GK106 die shot, once again with new specs

[f1sherman]

You haven't been reading reviews lately?

The current hot game: Sleeping Dogs

Add Sniper Elite v2 and Dirt Showdown.

So in the more recent DX11 games, Tahiti faceplants Kepler.

Note the utter and total lack of outrage when AMD spiced titles perform untypically bad on NV hardware.

Yet at this point in Crysis 2 situation, among all the pitch-forks and death threats, those calling for only a boycott were considered a voice of reason

And please don't go into "AMD optimizations are better than Crytek's tesselation".
With 3 anti-aliasing passes in Sleeping Dogs, the game is still a flicker-fest.
Mind you, I still love the look of it.

 

[chimaxi83]

Note the utter and total lack of outrage when AMD spiced titles perform untypically bad on NV hardware.

Yet at this point in Crysis 2 situation, among all the pitch-forks and death threats, those calling for only a boycott were considered a voice of reason

And please don't go into "AMD optimizations are better than Crytek's tesselation".
With 3 anti-aliasing passes in Sleeping Dogs, the game is still a flicker-fest.
Mind you, I still love the look of it.

You're comparing apples to oranges here. Crysis 2 got unnecessary, invisible tessellation, for the sole purpose of hurting AMD performance (while lowering their own, just not to the same degree).

The 3 games you mention have nothing of the sort. They actually use GPU compute, something which Tahiti is a beast at, and which makes Kepler in GK104 form weep, run into a corner, and suck on its thumb - i.e., it sucks. That's not the same kind of shady tessellation bs that Nvidia pulled. Not even similar.

 

[tviceman]

You haven't been reading reviews lately?

The current hot game: Sleeping Dogs

Add Sniper Elite v2 and Dirt Showdown.

So in the more recent DX11 games, Tahiti faceplants Kepler.

Which recent games have Kepler doing the same vs Tahiti?

Are there reputable benchmarks for Sleeping Dogs and Sniper Elite V2? I googled both but came up with nothing.

 

[ViRGE]

Are there reputable benchmarks for Sleeping Dogs and Sniper Elite V2? I googled both but came up with nothing.

Sleeping Dogs has a built-in benchmark in fact, which is quite rare for an open world game.

 

[chimaxi83]

Sniper Elite V2 has an installable benchmark.

 

[Haserath]

And please don't go into "AMD optimizations are better than Crytek's tesselation".

Because oceans underneath land and tessellated concrete blocks are so great...
blogs.amd.com/play/2012/06/20/dirt-showdown-on-gcn/
blogs.amd.com/play/2012/05/31/race-hard-party-hard-with-dirt-showdown/

There is some info on the engine they used in Dirt Showdown.

 

[tviceman]

Sleeping Dogs has a built-in benchmark in fact, which is quite rare for an open world game.

Sniper Elite V2 has an installable benchmark.

Sorry I did not clarify. Are there any reputable websites that have done benchmarks across the board with different video cards for either or both of these games?

 

[chimaxi83]

All I've seen so far is Guru3D using Sniper Elite V2 in their recent reviews. Nothing yet for Sleeping Dogs.

 

[tviceman]

Ah thank you kind sir. AMD does well in that game, except that it still runs like complete a$$ when cranked up no matter what video card it uses:

 

[Silverforce11]

Deus Ex: Human Revolution, The Secret World, Arkham City, Battlefield 3.

Wrong.

You are looking at launch reviews? lol

Even in BF3, look at what happens: http://www.hardwareheaven.com/revie...-7990-graphics-card-review-battlefield-3.html

Playable on the 7990 at 3x 1080p res, and a mess on the 690.

No where in recent DX11 games does Kepler have this kind of lead over Tahiti. Where it wins, both cards are running fast and the difference is academic. The same for Showdown.

And to fail in such a popular title is not doing justice to people who use your product.

 

[Keysplayr]

You haven't been reading reviews lately?

The current hot game: Sleeping Dogs

Add Sniper Elite v2 and Dirt Showdown.

So in the more recent DX11 games, Tahiti faceplants Kepler.

Which recent games have Kepler doing the same vs Tahiti?

Faceplants huh? Is that for dramatic effect?
Link me to a review of your choice please. Cherry pick away and lets talk about it.

