What are you doing while you wait for Vega?

[Pariah]

While you are at it you might as well wish for unicorns.

A crazy as that sounds at face value, that's realistically going to be the target that AMD will have to hit with Vega for it to make any sort of impact. With an expected release date in Q2 17, that's a full year after Nvidia released the 1080/1070. What are the odds that Nvidia will not have a refresh ready for release to steal AMD's thunder by then? Something Nvidia has done practically every AMD launch the past few years. 1080Ti in January, and a mid cycle refresh in the summer which very well could bring 1080 level performance below $400 from Nvidia themselves. Who is going to be excited by AMD bringing 1070 level performance down to $300 in May/June of 2017? They're going to have to do better than that.

 

[Stuka87]

Just keep using my RX480 until Vega is out and in quantity, and with custom models.

 

[Dave2150]

Keep using my 1070. Considered a RX480, but the 1070 is almost double it's performance, so no competition.

 

[Pandasaurus]

While people are waiting for Vega, I'm enjoying 4K gaming on my 1070. >.>

 

[bearxor]

I'm in the boat of having Freesync monitors and waiting on Vega.

Running 2x390 right now and when it works it's glorious but we all know the story with that.

I'm struggling REALLY hard to not buy two Fury's to replace the 390's. it's at the point where I think I can flip my 390's for $150 each that if a Fury goes on sale for $220-ish I might spend the extra $120. I'm also waiting on a nice deal for a third XG270HU to complete my eyefinity setup.

I'm a bit disappointed to feel like I'm in vendor lock but it is what it is. If nvidia announced that they were going to somehow enable VESA adaptive sync in a driver update I would have a 1080 in my rig the next day.

 

[bystander36]

I'm in the boat of having Freesync monitors and waiting on Vega.

Running 2x390 right now and when it works it's glorious but we all know the story with that.

I'm struggling REALLY hard to not buy two Fury's to replace the 390's. it's at the point where I think I can flip my 390's for $150 each that if a Fury goes on sale for $220-ish I might spend the extra $120. I'm also waiting on a nice deal for a third XG270HU to complete my eyefinity setup.

I'm a bit disappointed to feel like I'm in vendor lock but it is what it is. If nvidia announced that they were going to somehow enable VESA adaptive sync in a driver update I would have a 1080 in my rig the next day.

If enough stories like this show up, maybe one day it will work. Although it might not be as simple as a driver update. It might be a hardware change as well.

 

[alcoholbob]

Wouldn't it make more sense to wait for Volta? Considering that Nvidia managed to create this huge performance gap per die size/transistor this generation purely on clockspeed increases, with nearly no architectural changes over Maxwell, next generation's gap between Nvidia and AMD will likely be even wider than this generation.

Also I think missing from the DX12 AMD vs Nvidia comparisons is the fact that Pascal has about 10% more overclocking headroom (currently) than AMD.

 

[HurleyBird]

Wouldn't it make more sense to wait for Volta? Considering that Nvidia managed to create this huge performance gap per die size/transistor this generation purely on clockspeed increases, with nearly no architectural changes over Maxwell, next generation's gap between Nvidia and AMD will likely be even wider than this generation.

It's possible that AMD will hit it out of the park with Vega. I'm not holding my breath though (my feeling is Navi will be AMD's next big thing). That said, it's downright probable that if Vega has the same ID buffer as the Neo (which it probably does), it will have a huge advantage in future games until Nvidia implements their own version of it (which will probably be at least one generation after Volta). It's not difficult to imagine Vega as the next Tahiti or Hawaii -- a product that continuously gets better with age to the point of absurdity, and can tide one over for multiple generations.

More importantly, big AMD launches are likely to either have very good price/performance themselves, or force Nvidia to lower their own prices if the AMD product is superior or competitive. Nvidia launches are likely to move the price/performance gauge relatively little, bumping up the price at each segment over and over again.

So, if you want the best performance for a short while it makes sense to wait for Volta. But if you want the best deal, it makes more sense to wait for Vega. And of course, if Vega is a flop, you can always extend your waiting period until Volta comes out.

 

[Bacon1]

Also I think missing from the DX12 AMD vs Nvidia comparisons is the fact that Pascal has about 10% more overclocking headroom (currently) than AMD.

Source?

They seem to both have around 10-15%.

 

[IllogicalGlory]

Source?

They seem to both have around 10-15%.

They don't. Pascal is definitely ahead.

https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/RX_480_Gaming_X/26.html
https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Gigabyte/GTX_1060_Xtreme_Gaming/29.html

Compared to reference, MSI RX 480 gains 12.2%, while the Gigabyte 1060 gains 17.7%.

 

[Bacon1]

They don't. Pascal is definitely ahead.

https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/RX_480_Gaming_X/26.html
https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Gigabyte/GTX_1060_Xtreme_Gaming/29.html

Compared to reference, MSI RX 480 gains 12.2%, while the Gigabyte 1060 gains 17.7%.

Ok so 5% not 10%, and its only 3.5% difference in actual game perf (8.6% vs 12.1% gain).

Plus people have gotten over 1400 on their 480s. That review capped out at Wattman's max.

https://youtu.be/zWASNajSdpg

1475 with XFX 480 GTR at only 133watts, similar to 1060s.

 

[HurleyBird]

You're comparing like, the best 480 to the average 1060.

