Man of Honour
The specs will be very important. If it is just a factory overclocked GTX 780 running @1200mhz for example, it will bring nothing new to the table as you can buy a 780 lightning and do that yourself.
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AMD Radeon R9 290X with Hawaii GPU pictured, has 512-bit 4GB Memory
- Thread starter LtMatt
- Start date
The specs will be very important. If it is just a factory overclocked GTX 780 running @1200mhz for example, it will bring nothing new to the table as you can buy a 780 lightning and do that yourself.
Soldato
There is no error in margin of e-peen. Only the measure of said peen. 
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Aye Kaap. I'm hoping that's the case and I just end up staying put.
x
Aye Kaap. I'm hoping that's the case and I just end up staying put.
Caporegime
- Joined
- 18 Oct 2002
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- 33,188
THe 290x is a completely new core that offers something for AMD users that is well beyond the reach of a current card over clocked and offers something akin to Titan performance for lower price. At best and I really mean best, the 780ti will offer 10% performance clock for clock, realistically it will likely be some combo of higher clocks + a few more shaders to be 10-15% faster, but it likely won't be worth the price premium, it could make a 780gtx more appealing if the price comes down. Think 780ti, 20% more for 10% more performance, woo.
It's not interesting at all in that sense, if it were a potentially new core or architecture then whatever.
Personally I seriously dislike it when companies take the pee and release 38 different versions of the same core starting from slowest then moving upwards each time. I mean, would people be happy to spend £300 on a 5830, then find AMD replace it with the 5850 for £300 a couple months later and their original card is now £220, then they release a 5870 for £300 and that original card is now 30% slower and costs £180. When AMD could just release the 5870 to start with, it's daft.
Honestly Nvidia are just milking the hell out of their customers, stockpiling chips, releasing the worst at the highest cost, then when sales drop or AMD counters, they release the next batch of better cores for a high cost, over and over. Great in terms of profits for the same cards, but why customers lap it up I really don't know.
It's not interesting at all in that sense, if it were a potentially new core or architecture then whatever.
Personally I seriously dislike it when companies take the pee and release 38 different versions of the same core starting from slowest then moving upwards each time. I mean, would people be happy to spend £300 on a 5830, then find AMD replace it with the 5850 for £300 a couple months later and their original card is now £220, then they release a 5870 for £300 and that original card is now 30% slower and costs £180. When AMD could just release the 5870 to start with, it's daft.
Honestly Nvidia are just milking the hell out of their customers, stockpiling chips, releasing the worst at the highest cost, then when sales drop or AMD counters, they release the next batch of better cores for a high cost, over and over. Great in terms of profits for the same cards, but why customers lap it up I really don't know.
Ok now that has really made me laugh, don't get me wrong I'm not saying that Nvidia haven't done this, but it only the same thing that AMD is doing.
7870le, 7950, 7970, 7970GHz, 280x they are all Tahiti chips. I wouldn't be at all surprised to see a 280 appear at a latter date aswell.
Both companies have been doing this for ages.
sell what the market wants at a price the market will bear - then slash those prices 20-40% or make it EOL and give them someting better (faster, lower power, extra feature or two) at the same price you originally thought of.
Normal business practice everywhere - not just graphics cards. Look at mobile phones, laptops, cpu's etc etc - probably things outside technology too but I can't be bothered suggesting any beyond cars.
Normal business practice everywhere - not just graphics cards. Look at mobile phones, laptops, cpu's etc etc - probably things outside technology too but I can't be bothered suggesting any beyond cars.
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Agreed, though they slightly initially shot themselves in the foot with 7970 to 7970GE as that was a simple re-flash - as my two 7970's @ 1050/1500 here would indicate. Not sure if there wasn't a similar one for 7950 to 7970.
Caporegime
Permabanned
Very true DM but AMD are guilty of it as well. If you look at all the cards they have release lately only the 2 which are not even released/priced/reviewed are actual new cards and yet people are still buying them. Nvidia rely on brand loyalty and it works for them but is that not what AMD are doing now especially by asking people to pre order a card we know nothing about officially?
Soldato
Not really sure what you mean bud, was an observation, what I mean is, I'm impressed that a 780 (At any speed) can be faster than two 7970's at stock. That's quite a lot of performance from a single GPU. Considering the 7970 was AMD's previous gens fastest card. For the next gen to be faster than two of them is impressive. Likewise the 290X looks like a beast as well.
Oh crap a 290x overclocked is going to be faster than my 7950 crossfire setup.
Its oh my God
No upgrade right?
Man of Honour
I have been giving some thought to what the 780ti could be and am starting to think NVidia may be just doing a huge spoiler to ruin AMDs day.
