[Rumor/Speculation] GTX Titan X 12GB vs R9 390X 4GB vs Unknown GM200 GPU

[Headfoot]

I simply don't believe anyone has those three gpus in hand, or if they did they wouldn't publish them anonymously to some random place which cloudfire won't even link to.

100% agreed with this. Doesn't add up

 

[ShintaiDK]

Need? No, you can have custom air cooling that works just fine for that. But a reference blower? Hardly fine, on Titan Black even the impressive NV blower struggles to keep it cool and its definitely not quiet. It'll also leave little noise/thermal room for OCs.

Seeing the awesome performance of the R295X2 cooler would have given AMD a lot of incentive to go water as reference, particularly since Asetek (Cooler Master modified) supplies them quite cheap en-mass.

AMD copped major flak for the horrible reference cooler performance for many generations now. It really IS time for them to fix that.

ps. The pricetag alone would scare away 90% of buyers. ;P The remaining 10% who can actually afford premium enthusiast GPUs, I doubt they would worry about a 120mm radiator.

Can you get an air cooler? If so, can it fit 2 slot design? We will have to see.

Power consumption is unknown. But with 4096SPs on 28nm at 1Ghz. The same that a 290X uses ~300W with 2816SPs is unlikely.

AMD knows as well as any other that a hybrid cooler is a turn off for the 90% crowd/OEMs. And I doubt they are putting one on in lack of alternatives. In that case they would simply use a cheaper and much more desireable air cooler from one of the AIBs.

AMD used hybrid cooling twice before. The 500W 295X2 and the 220W FX CPUs.

 

[RussianSensation]

But a 289W Fiji XT wouldnt need a hybrid cooling solution that would scare 90% of the buyers away.

For 6 months since the rumour of the AIO CLC started, you have still not understood what the point of it is. You continue to make this wrong assumption:

If AIO CLC is reference ==> The card is a volcano and uses as much power as an African village. How do you NOT understand that AIO CLC is beneficial even for a 200W card because it provides superior noise levels and cooling to air?

GTX980 doesn't NEED AIO CLC but it sure is superior to a reference Titan blower 980.

"Inno3D iChill GeForce GTX 980 and GTX 970 Black Series Accelero Hybrid S is an integrated air and liquid solution in the after-market. It offers an all-in-one solution with 200% cooling performance and 9 times quieter than the stock cooler."

Notice how AIO CLC allows for major issues of open air cooling to be resolved?

1. GPU runs at a substantially lower temperature, which as a side benefit slightly lowers power consumption. End result is a way cooler and quieter running card, and this becomes even more beneficial once you start overclocking.

2. We get to increase GPU clock speeds for FREE for longer. i.e., water allows us to increase clocks without suffering the same penalty we would get with air. With air cooling once a certain power usage is reached, we more or less have to run our fans at 90-100% to dissipate all that heat or we run the risk of Boost throttling. With AIO CLC, there is more headroom before this happens. With air cooling, we often become GPU clock speed/thermal headroom limited far quicker. This is just a fact because a 120mm AIO CLC is superior to 99.9% of air coolers, if not all.

3. GPU designers can put a 70mm+ fan directly over the VRMs.

4. The hot air is exhausted out of the case. That means with 2-3 AIO CLC cards, CF/SLI is superior to ANY air cooled solution for a mid-size to large size case. This has been the biggest problem for multi-GPUs for years that forced many gamers to use the far louder and inferior blower coolers. AIO CLC is like getting superior temperatures of the world's best GPU air cooler and more heat exhausted out of the case than even a blower can do. It's literally the best of both worlds. And if the AIO CLC fails in 3 years, you can just get one for $50-60 from Corsair/Cooler Master, etc., while good after-market coolers like Accelero tend to sell for $80-100.

The end result is a 980 card with 1418mhz factory warrantied clocks that runs cooler and quieter than ANY 980.
Source

Even if many PC gamers are reluctant to admit that AIO CLC is a superior solution from a temperature, performance and noise levels points of view, it doesn't mean that the industry won't approach this objectively and simply won't move on and embrace AIO CLC more and more because the benefits are real. We've seen a major shift to AIO CLC for CPUs and it's going to happen with GPUs and revolutionize this space. The AIO CLC exploded for CPUs and CPUs use way less power than flagship GPUs, which means AIO CLCs stand to benefit GPU gamers even more!!