But all this OC talk is pretty much irrelevant to the thread anyway.

 

[biostud]

Crunching through my steam library and world of warships.

And no reason to upgrade until new monitors are out.

 

[mohit9206]

Even if Vega is everything everyone is hyping up to be, it all depends on
1. Power efficiency. I know its not important for a lot of you in a high end card but reviewers will pan the card if its less efficient than Pascal which it definitely will be.
2. Price. Needs to be cheaper than competition in price/perf and still make a profit. Looking at Polaris, good pricing is something AMD is incapable of.
Looks like the odds are heavily stacked against AMD on this one.

 

[Borealis7]

playing older games and non-AAA titles on my GTX680 until i upgrade. i'm holding out on Witcher 3 until i have a decent GPU.

 

[NTMBK]

Rewatching the Gilmore Girls.

 

[GodisanAtheist]

Picked up a used 980ti to replace my ever stout HD 7950.

I'm good for the next three years.

 

[Dave2150]

I'm in the boat of having Freesync monitors and waiting on Vega.

Running 2x390 right now and when it works it's glorious but we all know the story with that.

I'm struggling REALLY hard to not buy two Fury's to replace the 390's. it's at the point where I think I can flip my 390's for $150 each that if a Fury goes on sale for $220-ish I might spend the extra $120. I'm also waiting on a nice deal for a third XG270HU to complete my eyefinity setup.

I'm a bit disappointed to feel like I'm in vendor lock but it is what it is. If nvidia announced that they were going to somehow enable VESA adaptive sync in a driver update I would have a 1080 in my rig the next day.

I have a Freesync display (BenQ XL2730Z). Used to run a 390X but it was far too hot and loud for my tastes, so I sold it and replaced it with a 1070 a few months ago. I don't miss freesync at all, as my FPS is so dramatically higher than the 390X could manage.

I think it would be a rather foolish decision to replace your 8GB 390's with 4GB Fury cards - even at the ancient 1080P resolution, games are pushing above 4GB. Now that NVIDIA's cards have 8GB, developers will obviously increase VRAM usage to take advantage of it.

 

[R0H1T]

Wouldn't it make more sense to wait for Volta? Considering that Nvidia managed to create this huge performance gap per die size/transistor this generation purely on clockspeed increases, with nearly no architectural changes over Maxwell, next generation's gap between Nvidia and AMD will likely be even wider than this generation.

Also I think missing from the DX12 AMD vs Nvidia comparisons is the fact that Pascal has about 10% more overclocking headroom (currently) than AMD.

Well if Volta is going back to a compute heavy design, ala Fermi, then it stands to reason that their efficiency might go down along with the clock speeds. This is assuming that they'd follow in GCN's footsteps & ditch the Maxwell/Pascal design reliant on high clock speeds, though a complete overhaul is highly unlikely to happen considering the success Nvidia had with these designs.

 

[bearxor]

I have a Freesync display (BenQ XL2730Z). Used to run a 390X but it was far too hot and loud for my tastes, so I sold it and replaced it with a 1070 a few months ago. I don't miss freesync at all, as my FPS is so dramatically higher than the 390X could manage.

I think it would be a rather foolish decision to replace your 8GB 390's with 4GB Fury cards - even at the ancient 1080P resolution, games are pushing above 4GB. Now that NVIDIA's cards have 8GB, developers will obviously increase VRAM usage to take advantage of it.

The thought has crossed my mind to just pick up a 1080 just to see how it is but haven't really considered it too heavily.

As far as the 4GB vs 8GB debate goes at this point I haven't seen any convincing benchmarks yet that makes me believe the Fury suffers because of the 4GB of RAM at this point. It seems to stay pretty flat performance-wise even as other cards continue to use more memory.

On top of that it would be a rather short-term setup for me anyways. I'll replace whatever I have with the highest end Vega card that gets released.

 

[fleshconsumed]

Rewatching the Gilmore Girls.

Are you my... girlfriend? That would be so so weird.

Personally I'm not waiting on anything. I have RX480 and while it's not fast enough to drive 4K, I don't really care. The vega whenever it comes out will be expensive and will run hot and loud, I put R9-290 under DIY water mod, and while it worked it's still not as quiet as I would like it to be... meh, I'll let the enthusiasts worry about new cards. I'll just keep playing old games in my steam library that I have never finished.

 

[zinfamous]

I drive my cars until they die. I suppose I'll continue to drive this 280X until it dies, as well.

Of course, I'll be curious to see what Vega 10 and 11 are, what prices they command, and by the time AIB models and possibly even refreshed are available, and hopefully with a compelling reason to upgrade my generic 1080p/60, 27" panel, I will consider a dual upgrade. I might go ahead and get the display in the meantime, if someone releases a 1440/~75-144hz, 32" adaptive sync with a quality panel, in the ~$300-400 range.

 

[Rifter]

Just keep using my RX480 until Vega is out and in quantity, and with custom models.

Pretty much this, also waiting to see if/when Nvidia starts taking DX12 seriously, then in 1-2 years ill buy a whole new system from the ground up for VR gaming.

 

[NTMBK]

Are you my... girlfriend? That would be so so weird.

I think my wife would be a bit disconcerted by that

 

[crisium]

Playing BF1 maxed out 1440p.