[ Tech Spot ] The Crew Benchmarked: Graphics & CPU Performance

[toyota]

It's now a known fact that Kepler tanks in modern games. If this was a one-off scenario, sure it could be understandable but this trend is seen in 5-6 Big games released in the last 6 months. It should be a good lesson for NV owners to not overspend with hopes of futureproofing. The best strategy has and will continue to be upgrading more often. Obviously there is some allure with knowing you have flagship performance for X number of months but when all is said and done the extra money spent on 285/580/680/780Ti/Titan over 2nd best card is wasted $. Historical data backs this up as well as NV cards being the first to run into VRAM bottlenecks unless you splurge $100 extra for their rip-off double VRAM versions.

However, despite how overpriced 780/780Ti were, 980 easily sets the record for the most overpriced next gen card with the least amount of performance over last gen. EVGA classified 980 for $699 is jokes. Hopefully NV gets their Kepler drivers in order for 2015. Also, I am personally looking to true next gen PC games in 2015 as FC4, AC Unity, DAI, The Crew, COD:AW all disappointed technically.

I am going to call that point out as being incorrect. the 980 launched at 549 bucks and was 24% faster than the 290x on techpowerup at 1920. the 7970 also launched launched at 549 bucks but was only 12% faster than the 580 at 1920 on the same site. plus the 7970 had the advantage of a die shrink. so the 7970 takes the prize for the most overpriced next gen launch with smallest performance improvement.


photo sharing


image hosting services

 

[Keysplayr]

Did I draw a conclusion in the main OP? No !!

So yesterday when you posted this thread, you didn't think Nvidia was neglecting kepler to make more Maxwell sales. You've come to this conclusion overnight AFTER you posted the OP? Ok.

 

[tential]

I am going to call that point out as being incorrect. the 980 launched at 549 bucks and was 24% faster than the 290x on techpowerup at 1920. the 7970 also launched launched at 549 bucks but was only 12% faster than the 580 on the same site. plus the 7970 had the advantage of a die shrink making it the most pitiful next gen launch.

Graphs/links really help illustrate a point better. Just saying...

Russian would have added graphs to illustrate his point =D.

 

[toyota]

Graphs/links really help illustrate a point better. Just saying...

Russian would have added graphs to illustrate his point =D.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/HD_7970/28.html

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_980/26.html

 

[skipsneeky2]

. the 7970 also launched launched at 549 bucks but was only 12% faster than the 580 at 1920 on the same site.

I remember the stink people made about the 7970 and its price at launch.

 

[notty22]

From GameGpu.....

1080p ULTRA+4x MSAA
http://gamegpu.ru/images/remote/htt...est_GPU-Simulator-The_Crew-cach-crew_1920.jpg

1080p ULTRA+O MSAA
http://gamegpu.ru/images/remote/htt...PU-Simulator-The_Crew-cach-crew_1920_msaa.jpg

Major hits with 4X MSAA.

Thanx

 

[KaRLiToS]

So yesterday when you posted this thread, you didn't think Nvidia was neglecting kepler to make more Maxwell sales. You've come to this conclusion overnight AFTER you posted the OP? Ok.

keysplayr, I don't understand your point. Never I said nothing about that. Where are you trying to go with that, derailing a thread? If you want to do so, please do it without me.

 

[toyota]

I remember the stink people made about the 7970 and its price at launch.

it was laughable how many people justified it. the 7970 literally offered less performance for the money than the 6970 did at launched. in other words it raised the price at a higher percentage than it raised performance which I had never see on next card which usually gives way more performance at a similar price point. lol and even with die shrink it barely beat the last gen 580 which was already considered a very poor value. to be fair the 7970 has had tons of staying power but its only the initial launch I am referring to.

 

[KaRLiToS]

http://www.pcgameshardware.de/The-Crew-PC-257382/Specials/Release-angespielt-1144503/

 

[Grooveriding]

I think exactly what we are seeing is nvidia laying off Kepler optimizations in new games to push Maxwell sales on existing Kepler owners. If you look at the performance hierarchy in games prior to Maxwell's release between Kepler cards, Maxwell cards and Radeons - 980>780ti>970=Titan>290X>290 it is not the same as what you see in games that have been released since Maxwell came out.

