TPU Performance Summaries with newer games

[RussianSensation]

Historically ATi/AMD's cards tended to perform a lot better at higher resolutions. This trend continues as in the latest games AMD seems to have closed the gap in performance at high resolutions (or perhaps NV's Kepler/Maxwell drivers are less optimized for newer games).

Newer games added by TPU: Shadow of Mordor, COD : AW, Ryse Son of Rome, Civ: BE, Alien Isolation, Dead Rising 3.

The updated performance charts more or less mean that 980 has no chance whatsoever to keep the performance crown against the 390X in high resolution gaming, which means NV's GM200/210 is a must launch in 2015 to maintain the Maxwell momentum:

1) 290X ~ 780Ti and 980 is only 9% faster than a reference 290X at 4K.

2) 295X2 is now 61% faster than a 980, a gap that increased from 49% when testing was done with older games in September.

3) Titan loses to a reference 290 non-X.

Considering the current prices of 290X, 295X2 and 290X CF, the already overpriced 980 has now entered the comically overpriced Titan / Titan Z levels.

1440P is more of the same:

1) 780Ti has nothing extra worth talking about over the 290X while 980 is just 11% faster than the 290X despite its market prices approaching near double that of the 290X.

2) 780 non-Ti reveals itself as a very poor card for high rez gaming without overclocking, barely 12% faster than Ghz Tahiti. Very disappointing for a product that cost $650 and had so much potential early on. For 780 users at 1440p or higher, overclocking is a must now to each 290/290X/970 levels of performance.

3) Titan loses to a reference 290 non-X.

Source:
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Colorful/iGame_GTX_970/27.html

It's pretty remarkable that AMD's $250 290 and $300 R9 290X are barely behind the 970/980 despite being such old products. As many gamers made note of during the launch of 970/980, high resolution gaming has not really moved from 1 year ago by anything tangible. We are talking 9-12%.

If R9 390X manages a 30-35% gain over the 290X, it'll put the 980 in a mid-range $399 class for next gen products. Hopefully GM200/210 brings at least 50% performance over Titan Black and 390X delivers a solid gain over the aging 290X. :thumbsup::thumbsup:

 

[3DVagabond]

So much for the falsehood that AMD is letting their DX drivers slip because of Mantle and their lack of resources and nVidia drivers offering any superior performance.

 

[raghu78]

Those charts will be updated with Farcry 4 and Assassins Creed Unity. AMD needs to improve performance in AC Unity because NV dominates that game. Moreover CF support is not yet present in both games, which is to say the least, very disappointing. Ubisoft needs to do much better in supporting CF on their titles. AMD has its work cut out. They need better performance on launch day in TWIMTBP titles. MSAA performance in The Crew needs to improve.

http://gamegpu.ru/racing-simulators-/-gonki/the-crew-test-gpu.html

 

[RussianSensation]

^ both of those games are broken, not surprising given that they are Ubisoft titles:

1) Unity runs like garbage on all GPUs and Patch 1.3 lowers performance in places. It seems this game is unfixable. There are probably going to be 2 situations with this title: (1) someone bought it around launch and already beat it or (2) the other person will buy it when it gets to $5-10 at which point we'll have next gen cards.

2) FC4 is a stuttering mess, not surprising since FC3 is the same stuttering mess due to Dunia Engine 2. SLi doesn't even work properly with lighting bugs.

In the Crew, there is a 2X performance loss with MSAA on AMD cards, the worst I have ever seen. Unfortunately Ubisoft continues to prove that outside of Rayman series, they have no clue how to make next generation games that run well and look great at the same time. What can be said for Unity when lowering NPCs does nothing to improve performance, 300 bugs fixed so far, while FC4 runs nearly 2x faster with better graphics. The game is not even worth $5 in its current state.

Notice a trend how every single major title from Ubisoft in the last 2 years is completely broken? Ubisoft doesn't care for PC gamers, doesn't know how to optimize games, can't produce next generation graphics for the life of them. So why should we care to spend hundreds of dollars just to run their broken games at semi-acceptable levels? Ubisoft is a straight up console developer that just shoves broken PC ports like scraps to make a couple bucks off the PC gaming community. For the last 2 years I spend no more than $5 on any of their games until they change their attitude. They won't learn until we vote with our wallet, and I am. Their ideas are good but they need to ditch Babel, Anvil Next and Dunia 2 and replace them with UE4, and get rid of annual sequel rehashes. All of their games need more testing time but instead we end up being beta testers for $50-60.