If we use the existing Titan as a benchmark
If we were to see a full fat GK110, it would be about 7% faster clock for clock less a bit for reduced oc headroom and we end up with about 4% increase.
If we reduce the VRAM on a Titan to say 3gb it won't make the thing go any faster as we are just removing the memory off the back of the PCB, not making the chips smaller.
NVidia could reduce the SMX modules and oc higher but we all know where that goes, it's called the GTX 780.
What we do know is the NVidia CEO held up a new card, made a few vague claims and offered no specs or real info. This is a great way of drawing attention away from the 290X, he did say the cards would be available in November though (a couple of weeks after the 290X launch). For all we know what he was holding could have been an empty shell.
If we use the existing Titan as a benchmark
If we were to see a full fat GK110, it would be about 7% faster clock for clock less a bit for reduced oc headroom and we end up with about 4% increase.
If we reduce the VRAM on a Titan to say 3gb it won't make the thing go any faster as we are just removing the memory off the back of the PCB, not making the chips smaller.
NVidia could reduce the SMX modules and oc higher but we all know where that goes, it's called the GTX 780.
What we do know is the NVidia CEO held up a new card, made a few vague claims and offered no specs or real info. This is a great way of drawing attention away from the 290X, he did say the cards would be available in November though (a couple of weeks after the 290X launch). For all we know what he was holding could have been an empty shell.
Permabanned
Did he not say at the end of the announcement that it would be available to game on for the journo's?
Caporegime
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Damned those Nvidia mickey takers...Good job AMD don't do this
This isn't the same situation AT ALL.
THe 7970 is a full fat part, there is no hidden part that AMD are stock piling, as the process matured they were happier to let the stock clock be higher... but that didn't stop anyone from overclocking the 7970 to the same clocks. THey weren't screwing early users by disabling 10-20% of the shaders, asking for the same money then later on releasing the same core with all shaders enabled.
What the 780 is, essentially is AMD havin ga 7970 and 7950, NOT selling the 7970, only releasing the 7950 at the higher 7970 price, getting all the sales they could, then finally letting the 7970 out the bag and asking for even more.
This is not what AMD did, they let out a full fat part straight away, it was the first part out.
The 280x, what has that got to do with anything, is it a higher cost, is it faster than the 7970 was at launch?
Nvidia don't often do this either, the 680gtx was a "full" part, even though because GK110 was late they pushed it way up in price anyway. Again the situation with the 780/680ti is as if they sold the 670 as the higher end part, held back the 680, charged more for it, then released the 680 part essentially screwing all those 670 users who thought they bought the highest end part because that is what Nvidia told them it was.
It's a joke, Nvidia didn't do this on the 680gtx, they didn't do it on the 4xx, 5xx, 2xx parts because, it's a joke.
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Caporegime
And we are back to the same discussion about the GK104 not being the full fat Kepler that we were having 2 years ago....
So we had 7970, 7970 GE, 8970, and now the 280X but because they were all on AMD's top chip, it's fair? At least put it on a level playing field and say they are both milking it.
So we had 7970, 7970 GE, 8970, and now the 280X but because they were all on AMD's top chip, it's fair? At least put it on a level playing field and say they are both milking it.
Caporegime
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No, we aren't, kepler isn't anything but an architecture, a full fat GK110 has 2880 cores, a full fat 680gtx has.. ok I can't remember how many cores off hand. It's got nothing to do with gk104, GK110 Nvidia has faster parts they have held back to charge you more for the cut down versions.
After reading my statement seemed a bit stupid but will the BF4 engine in theory be mantlleised ( new word ! ) meaning other developers could take advantage of it ?
If I can get a Hynix/Samsung-equipped 290 I might rig up a cold air duct to the window and have a go at beating Matt's 7950s.
I won't go down without a fight. Although i will accept defeat at the hands of a 290X a little easier than i will a titan.
I can see that catching on around here as aa buzzword, 'mantlleised'. Just like PEBKAC, conjecture, fallacy, tangent, etc.
Man of Honour
He did indeed, but will that be in time before the 290X is launched.
The more I think about it, the more I think all NVidia are going to do is launch their own variation on a non ref GTX 780.
Doing the above ticks all the boxes for them
Better out of the box performance than a Titan or 290X.
Cheap to make, minimal changes from a stock GTX 780.
Very little effort needed to get it into production fast.
And as far as NVidia is concerned, who cares if it has little oc headroom as long as it beats the competition @stock on the review sites.
The other thing that gives a big hint is it will only have 3 way sli support. NVidia save 4 way support for the top of the range cards.