needs those flagship cards from AMD/NV.

 

[Head1985]

5950U debut MSRP = $499
Next-gen mid-range that is faster 6600GT = $199.
Today, NV would have called this card 6800GT/Ultra and priced it at $550. :whiste:

I am not even that old but I pay attention to the past because it helps me brush off marketing BS like perf/watt that's used to "justify" $500+ price tags on mid-range chips.

Because they can.
Back then there was ATI with better cards than nvidia cards and they simple canot charge 550 for 6600GT because there was way faster and better x800pro witch was as fast as their flagship 6800ULTRA and cost 399/499.Not to mention X800xt/PE was faster than anything Nvidia has.
just look at this
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/graphics/display/asus-x800pro_4.html#sect1

What we have today?AMD with 1.6 year old 290/290x

 

[blastingcap]

This point doesn't work. NV's margins have increased from mid-30s to mid-40s to 53-56% now. At first I also believed that lower nodes would be more expensive but the increase in price for lower nodes does not in any way correlate to the increased prices of today's cards. NV's profit margins stand firmly at 54-55%, historical record!

Again, doesn't align with reality. NV's overall GPU sales today are very similar to what they were 3-4 years ago.
http://forums.anandtech.com/showpost.php?p=37293492&postcount=218

But in the same time frame profit margins grew 75%! Ironically, NV's lead over AMD has actually shrunk from Fermi to Kepler to Maxwell generations but NV is charging way more for similar category products. Marketing FTW.

5 years ago people were also buying tablets and smartphones. The cost of a smartphone in the developed world stands at $0-300 on a contract while in the developing world it's still $300-850+ as was the case 5 years ago. Most people aren't buying tablets every 2-3 years anymore. There is more discretionary income left over for GPUs because modern Intel CPUs last 4-5 years. That was not the case during Pentium 1-4 days or Core 2 Duo/Quad transition. Today even a Core i7 920 / 860 @ 4.0Ghz can be paired with a GTX970/R9 290X and it would be a very good gaming experience. Because anyone with a 3-4 year old i3/i5/i7 can just go out and buy a $300-350 card and their PC is all of a sudden up-to-speed for the latest PC games, while recognizing that $350 modern consoles are underpowered, I bet a lot more PC gamers don't mind getting a $300-350 mid-range GPU. But if we look at say $200 GTX960, the price/performance increase it brought over old gen R9 280 or GTX760 is simply awful, the worst of all time for a next gen $200 NV card.

That means anyone buying CPUs such as i5 2500K or newer had little to no incentive to upgrade the CPU platform, which means every year they could have spent their upgrade budget on a new GPU. Intel even admitted that CPU upgrade cycles are not nearly 5 years.

My main point is NV is being let off the hook too easily while AMD is absorbing all of the blame it seems. Fact is NV is just as responsible since they blatantly released mid-range GM204 for $550 and now a $1K Titan X while they know once both of those are milked, they will finally release GM200 6GB at $550-700 once AMD forces their hand. It's just interesting some gamers get so offended and don't want to admit that NV straight up milked the first half of this generation because I suppose they would be admitting that "they got milked" and no one wants to admit that. It's impossible to test but if GTX970/980 were "AMD" cards, I have no doubts they would have been ripped apart by the media and forums as way under-delivering next generation performance. To charge $550 for a 980 was a highway robbery that NV got away with. It makes me sad as someone who followed the GPU industry for 15+ years that PC gamers didn't care and still bought it knowing it was always a mid-range Maxwell card. I guess I expected the PC community to raise some eyebrows at NV for trying to pull off a stunt like that after seeing 680-> 780 -> 780Ti but boy I was 100% wrong expecting the PC gaming community to stand up and vote with their wallets. It's just hilarious to see so many people criticizing R9 390X for being 'late', but hardly word is mentioned about GM200 6GB being late or how much of a rip-off the 980 was from day 1.

Apples and oranges, the economic situation was different, at a different stage in the post-financial crisis. Furthermore, NVidia makes a lot more than just GeForce; a lot of their profit is made in Quadro/Tesla so you can't just look at their entire gross margins.

Furthermore as nodes mature, costs do go down but as someone else said, power doesn't go down by as much as a full node shrink so you are still paying for better cooling, heatsinks, VRMs, etc.

Lastly, you are looking at end-of-2014 numbers. Five years before, guess what that was? The end of 2009. There was a financial crisis you might have heard about and iPads weren't even launched yet. The sheer volume of smartphones and tablets has grown tremendously. People have a lot of choices for entertainment, from books to movies to video games. It's foolish to think that the demand for GPU-killer games has always and will always remain the same. No, populations grow, tastes change, etc.

