What does AMD have to fight the 780?

[Lepton87]

I think you made a typo in this thread's title, OP. It should read: "Why does AMD have to fight the 780?" It's a niche market that AMD doesn't necessarily need to fight. AMD can still do okay, like back when it was GTX 280 vs HD 4870, or HD 5870 vs GTX 480, or GTX 580 vs HD 6970.

It's a bit different this time, the performance difference in your examples were just about 15%, now it's close to 30% so that's a significant difference. On the other hand you still have to pay 1000$ dollars to have a not FP64 crippled NV's card while even sub-300$ AMD's cards have a lot of FP64 performance, but it doesn't matter for games, only for a small niche that is compute and not even all compute use FP64 precision.

 

[DarkKnightDude]

Isn't the majority of money made in mid range cards? Like the 660/7850/7790/750 around that bracket?

 

[parvadomus]

I hope AMD releases a Tahiti refresh before 20nm, and let Nvidia do the first step in the new process.

 

[bystander36]

One website out of dozens shows Tahiti with more frame latency and all of a sudden that is gospel? Sorry but reviewers would mention stuttering exactly because they want to be unbiased. At least with Xfire you had 2-3 sites stating they felt or measured microstuttering when gaming. For single GPU's the only site I know of who claimed stuttering was Tech Report.

Just 1 website? After Techreport discovered the frame latency issue, many websites started testing it as well, and they all found the same issue. Just like with the microstutter FCAT issue. Once discovered, several of the top sites started testing. Why else would AMD make several new drivers specifically targeting latency? They didn't do it because it was made up.

Here is an interview with AMD about it and about microstutter (both are talked about): http://www.anandtech.com/show/6857/amd-stuttering-issues-driver-roadmap-fraps

Note: a lot of sites stopped soon after starting to test for latency, because FCAT was said to be an improved method of testing, and was soon to be released, that and AMD and Nvidia said Fraps was an inaccurate tool, though FCAT showed in single card setups, it was pretty close to accurate.

 

[tential]

Isn't the majority of money made in mid range cards? Like the 660/7850/7790/750 around that bracket?

The Vast Majoriy of readers on here only care about the high end cards. People were making the same comments about AMD fighting Titan. It is lost sales, but the impact on AMD's botom line? Who knows.

 

[Elfear]

It's a bit different this time, the performance difference in your examples were just about 15%, now it's close to 30% so that's a significant difference. On the other hand you still have to pay 1000$ dollars to have a not FP64 crippled NV's card while even sub-300$ AMD's cards have a lot of FP64 performance, but it doesn't matter for games, only for a small niche that is compute and not even all compute use FP64 precision.

Depends on which card you're talking. The EVGA ACS card is very impressive out of the box. The reference GTX 780 is only 15% faster based on 6-8 reviews.

Just 1 website? After Techreport discovered the frame latency issue, many websites started testing it as well, and they all found the same issue. Just like with the microstutter FCAT issue. Once discovered, several of the top sites started testing. Why else would AMD make several new drivers specifically targeting latency? They didn't do it because it was made up.

Do you have examples from the "many" websites claiming that AMD single GPU's noticeably stuttered most of 2012?

 

[blackened23]

Depends on which card you're talking. The EVGA ACS card is very impressive out of the box. The reference GTX 780 is only 15% faster based on 6-8 reviews.

I agree the ACX is impressive. But, this isn't the first time nor will it be the last time when an overclocked lower tier card surpasses a higher tier stock card. This should not be surprising to anyone - overclocked 670s could pass 680s. My opinion on this is: "Yeah? So what!" You can easily overclock the 680 to pass to overclocked 670. You can easily overclock a Titan to surpass an overclocked GTX 780. Overclocking has always skewed direct comparisons, yet the real question is how does an overclocked 780 do compared to an overclocked Titan? I would state that the Titan would still maintain a 10-15% performance advantage with an apples to apples overclock.

Anyway, regarding the topic - there really isn't any need for fanboy arguments back and forth, although the last page or so has been a civil discussion. The answer is that AMD doesn't need an immediate competitor because they're in a substantially lower price bracket - their immediate concern is going to be the GTX 770 depending on how it performs. That may warrant AMD adjusting their prices, but really it doesn't matter. AMD cards lower in prices slightly to maintain their value proposition, and value cards are a great majority of the market sales. Great, vast majority. No, the profit margin of these cards is not as high as halo cards - let there be no question, those cards have the highest profit margin but they do not have the highest volume of sales. The volume of sales for the sub 300$ bracket is high - the only reason I point this out, is again - AMD will simply maintain their value angle and lower their prices if need be. Now i'm sure AMD would *like* to have a direct GTX 780 competitor, but sadly it doesn't appear to be happening anytime soon. And that's fine. They will maintain their value proposition with game bundles until their next tier cards arrive. And they will sell cards to those with sub 300$ GPU budgets, while the all out GPU / tech nerds such as myself and others here will opt for the higher tier GTX 780 or Titan cards.

