AMD - Ask Me Anything

[Kaapstad]

It must be a sucker punch with all the reviews out there showing a 290X comfortably ahead of a titan at 4k though, given its only got 4gb vs 6gb.

I would only be interested in using 4K with all the setting turned up, to do this 4gb on a single card is not enough.

I have also seen enough reviews where the Titan comes out ahead of the 290X @4K.

 

[Orangey]

My god, people still trying to hang on to their AGP mobos. They were annoying 10 years ago. Now it's just wtf.

 

[vUNREALv]

"Heres a link to his ocuk profile drop him a trust and ask. Or you can send him a tweet. Hes a friendly chap."

He is and he will go out of his way to help you out.

Just waiting in for my sapphire 290 today, cant wait I love new toys.

Its surprising this q and a came about on Toms dont you think.

 

[LtMatt]

I would only be interested in using 4K with all the setting turned up, to do this 4gb on a single card is not enough.

I have also seen enough reviews where the Titan comes out ahead of the 290X @4K.

If you can saturate the vram of course the titan will be faster. Aside from that, the larger the resolution the faster the 290X is vs the titan at 4k. Just can't compete with the 512bit bus size at high res. Although really we should if anything be comparing the 290X vs the 780 than the titan. Of all these links below the only victory the titan gets at 4k is in Aliens Vs Predator.

Spoiler

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2013/10/23/amd_radeon_r9_290x_video_card_review/14#.UntSKvl93_E

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2013...0x_crossfire_video_card_review/7#.UntSOfl93_E

http://www.eteknix.com/4k-gaming-showdown-amd-r9-290x-r9-280x-vs-nvidia-gtx-titan-gtx-780/12/

http://hexus.net/tech/reviews/graphics/61629-amd-radeon-r9-290x-vs-nvidia-geforce-gtx-titan-4k/

http://www.legitreviews.com/amd-radeon-r9-290x-vs-nvidia-geforce-gtx-780-at-4k-ultra-hd_127129/9

http://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/zardon/amd-r9-290-review-1600p-4k-and-cf/

Its surprising this q and a came about on Toms dont you think.

Probably because the initial problems with the 290 throttling came up on Toms.

 

[Yaayuh!]

This thread Matt's idea of a brothel/circlejerk?

 

[LtMatt]

This thread Matt's idea of a brothel/circlejerk?

And so it continues.

 

[Yaayuh!]

And so it continues.

 

[uksoldierboy]

Cheers for posting Matt,

A good read especially the mantle stuff.

 

[Mei]

Its surprising this q and a came about on Toms dont you think.

could have been worse i guess could have been on techoftomorrow *shudder*

ive not read that website in soooo many years, so i appreciate you posting it here matt and sorry Thracks hope no offense taken<3

 

[Addicted]

Really great AMA, and this is interesting:


What is a single tech that AMD is currently working on that you don't feel there is enough buzz about? Something possibly overlooked or overshadowed but to which we should really be paying attention?

My favorite is the new implementation of PowerTune on the 290X and 290. There's a lot of doom and gloom around the 95C temperature, because people are used to a world where the product is designed to run as cold as possible... but that's not the world we're living in with these units. The doom and gloom is based on an old viewpoint.

95C is the optimal temperature that allows the board to convert its power consumption into meaningful performance for the user. Every single component on the board is designed to run at that temperature throughout the lifetime of the product.

If you throttle the temperature down below that threshold, then the board must in turn consume less power to respect the new temperature limit. Consuming less power means lowering vcore and engine clock, which means less performance.

You want to take full advantage of product TDP to maximize performance, and that is accomplished with a 95C ideal operating temperature for the 290 and 290X.

Even with a third-party cooling solution, like the Accelero 3 some users have started deploying, the logic of PowerTune will still try to maximize TDP by allowing temperatures to float higher until some other limit is met (voltage, clock, fan RPM, whatever).

It's so bloody smart and it kills me that more people don't fully understand it.

Sit down Nvidia fanboys.

 

[SiDeards73]

I see a few people ask about Never Settle, but i cant see if it got answered? anyone know? ive scanned over the link you provided a few times and cant see if it got answered

 

[LtMatt]

I see a few people ask about Never Settle, but i cant see if it got answered? anyone know? ive scanned over the link you provided a few times and cant see if it got answered

Unless i missed it, i don't think it did. I think he's coming back to answer some more questions so it might get picked up then.

 

[SiDeards73]

Sweet.. im pretty sure its going to be continued with the newer cards, just hoping they got some good games to go with it.

 

[SS-89]

Really great AMA, and this is interesting:


What is a single tech that AMD is currently working on that you don't feel there is enough buzz about? Something possibly overlooked or overshadowed but to which we should really be paying attention?



Sit down Nvidia fanboys.

That is a healthy dollop of PR spin, you must see that? I have no allegiance to either 'team' but as evidenced in a later reply he admits that cooler solutions will allow it to clock better as the power temp target won't be hit:

Users with the Accelero coolers are finding they're reaching the clockspeed limit of the product at a lower temperature limit than 95C. So you can see how the experience is very customizable and interesting for enthusiasts.

Anyway I'm hoping Mantle does provide a performance boost! Will make the move from my 780 even more worthwhile!

 

[LtMatt]

Sweet.. im pretty sure its going to be continued with the newer cards, just hoping they got some good games to go with it.