 

[escrow4]

So much for the falsehood that AMD is letting their DX drivers slip because of Mantle and their lack of resources and nVidia drivers offering any superior performance.

They do offer superior performance. Look at recent GameGPU tests - Nvidia has way less driver overhead. Meanwhile, still waiting for a 980 Ti or Titan II.

 

[Gikaseixas]

They do offer superior performance. Look at recent GameGPU tests - Nvidia has way less driver overhead. Meanwhile, still waiting for a 980 Ti or Titan II.

No. Overhead myth gotta go. If that was the case then 780Ti would be distancing itself from 290X but the reverse is happening. Open your eyes

 

[RussianSensation]

They do offer superior performance. Look at recent GameGPU tests - Nvidia has way less driver overhead. Meanwhile, still waiting for a 980 Ti or Titan II.

Sure if you compare a $550 980 against a 1 year old $299 290X. However, when people cross-shop cards, it's unlikely that someone who is looking to spend $250-350 can swing $550-600. Similarly, as has been shown, Kepler's performance has fallen off a cliff with 780Ti barely hanging with a 290X, and sometimes even losing. It wasn't too long ago when 290X was selling for $450 and 780Ti for $650. All that extra $ spent on 780Ti/770 4Gb/780 has amounted to nothing worth talking about in the majority of latest games. The 580 never fell apart like this against the 6970. If AMD had released its own next gen card, how would the $550 980 look right now?

 

[ShintaiDK]

Why do you keep comapring GTX980 with 290X. When the graph you link show it should be compared to the GTX970.

 

[toyota]

Why do you keep comapring GTX980 with 290X. When the graph you link show it should be compared to the GTX970.

you are not making any sense.

 

[chimaxi83]

you are not making any sense.

Sure he is. It's Nvidia defense mechanism kicking in. If you compare the 980 to 290X, which on average costs 57% more than 290X (cheapest Newegg prices, $350 vs $550), for only an average 10-15% performance benefit, 980 looks less like the halo high end, and more like a bend over and grab your ankles rip off.

I know, I know... their drivers and features are epic, G-sync will heal the world, Gameworks rulez, blah blah blah.

Infraction issued for member callout.
-- stahlhart

 

[el etro]

Kudos to AMD driver team. I have a source that says the next driver will come with more performance to GCN1.1 and 1.2 cards.

 

[stahlhart]

Keep this discussion civil and on topic, or I'm giving out more.
-- stahlhart

 

[tential]

Why isn't Nvidia suffering any backlash for it's recent GTX 780Ti performance?

 

[nine9s]

Sure he is. It's Nvidia defense mechanism kicking in. If you compare the 980 to 290X, which on average costs 57% more than 290X (cheapest Newegg prices, $350 vs $550), for only an average 10-15% performance benefit, 980 looks less like the halo high end, and more like a bend over and grab your ankles rip off.

I know, I know... their drivers and features are epic, G-sync will heal the world, Gameworks rulez, blah blah blah.

Infraction issued for member callout.
-- stahlhart

No he is stating that the GTX970 is the R290x's peer not the GTX 980. The GTX 970 has around the same performance as the 290X often more in games. That is what the graph, cited in the original post as well as many recent test reviews, show. So again, the GTX 970 is the 290x peer and the Nvidia card that should be compared to the 290x.

Therefore, instead of pointing out how much more the GTX 980 costs, the prices of the 290X and GTX 970 should be compared. In that case, the GTX 970 and the 290x are about the same price on most retail sites (NewEgg/Amazon for example.) So the value is close.

On the GTX 980, it is a premium priced card for about a 10-18% performance increase at a 50%+ price premium over both and not a peer of either.

 

[f1sherman]

They do offer superior performance. Look at recent GameGPU tests - Nvidia has way less driver overhead. Meanwhile, still waiting for a 980 Ti or Titan II.

Performance wise this is my biggest gripe with AMD atm
With the single 290 on 1080p I am not afraid of GPU limited titles - at all.
Matter of fact, I'd love to downsample, SSAA or DSR sometimes (but that another issue...)
My biggest concern is my Haswell performance, not my GPU.
I know I know, those titles are not well optimized and whatnot...

That being said performance is good, and my only wish is that QC was just as good.
I am revisiting old titles and it's... glitch here, glitch there; nothing earth-shattering, but annoying.
(Actually very annoying if I start thinking about it. Thats why I just move along, no bug reports, no making threads, no googling for fix, nothing, just game on)

PS
gj AMD for keeping up the performance pressure.