But your assumption that AIO CLC is "required" is simply wrong. There are 450-600W GPU capable air coolers that will cool a Fiji XT no problem, but they still can't outperform a 120mm AIO CLC for GPUs in terms of noise levels and temperatures. AMD just realized before NV did that AIO CLC is by far the superior solution to any reference cooler ever made by ATI/AMD/NV. I hope NV takes notice and gives us AIO CLC Pascal, and heck even raises TDP to 300W while at it.

 

[Fallen Kell]

Everything from power usage to performance of all existing cards is remarkably accurate. 980 leading 290X by 8% at 4K, 295X2 beating 970 SLI at 4K, 290 beating Titan, 280X beating 770 -- essentially a mirror image of TechPowerUp. The delta between 980 and 290X as well as between 290X and 970 is very close to what peofessional sites like ComputerBase, TPU have.

.
.
.

Looks like if these venches are true, those who skipped the mid-range $550-600 980 will be truly rewarded ....really soon! If I had 980(s) right now I would be getting to sell them in a matter of months before losing a ton of resale value. Competition FTW!

Except for the fact that the performance charts show the new cards performing better at 4k than at 2560x1600... I have yet to see that ever be the case in any video card. At worst, the card would perform the same at 2560x1600 as it does at 4k, but not better at 4k than a lower resolution. And the numbers for the other cards look a little funny as well given we know that 4k hammers even current gen Nvidia cards to the point that it wouldn't be a 5% performance penalty as seen with the 780TI, or a 2% penalty as seen with the 980.

The power chart looks like everyone expects it to look like, which means it could be real, or completely fake, and given how fishy the 4K vs 1600 resolution performance numbers are, I have a hard time believing they are true either.

 

[The Alias]

Except for the fact that the performance charts show the new cards performing better at 4k than at 2560x1600... I have yet to see that ever be the case in any video card. At worst, the card would perform the same at 2560x1600 as it does at 4k, but not better at 4k than a lower resolution. And the numbers for the other cards look a little funny as well given we know that 4k hammers even current gen Nvidia cards to the point that it wouldn't be a 5% performance penalty as seen with the 780TI, or a 2% penalty as seen with the 980.

The power chart looks like everyone expects it to look like, which means it could be real, or completely fake, and given how fishy the 4K vs 1600 resolution performance numbers are, I have a hard time believing they are true either.

It's been said already that they're in relation to the 290x. What else would those random numbers around 100 mean anyway?

 

[ShintaiDK]

For 6 months since the rumour of the AIO CLC started, you have still not understood what the point of it is. You continue to make this wrong assumption:

*textwall removed*

AIO is superiour cooling but its unwanted by the 90(99)% crowd.

Then you can type page up and page down about the benefits and whatever else. But if it all was that great all OEMs wouldnt use anything else.

Its you not understanding the concept outside the enthutiasts of this forum. And even here you get substantial amount of people not wanting water cooling. And those with watercooling may not even want to use this at all. But instead connect it to their existing.

 

[The Alias]

AIO is superiour cooling but its unwanted by the 90(99)% crowd.

Then you can type page up and page down about the benefits and whatever else. But if it all was that great all OEMs wouldnt use anything else.

Its you not understanding the concept outside the enthutiasts of this forum. And even here you get substantial amount of people not wanting water cooling.

Firstly, where are you getting this 90(99%) figure? It's utterly ridiculous to come up with random figures out of nowhere.

Secondly, if you're considering spending over $500 for a SINGULAR video card, you obviously know quite a bit about this hobby. Therefor we can safely assume you would be well aware of the benefits.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Firstly, where are you getting this 90(99%) figure? It's utterly ridiculous to come up with random figures out of nowhere.

Secondly, if you're considering spending over $500 for a SINGULAR video card, you obviously know quite a bit about this hobby. Therefor we can safely assume you would be well aware of the benefits.

How many OEMs do you know that will fit or offer water cooling? Just look what you can get with a 295X2.

What happens if you already got water cooling?

 

[RussianSensation]

Except for the fact that the performance charts show the new cards performing better at 4k than at 2560x1600...

No, they don't. The charts depict percentages, not frames per second.