 

[NIGELG]

Short answer to the original question....nothing yet.

 

[bystander36]

Do you have examples from the "many" websites claiming that AMD single GPU's noticeably stuttered most of 2012?

You want professional articles that said, "AMD cards stutter?" I don't think I can find much of that. What I can find is many websites showing latency issues which cause stuttering. Though that will be difficult, as there was only a couple month window before FCAT took over.

But given that AMD admitted the issue in the link I posted before, I'm not sure I see the point.

 

[rgallant]

I'd argue that the P4 purchases were about reputation. Reputation isn't something you get on 1 great product. It is something you earn by repeatedly producing great products. If AMD could achieve great performance and experience (no stutter/microstutter issues), in a few years, people will then start to take notice.

taken from your other link
"Since that time AMD has been hard at work on fixing the issue, producing new driver builds later last year and in the first part of this year to address the issue. AMD’s latest drivers have been fixing bugs, engaging workarounds, and otherwise taking care of this issue so that they can be competitive with NVIDIA when it comes to stuttering."

seems nv has a stuttering problem also ,but it's ONLY a amd issues that's funny.
-maybe your statements should include nv has it to but not as bad as amd most times.
-never owned a ati/amd so not a fan boy but this stutter crap came out when amd became abit faster and cheaper than nv [pre-titan] and now it's known as amd stutter issues because nv users don't care ?.

 

[bystander36]

taken from your other link
"Since that time AMD has been hard at work on fixing the issue, producing new driver builds later last year and in the first part of this year to address the issue. AMD’s latest drivers have been fixing bugs, engaging workarounds, and otherwise taking care of this issue so that they can be competitive with NVIDIA when it comes to stuttering."

seems nv has a stuttering problem also ,but it's ONLY a amd issues that's funny.
-maybe your statements should include nv has it to but not as bad as amd most times.
-never owned a ati/amd so not a fan boy but this stutter crap came out when amd became abit faster and cheaper than nv [pre-titan] and now it's known as amd stutter issues because nv users don't care ?.

This is a quote from what I said:

And one thing that was interesting is the single card stutter AMD had. I saw them, but ignored them for years (5870 and 6950 most recently), because I just assumed that was how games were. What I didn't know was that Nvidia had much less of it. It possibly is why I feel far more at ease on Nvidia setups. I may not have connected the dots, but noticed it and for me, these things cause me nausea.

Did I say that Nvidia had no issues? I said it had much less of it.

AMD needs to catch up on these issues and stop being the last to know.

I have bought many AMD setups, and Nvidia setups. I can't say I hated my AMD experiences, only that after every purchase but one, I was tired of driver issues and was relieved with the Nvidia drivers on my next purchase. While not perfect, they have been good enough for me. AMD's drivers generally are not.

If AMD is to fix their reputation, at least in a much broader sense, they need to stop being the last to know about latency issues, microstutter and what ever else we haven't discovered. And even then, it'll take a few years before it catches on.

 

[Erenhardt]

If AMD is to fix their reputation, at least in a much broader sense, they need to stop being the last to know about latency issues, microstutter and what ever else we haven't discovered. And even then, it'll take a few years before it catches on.

You see...that is the thing. There will always be something. At the very end, green is better color than red

 

[FearfulSPARTAN]

I think people have forget that only one camp can have the better card and that due to product cycles, they can't ALWAYS have it.

Unless you're intel vs AMD, but that's bringing a knife to a tank fight for AMD. They can have a small win here and there, but intel doesn't look like they'll drop the ball again for a long time. Even when they did, intelligent marketing using clock speeds to appeal to the masses made the loss easy to work with to the point it barely affected them.

Not to mention paying pc manufacturers not to use AMD chips

 

[Leadbox]

If AMD is to fix their reputation, at least in a much broader sense, they need to stop being the last to know about latency issues, microstutter and what ever else we haven't discovered. And even then, it'll take a few years before it catches on.

I trust you noticed in the TechReport review that the the radeon had the better of going in the frametime latency department yes? I mentioned this in the 780 review thread and was shouted down. I brought this up here coz you mentioned the need to fix their reputation

 

[bystander36]

I trust you noticed in the TechReport review that the the radeon had the better of going in the frametime latency department yes? I mentioned this in the 780 review thread and was shouted down. I brought this up here coz you mentioned the need to fix their reputation

I have noticed that since Febuary, after AMD started fixing their issues, that in many games, AMD's single card latency is better, though both are usually pretty small. Going back to January and before, AMD's latency issues were pretty big.

I haven't actually used my AMD cards since their improvements, so I can't say if I can see a difference now.