I'm also d/l'ing Sniper Elite V2 Bench, and Sleeping Dogs Demo. Hopefully the demo has the built in benchmark.
Then I'll see about a Dirt Showdown bench.

 

[SirPauly]

Wrong.

You are looking at launch reviews? lol

Even in BF3, look at what happens: http://www.hardwareheaven.com/revie...-7990-graphics-card-review-battlefield-3.html

Playable on the 7990 at 3x 1080p res, and a mess on the 690.

No where in recent DX11 games does Kepler have this kind of lead over Tahiti. Where it wins, both cards are running fast and the difference is academic. The same for Showdown.

And to fail in such a popular title is not doing justice to people who use your product.

I think it is good to see AMD work with developers to get the most out of their architecture but to use this is just fear mongering to me. Probably an extreme setting that adds some fidelity or AMD trying to utilize their memory advantage more.

 

[notty22]

HardwareHeaven is gospel for AMD right now, because they like the results.
Everyone else is corrupt, doing something wrong etc.

 

[raghu78]

Ah thank you kind sir. AMD does well in that game, except that it still runs like complete a$$ when cranked up no matter what video card it uses:

Here is Sniper Elite V2 with super sampling disabled and the rest of the settings at max.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Sapphire/HD_7970_Toxic_6_GB/18.html

xbitlabs tests with and without anti-aliasing. Without anti-aliasing the scores are quite similar to techpowerup.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/graphics/display/radeon-hd-7970-ghz-edition_8.html#sect5

At 1600p without antialiasing a 1.25 Ghz HD 7970 is close to 30% faster than GTX 680 boosting to close to 1.3 Ghz speeds.

Sniper Elite V2 uses DirectX 11 tessellation, contact hardening shadows, DirectCompute-based effects like DOF, HDR bloom, and super sampling anti-aliasing.

http://www.rage3d.com/articles/gaming/sniperelitev2/

The fact is compute performance is Tahiti's strength and as more and more games are using compute shaders for complex lighting and special effects. Also when you go for 4x SSAA (xbitlabs uses ultra profile with max settings 4x SSAA) the bandwidth of the HD 7900 cards really shows the huge difference in capabilitiy because of a design choice.

Dirt Showdown, Sniper Elite V2, Sleeping Dogs are games where the compute and bandwidth performance is making a difference. For people complaining that these cards perform poorly on Nvidia because they are designed in such a way it will be known when the GTX 780 launches. With a focus on compute performance and with huge bandwidth if the GTX 780 performs much better and competes with HD 8970 in these same games than all these arguments are going to be proven as lame excuses.

 

[raghu78]

HardwareHeaven is gospel for AMD right now, because they like the results.
Everyone else is corrupt, doing something wrong etc.

techpowerup could have a problem with the specific card. HD 7970 CF even before catalyst 12.7 beta was a vastly better performer in BF3 SP with Ultra 4X MSAA at 5760 x 1080 as GTX 690 runs out of VRAM.

http://hardocp.com/article/2012/03/28/nvidia_kepler_geforce_gtx_680_sli_video_card_review/5

At 5760x1200 with 4X MSAA and the highest in-game settings Radeon HD 7970 CrossFireX was faster, and had a much better minimum framerate. The average framerate isn't massively different, but you can see how 680 SLI dips below 30 FPS quite a few times, while 7970 CFX does not. The behavior between single player and multiplayer in this game is very different.

the main reason for the GTX 680 SLI or GTX 690 stuttering and drops to below 20 fps at 5760 x 1080 Ultra 4X MSAA is they run out of VRAM. The 2GB VRAM is just enough for those resolutions with MSAA. Hardwareheaven and hardocp both say the GTX 690 or GTX 68 SLI is not playable. There is no doubt that HD 7970 CF is a much more superior solution for multi monitor with high AA.