I don't think everyone is letting NV off the hook, and I think it's pretty common knowledge that they charge a premium over what AMD charges if you look at just price/performance. NV itself admits that repeatedly. Their own CEO even said that he wants NV to resemble Apple and not the low-profit/low-margin commodity PC makers. For better or worse, NV is (apparently successfully) catering to the kinds of people who don't really touch GPU settings out of the box, outside of NV's hand-holding software like GeForce experience and automatic/factory overclocks. Those kinds of people far outnumber forum enthusiasts. Those kinds of people understand and value the principle of "it just works." Even if they have to pay a premium. Just like many Apple users who pay more and get less but are actually happier that way. Analogously, you KNOW that if Apple made an iPhone 7 that was barely any better than an iPhone 6, the iPhone 7 would be a huge seller ANYWAY. Just like NV's peddling the GTX 980. Same thing.

I for one am disgusted with four consecutive years of 28nm GPUs and have opted to "sit out" the current cycle by selling my R9 290 and slumming it with a GTX 750 Ti for multimonitor power efficiency reasons. Wake me up when we get something smaller than 28nm. I'll be playing older games in the meantime, clearing out my Steam backlog.

 

[SolMiester]

Hwbot says otherwise.
http://hwbot.org/hardware/videocard/radeon_r9_290x/

Something is off with those figures, air OC is better than water?..eh?

 

[96Firebird]

Today in the US, a GTX980 costs nearly 100% more than an R9 290X for only 8-15% more performance. Way to miss the part where in some countries like mine (Canada), an R9 290 costs $328 CDN after tax while GTX980 costs $820 CDN for only 20-25% more performance. Last time I checked that's 250% more expensive for just 25% more performance. :whiste:

Also, way to ignore R9 390 non-X which won't be $700 but historically AMD's 2nd tier card offers 90% of the flagship performance once both are overclocked. Regardless, at least those R9 290X/780Ti owners will have something truly worth upgrading to that will actually impact their gaming experience and it won't cost $1K like the Titan X.

Let's see what we have here...

In the start of the second paragraph, you talk about ignoring the second-teir card which is usually of much better value. However, in the first paragraph, you completely ignore the 970. Why?

Then, you pick a middle-of-the-road priced 980, and compare it to the cheapest (clearance price) 290. The next closest 290 is $100 more... What about the $600 (before tax) PNY or Zotac models?

Lastly, you have no idea about the performance of the 390, nor when it will be released. Nor do you know the state of the market at that time. Yet you speak as though you do.

Edit - Anyways, I stayed out of this thread long enough before I had to call out some hypocrisy. Gonna stay out of it from now on...

 

[SolMiester]

Technically speaking AMD has not delayed R9 300 series by even 1 day since no official launch date was ever set. Every single thing we read online about R9 300 are rumours coming from sites like Videocardz, Sweclockers, WCCFTech, Kit Guru, etc. I remember reading at least 6 months ago when GTX970/980 launched that R9 300 series was slated for June 2015/Computex, but some rumours had it for March 2015, others 2H of 2015. Some people on our forum expected R9 300 series by end of 2014, others by 1Q of 2015 but there was never any legitimate rumour or statement/road-map from AMD to ever indicate that. How can AMD delay something that never had a launch date? In fact, even as of Q4 2014 earnings, the CEO of AMD said they only intend to start regaining GPU market share as of Q2 2015. That means as of December 2014, we already knew that R9 300 series would never make it to Q1 2015 release date.

Also, you say June is too late for launch but I don't agree. Firstly, NV still has not released its true flagship GM200 card in the $500-700 space. Secondly, we are still 1-1.5 years away from 14nm/16nm GPUs. Surely you don't think NV/AMD will be using 980/290X and $1K Titan X until 14nm GPUs? 15-18 months is a long time to 14nm/16nm GPUs, which means even if R9 390/GM200 6GB launch by June-August 2015, we would still be more than a year away from Pascal!

Finally, I think you are making a sweeping assumption that R9 300 is late so it's a 'pointless' card, but many PC gamers skipped R9 290/970/980/Titan series entirely. Not everyone upgrades for 20% or even 50% increase in performance. There are a lot of PC gamers who upgrade every 3-4 years and they want 75-100% more. I would guess that there is a significant pent-up demand for faster cards in 2015 in the $400-600 space, especially because highly anticipated games like GTA V and TW3 are coming and also because for a lot of people a $550 980 was not a true flagship, while the Titan X is not really affordable. Furthermore, we haven't had any major increase in price/performance in the $300-350 space since November 2013. 1.5 years and we are still hovering at the R9 290/970 level. For that reason, R9 300 series and faster GM200 cards are absolutely necessary and will benefit the market greatly.

If you want to sell CPUs and GPUs, yes, they are late, as OEMs follow Intel chip releases to build the latest models, which is why NV usually matches its releases with Intel chip releases, so they get included with the latest OEM tech.

 

[nsavop]

Let's see what we have here...

In the start of the second paragraph, you talk about ignoring the second-teir card which is usually of much better value. However, in the first paragraph, you completely ignore the 970. Why?

Then, you pick a middle-of-the-road priced 980, and compare it to the cheapest (clearance price) 290. The next closest 290 is $100 more... What about the $600 (before tax) PNY or Zotac models?

Lastly, you have no idea about the performance of the 390, nor when it will be released. Nor do you know the state of the market at that time. Yet you speak as though you do.

