Is it worthwhile to upgrade to GTX 780ti from Sapphire custom OC R9 290?

[boozzer]

Ya, I don't agree with that. I think Pascal will give us 80-100% and Volta another 50-70%. Pascal gen could last from Q2 2016-Q2 2018 where Volta will pick up from Q3 2018-Q3 2020. By August 2020, I expect a single chip flagship card to be 2.7X-3.4X faster than 980Ti (and I am leaning more towards the 3.3-3.4X side, with 2.7X being a conservative estimate).

To put it into perspective, November 2010 GTX580 (1.0X) vs. May 2015 GTX980Ti (3.3X faster) and 980Ti OC is 3.63X faster. So it took about 4.5 years to increase performance 3.3X. From May 2015 (980Ti's launch) to August 2020 is more than 5 years. If testing GPU performance at non-CPU limited resolutions such as 3440x1440 or 4K, there is little doubt in my mind that in 5 years we'll have a GPU 3.3-3.4X faster than the 980Ti.

From now on, AMD/NV will have to focus on improving performance from an architectural point of view as they cannot rely on node shrinks every 18-24 months as was the case for decades.

5 years used to be 5 gens of gpus. where do you think the gpu performance would be in 3 years?

 

[ThatBuzzkiller]

Ok, we'll just agree to disagree here. You also didn't account for next gen games taking advantage of more demanding features (Asychronous compute, Voxel global illumination, etc.) that will run faster on newer architectures. Sure, if you want to derive your averages based on 1000s of games, then you may be correct since we have had many years of straight up console to PC ports using outdated game engines. Of course it's not realistic to expect the new GPU architecture to run older game engines 80-100% faster since they don't have the latest tech and forward looking game code. Secondly, if you focus on 1920x1200 or below benchmarks, sure newer GPus won't be as dramatically faster since they'll be CPU bottlenecked.

What about newer games? 780Ti gets killed by Maxwell.

Don't you think that games released in 2016-2018 will use more demanding graphical effects, perhaps next gen effects that run much faster on newer architectures? You are also assuming that NV will focus just as heavily on Maxwell driver optimizations in 2016 and beyond which is a bold assumption after what happened with Kepler. Driver optimization alone could give Pascal a 10-20% advantage over Maxwell in 2016 and beyond titles.

Asynchronous compute is a demanding feature ? I'm pretty sure that it's supposed to be a performance boosting feature as per AMD's claims ...

Voxel global illumination from Nvidia ? There's currently no announced AAA game that will use it plus implementing it is fairly intrusive to the engine's rendering pipeline ...

As for the other graphical features, that depends on consoles or sponsorship from IHVs ...

I don't even expect CPUs to be a bottleneck for the majority of the AAA games when consoles and bindless comes into play. In fact if there's going to be bottlenecks at lower resolution it'd most likely be compute related occupancy issues since GPUs are getting excessively parallel which makes them harder to utilize ...

The reason why Kepler isn't performing up to par with Maxwell is because Nvidia doesn't care to optimize like you yourself once kept chanting however with DX12 that will be less of an issue since drivers are getting thinner ...

When you factor in these circumstances it will be very hard to get a modest boost in perf/$ ...

 

[MrTeal]

Given what you say about your gaming profile, I'd save your money for a year and see what shakes out in 2016. If you find you don't like turning down settings at that resolution, picking up a used <$200 290 would be a reasonable compromise. They're so cheap right now that even when Pascal/Arctic Islands launch you'll be able to sell them without being much out of pocket.

It might necessitate a PSU change, but if that 620W Corsair is an HX 620, it might be time to treat yourself to an upgrade anyway, considering you could net yourself a nice 1200W Gold supply for $75AR that would power just about anything you can throw at it. You'd be good on the PSU for another decade then.

 

[MrTeal]

Some of you guys are too pessimistic. The move from Maxwell to Pascal should be as good as Fermi to Kepler, if not better.
- New node (just like Fermi to Kepler)
- New architecture (just like Fermi to Kepler)
- 1TB/sec HBM2 (memory bandwidth increase of 3X over Maxwell while GTX580 to 780Ti was moving from 192GB/sec to just 336GB/sec).

Sure, NV/AMD might spread the increases over the course of 2 years but we should have a card 80-100% faster than the 980Ti before Volta generation launches in 2018. GTX680 was 33-35% faster than the 580 on day 1.

As you've pointed out several times, the leap from Fermi to Kepler was a bit of an abomination. Even with the new node and arch the 680 was only ~25% faster than the 580 @ 1920x1200 at launch. We had to wait another year to see 80% of GK110 in the 780 and even then that was only a bit more than 50% faster the 580 @1920x1200. Even when Kepler finally arrived in full force a year and a half after the 680, it was only ~80% faster than the 580 @ 1080p and 100% faster at 2560x1600 with a full compliment of DX11 games and mature drivers. (all numbers lazily culled from TPU launch reviews)

I think when people talk about being conservative about Pascal, they aren't really talking about a big die version sometime in mid 2017. They're talking about whatever card nVidia might ship out in early-mid 2016 that people are holding off 980Ti purchases waiting for. If you're sporting a 780Ti or 290 and gritting your teeth through TW3 but have been holding off on picking up a 980Ti because Pascal is right around the corner, you might be awfully disappointed on the launch day of GP104.

 

[Headfoot]

My issue with that I would also need to upgrade the power supply since my current one is a 620W Corsair. Outside of costing money for 800W+ to run dual R9 290s, it is also extremely annoying to rewire the entire interior of the PC . Plus there are the dual card issues that I don't really feel like dealing with.

I am leaning towards waiting for the cards based on the new manufacturing process though... Probably 75%+ of my gaming is actually League of Legends, and that can run on a calculator as far as graphics requirements are concerned. R9 290 has no problem maintaining the top allowable 60 FPS at max settings even at 3440x1440.

Roger that, I had just upgraded my PSU as it was a so-so model getting up in the years so I did a little preventative maintenance and moved up to a nicer PSU, so I have the grunt. If you dont have the extra PSU its probably either wait or 980 ti then.