 

[notty22]

techpowerup could have a problem with the specific card. HD 7970 CF even before catalyst 12.7 beta was a vastly better performer in BF3 SP with Ultra 4X MSAA at 5760 x 1080 as GTX 690 runs out of VRAM.

http://hardocp.com/article/2012/03/28/nvidia_kepler_geforce_gtx_680_sli_video_card_review/5

At 5760x1200 with 4X MSAA and the highest in-game settings Radeon HD 7970 CrossFireX was faster, and had a much better minimum framerate. The average framerate isn't massively different, but you can see how 680 SLI dips below 30 FPS quite a few times, while 7970 CFX does not. The behavior between single player and multiplayer in this game is very different.

the main reason for the GTX 680 SLI or GTX 690 stuttering and drops to below 20 fps at 5760 x 1080 Ultra 4X MSAA is they run out of VRAM. The 2GB VRAM is just enough for those resolutions with MSAA. Hardwareheaven and hardocp both say the GTX 690 or GTX 68 SLI is not playable. There is no doubt that HD 7970 CF is a much more superior solution for multi monitor with high AA.

I guess you did not read the article you referenced.

Multiplayer Summary - GTX 680 SLI offered the best multiplayer experience, despite it having less VRAM capacity and memory bandwidth. We were able to run with motion blur enabled and HBAO turned on at 5760x1200 with FXAA and averaged 60-70 FPS. This amount of performance is perfect for multiplayer, and with the highest in-game settings enabled the game looked great at multiplayer. AMD Radeon HD 7970 CrossFireX struggled for performance, even though it had more RAM and memory bandwidth. To get the game to feel smooth enough with enough performance we had to lower ambient occlusion and motion blur. GeForce GTX 680 SLI was the clear winner in multiplayer.

 

[raghu78]

I guess you did not read the article you referenced.

I clearly said BF3 SP (singleplayer) .you did not read properly. GTX 680 SLI and GTX 690 run out of VRAM as evidenced by hardwareheaven and hardocp runs at 5760 x 1080 Ultra 4x MSAA .

hardocp is keen to point out cases where Nvidia does well. But in cases where Nvidia does not do well they completely ignore or don't comment. their own forum posts have raised the issue that hardocp is biased towards Nvidia.

 

[notty22]

I clearly said BF3 SP (singleplayer) .you did not read properly. GTX 680 SLI and GTX 690 run out of VRAM as evidenced by hardwareheaven and hardocp runs at 5760 x 1080 Ultra 4x MSAA .

hardocp is keen to point out cases where Nvidia does well. But in cases where Nvidia does not do well they completely ignore or don't comment. their own forum posts have raised the issue that hardocp is biased towards Nvidia.

You clearly are back pedaling. They address single player above the quote for multiplayer performance.
Try again.

Battlefield 3 is a great game to test at NV Surround and Eyefinity resolutions, not just because it looks great, but because this game also is a VRAM memory hog in our testing. We've found though that this game uses more VRAM in multiplayer mode, than it does in single player mode. The table and graph above reflect testing in the single player campaign. However, we did do some specific testing in multiplayer that we will talk about below in the next section.

The new GeForce GTX 680 SLI solution did great in BF3 and we had no trouble running at 5760x1200 with the highest ultra settings including HBAO turned on. In addition to that, we found FXAA performed brilliantly and there was performance to spare. We notched the MSAA level up to 2X MSAA on top of FXAA and were surprised to find this setting playable. We were averaging 50 FPS and never dropped below 30 FPS in the single player campaign.

 

[SirPauly]

Here is Sniper Elite V2 with super sampling disabled and the rest of the settings at max.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Sapphire/HD_7970_Toxic_6_GB/18.html

xbitlabs tests with and without anti-aliasing. Without anti-aliasing the scores are quite similar to techpowerup.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/graphics/display/radeon-hd-7970-ghz-edition_8.html#sect5

At 1600p without antialiasing a 1.25 Ghz HD 7970 is close to 30% faster than GTX 680 boosting to close to 1.3 Ghz speeds.

Sniper Elite V2 uses DirectX 11 tessellation, contact hardening shadows, DirectCompute-based effects like DOF, HDR bloom, and super sampling anti-aliasing.

http://www.rage3d.com/articles/gaming/sniperelitev2/

The fact is compute performance is Tahiti's strength and as more and more games are using compute shaders for complex lighting and special effects. Also when you go for 4x SSAA (xbitlabs uses ultra profile with max settings 4x SSAA) the bandwidth of the HD 7900 cards really shows the huge difference in capabilitiy because of a design choice.

Dirt Showdown, Sniper Elite V2, Sleeping Dogs are games where the compute and bandwidth performance is making a difference. For people complaining that these cards perform poorly on Nvidia because they are designed in such a way it will be known when the GTX 780 launches. With a focus on compute performance and with huge bandwidth if the GTX 780 performs much better and competes with HD 8970 in these same games than all these arguments are going to be proven as lame excuses.

