R9 290x, 780 Ti, or Maxwell?

[bunnyfubbles]

Unless they pull another 680, where the mid-range chip barely beats the top-end of last gen and is touted as the flagship for a year.

pretty much can't happen (at least not the same way) considering GK104 had 28nm advantage over 40nm GF110

If we do get Maxwell on 28nm, it wont be spectacular.

 

[boxleitnerb]

Hmmm I think I disagree here. If Nvidia is still working on 28nm, and making the assumptions like better transistor density with a maxwell architecture and being similar to GK104 in not having all the extra die space devoted to HPC, Nvidia can cram 6 billion transistors (all of which are for graphics performance) into a 400mm^2 package. That would be about 40 more dies per wafer than GK110. Nvidia could cease producing GK110 for Geforce and increase their margins selling 28nm Maxwell dies at the same price. The biggest issue I think would be power consumption.

Yes they could, but would they want to?
GK104 was Nvidia's money maker along with the smaller chips. If they beat GTX 780+, they would have to charge a lot, thus decreasing sale volume. They could cut down this GPU severely to occupy lower segments, but that would further decrease margins.

 

[UNhooked]

GTX 780 now. Another GTX 780 when Max comes out for SLI. Enjoy performance now and some more later.

 

[tviceman]

Yes they could, but would they want to?
GK104 was Nvidia's money maker along with the smaller chips. If they beat GTX 780+, they would have to charge a lot, thus decreasing sale volume. They could cut down this GPU severely to occupy lower segments, but that would further decrease margins.

I think they could charge the same and just replace GK110 with a smaller, slightly faster maxwell chip and will thus be making more money per chip sold. There will end up being a large gap between gtx780ti and gtx770 so binning / skuing out GM104 shouldn't be an issue either.

But, like I said, power and heat are going to be issues. We see what 64-ROPs is doing to Hawaii's temps and power draw. Using the same amount for ROP's as GK110, but with more cuda cores could be problematic. Efficiency needs to have noticeable improvement among the same node.

 

[boxleitnerb]

And with what would you replace the older GK104 cards then? I doubt it would be economical to make a whole Maxwell lineup on 28nm when 20nm is just a year off.

 

[Will Robinson]

Maxwell isn't a card..its a design/architecture project code name.
I will be quite surprised to see it debut at 28nm.
NV has a solid market share lead and AMD's new range is hardly likely to cause them much financial pressure.
I imagine they would now like to reap the benefits of economies of scale and produce 28nm 7 series cards in large numbers while finishing off the design testing and lithography that will be required for the major jump to 20nm.
Intel have a similar dilemma,they keep producing faster and smaller chips while not really facing heavy competition.
Time for NV to sit back a little and fill up the bank account I think.
Certainly AMD will be hoping to do just that.

 

[tviceman]

And with what would you replace the older GK104 cards then? I doubt it would be economical to make a whole Maxwell lineup on 28nm when 20nm is just a year off.

Yeah I just don't know. I don't know the economics and R&D of shrinking existing dies when moving to new nodes.

 

[KurianOfBorg]

Definitely get the 780 Ti. You can't survive without a GPU. You can always sell it for a good price. I'd also recommend you get a 3D Vision 2 setup so that you're not tempted to go AMD in the future. 3D Vision 2 is the best thing I've ever bought for my PC.

 

[DownTheSky]

Get a decent cooled R9 290 when they come out, then a 2nd one for crossfire If you want to game @ 4k.

 

[Shmee]

Get a decent cooled R9 290 when they come out, then a 2nd one for crossfire If you want to game @ 4k.

This would be my recommendation, as you seem to want top end, I would go with 290 series crossfire. It seems to be constantly be getting better, especially with the new 290 series, and 290 launch drivers should improve 290x performance as well.

Only other logical choice would be 2x 780 Ti, but depends on relative performance at release.

 

[el etro]

R9 290X and tomorrow you will know why. Them only wait the 290X custom versions come and pick the one you want.

 

[sze5003]

I'll be replacing my card with a custom 290x. I'm all about performance on the dollar. I dont think I would spend 700 bucks on a video card. Most I'll go is around 500 or 550 but I play at 1080p mostly.

 

[JDG1980]

Unless you absolutely need bleeding-edge performance, you'll probably get a much better value on the next step down. The R9 290 and GTX 780 are going to be considerably better deals than the R9 290X and GTX 780 Ti.

I'd wait to see what the AIB vendors do with these cards before committing to a choice. The reference design for the AMD cards is garbage, with a completely inadequate cooler, and variants like Asus DirectCU have the potential to do quite a bit better than stock at only a small price premium. The Nvidia coolers are far better, but even there they have been exceeded in terms of performance (if not aesthetics and build quality) by some third-party designs. For someone who absolutely must have the fastest single-GPU card out there and doesn't mind paying 30% more $$$ for maybe 10% more performance, an aftermarket GTX 780 Ti may be the ticket. (But the AMD cards seem to do better at 4K resolutions even then.)

If you wait for Maxwell/20nm, you'll be waiting the better part of a year, if not more. AMD and Nvidia can't control this, they are at the mercy of TSMC.

 

[amenx]

I have a feeling in a few months AMD will come out with an improved version of the 290x.. a more efficient, cooler version. Maybe call it 295x or whatever. Sort of like what Nvidia did with the 480 to 580.

 

[An00bis]

Unless they pull another 680, where the mid-range chip barely beats the top-end of last gen and is touted as the flagship for a year.

my (mid range-high end) HD7850 beats the GTX580 in games and in benchmarks,

yeah, i am a good goy