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

LtMatt · 24 Sep 2013 at 18:23

Rusty0611 said:
How will it though if the memory bandwidth on the 384 bit cards is not saturated?

We'll see. I'm willing to bet its going to make a difference on demanding games with high levels of AA, high res and multi monitor. More bandwidth rarely = the same performance unless the game itself is not demanding at all and thus is not using much memory bandwidth. Or you don't have the core power to drive it.

Suarez7 said:
I think we should drop the memory thing already, we'll find out when the benchmarks are out, I've seen the bus, bit and bandwidth discussion spiral out of control already in another thread.

Agreed there's no easy way to prove whether a 384/512 bit bus is saturated or not until we see benchmarks, overclocks, high settings, AA settings, resolutions, demanding games/benchmarks and multi monitor results.

Gripen90 · 24 Sep 2013 at 18:26

Buckster said:
need some profit ? you mean like with the XBOX One and PS4 - thats some sheer volume right there

The difference is they will only get sold once and last a few years as a one time profit untill Sony makes decisions for new console developments - there's really no upgrade path like the dedicated 3D video cards for PC where you have to be in the game. AMD's graphics departement have a hard enough time covering the time/costs of the CPU departments developments.

As for the 384bit vs 512bit discussion I get HD4890 vs GTX280 vibes all over again http://www.game-debate.com/gpu/index.php?gid=188&gid2=57&compare=radeon-hd-4890-vs-geforce-gtx-280

Rusty0611 · 24 Sep 2013 at 18:28

LtMatt said:
We'll see. I'm willing to bet its going to make a difference on demanding games with high levels of AA, high res and multi monitor. More bandwidth rarely = the same performance unless the game itself is not demanding at all and thus is not using much memory bandwidth.

Maybe at 1600+ but I really doubt anything less will notice any difference. You've only got to look at 1080p where the difference in actual FPS and % terms is tiny when applying memory intensive effects. The 7970s performance advantage over the 680/770 comes from simply being a better specced card as well as having more memory bandwidth with the former being the most important factor.

Tonester0011 · 24 Sep 2013 at 18:29

LtMatt said:
We'll see. I'm willing to bet its going to make a difference on demanding games with high levels of AA, high res and multi monitor. More bandwidth rarely = the same performance unless the game itself is not demanding at all and thus is not using much memory bandwidth.

Agreed there's no easy way to prove whether a 384/512 bit bus is saturated or not until we see benchmarks, overclocks, high settings, AA settings, resolutions, demanding games/benchmarks and multi monitor results.

What kind of FPS boosts do you get from stock memory to overclocked memory? Aimed at both you and Rusty as you both have 1440p to hand, so can check :L

Pick a demanding game like Crysis3 (loads of AA) and compare stock vs overclocked on the memory, that should give you rough benefits of running a 512bit bus providing the memory is clocked like you say @1250mhz. (+335 is 320gbs for 780s?)

LtMatt · 24 Sep 2013 at 18:33

Tonester0011 said:
What kind of FPS boosts do you get from stock memory to overclocked memory? Aimed at both you and Rusty as you both have 1440p to hand, so can check :L

Pick a demanding game like Crysis3 (loads of AA) and compare stock vs overclocked on the memory, that should give you rough benefits of running a 512bit bus providing the memory is clocked like you say @1250mhz. (+335 is 320gbs for 780s?)

I got 10% on my 7970 on Sleeping Dogs 1080p Extreme by going from 1375mhz=264bit to 1823mhz=350gb bandwidth. Core clock was left at stock both times. I even posted a benchmark here for someone when i was helping them with technical issues. I'll see if i can dig it up.

LtMatt · 24 Sep 2013 at 18:41

Tonester0011 said:
What kind of FPS boosts do you get from stock memory to overclocked memory? Aimed at both you and Rusty as you both have 1440p to hand, so can check :L

Pick a demanding game like Crysis3 (loads of AA) and compare stock vs overclocked on the memory, that should give you rough benefits of running a 512bit bus providing the memory is clocked like you say @1250mhz. (+335 is 320gbs for 780s?)

LtMatt said:
I got 10% on my 7970 on Sleeping Dogs 1080p Extreme by going from 1375mhz=264bit to 1823mhz=350gb bandwidth. Core clock was left at stock both times. I even posted a benchmark here for someone when i was helping them with technical issues. I'll see if i can dig it up.

Hey i found it!!

Looks like my memory (brain memory

) was slightly wrong though. I had the core at 1250mhz for each run. Probably just as well otherwise you wouldn't see much difference i expect.

1375mhz vs 1875mhz on a 384bit bus 10.4% at 1080p. Here's my post

LtMatt said:
I haven't but seeing as you asked i just did a quick test. I only ran one game but will run a couple more later when i have time.

Sleeping Dogs - 1080p Extreme 1250 Core vs 1375 stock and 1875 OC'd.

I speculate the difference would be larger at a higher res (1440p+) although we might not see it as the pixel fill rate might hold it back somewhat.

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showpost.php?p=24133681&postcount=19

Rusty0611 · 24 Sep 2013 at 18:45

What about a normal game though lol? Not one with insane levels of AA - added no doubt to exaggerate the difference between the nVidia GK104 cards - which were largely unplayable on a single card

.

LtMatt · 24 Sep 2013 at 18:47

Rusty0611 said:
What about a normal game though lol? Not one with insane levels of AA - added no doubt to exaggerate the difference between the nVidia GK104 cards - which were largely unplayable on a single card .