It's wonderful to see more GPU compute but it's not like nVidia is ignoring it --- they also bring a GPU PhysX component and a forced dynamic Ambient Occlusion to many popular titles as well.

More work done on the GPU is great news for nVidia and AMD to me.

 

[Lonyo]

They don't bring a GPU PhysX component to "many popular titles" at all.
It's maybe 2 big titles a year at the current rate. And 2012 will have, I believe, 1 big title with GPU PhysX, Borderlands 2. Not exactly something worth making a purchasing decision over.
Better for NV to focus on things that might see more widespread use in terms of compute.

 

[boxleitnerb]

I think it is good to see AMD work with developers to get the most out of their architecture but to use this is just fear mongering to me. Probably an extreme setting that adds some fidelity or AMD trying to utilize their memory advantage more.

The SLI profile for Sleeping Dogs is bad. With a custom profile (that Nvidia is checking right now) performance is much much better.

 

[SirPauly]

They don't bring a GPU PhysX component to "many popular titles" at all.
It's maybe 2 big titles a year at the current rate. And 2012 will have, I believe, 1 big title with GPU PhysX, Borderlands 2. Not exactly something worth making a purchasing decision over.
Better for NV to focus on things that might see more widespread use in terms of compute.

Also included a forced dynamic ambient occlusion, which has many popular titles.

 

[SirPauly]

The SLI profile for Sleeping Dogs is bad. With a custom profile (that Nvidia is checking right now) performance is much much better.

Interesting, thanks!

 

[raghu78]

You clearly are back pedaling. They address single player above the quote for multiplayer performance.
Try again.

Read their 4x MSAA comparison

"At 5760x1200 with 4X MSAA and the highest in-game settings Radeon HD 7970 CrossFireX was faster, and had a much better minimum framerate. The average framerate isn't massively different, but you can see how 680 SLI dips below 30 FPS quite a few times, while 7970 CFX does not. The behavior between single player and multiplayer in this game is very different."


HD 7970 CF - avg 45.7 fps min 34 fps
GTX 680 SLI - avg 40.1 fps min 14 fps

Remember thats a HD 7970 (925 Mhz). HD 7970 Ghz cards running at 1100 Mhz are available. A slight overclock on the HD 7970 to 1.1 Ghz will take avg fps above 50 which is normally considered very much playable. min fps would also improve. No such luck with the GTX 680 SLI which runs out of VRAM and struggles with the MSAA 4x setting. GTX 680 4GB cards are priced around 80 - 100 bucks more than HD 7970 Ghz.

Why didn't hardocp comment on the BF3 single player performance at Ultra 4x MSAA. Do they really believe a HD 7970 CF solution cannot handle Ultra 4x MSAA at 5760 x 1080 . With mid-40s avg and mid 30s min fps its definitely playable. with overclocking its a no-brainer . HD 7970 CF can handle 5760 x 1080 Ultra 4x MSAA.

hardwareheaven tested the powercolor HD 7990 with catalyst 12.8 and latest CAP (catalyst application profiles)

http://www.hardwareheaven.com/revie...-card-review-test-system-and-methodology.html

techpowerup mentions 12.8 but there is no mention of CAP. Just wait for Hardwarecanucks who have a powercolor HD 7990 review coming soon. more reviews will give a better idea of whether its a card issue or a testing issue.

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums...90-Very-Soon&p=5130693&viewfull=1#post5130693

 

[Keysplayr]

I clearly said BF3 SP (singleplayer) .you did not read properly. GTX 680 SLI and GTX 690 run out of VRAM as evidenced by hardwareheaven and hardocp runs at 5760 x 1080 Ultra 4x MSAA .

hardocp is keen to point out cases where Nvidia does well. But in cases where Nvidia does not do well they completely ignore or don't comment. their own forum posts have raised the issue that hardocp is biased towards Nvidia.

Exactly what you did stating 7970CF was better in single player, but no mention of SLI better in Multiplayer. We clearly saw that you said (singleplayer) and we clearly saw you omitting multiplayer performance. So, I wouldn't be shaking any fingers at HardOCP if I were you.