+1 RS constantly ignores the 970 which competes head on with AMD's 290/290x for a reasonable price, the 980 is just a money grab for people wanting a bit more.

 

[JDG1980]

Sigh.
AMD has competitive cards to 970/980. 290x is faster/equal than the 970 and 10-15% slower than the 980. And the 290 is better perf/dollar by a mile than either while only being 0-10% slower than the 970. That's competitive by any rational definition...

Competitive? Only if you don't give a rat's ass about power usage. The fact that Hawaii clearly isn't selling well at current prices is an indication that, whatever you or AMD might think, many consumers do in fact care.

(Of course, it also doesn't help that there is a massive glut of ex-cryptomining Hawaii cards still clogging up the channel on eBay and other used-goods vendors.)

 

[Silverforce11]

Looks like they already begun the justification Joker.
You know, 250% more expensive for 25% more performance is bad, but when 390X arrives with 50% more performance for 300% higher price, its perfectly ok.

Almost too scary to be able to read them like that

You need to re-do your maths, even if its $800, that aint 300% higher price than the R290X.

Besides, all this useless argument about price using historic measures is pointless, because the market has moved on. NV has acquired premium luxury status so its not open to judgement on perf/$ at the top-end.

@RS you need to stop wasting your time debating whether NV cards are worth the money because you are approaching it from the pov of someone who hasn't drank the NV koolaid. NV knows their market better than you, they know people are willing to pay more for their stuff, even if when they get less, they perceive to get more and ultimately, that is all that matters. They are happy with their purchase.

 

[Dug]

I am not even that old but I pay attention to the past because it helps me brush off marketing BS like perf/watt that's used to "justify" $500+ price tags on mid-range chips.

The problem is that we are dealing with different software (games). So it's harder now to get a larger performance jump. They can't just increase clock and memory speeds like in the old days.

In fact back in the old days (Voodoo 2) it was a huge jump to have dual textures.

I think video cards can do that now without even running.

 

[Silverforce11]

It's very much on topic, I guess you haven't been paying attention. Apparently those of us that spend $1k on NVIDIA "premium luxury" cards are drinking the kool-aid and are too stupid to realize it.

That's actually what NV has been doing and they have no problems stating it on public. They want their top GPU to approach the luxury premium standard and sell for $1K. They are following in Apple's footsteps. Didn't you read the AT review? At first Titan's $1k price was justified by its great DP compute... now NV is so unashamed they don't even bother.

Maybe next-gen you can pay $2000 for a single GPU and still be satisfied. Because what's the difference between $1K and a 2K, right?? It's only money.

This is why I've been trying to tell RS not to bother discussing $ when it comes to NV GPUs. It's pointless to harp on about $ value because people who buy top NV GPUs don't care about it. I even recall people were defending Titan Z's price! Which NV promptly cut by 50% when the R295X2 smashed it.

 

[stahlhart]

Reopening thread after cleaning. This is intended to be a discussion about the R9 390X.

Because there are a handful of individuals here who have demonstrated repeatedly that they're incapable of having a civil, on-topic discussion that includes both AMD and Nvidia, I do not want to see one more mention of Nvidia in this thread. You're here to discuss the R9 390X, AMD future product plans/announcements, AMD technology. Nothing more.

-- stahlhart

 

[DownTheSky]

Competitive? Only if you don't give a rat's ass about power usage.

Funny how in GTX 480/580 days nobody seemed to care.

 

[Headfoot]

Competitive? Only if you don't give a rat's ass about power usage. The fact that Hawaii clearly isn't selling well at current prices is an indication that, whatever you or AMD might think, many consumers do in fact care.

(Of course, it also doesn't help that there is a massive glut of ex-cryptomining Hawaii cards still clogging up the channel on eBay and other used-goods vendors.)

It uses 60 watts more. Have you replaced all of your incandescent lightbulbs with LEDs yet? That's a 10x improvement in power efficiency (60w to 5-6w) and you use lights more often than video cards. LED light bulbs cost less than $20 now. Not to mention the useful life of an LED bulb is many times greater than the video card. So you'll save more watts for longer for an order of magnitude less money in initial investment.

$26 on Amazon you can save 100 watts (incorrect measurement of power use notwithstanding...) http://www.amazon.com/Sylvania-72554-10-watt-equivalent-Lumens/dp/B00EPESJMS.

If you haven't done this then you have no place making a power consumption argument. And don't give me the well worn and irrelevant "b-b-b-but consumers want this!!!" You don't speak for consumers. Speak for yourself or present reliable data which correlates ONLY power consumption to sales. Hint: there is no such data.

You're going to need a new straw man.

I suggest claiming that 3-6 months is such a loooooooooong time to wait

 

[Cloudfire777]

Funny how in GTX 480/580 days nobody seemed to care.

Try looking back at the history. Power/Heat may actually have been just as valid back then too


No more mention of Nvidia in this thread. stahlhart made it incredibly clear.
-Subyman