1. We see SLI/CF scale better because as you go up in resolution, the load shifts even more from CPU to GPU limited. Go look at TPU reviews and you'll see 980 SLI and 295X2 scaling increase over a single 980 / 290X as you move from 1080P to 1440P to 4K. That's why if you use 290X as 100% or 980 as 100%, 980 SLI and 295X2's percentage lead at 4K will increase well above 1440P.

295X2 is 47% faster than a 290X at 1440p
295X2 is 67% faster than a 290X at 4K
https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Gigabyte/GTX_960_G1_Gaming/28.html

2. Similarly faster cards like 780Ti/980/290X would extend their lead over 770/280X and Fiji/GM200 would extend its lead over 970/980/290. That's exactly what the charts show.

AMD knows as well as any other that a hybrid cooler is a turn off for the 90% crowd/OEMs.

Source?

As usual you fail to think outside the box. AMD will provide the best reference cooler for a single GPU of all time + AIBs will offer open air cooled solutions for the rest of people who are so paranoid about AIO CLCs.

Its you not understanding the concept outside the enthutiasts of this forum. And even here you get substantial amount of people not wanting water cooling. And those with watercooling may not even want to use this at all. But instead connect it to their existing.

Coming from a guy who bought a $550 980 and is already bashing a card at least 30% faster with a cooler that will blow away any 980's air cooler out of the water?

It's interesting you are already criticizing AIO CLC and assuming 90%+ of gamers aren't interested before the card even went on sale. Can you see the future now? Just like last time you saw no APUs in PS4 and XB1?

Again, why do you continue to ignore that AMD got negative PR from a reference blower 290X? AIO CLC provides amazing PR for AMD's card in reviews, gives one part of the market the world's best reference designed cooler and everyone else who doesn't want AIO CLC in their rig after-market open air cooled options. Oh, you might want to look up the word "options" in the dictionary because last time I checked, having GPU cooling options is good, especially AIO CLC that blows 99.9% of GPU air coolers out of the water as proven by 295X2. Don't wait AIO CLC GPU, no problem, MSI Lightning, Asus Matrix, Gigabyte Windforce will be there for you. Last time I checked, you can't even get the best open air cooled cards from NV such as MSI Lightning or EVGA Classified for months after launch anyway. So really once again you made no point at all. Just like GM200 users will need to wait for months to get the best air cooled open air cards mentioned above, so will 390X users. Except the difference is an AIO CLC 390X available on day 1 will smoke 99.9% of all GPU air coolers, meaning there is LESS incentive to wait for superior air cooled GPU cards.

And if someone wants dual or triple cards, AIO CLC allows one to build such a setup from day 1 and not suffer the poor noise levels and temperatures of blowers OR the top card heating up when going with open air cooled cards. Get it... no?!

It's not me who doesn't get it, it's you. Enthusiasts have always embraced options, and in this case this particular option solves temperatures and noise level issues that come with blowers.

In case you forgot, the Titan Black's blower is the world's BEST, but in context was smashed by 20C+ by Gigabyte Windforce 3X Titan Black's cooler, and while doing it, the Gigabyte's Windforce 3X ran quieter too. Guess what, AIO CLC is even better than that! You seem to have a huge problem with superior GPU cooling solutions. I am not taking the bait.....
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/gr...te-geforce-gtx-titan-black-ghz-edition_4.html

Do you need to be reminded again that 980 blower SLI thermal throttled out of the box in HardOCP's review? SO much for those 'amazing' air cooler blower designs.

"We found that with the default settings on GeForce GTX 980 SLI the lowest clock rate it hit while in-game was 1126MHz. That clock speed is actually below the boost clock of 1216MHz for GTX 980. This is the first time we've seen the real-time in-game clock speed clock throttle below the boost clock in SLI in games. It seems GTX 980 SLI is clock throttling in SLI on reference video cards." ~ HardOCP

You can scream and shout all you want how blowers is some status quo but the industry is moving on to more modern and superior solutions whether you like it or not.

 

[chimaxi83]

Guess what, AIO CLC is even better than that! You seem to have a huge problem with superior GPU cooling solutions if they're provided by AMD. I am not taking the bait.....

You forgot one little tidbit. :sneaky:

 

[The Alias]

How many OEMs do you know that will fit or offer water cooling? Just look what you can get with a 295X2.

What happens if you already got water cooling?

