Nvidia Maxwell-based 900 series cards now going into legacy support

[eddman]

My point wasn't exactly NV versus AMD, but NV versus NV. Nvidia finds a smart way to cut the older gpus support to boost the sales of its newer hardware. GameWorks/VRAM gimping/etc are merely just tools. But yeah, carry on with your specific discussion 😉

Well, those are different discussions which shouldn't be mixed.

Is there more about this Kepler lock-out besides that comment from zlatan? Where is it from? What does he mean by licenses?

 

[AnandThenMan]

That's my boy!!!! Capitalize on that. Use it!! Make everyone think it's baaaaaaad to buy Nvidia products because they only support them for two years.

Good Lord......🙄

But this is ALWAYS you, Silver. Always.
Yes, I've been round long enough to know what you're doing. I used to myself. That's how I recognize it. I've sworn off that crap though. Unwavering fanboyism is the dumbest thing in the universe. I still prefer Nvidia products over AMDs. That has been pretty consistent over the last 20 years. But I have, in the last few years, recognized my own actions as foolish and began to question why. I can only hope you do the same.... soon...

Nvidia has a trust problem and for good reason Kepler owners were tossed under the bus. So try and understand why people are not willing to trust Nvidia when it comes to Maxwell.

 

[MagickMan]

Man, some of you guys will go along with, and say anything without actually knowing anything about anything.

^^This. The sheer volume of ignorance is almost physically painful to see.

Maxwell has been marked as a Legacy Product, meaning they aren't making any more of them, that's not the same as legacy support. Put another way, Maxwell and Pascal are so similar, the latter is essentially a shrunk-down and moderately enhanced version of the former; it would be virtually impossible to improve one without benefitting the other.

While I expect Volta will be a complete departure from current architecture, that's not the case currently. Save the tomato-throwing for next gen.

 

[boozzer]

Wow, that was fast. That really is too bad.

haven't we all known this was going to happen? expect 10-20% performance loss or more within the year.

 

[littleg]

^^This. The sheer volume of ignorance is almost physically painful to see.

Maxwell has been marked as a Legacy Product, meaning they aren't making any more of them, that's not the same as legacy support. Put another way, Maxwell and Pascal are so similar, the latter is essentially a shrunk-down and moderately enhanced version of the former; it would be virtually impossible to improve one without benefitting the other.

While I expect Volta will be a complete departure from current architecture, that's not the case currently. Save the tomato-throwing for next gen.

I agree with this with just the one exception of the 970. Generic driver optimisations aren't going to cut it with the memory issue. You'd expect that they will continue to make their drivers work around that.

 

[vissarix]

Expect a r9 370 to beat the gtx980 ti by the end of this year...vulkan is the future...just like mantle made nvidia almost go bankrupt😂😂😂

 

[boozzer]

Expect a r9 370 to beat the gtx980 ti by the end of this year...vulkan is the future...just like mantle made nvidia almost go bankrupt😂😂😂

I love it ^_^ 10-20% performance loss = 100% or more by the defenders 😉

 

[MagickMan]

In Doom I've seen benchmarks where Pitcairn beats the 780 ti. And before someone blames the 3GB, it's not bothering the 7970, which is beating the Titan by >10%. Kepler optimizations? Really?

Because Kepler>Maxwell was a major architectural shift, that's not the case from M>P. That doesn't excuse what happened to Kepler owners though, I do think they got a raw deal. they should have been more actively supported, at least through all of Maxwell. (You should be able to expect solid performance for 2 generations when you buy a gaming/enthusiast GPU.)

Next gen we're much more likely to see the "Kepler crash" all over again, because it's supposedly a more significant shift in design. AMD hasn't had to deal with this because they've been riding GCN for so long, milking it for all it's worth. That's good in that most driver improvements raise performance for several previous generations, but when they do eventually change it means that everything based on GCN will likely come crashing down.

 

[MagickMan]

I agree with this with just the one exception of the 970. Generic driver optimisations aren't going to cut it with the memory issue. You'd expect that they will continue to make their drivers work around that.

That, unfortunately, is correct. Gamers will need to be proactive in optimizing their game settings to avoid getting into that .5 GB of RAM, and that's rather crappy. If a 970 owner plays games that regularly run into this issue, they should sell off their card while it still has some resale value, and along with using the settlement $, buy something newer.

Expect a r9 370 to beat the gtx980 ti by the end of this year...vulkan is the future...just like mantle made nvidia almost go bankrupt������

hahahahahahaha... no. Pass along some of whatever you're smoking, it must be awesome. Not unless NV stops development for Pascal, which won't happen.

 

[Shmee]

Some mentioned already that there still may be further driver support and optimizations for Maxwell, just not any being made anymore due to legacy status of product. I hope this is the case, a company should support its products.

I guess time will tell. In the mean time, please keep this topic civil and on topic or it will be closed.

 

[zinfamous]

Legacy just means they're not making the cards anymore.

This. Why is so much being invented about this news?



Didn't AMD stop manufacturing 300/Fury series cards recently? I recall something a few weeks ago about expected price reductions from vendors to dump all remaining stock because no more orders are going out.

 

[Makaveli]

Man, some of you guys will go along with, and say anything without actually knowing anything about anything.

lol Welcome to the videocard section on anandtech hope you enjoy your stay.

 

[Gundark]

This. Why is so much being invented about this news?



Didn't AMD stop manufacturing 300/Fury series cards recently? I recall something a few weeks ago about expected price reductions from vendors to dump all remaining stock because no more orders are going out.

I don't know if it's applicable, but only products from AMD that have "legacy" status are HD 5000-6000 (and older).

