[SA] News of Nvidia’s Pascal tapeout and silicon is important

[nvgpu]

http://www.anandtech.com/show/5775/...4000-gpus-being-moved-to-legacy-status-in-may

http://www.anandtech.com/show/9815/amd-moves-pre-gcn-gpus-to-legacy

The only thing that is gimped is AMD driver support. Tahiti/Pitcairn/Cape Verde/Oland will be axed next year pretty much since AMD doesn't support GPUs older than 4-5 years.

 

[crisium]

Given the relatively minor differences between GCN 1.0 and 1.2 compared to the much different VLIW... not likely.

 

[3DVagabond]

Tahiti is obsolete?

Someone forgot to tell Tahiti it's obsolete.

Tahiti why you so good?

Obsolete? Maybe for Kepler.

Oh, is that a Tahiti on the heels of the 970?!

Tahiti, why are you so fast? Poor 680/770...

Oi, Tahiti! Why are you matching Kepler Titan, you're obsolete!

Woah slow down Tahiti! You're supposed to be obsolete, why you destroying 680/770 and matching Kepler 780Ti!!

Looks to me like GCN, even the early Tahiti is excelling in modern games.

nVidia's multi-thread drivers are really showing their advantage in these DX11 games, huh? :sneaky:

 

[raghu78]

You know the really funny thing, a gaming system with 960 and 280X, total system power will be 100W more for the 280X v 960 GPU power usage delta.

So it may be 200W vs 300W... and when we look at performance in modern games, Tahiti is killing the 960 by a huge margin.

The gaming rig is just as power efficient!

Old, but not obsolete! haha

A year from now, Hawaii, 390/X is going to routinely beat Maxwell 970/980 in modern games and will be matching or on the heels of the 980Ti. Just like Tahiti is doing to Kepler for the past year. When the time comes, at least we can agree, the gimping of Maxwell is real.

Well said. People who cannot make the distinction between both cannot be helped. tahiti is easily the most forward looking product after the 8800 gtx and gtx 580. both these products played games very well for years after their launch. 8800 gtx was a dx9 powerhouse while gtx 580 was a dx11 champ. in those days nvidia made products which served the gamer well for a long time. nvidia's cards aged much better than amd. Now they only make products which serve the gamer well as long as they deem fit, which is till the next gen cards launch. kepler cards perform much better in non gameworks titles than gameworks titles. nvidia's intentional gimping of kepler performance is a new standard to aspire for according to few of the die hard nv supporters here.

i would even bet that once pascal launches the r9 390x and r9 390 will age much more gracefully than gtx 980/gtx 970.

 

[provost]

nVidia's multi-thread drivers are really showing their advantage in these DX11 games, huh? :sneaky:

What a retort! +1! And, this is coming from someone with six top end Nvidia cards ( albeit of Kepler gen) that are getting beat by Thaiti one way or another... Lol. I guess if I ever buy another video card , guess I will be seeing a lot more of red... Lol

 

[USER8000]

Look at where the GTX660, which was under 10% slower at launch when compared to an HD7870, is now looking like.

 

[Silverforce11]

Look at where the GTX660, which was under 10% slower at launch when compared to an HD7870, is now looking like.

I mean people have said that DX12 optimization is more on the developer and less on the IHV, whereas DX11 optimization is more about IHV drivers... so if Kepler is gimped in modern DX11 games, it means NV isn't bothered to optimize their drivers for it.

Why not? They want you to hurry up and upgrade to Maxwell. Then Pascal comes, they will want you to hurry up and upgrade from Maxwell to Pascal..

GCN is just chugging along, getting better with age as modern games are optimized, the stack receives the benefit.

Obviously, an objective conclusion is NV's practice is better for their profits, while AMD's approach is worse for their profits but better for consumers who don't upgrade often. Which is a better approach, depends on your PoV.

 

[3DVagabond]

I mean people have said that DX12 optimization is more on the developer and less on the IHV, whereas DX11 optimization is more about IHV drivers... so if Kepler is gimped in modern DX11 games, it means NV isn't bothered to optimize their drivers for it.

Why not? They want you to hurry up and upgrade to Maxwell. Then Pascal comes, they will want you to hurry up and upgrade from Maxwell to Pascal..