A lot of them do I'm sure AIO cpu coolers are pretty big nowadays aren't they? A 295x2 is also a very different situation as it is a multi-gpu card, which would turn off some customers, and then it's water-cooled, which I admit would turn off some customers as well, so you're using a situation where it has a two things going against it. I don't think that's a good comparison.

As for your second question, I don't have any experience or knowledge on custom loops, so I'm going to assume you mean AIO. I think if you already have AIO in your system, it has 2 fan mounts, and considering the 2 major sources of heat in a system are the cpu and gpu, The only thing left to cool are your hard drives and maybe soundcard (those are so amazing) and they don't necessarily need the freshest air so you're good on both fronts, I think.

 

[ShintaiDK]

*textwall*

I dont care what a better card than my GTX980 gives or whatever it cost. I dont know why its such a big deal for you. Seems your entire world evolves around that.

If watercooling is so great. Why isnt it used everywhere? Or perhaps because it got disadvantages as well?

And lastly you compare a blower card to an open card? /facepalm

 

[ShintaiDK]

A lot of them do I'm sure AIO cpu coolers are pretty big nowadays aren't they? A 295x2 is also a very different situation as it is a multi-gpu card, which would turn off some customers, and then it's water-cooled, which I admit would turn off some customers as well, so you're using a situation where it has a two things going against it. I don't think that's a good comparison.

The 295X2 isnt really that different. If the OEMs doesnt give it as an option in the selections or only very limited. Then you have to ask yourself why.

The greater perspective is lost when the only focus is water cooling temperatures and such.

 

[TemjinGold]

Let's settle that argument, shall we? We of this forum aren't representative of the entire buying population but I'd like to think we are representative of people willing to pay for top end GPU stuff. I'll be the first to say if those leaks end up being true and 390X is ~$650 with AIO CLC, I would buy that at launch. So who's with me? And who here would say they would definitely NOT buy that?

 

[The Alias]

And lastly you compare a blower card to an open card? /facepalm

You totally missed the point. He was saying that enthusiasts do indeed look at options and if blowers were the only option then the titan black cooler would be the best cooler ever, but blowers aren't the only option and by stepping over to open air you could reduce your temps by 20 degrees C with the gigabyte windforce cooler. The same thing applies to air with water cooling.

I feel that like blowers vs open that air is preferred over water, however nowhere near the percentage you claim.

 

[Silverforce11]

I dont care what a better card than my GTX980 gives or whatever it cost. I dont know why its such a big deal for you. Seems your entire world evolves around that.

If watercooling is so great. Why isnt it used everywhere? Or perhaps because it got disadvantages as well?

And lastly you compare a blower card to an open card? /facepalm

Disadvantage used to be cost, because custom loops are very expensive and fiddly. AIO water coolers have changed the way we enthusiasts think when we decide on CPU cooling. It's almost go-to to either have one massive air tower sink or go for a AIO that dumps heat out the case. The latter option is killing two birds with one stone, because a tower sink dumps heat in the case, requiring extra fans to extract that heat. The AIO does the job of both for the CPU, cools it & exhaust the heat. This is why AIO are popular with CPU cooling.

The same applies for GPUs, they are even better for that task due to much higher power of top graphics cards compared to CPUs. Rather than exhausting 200-300W into your case, most of that heat is exhausted for you, without an extra fan setup.

The advantages multiply in multi-card setups, where open air designs are well known to cause the top card to choke or requiring very high fan speed at which point it becomes too noisy. The dumping of 400-600W of heat in a small case requires very high pressure & CFM case airflow, needing even more fans/noise to deal with that.

The downsides of AIO GPU cooling? I can think of a few:
1. When logic fails and you fall victim to scaremongering (ooo, what if it leaks?!!)..
2. It looks uglier, its hard to make them aesthetically appealing due to the tubes. Custom water loops have fancy tubes & lighting, AIO do not.
3. It may not fit some cases if user already has AIO for CPU cooling. Due to a lack of additional 120mm radiator space.

 

[ShintaiDK]

He was saying that enthusiasts do indeed look at options

Already there you limited the amount of people to a niche.