 

[ZGR]

Too bad GTX 650 and HD 7770 isn't aging too well... Lots of laptops and OEM desktops with those cards. Those two cards are still wicked energy efficient though.

 

[Headfoot]

I'm very surprised by how poorly the 780 and 780 Ti seem to be holding up. At least they both overclock quite well so there's room to move up on those. Feel bad for the folks who bought a Titan at launch though... This seems to validate the doubling of geometry resources that AMD did for 290/290x.

 

[Flapdrol1337]

It's pretty remarkable that AMD's $250 290 and $300 R9 290X are barely behind the 970/980 despite being such old products.

Meh, they're not that old, and they're bigger chips with a wider memory interface that use more power.

What's truely remarkable is the price of the 980, twice the price of the 290, ~20% faster, some people just have to have the fastest card I guess.

 

[Mondozei]

AMD's drivers have been better on this for a while now.

Crossfire on 4K has been a far more stable experience than on Nvidia. This is a reversal from historical trends(which means a few years tops, in the tech industry).

Nevertheless, the Steam hardware survey show us that 768p is the most common resolution out there and that the 1440p and 4K resolutions combined have around 1.2% of the users or thereabouts(and that may in fact be a higher estimate than reality).

Useful to keep in mind.

 

[Spanners]

AMD's drivers have been better on this for a while now.

Crossfire on 4K has been a far more stable experience than on Nvidia. This is a reversal from historical trends(which means a few years tops, in the tech industry).

Nevertheless, the Steam hardware survey show us that 768p is the most common resolution out there and that the 1440p and 4K resolutions combined have around 1.2% of the users or thereabouts(and that may in fact be a higher estimate than reality).

Useful to keep in mind.

I'm not sure how useful the Steam hardware survey is or isn't but the bar for entry is pretty low.

System Requirements
Windows XP, Vista, or 7
512 MB RAM
1 Ghz or faster processor

I'd be interested to see what the percentage of 1440p/4k screens was for the owners of R290x/GTX 780ti/980 class of GPUs. Fairly safe guess it's much higher than the general percentage.

 

[Silverforce11]

Why isn't Nvidia suffering any backlash for it's recent GTX 780Ti performance?

Because apparently Kepler is tapped out, no more performance to be had!!

Sounds silly, is silly. It's a matter of prioritization, Maxwell is the future and receives the all the attention.

The thing with AMD's 7900 series and Hawaii, is its basically the same GCN, so driver optimizations would apply to the entire line. Maxwell is very revolutionary compared to Kepler, thus it would require specific optimizations.

This is why R290X is creeping up to the 780ti and even surpassing it in many recent titles, and the 780 just looks awful compared to the 7970 Ghz in how its aged.

 

[SirPauly]

As many gamers made note of during the launch of 970/980, high resolution gaming has not really moved from 1 year ago by anything tangible. We are talking 9-12%.

From a performance point-of-view but a performance value point-of-view there was a dramatic shift -- as there was for performance watt in some cases. Multi-gpu platforms are much more affordable as well.

 

[tential]

Because apparently Kepler is tapped out, no more performance to be had!!

Sounds silly, is silly. It's a matter of prioritization, Maxwell is the future and receives the all the attention.

The thing with AMD's 7900 series and Hawaii, is its basically the same GCN, so driver optimizations would apply to the entire line. Maxwell is very revolutionary compared to Kepler, thus it would require specific optimizations.

This is why R290X is creeping up to the 780ti and even surpassing it in many recent titles, and the 780 just looks awful compared to the 7970 Ghz in how its aged.

Nvidia's great driver support was always a selling point though. How they've essentially ignored Kepler is new titles? I was thinking of buying the GTX 970 but now I'll wait and see what AMD brings to the table. Especially now seeing how long it's taken for Nvidia to improve that Kepler performance. If they'll abandon old architectures then I won't upgrade to them. I can't be purchasing new GPUs every architecture they put out. Hopefully it's resolved soon because if it's not improved by the end of htis month I certainly won't purchase maxwell.

 

[master_shake_]

i like my 980's but i really really wanted 290x's when they were new.

damn miners.

 

[SirPauly]

I don't kow if one can say nVidia is ignoring Kepler when they quickly added the DSR feature for older hardware, which is very welcomed. Tend to give credit for AMD for improving upon their GCN architectures to remain very competitive, which is very welcomed.