GCN is just chugging along, getting better with age as modern games are optimized, the stack receives the benefit.

Obviously, an objective conclusion is NV's practice is better for their profits, while AMD's approach is worse for their profits but better for consumers who don't upgrade often. Which is a better approach, depends on your PoV.

It's more than that. 290X was rated slower than 780 ti. Now it's keeping up with the 980. Not sure why, though?

 

[tential]

It's more than that. 290X was rated slower than 780 ti. Now it's keeping up with the 980. Not sure why, though?

The 290 is so fast and so cheap of card that I have to go crossfire 290s. The price to performance ratio is too unreal to pass up.

 

[Gikaseixas]

Looking at those charts i couldn't be more pleased with my last two GPU purchases
They both shine

 

[Good_fella]

Tahiti is obsolete?

Someone forgot to tell Tahiti it's obsolete.

Tahiti why you so good?

Obsolete? Maybe for Kepler.

Oh, is that a Tahiti on the heels of the 970?!

Tahiti, why are you so fast? Poor 680/770...

Oi, Tahiti! Why are you matching Kepler Titan, you're obsolete!

Woah slow down Tahiti! You're supposed to be obsolete, why you destroying 680/770 and matching Kepler 780Ti!!

Looks to me like GCN, even the early Tahiti is excelling in modern games.

Here we go again. Looks like you forgetting that these test using i7 5960X. Something that red kool-aid drinkers can't afford.

So some guy which is weak at hardware reading your BS, buying 280X for his FX 8350 and thinking it will be faster than 780Ti.

Warning issued for inflammatory language.
-- stahlhart

 

[Silverforce11]

Here we go again. Looks like you forgetting that these test using i7 5960X. Something that red kool-aid drinkers can't afford.

So some guy which is weak at hardware reading your BS, buying 280X for his FX 8350 and thinking it will be faster than 780Ti.

Nice flame bait there bro.

Here's the thing, 280X is priced at 960 level or less. It shouldn't be anywhere near 780Ti or even 970 levels.

The fact that it is, is a testament of GCN's future-proof design and NV's neglect of Kepler.

A modest i5 won't bottleneck at these frame rates bud.

 

[Dribble]

What are you trying to say, AMD will be behind in DX12? lol

They help created the DX12/Vulkan standard. It's based on their own Mantle tech.

https://www.reddit.com/r/AdvancedMi...ide_games_made_a_post_discussing_dx12/cul9auq



We may see Volta being great at DX12/Vulkan eventually.

And a few years ago you'd have been going on and on about how AMD own the consoles so should be well ahead of nvidia in all those DX11 games as AMD had big advantages. Yet their drivers were a long way behind - the 7970 took years to reach it's potential. Even now the AMD DX11 driver isn't as good as nvidia's. That was before most of the cut backs to staff hit as well.

You know that when the DX12 games come out and the next gen cards are out nvidia will end up ahead because their drivers will be better. You will almost certainly conclude it's not fair due to something nvidia has done (bribing the whole games industry while JHH clubs baby seals for fun). You'll then say if we all wait yet another year AMD will magically fix it all because you've seen some power points and where AMD has renamed their driver suite again. The truth will be Nvidia is ahead because they have a much stronger software focus and a bigger better staffed driver team. They have done for a long time (even when AMD had money it was always rubbish at software, letting Intel and MS worry about that).

 

[Silverforce11]

And a few years ago you'd have been going on and on about how AMD own the consoles so should be well ahead of nvidia in all those DX11 games as AMD had big advantages. Yet their drivers were a long way behind - the 7970 took years to reach it's potential. Even now the AMD DX11 driver isn't as good as nvidia's. That was before most of the cut backs to staff hit as well.

What revisionism.

Despite your constant mockery that AMD has poor DX11 drivers, the competing AMD product offered same or better performance at a better price since GCN's debut!

7870 > 660

7970 = 680

7970Ghz = 770

R290 = 780

R290X > Titan

780Ti > R290X but cost lots more

That was when they debutted. Not years later.

A few months after Maxwell's launch, we started seeing the gimping of Kepler and suddenly those GCN Skus above leapfrogged the competitor NV GPU. In DX11 that they supposedly suck at, according to you.