Lol. Didn't take the excuses long to start rolling in.

LtMatt said:
I'm willing to bet its going to make a difference on demanding games with high levels of AA, high res and multi monitor.

flopper · 24 Sep 2013 at 18:48

LtMatt said:
Agreed there's no easy way to prove whether a 384/512 bit bus is saturated or not until we see benchmarks, overclocks, high settings, AA settings, resolutions, demanding games/benchmarks and multi monitor results.

Main reason with 512bit was to save die space up to 50%! as they can use lesser ram speeds for it and the tdp value.

I assume 4K and eyefinity gaming going to be wild with these cards.

LtMatt · 24 Sep 2013 at 18:49

flopper said:
Main reason with 512bit was to save die space up to 50%! as they can use lesser ram speeds for it and the tdp value.

I assume 4K and eyefinity gaming going to be wild with these cards.

I just hope they don't do a 'select 780' and skimp on Elpida. Elpida memory brings shame upon many a gpu, including mine.

Rusty0611 · 24 Sep 2013 at 18:50

LtMatt said:
Lol. Didn't take the excuses long to start rolling in.

Well I was just thinking of a game people actually play and is going to reflect real world performance. Sure we can pick things which exaggerate the difference in extreme scenarios but for me that isn't proving anything.

*looks at Matt's #1 world Sleeping Dogs play time on Steam, most of which was spent benching*

LtMatt · 24 Sep 2013 at 18:51

Rusty0611 said:
Well I was just thinking of a game people actually play and is going to reflect real world performance. Sure we can pick things which exaggerate the difference in extreme scenarios but for me that isn't proving anything.

*looks at Matt's #1 world Sleeping Dogs play time on Steam, most of which was spent benching*

No need to get personal.

Suarez7 · 24 Sep 2013 at 18:53

LtMatt said:
I just hope they don't do a 'select 780' and skimp on Elpida. Elpida memory brings shame upon many a gpu, including mine.

Nice Sammy memory on my 780 :cool:

LtMatt · 24 Sep 2013 at 18:55

Suarez7 said:
Nice Sammy memory on my 780

Yes i know its only a select few (like my 7950's

) that got cursed with the dirty Elpida memory. Still though what a way to spoil a nice card like a 780 by putting Elpida on it. I hope AMD aren't forced to do that. Technically they could because of the 512bit bus so the impact of it will not be as great but it would still suck. Time will tell.

Rusty0611 · 24 Sep 2013 at 18:57

Dunno what memory my 780 has but it clocks pretty well! 1800+

Gripen90 · 24 Sep 2013 at 18:57

Just had a glimpse of the full guest list for tomorrow !... a lot of sites are going to be there

Suarez7 · 24 Sep 2013 at 18:57

Why is Samsung memory so good? Their SSD's are some of the best, same with their RAM as well.

Strokes 840 pro and Sammy Green :eek:

Rusty0611 said:
Dunno what memory my 780 has but it clocks pretty well! 1800+

Definitely Samsung, don't think I've ever seen Elpida break 7000mhz on a 780.

LtMatt · 24 Sep 2013 at 19:00

Rusty0611 said:
Dunno what memory my 780 has but it clocks pretty well! 1800+

I would have thought Hynix Rusty. If you had Samsung memory it would be at 1750 mhz wouldn't it?

Gripen90 said:
Just had a glimpse of the full guest list for tomorrow !... a lot of sites are going to be there

Aye its gonna be exciting. Lets all get our nerd on. First event like this i will have ever watched live. Possibly the last if it turns out to be boring.

Suarez7 said:
Why is Samsung memory so good? Their SSD's are some of the best, same with their RAM as well.

Strokes 840 pro and Sammy Green

Definitely Samsung, don't think I've ever seen Elpida break 7000mhz on a 780.

Don't know a lot about samsung memory aside from their dram sammy green memory is the best ive ever used. I hear good reports about their 1750mhz memory used on a 770 as well. Allowing it to at least get within reasonable distance of a clocked 7970.

Do 780's have 1500mhz rated samsung memory then?

flopper · 24 Sep 2013 at 19:00

Rusty0611 said:
Well I was just thinking of a game people actually play and is going to reflect real world performance. Sure we can pick things which exaggerate the difference in extreme scenarios but for me that isn't proving anything.

*looks at Matt's #1 world Sleeping Dogs play time on Steam, most of which was spent benching*

I play 3 games pretty much so not the typical user for a gaming rigg.
Unless BF4 will be as bad as Bf3 I be playing for 2 years so benchmarks regarding system power has more value than a single gpu.
so optimizing my rig, its cpu, its gpu its OS so unless things works the way I want it then I replace parts.
I will likely be hard pressed to upgrade to 290x since I would assume my 7970 still will run good enough for me.

still if the 290x OC to 1200mhz+ or more on water and start reaching 7990 levels then waiting for 20nm suddenly went from short to eternity.
thats value for money.

flopper · 24 Sep 2013 at 19:01

LtMatt said:
Yes i know its only a select few (like my 7950's ) that got cursed with the dirty Elpida memory. Still though what a way to spoil a nice card like a 780 by putting Elpida on it. I hope AMD aren't forced to do that. Technically they could because of the 512bit bus so the impact of it will not be as great but it would still suck. Time will tell.

How much bandwidth do ya need?