I did some digging.

Report: Green Light for Never Settle Bundle for AMD R200s

It seems that the Never Settle bundles from AMD might be making their way to the R200 series graphics cards as well!

According to a report from WCCF Tech, AMD's VP of sales has confirmed that the Never Settle bundles will be coming to the just-announced R200 series graphics cards. The report doesn't give a date as to when they will arrive, but it expects it to be soon.

The report indicates that the previous Never Settle bundles helped the sales of the Radeon HD 7000 series cards so much that "a repeat for the R200 Series is a no-brainer for AMD."

The basic system will remain the same, giving either Bronze, Silver, or Gold rewards, allowing you to choose one, two, or three games, respectively, from a list of games from which to pick per class.

Source
http://www.tomshardware.com/news/r200-never-settle-amd-radeon,24722.html

 

[LtMatt]

That is a healthy dollop of PR spin, you must see that? I have no allegiance to either 'team' but as evidenced in a later reply he admits that cooler solutions will allow it to clock better as the power temp target won't be hit:

Anyway I'm hoping Mantle does provide a performance boost! Will make the move from my 780 even more worthwhile!

Yep i agree.

Regarding Mantle. Here are the gold tidbits.

Real numbers regarding Mantle will be published at the AMD Developer Summit running November 11-13 in San Jose. I will say that we are not undertaking such a mammoth effort to yield 3-4% performance--that would be a waste of time.

Mantle can be used to increase raw FPS, or to increase image quality while maintaining the same FPS.

It is a complete and standalone graphics API, meaning Mantle must be capable of coding and rendering all the in-game effects you see today. But Mantle also needs to be sufficiently extensible so that we can collaborate with game studios to create the effects of tomorrow—and it is extensible to do so!

"It’s not that Mantle is the initial language with which developers are writing their games on each platform, as some have surmised; the point of Mantle is that it’s easy to reuse, in whole or in part, the development effort expended on the next-generation consoles when bringing the same game to life on the PC. This is because Mantle allows developers to use the same features and programming techniques they are already utilizing for next-gen game consoles. And while the initial iteration of Mantle is intended specifically for PCs, it has been designed from the beginning to be extensible to other platforms as well."

With respect to how the custom solutions we've co-engineered with the console vendors helps their devices compete with PCs, that's really a question better answered by them. They know their devices much better than we do.

Yes, Mantle is a complete graphics API capable of doing anything you see today. And more. The primary advantage, however, is that it can speak directly to the hardware in a unique way that other APIs cannot.

Game developers requested Mantle themselves. That's the key difference. The industry told us they want it.

Johan from DICE sat across the table from Matt Skynner, the GM of our graphics business, and explained how he wanted a close-to-metal graphics API. Matt said "we can do that," and the rest was history.

Other devs are very excited when they learn about what Mantle is capable of, and how Mantle can help them bring their game to life on the PC.

Question 2:
This is up to the game developer. Mantle is a complete and high-performance graphics API, therefore the developer can use the performance boosts to increase raw FPS, or they can sustain the same FPS and increase image quality vs. other APIs.

The draw call improvements of Mantle does help alleviate cases where the CPU is the bottleneck. Mantle is very good at parallelization. Beyond that, it's too early to say.

We're assessing some tweaks that will bring BF4 to 90-95% scaling 1->2 GPUs. That's without Mantle.

Going forward, Mantle could help any game with CPU bottlenecking and multi-GPU scaling. It's deeply parallelized as an API.

 

[AWPC]

The only important question which never got asked (I wonder why) is the following:

MS recently rejected Mantle in favour of a Direct X 11/12 future so Mantle is only for PC gamers with low end GPU's looking for an FPS boost anyone with a high end GPU Nvidia or AMD will not see much benefit as no publisher is going to only support Mantle as games cost too much to make they would never see their money back !

 

[Boomstick777]

AMD - Ask Me Anything

Can someone let me know if any of these were answered?

---------------------------------------------------------------

Is Steamroller coming to desktop in 8 core non igpu way?

Is Kaveri powerful enough in to not require a GPU to game @ 1080P?

Will desktop Steamroller get DDR4?

Why did you choose the worse cooler in history for the Radeon 290 cards?

 

[Nightglow]

Has AMD made a error, not having TrueAudio hardware in the 270X and 280X cards?

 

[LtMatt]

The only important question which never got asked (I wonder why) is the following:

MS recently rejected Mantle in favour of a Direct X 11/12 future so Mantle is only for PC gamers with low end GPU's looking for an FPS boost anyone with a high end GPU Nvidia or AMD will not see much benefit as no publisher is going to only support Mantle as games cost too much to make they would never see their money back !

Get on Toms and ask that question!

However judging by the quality and calibre of the developers they have on board already i don't think that will be an issue. Mantle makes things easy and maximises performance and as stated in my post above this is something developers have been asking for.

Can someone let me know if any of these were answered?

---------------------------------------------------------------

Is Steamroller coming to desktop in 8 core non igpu way?

Is Kaveri powerful enough in to not require a GPU to game @ 1080P?

Will desktop Steamroller get DDR4?

Why did you choose the worse cooler in history for the Radeon 290 cards?

Don't think any cpu questions were answered Broom as Thracks works in the GPU department.