The R290/X and Hawaii itself was never the competitor to Maxwell which was a new-gen uarch, yet for awhile now we see R290 and R290X more than competitive vs 970/980. Now we're commonly seeing the 390/X beat 970/980 outright in modern games.

"the 7970 took years to reach it's potential" -- You say that as if it was not competitive with NV's GPU at the time.

See, folks like you seem to take a starker view when we see GCN maturing well. You like to think AMD drivers suck and take years to get better. You are blind to the historic facts which puts these GPUs squarely at the competition where they belong and it's been a steady rise above the meek.

Let me ask you, which gamer is better off, someone who bought the 7970 or the 680 a few years ago?

What about gamers who bought the R290 vs the 780 (R290 was significantly cheaper at release)?

Not only did the R290 competed very well against the 780 back then for less, for the past year, its routinely making a mockery of the 780. And you conclude that AMD drivers are bad? What is wrong with your logic, you see NV gimping Kepler and you say AMD has bad drivers?

 

[Gikaseixas]

"the 7970 took years to reach it's potential" -- You say that as if it was not competitive with NV's GPU at the time.

Yeah that was a straight lie, my 7970 has always had the measure of the likes of GTX 680 and GTX 770, you know the targeted competition but lately it competes with a tier above GPUs. Best purchase in the last few years. Here's hope that my GTX 980TI survives Pascal optimized drivers

 

[JDG1980]

You know that when the DX12 games come out and the next gen cards are out nvidia will end up ahead because their drivers will be better.

From AMD's perspective, the big advantage of DX12 is that it is a low-level API, so the drivers don't matter as much. DX11 is so abstracted from modern GPU hardware that basically half the development effort is done by the actual engine author and the other half (including almost all the optimization, and all the multi-GPU support) by the AMD/Nvidia driver team. DX12 will put the burden of programming and optimization back on the developers, where it belongs, removing it from the GPU vendors' shoulders.

 

[vissarix]

why you guys keep bringing up amd optimised games to show how good tahiti is on a pascal thread? when someone does the same thing on an amd thread you will report the sh.. out of it for trolling threadcrapping etc..

im not gonna waste my time reporting your posts, you guys seem so desperate trying to show you biasis...keep going...

 

[Dribble]

From AMD's perspective, the big advantage of DX12 is that it is a low-level API, so the drivers don't matter as much. DX11 is so abstracted from modern GPU hardware that basically half the development effort is done by the actual engine author and the other half (including almost all the optimization, and all the multi-GPU support) by the AMD/Nvidia driver team. DX12 will put the burden of programming and optimization back on the developers, where it belongs, removing it from the GPU vendors' shoulders.

If that is so that means the developers will need to individually code for different gpu architectures to maximise performance as close to the metal they run differently and the drivers can no longer work around bottlenecks. That puts even more emphasis on the gpu makers software teams. You will have to provide each dev with appropriate libraries, on the ground support, and testing farms to make the most of DX12 performance for a certain architecture of cards.

Obviously that suits Nvidia as they are the ones who are better at that right now, AMD manage it for a couple of big releases but other then that don't seem to have the manpower to compete. Hence Nvidia will end up better optimised in games. The more vocal AMD supporters will be shouting horrible things about gamesworks and blaming Nvidia for not optimising DX12 for AMD but it won't make any difference. The problem is AMD's inability to compete with Nvidia when it comes to software - partly due to AMD's traditional hardware focus which expects others to provide the software and partly due to them not having enough money to do anything about it.

 

[Headfoot]

http://www.anandtech.com/show/5775/...4000-gpus-being-moved-to-legacy-status-in-may

http://www.anandtech.com/show/9815/amd-moves-pre-gcn-gpus-to-legacy

The only thing that is gimped is AMD driver support. Tahiti/Pitcairn/Cape Verde/Oland will be axed next year pretty much since AMD doesn't support GPUs older than 4-5 years.