Also, if you go go back and check graphics rich, high tech games that released prior to Maxwell, such as BF4, Crysis 3, Metro LL etc - the performance hierarchy is consistent with what we saw at Maxwell's launch as I laid out earlier. I am seeing this comparing a 970 to one of my 780ti cards. So, we're not seeing across the board Maxwell optimizations, but better optimization in recent games. Also worth noting the games that are showing this most strongly, Far Cry 4, AC: Unity & The Crew, are all Gameworks titles where nvidia can much more easily manipulate performance on their cards and AMD's with their closed Gameworks libraries.

Not really surprising, but not worth biting on still even with driver performance optimization games being played. Release the real high end card in GM210. My guess is partly they are not seeing the usual adoption from 780ti/Titan buyers you normally see with a new flagship launch because the performance improvement between those cards and 980 was pathetic at launch. So forgo Kepler optimizations in games as they release which will show up in review benchmarks to try and push those sales is a good strategy.

 

[skipsneeky2]

it was laughable how many people justified it. the 7970 literally offered less performance for the money than the 6970 did at launched. in other words it raised the price at a higher percentage than it raised performance which I had never see on next card which usually gives way more performance at a similar price point. lol and even with die shrink it barely beat the last gen 580 which was already considered a very poor value. to be fair the 7970 has had tons of staying power but its only the initial launch I am referring to.

Luckily the 970 has brought back that 570 state of mind people like myself missed.The 980 isn't horrible for the price but its always been like this for nvidia.Pay to play. Guess we may end up seeing one more Maxwell card in the high end like a 980ti at about $700 then its over.

 

[KaRLiToS]

Luckily the 970 has brought back that 570 state of mind people like myself missed.The 980 isn't horrible for the price but its always been like this for nvidia.Pay to play. Guess we may end up seeing one more Maxwell card in the high end like a 980ti at about $700 then its over.

It's like that for AMD too. The 290x is not really worth the extre over the R9 290.

Same thing for the GTX 980, you pay for the top, even if it is 7% better. It will always be like this. No matter the brand you choose.

 

[Keysplayr]

keysplayr, I don't understand your point. Never I said nothing about that. Where are you trying to go with that, derailing a thread? If you want to do so, please do it without me.

I have no idea what you're getting at.

On topic. There is always a premium for top tier cards despite the performance percentage advantage. Large or small. Just how it is.

 

[Erenhardt]

http://www.pcgameshardware.de/The-Crew-PC-257382/Specials/Release-angespielt-1144503/

Those are some strange results. Shouldn't 270X be closer to 280X and not basically the same as 260X?

On topic. There is always a premium for top tier cards despite the performance percentage advantage. Large or small. Just how it is.

That is not on topic BTW.

 

[96Firebird]

Man, Tech Spot's results are way different from GameGPU's. What is going on here?

 

[notty22]

Man, Tech Spot's results are way different from GameGPU's. What is going on here?

So it is important to note that the preset settings are different on AMD and Nvidia cards.

The graphics settings were set to the 'Ultra' preset and then we made a few customizations which meant forcing ambient occlusion to SSAO+ and anti-aliasing to 4xMSAA. These are the default AMD settings while Nvidia cards use HBAO+ and TXAA. So it is important to note that the preset settings are different on AMD and Nvidia cards.

http://www.techspot.com/review/925-the-crew-benchmarks/

 

[SirPauly]

So forgo Kepler optimizations in games as they release which will show up in review benchmarks to try and push those sales is a good strategy.

imho,

If this was true, nVidia wouldn't of added DSR to older hardware -- supporting older hardware builds the brand and a loyal customer base! Curious to see if AMD supports older hardware with VSR or force gamers to upgrade for it.

 

[skipsneeky2]

Man, Tech Spot's results are way different from GameGPU's. What is going on here?

Techspots review shows them using SSAO,even includes the screenshot of the review showing this.The GameGpu review mentions nothing about that setting and their screenshots don't even show if HBAO or SSAO.The same menu as Techspot isn't even shown in the GameGpu review.