 

[fkoehler]

I've been around since the Celeron 300a, dualing on my BP6, so disregard my current UID.

nVidia will most likely make sure the 900 series stay competitive for at least the next several months, since this has already created a mini-firestorm.

Towards the fall/end of year sales opportunity, expect this to really come about in a clear way, as nVidia uses it to push people to upgrade.

Its really sad to see grown men arguing about gfx manf's like chicks over name brand clothing in Teen Vogue

Used to be a saying, "Burn me once, shame on you. Burn me twice, shame on me."
Getting bent over for the umpteenth time, without lube yet again, and saying "Its really not what it looks like it is, Guys, really".... Priceless.
[/I]

Deus Ex is out in a couple weeks. I think this is the first major title to release since the Pascal launch. Supports DX12 as well. We might get the first indication if Maxwell is getting Keplered when we see benchmarks of the game. If the 1080 is hugely faster than 980ti, the nerf has begun 😛

 

[parvadomus]

Sad day for maxwell owners, but they were warned anyway..

 

[zinfamous]

Regret at not waiting for a Nitro rising... I was willing to tolerate a lack of mining. I was even willing to endure a poor api. But this too? If Nivida is pulling this crap now then my 1060 will be junk in a year.

your 1060 will be fine for at least 2 years. Hell, I'm the type of knucklehed that only updates drivers every 4-10 refreshes and I never have problems. 😀

Point being--driver support or not x years into the future, the hardware still works and functions well.

 

[nerp]

Sad day for maxwell owners, but they were warned anyway..

Ugh. Read the thread. Weaksauce blogger doesn't understand facts. Fact is cards not being produced anymore. That's it. AMD does it. NVIDIA does it. Does not mean "legacy driver support"

 

[dogen1]

Welcome to nV's GameBarelyWorks program where AMD is cut off from source code for optimizing driver code.

You know they can run the game through a profiler and see exactly what the gameworks "black box" does. Probably more useful to do that than just read source code cause a profiler will actually give you performance numbers. You can only guess when reading code.

 

[AtenRa]

Deus Ex is out in a couple weeks. I think this is the first major title to release since the Pascal launch. Supports DX12 as well. We might get the first indication if Maxwell is getting Keplered when we see benchmarks of the game. If the 1080 is hugely faster than 980ti, the nerf has begun 😛

I have a feeling that Pascal cards will outperform Maxwell cards by a long shot in that game, it will also be very convenient that this game is released at the end of August when Pascal availability will also start getting better.

By the end of the year Pascal may be 30-50% faster in new DX-12 games (Deus Ex, Civilization 6, BF1, Watch Dogs) vs Legacy Maxwell. Time for 16nm upgrades guys, imagine how awesome Titan X will look in Deus Ex 😉

 

[AtenRa]

Tell that the Kepler users 🙂

Maxwell likely won't be as "handicapped" as Kepler in some of the newer games versus Pascal, but that fragmented memory on the 970, oh boy. Time will tell what's going to happen to the best-selling gaming card... or was it 960 ... 😉

Ordered 1070 myself the other day, planning to keep it for about 1.5-2.0 years. You know why, gamers tax at its finest lmao 😛

You can always sell it in 6-8 months and buy a Vega 😉

 

[MajinCry]

You know they can run the game through a profiler and see exactly what the gameworks "black box" does. Probably more useful to do that than just read source code cause a profiler will actually give you performance numbers. You can only guess when reading code.

Uh, pretty sure you need source code to get any clue as to what's going on, without Boris Vorontsov levels of investment and manhours.

 

[Sonikku]

You can always sell it in 6-8 months and buy a Vega 😉

I've been tossing around getting a 4k tv so I may end up doing just this. All other factors being equal, I prefer AMD.

 

[HurleyBird]

While I don't have much love left for Nvidia at this point, and I wouldn't put it past them to try any number of slime ball moves, Keys is absolutely correct in this instance. I'm still half expecting Nvidia to throw Maxwell users under the bus like they did with Kepler (Pascal's seeming architectural similarity with Maxwell, or the fear of further negative PR may just prevent history from repeating itself), but one shouldn't cast blame prematurely in any case.

 

[tential]

While I don't have much love left for Nvidia at this point, and I wouldn't put it past them to try any number of slime ball moves, Keys is absolutely correct in this instance. I'm still half expecting Nvidia to throw Maxwell users under the bus like they did with Kepler (Pascal's seeming architectural similarity with Maxwell, or the fear of further negative PR may just prevent history from repeating itself), but one shouldn't cast blame prematurely in any case.

Considering how many people are only looking at Maxwell new(on sale)/used vs pascal new for their next purchase, this could simply be a move by Nvidia to sway customers towards purchasing their new lines.

Using this as proof of the theory that Maxwell will die off in performance is weak.

 

[Magic Carpet]

Is there more about this Kepler lock-out besides that comment from zlatan? Where is it from? What does he mean by licenses?

Was his response as to why my 670 didn't perform as well as it could have. Didn't elaborate much beyond this. Trust what he says though, certainly, has way more credibility than what NV PR does, in my eyes at least. He's another good one:

I want to congratulate to ID software for using AMD specific SPIR-V extensions for the very first time on PC. I know how bad you guys want console style programing to bring all those crazy console optimizations to the PC. Now you can show it!

Imagine if at least half the games were to receive similar AMD optimizations! We both know, that AMD hardware is superior to NV, it's the software where AMD is lacking.

You can always sell it in 6-8 months and buy a Vega 😉

Yeah, that might actually happen. Fast (re)cycling mode activated! Until then I am going to enjoy my incoming 1070 😉