Absolutely rich that a guy named nvgpu is slinging mud about poor driver support for older architectures... the delicious irony

 

[moonbogg]

Yeah that was a straight lie, my 7970 has always had the measure of the likes of GTX 680 and GTX 770, you know the targeted competition but lately it competes with a tier above GPUs. Best purchase in the last few years. Here's hope that my GTX 980TI survives Pascal optimized drivers

LOL yeah, that's not happening. In a year, our 980ti's will be doing good to compete with a 390x. Fury X will beat the living CRAP out of anything Maxwell in about a year from now.
Nvidia charges high end prices for mid range cards and then screws you hard by letting your driver support go to hell so you are encouraged to buy their new generation. Its natural to try and rationalize a different reason behind these things, but that's the simple truth I'm afraid. Profit above integrity, 100% all the time for Nvidia.
The thing is though, their products are hard to resist, because for 1 or 2 years, their products are very good, the best actually. Just don't expect that shine to last very long.

 

[moonbogg]

LOL yeah, that's not happening. In a year, our 980ti's will be doing good to compete with a 390x. Fury X will beat the living CRAP out of anything Maxwell in about a year from now.
Nvidia charges high end prices for mid range cards and then screws you hard by letting your driver support go to hell so you are encouraged to buy their new generation. Its natural to try and rationalize a different reason behind these things, but that's the simple truth I'm afraid. Profit above integrity, 100% all the time for Nvidia.
The thing is though, their products are hard to resist, because for 1 or 2 years, their products are very good, the best actually. Just don't expect that shine to last very long.

Post of the year right there. God I love myself. So smart. So good looking. Humble, rational.

 

[raghu78]

LOL yeah, that's not happening. In a year, our 980ti's will be doing good to compete with a 390x. Fury X will beat the living CRAP out of anything Maxwell in about a year from now.
Nvidia charges high end prices for mid range cards and then screws you hard by letting your driver support go to hell so you are encouraged to buy their new generation. Its natural to try and rationalize a different reason behind these things, but that's the simple truth I'm afraid. Profit above integrity, 100% all the time for Nvidia.
The thing is though, their products are hard to resist, because for 1 or 2 years, their products are very good, the best actually. Just don't expect that shine to last very long.

yeah you hit the nail on the head. Nvidia is the opposite of integrity. Enjoy those 980 Ti cards and sell them before GP104 launches. this way you have got the best performance and don't get shafted by Nvidia. Obviously the guy who buys from you gets the shafting from Nvidia.

Post of the year right there. God I love myself. So smart. So good looking. Humble, rational.

 

[Pinstripe]

Nobody in the industry can afford to ignore Nvidia. AMD's hardware may be ahead in DX12, but they'll always be behind the game as a whole.

 

[railven]

LOL yeah, that's not happening. In a year, our 980ti's will be doing good to compete with a 390x. Fury X will beat the living CRAP out of anything Maxwell in about a year from now.
Nvidia charges high end prices for mid range cards and then screws you hard by letting your driver support go to hell so you are encouraged to buy their new generation. Its natural to try and rationalize a different reason behind these things, but that's the simple truth I'm afraid. Profit above integrity, 100% all the time for Nvidia.
The thing is though, their products are hard to resist, because for 1 or 2 years, their products are very good, the best actually. Just don't expect that shine to last very long.

And people might wonder why NV is setting revenue records while AMD is trying to make a buck. One is just a better run business (I want you to note I'm looking at this from the perspective of the business).

While NV gets their users to upgrade - what was the term coined here, forced obsoletion? - AMD users will hold on to their cards longer possibly skipping a gen.

As a consumer that sucks. As someone who historically bought a new GPU every refresh, it doesn't bother me. This is the game NV is playing. And until the incredible DX12 revolution starts forcing them to actually play nice, AMD is going to keep hemorrhaging.


I mean seriously, if we ran a poll how many users here actually bought a Fury? Versus how many bought a 980 Ti?

And for the middle cards, who actually upgraded from say a R9 290/290X versus those from 780/780 Tis?

AMD being the more consumer friendly company isn't doing jack to help them. They better sharpen those claws, time is running out.

 

[xthetenth]

I mean seriously, if we ran a poll how many users here actually bought a Fury? Versus how many bought a 980 Ti?

And for the middle cards, who actually upgraded from say a R9 290/290X versus those from 780/780 Tis?

AMD being the more consumer friendly company isn't doing jack to help them. They better sharpen those claws, time is running out.

It's up to the customers to reward being customer friendly. For example, I may not have bought a Fury but it will be a long time before I buy an NV card after the 970 I got at launch, I've already bought 2 290s for a friend and I, and that Fury I didn't buy is very likely to be Polaris cards I do buy.