AMD Radeon R9 290X with Hawaii GPU pictured, has 512-bit 4GB Memory

[LtMatt]

Quick question.

How many people here:

A. Have a 4k monitor?
B. Would be prepared to turn down a currently released game's main graphical settings after just spending £500+ on a graphics card?

A) None
B) Plenty of single gpu users, Titan/780 and lower tiered gpu's. Even at 1080p.

 

[LtMatt]

Jono, you should rephrase the question and exclude super sampling lol.

You are right. I wasn't really including anti aliasing really.

1080p low res really needs supersampling though.

 

[LtMatt]

requiring stupid amounts of GPU grunt for no obvious visual benefit *cough* Sleeping Dogs Extreme AA */cough*.

Owen wash your mouth out with soap and water!!

The difference between SSAA extreme and HIGH is very apparent to me at 1440p. Comes with a large performance hit though as every single texture is rendered at high res on extreme. Its hard on the gpu's though. High does a good job but only a fraction of the textures get the SSAA treatment.

You'll need a dual card setup before you can even consider extreme above 1200p.

 

[LtMatt]

settings for bioschock with video.
http://www.pcgameshardware.de/AMD-R.../Tests/AMD-Radeon-R9-290X-Benchmark-1093119/#

That will put Kaap's mind at rest.

 

[LtMatt]

Ultra details as well.

 

[LtMatt]

Its funny the same people bitching and moaning in this thread,are the same ones lapping up the GTX780TI announcement.

It does make wonder at times.

 

[LtMatt]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3exPJu_F8xk

Good Find Mr Raven.

cant they buy trousers that fit
im not sure they dress themselves

thx for post

Mei does John Carmack make you go weak at at the knees? He kind of looks like a mature goat with a history of impotence in my opinion.

 

[LtMatt]

anyway what cool games has he made recently!

He made Rage. LOL. Nuff said.

 

[LtMatt]

I don't see how it could, if you already turn V-sync off. Surely V-sync off gives you the lowest lag possible, as the monitor refresh rate is totally independent of draw time.

This was the point/question i was trying to raise last night, rather unsuccessfully.

 

[LtMatt]

I did hope after a good nights sleep and time to take all what was happening in, some posters would look at things a little more objectively...Happens not

A quick read of the mantle thread should have told you that.

 

[LtMatt]

AMD Radeon R9 290X CrossFire performance leaks out

http://videocardz.com/46990/amd-radeon-r9-290x-crossfire-performance-leaks

http://videocardz.com/images/2013/10/AMD-Radeon-R9-290X-CrossFireX.jpg

According to previous leaks this new approach would eliminate most of the frame pacing problems for which AMD was criticized since the topic became popular. However AMD went a step further and decided it would be a good idea to eliminate the necessity of the a separate CrossFire connection. It was possible since PCI-E interface is already capable of delivering enough bandwidth for multi-gpu communication.

The new slide supposedly leaked from AMD Reviewers Guide for R9 290X revealed that this card will scale much better than expected. The R9 290X CrossFire configuration will deliver up to 2.0x the performance of the single card. There is no game on the list that would not scale lower than 1.8x, but we are more than sure that these games were chosen here for a reason.

Some very nice scaling results there.

No real surprise, crossfire scaling is normally excellent if the game supports it. I found similar scaling results using my setup.

 

[LtMatt]

If you have a review comparing a stock Titan against a stock GTX 780, we all know the Titan will win. If you look closer at the review the Titan will in nearly every game test. Now here is the interesting bit, there will be a couple of game benches where the GTX 780 will come out on top for whatever reason.

Sounds like a margin of error problem Kaap.

 

[LtMatt]

Even if the performance gains mantle brings are small, 5-10% it will be massive for me personally. My main game is Battlefield 4 and will be for a long time so perfect for me. That extra performance will really help my setup at 1440p using the Ultra preset+x4 AA. I don't think the only benefit will be a small boost in performance though, i think there will be other benefits to come with it.

 

[LtMatt]

What other benefits are you thinking Matt?

I've heard from a reliable source that it will open up better image quality options and optimizations that were previously unavailable because of the demands they placed on the game engine/cpu/gpu.

Not saying mantle on BF4 will offer extra image quality though. That might be for other titles further down the line. But that's what ive heard from a reliable source in the know.

 

[LtMatt]

That's pretty cool. So a new form of AA or are we talking something else?

I didn't ask for specifics im afraid so it could be either or. Not sure he would have known or told me anyway. But he was saying that its not all going to be about pure performance increases. Either way he wouldn't have said it if there wasn't any truth to it.

 

[LtMatt]

The thing is if you are not going to go all in at 4K you may as well save your money and use a 1600p monitor.

Not maxing out a 4k monitor is a bit like doing the shopping in a Ferrari.

I don't agree with that mate
What's the point of running a massive resolution if you still need to max out AA?

Yes i don't agree with Kaap there either. That's like saying no point moving up to 1440p from 1080p because you can't use AA.

 

[LtMatt]

1440P is affordable for most but 4K is out of reach for most of us. I think Kaap is saying if you can afford 4K, at that price, you would want all the bells and whistles (I would anyway).

For sure, when 4K is affordable for the masses, a notch down on AA is fine.

I bet high details on 4k will look better than ultra details on 1440p.

Some people might want 4k just to add have the massively improved resolution. I expect not everyone who buys one will only have four titans. Sometimes its worth sacrificing a bit of image quality to get a much higher resolution.

 

[LtMatt]

The 7970 is such a quality card that even today, two years on its still going strong. I know people will moan about lack of progress and thats fair enough. Either way you shake it though a single 7970 is still a great card for 1080p/1440p or higher with its 3gb buffer, 384bit bus and amazing overclock performance which at 1250/1823 adds 25%+ more performance to the card according to my benchmarks.

 

[LtMatt]

Fair points and we all think differently, which is great. For me, if I was chuffing up for a 4K monitor, I would want to show it off in its full glory and get the wow factor. And going from Ryan at PCper, he said you still need AA to remove the jaggies (which surprised me).

You don't need AA at 1440p, but me personally i choose to use it. Depending on the game and performance the least ill use is some form of FXAA/MLAA all the way up to full screen super sampling.

 

[LtMatt]

The thing is, I have had a little play with my 1080P and 1440P monitors over the last couple of days and I am inclined to agree with you. I couldn't see the difference with SSAO/HBAO and 1080P/1440P. They all looked the same to me but with the 1080P feeling much smoother.

Need two titans for 1440p, you should never of sold one.