 

[blackened23]

I have noticed that since Febuary, after AMD started fixing their issues, that in many games, AMD's single card latency is better, though both are usually pretty small. Going back to January and before, AMD's latency issues were pretty big.

I haven't actually used my AMD cards since their improvements, so I can't say if I can see a difference now.

Right. AMD fixed the single card GPU latency issues, and as has been mentioned before they're even with nvidia in this respect. So that's basically a non issue now, so obviously this varies game to game but overall - AMD fixed the single GPU aspect of this. AMD cards exhibit better latency in some games (single card) than nvidia, although the wins go back and forth. Just like framerates. But overall it's very very even.

That aside, it's taking them WAY too long to fix the mGPU issues. Hopefully xfire users get a fix for that next month. This is pretty much inexcusable, and obviously it's hard to recommend crossfire until this is rectified.

So, with all of this stated are we back to the TOPIC at hand? How did crossfire get brought up? And I don't want to read the nonsense fanboy fighting in the first 3 pages. Maybe it was there...shrug...but the topic: What does AMD have to fight the 780 with? I think the answer was already provided. They will fight in a lower price bracket on value and bundles, and the 770 may cause them to adjust pricing more. There. We're back on topic now, since some are attempting to shift the topic to suit their needs, apparently. Question answered

 

[bystander36]

Basically I mentioned that AMD needs to fix their issues, and do it for a couple generations of cards to improve their reputation. I believe it is their reputation that holds back their sales, and not a particular card. If they can deliver a great experience for a few years, people will be more open to buy from AMD.

Some people wanted to argue the specifics of AMD's shortcomings in the past and present.

Also there was some talk about what creates loyalty, though I'd consider that on topic, or at least closely related.

 

[blackened23]

edit: dp

 

[tential]

Not to mention paying pc manufacturers not to use AMD chips

Quote or Link to that? I haven't heard of this.

 

[Leadbox]

Basically I mentioned that AMD needs to fix their issues, and do it for a couple generations of cards to improve their reputation. I believe it is their reputation that holds back their sales, and not a particular card. If they can deliver a great experience for a few years, people will be more open to buy from AMD.

Some people wanted to argue the specifics of AMD's shortcomings in the past and present.

Also there was some talk about what creates loyalty, though I'd consider that on topic, or at least closely related.

You're assuming the punters are objective and open minded enought afford them a fair shake. Trust me when I say reasons not to buy will be found or manufactured. The punters are pretty partisan in this industry

 

[Fastx]

Originally Posted by FearfulSPARTAN
Not to mention paying pc manufacturers not to use AMD chips

Quote or Link to that? I haven't heard of this.

I remember this from years ago but it went like this if I remember correctly. What Intel did was with some with companies like Dell they gave them lower pricing on Intel CPU's if they didn't use AMD CPUs in their systems.

 

[taq8ojh]

Didn't huge lawsuit and insane fines follow, or was that another case?

 

[Fastx]

Didn't huge lawsuit and insane fines follow, or is that another case?

I also remember this was the case also.

 

[bystander36]

You're assuming the punters are objective and open minded enought afford them a fair shake. Trust me when I say reasons not to buy will be found or manufactured. The punters are pretty partisan in this industry

I had to look up what a punter was in this context. I learned something new. I assume this means you are in the UK?

Anyways, that is why I said it will take a few years. Once you earn a poor reputation, it takes a long time to over come it and you may have to wait for a new generation.

 

[Cloudfire777]

AMD have nothing to fight of GTX 780.
They can just sit there and watch and run game bundle promos like they have done lately and hope people will buy their 2 year old 7970.

Tahiti (7950/7970) is too inefficient so they can`t make a bigger core based on it to match GTX 780. If they did, it would mean too much heat for the silicon and too much heat for the fan to remove. GTX 680 was 195W. GTX 780 have increased it to 250W.
7970 is already at 250W. A 7980 (example name) would be minimum 310W+ TDP on one single die. Good luck with that one.

Another thing is that AMD have ditched big dies. Nvidia master this, and have used it in the 400, 500 and now 700 series. Nvidia already said from the beginning that they were shocked by how little AMD could do on the 28nm and that they only had to release mid end GPU to match AMDs greatest. Turned out to be 100% true. GK104 matched Tahiti, GK110 which was Nvidia`s real high end is crushing Tahiti. Just like 500 series, the real high end was 500mm2 dies.

So AMD have nothing to do but try to sell 7990s (which came way too late since 690 have been here for an entire year) or sell 7970s with game bundles. In the meantime pray that their 20nm and/or new architecture is getting along nicely.

But I doubt it will be here until 2014. 6 months for Nvidia to cash in alone on the market with no competition. By the time AMD is releasing 20nm, Nvidia is soon after with Maxwell at 20nm.

Nvidia got AMD just where they want them. This generation, Nvidia won bigtime. Not just with desktops, mobile GPUs too (20% vs 80% market share)