 

[ShintaiDK]

The downsides of AIO GPU cooling? I can think of a few:
1. When logic fails and you fall victim to scaremongering (ooo, what if it leaks?!!)..
2. It looks uglier, its hard to make them aesthetically appealing due to the tubes. Custom water loops have fancy tubes & lighting, AIO do not.
3. It may not fit some cases if user already has AIO for CPU cooling. Due to a lack of additional 120mm radiator space.

What about the pump?

And it may not even fit cases that doesnt have any other AIO.

 

[Silverforce11]

Let's settle that argument, shall we? We of this forum aren't representative of the entire buying population but I'd like to think we are representative of people willing to pay for top end GPU stuff. I'll be the first to say if those leaks end up being true and 390X is ~$650 with AIO CLC, I would buy that at launch. So who's with me? And who here would say they would definitely NOT buy that?

Definitely would considering I manually AIO mod it anyway and plan to do so indefinitely for newer GPUs I get if they are air cooled.

AMD has done the task for me and make it aesthetically less ugly than my ghetto setup. Win win.

People who use air coolers, especially for multi-GPU have never realized how silent a high-end gaming rig can be.

Once you go water, you can't go BACK!

 

[RussianSensation]

You forgot one little tidbit. :sneaky:

Ya, I forgot. He also keeps denying that AMD can improve perf/watt on 28nm for GPUs and he also denied that AMD could incorporate the power saving, transistor density/die saving techniques learned from in Carrizo for their design of 390X.

"ON top of the new memory we also expect to see some other new technologies make it into the Radeon R9 390 series. For example some of the upcoming AMD Carrizo APU power saving features could also be headed to GPUs. Adaptive Voltage-Frequency Scaling (AVFS) sensors that enable smart voltage monitoring for power savings of up to 10% are said to be in the next-gen graphics cards. That might not sound that significant, but add the 10% power savings from that to the other power saving architecture improvements in the Fiji XT GPU and we could be talking about up to 20% power savings and also the ability to run higher clock speeds!"
http://www.legitreviews.com/amd-rad...d-powers-demos-gdc_159733#YjBEDmbfyZzq6UqT.99

He also can't comprehend how architectural advancements in Tonga will act as a foundation for 390X and how massive improvements in geometry performance, colour compression, memory bandwidth efficiency and pixel fill-rate efficiency will show up in a 4096 SP/ 256 TMU design.

All of his predictions of AMD needing a brand new architecture to compete and AMD failing to improve significantly in performance and perf/watt on 28nm from 290X, and his prediction of AMD leaving the GPU space will come crashing down if 390X succeeds. In essence, his entire AT reputation would be undermined just like today no one pays attention to anything he has to say on consoles after stating that no next gen consoles will have APUs. It's no wonder he is so nervous that 390X actually lives up to the hype.

 

[The Alias]

The 295X2 isnt really that different. If the OEMs doesnt give it as an option in the selections or only very limited. Then you have to ask yourself why.

The greater perspective is lost when the only focus in water cooling temperatures and such.

Are you referring to different than AIO cpu coolers or gpu coolers? if it's cpu coolers, then you have to take in to account that it is a MULTI-GPU ( caps to highlight the major difference between the two) card.

If gpu then once again look at the fact it is a multi-gpu card and how many retailers in general offer multi-gpu cards as an option.

Lastly what is the greater perspective you're referring to ?

 

[Gikaseixas]

My Intel cpus have AIO coolers, love Corsair for that.
I would jump right on a Nvidia or AMD gpu with a similar concept

 

[The Alias]

Already there you limited the amount of people to a niche.

Don't you think $500+ dollars is a niche in and of itself? lol

 

[DiogoDX]

AIO will be no problem if the custom coolers appear at launch.

 

[Silverforce11]

What about the pump?

And it may not even fit cases that doesnt have any other AIO.

Well I have an old Antec 620 Kuhler (120mm rad AIO) from about 5 years back, still humming along silently.

The shipment indicates its a Cooler Master variant of an Asetek AIO, if its anything like their recent stuff, it should be silent for the pump.

As long as the GPU or CPU can thermal throttle, even when the pump dies, it's not a problem as the core just downclocks.

Certainly a few cases would not have room for 120mm rad.. but its rare for high-end setups to go with such cases.

Even an mITX setup benefits from AIO GPU cooling. I've built a few Silverstone SG05/6 as well as 08B rigs, in particular the 05/06 which are 12L (IIRC) cases benefit tremendously with AIO cooling.