My guess is that GameGpu is using HBAO while TechSpot is using SSAO.The Advanced video on GameGpu is never shown either unlike Techspots.

 

[tential]

Luckily the 970 has brought back that 570 state of mind people like myself missed.The 980 isn't horrible for the price but its always been like this for nvidia.Pay to play. Guess we may end up seeing one more Maxwell card in the high end like a 980ti at about $700 then its over.

Because Nvidia simply launches cards better. You get a "flagship" card from Nvidia at premium pricing, but we all know 2 more cards are usually coming that will be better and will push pricing down on their other cards. People buy the flagship card, then sell it (maybe take a $25-50 hit) then purchase the next card and then maybe even the next. Nvidia can sometimes 3 sales from a person in 1 generation.

Nvidia wouldn't release a R9 290 and R9 290x on the same day without a R9 Titan, soon to follow.

I wouldn't say Nvidia is better than AMD or vice versa. They're usually neck and neck. It's Nvidia knows how to market/make money. AMD just seems to only know how to make a graphics card.

 

[Rvenger]

The next off topic post I see will result in a thread closure/cleaning and infractions will be given to the offenders.

-Rvenger

 

[96Firebird]

The graphics settings were set to the 'Ultra' preset and then we made a few customizations which meant forcing ambient occlusion to SSAO+ and anti-aliasing to 4xMSAA. These are the default AMD settings while Nvidia cards use HBAO+ and TXAA. So it is important to note that the preset settings are different on AMD and Nvidia cards.

http://www.techspot.com/review/925-the-crew-benchmarks/

What a horrible way to do comparison benchmarking...

 

[skipsneeky2]

What a horrible way to do comparison benchmarking...

TXAA is a considerably less demanding form of AA then the 4x MSAA used in the GameGpu review isn't it?I have no experience with it and the only game i have with it supported is BO2 and i hear MSAA is the better AA in terms of quality so that is what i use.

 

[96Firebird]

I have no idea which is more demanding, but the settings should all be the same if they are going to compare directly.

But now that I reread the statement, it looks like they are just saying they had to manually adjust the settings from the presets to get them the same. So Tech Spot got it right, but still have no idea if GameGPU's settings were the same.

 

[SPBHM]

a few interesting things from Digital Foundry

"Kicking off with a Core i5 4650K running at stock speeds, we tried the game across a series of popular GPUs. The £120 Radeon R9 270X (effectively the PS4 graphics core with two extra compute units, more bandwidth and a 20 per cent clock speed boost) handed in a pretty consistent 1080p60 showing on high settings - which is all the more impressive bearing in mind that the only difference with ultra here comes in the form of anti-aliasing, ambient occlusion and shadow cutbacks (and differences in the latter two are difficult to notice when bombing about at top speeds)."

so a 270x runs with image quality almost the same as ultra at 60FPS 1080P

"At the top-end, we tried our luck with a GTX 970 at full ultra, and came away away disappointed with the stutter introduced into the experience. It's quickly apparent where this comes from - The Crew features 4x MSAA and 4x TXAA (Nvidia only) multi-sampling options, and in many scenarios, it cripples performance. "

Ultra performs poorly on a 970

"On the face of it, The Crew's GPU requirements are relatively light for a great experience. However, similar to Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare we found that performance on AMD cards (we tested the R9 270X and R9 280) was considerably impacted in city areas when paired with a Core i3 CPU, whereas the Nvidia GTX 760 - which sits in the middle of the two AMD cards generally - worked just fine on the dual core processor. Once again it seems that AMD requires a better CPU to get the most out of the graphics card. Switching to a Core i5 saw the frame-rate drops we saw all but disappear."

core i3 is fine with NV, bad with AMD.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2014-the-crew-face-off

seems like the game performs well with mid range hardware, but the anti aliasing is poor.

 

[TheUnk]

TXAA is a considerably less demanding form of AA then the 4x MSAA used in the GameGpu review isn't it?I have no experience with it and the only game i have with it supported is BO2 and i hear MSAA is the better AA in terms of quality so that is what i use.

TXAA tanks my FPS by 20 when I try it over MSAA in this game.