AMD to Nvidia Upgrade time.

[Rusty0611]

Sorry Tommy, I'm still struggling to understand your point. The 7970 was only really 'behind' the 680 at stock clocks. In BF3 - and while overclocked - the 7970 was a teeny bit slower in BF3 - effectively even - until the 12.11 drivers where it is now ~5-10% faster depending on your clocker. The benchmarks thread has validated this.

So looking at the graph I've posted above and other users results I'm failing to understand what your concern is with the statement that the 12.11 brought a massive jump in performance? Look at the jump in the graph??

As shown above 12.7/8 didn't bring anything it was just the point in time the GHz edition was reviewed. If you had not mentioned the drivers I don't think there would have been any confusion... I think the issue is the wording you have used, I don't think there's anything to really disagree with on this.

Provide the url that came from rusty. I remember posting that myself a few months back.

I don't have it... I had to trawl through hundreds of your posts to find the image URL!

Bad times...

 

[LtMatt]

I don't have it... I had to trawl through hundreds of your posts to find the image URL!

Bad times...

Merry christmas.

http://www.ocaholic.ch/xoops/html/modules/smartsection/item.php?itemid=883&page=11

 

[tommybhoy]

Sorry Tommy, I'm still struggling to understand your point. The 7970 was only really 'behind' the 680 at stock clocks. In BF3 - and while overclocked - the 7970 was a teeny bit slower in BF3 - effectively even - until the 12.11 drivers where it is now ~5-10% faster depending on your clocker. The benchmarks thread has validated this.

So looking at the graph I've posted above and other users results I'm failing to understand what your concern is with the statement that the 12.11 brought a massive jump in performance? Look at the jump in the graph??

I'm not disputing the massive jump in BF3 at all, but gaming performance on the whole isn't massive as implied in the 'AMD have just got their act together 10 months after release' or along those lines:

it's implied in most cases that the 7970 was slower until the 12.11's, not on an even playing field-most that don't know any better will take it as fact and yet again puts the AMD driver team in a negative spin.

The 12.11's have taken the 7970 past the 680, but I haven't stated that in this thread, simply that the 680 was matched in June.

As shown above 12.7/8 didn't bring anything it was just the point in time the GHz edition was reviewed. If you had not mentioned the drivers I don't think there would have been any confusion... I think the issue is the wording you have used, I don't think there's anything to really disagree with on this.

There's not much to disagree on, Kap knew what I was talking about as most will also, however other users reading this thread(there's plenty that just read threads and don't post) will take from it as they will through interpretation, as above it's to put the record straight for those that don't know any better.

The only disagreement I have is with users that imply or state as fact that the 7970 was slower than a 680 until 12.11's, all I have been saying all along.

The only time since the 680 launch that it has been slower was on stock clocks, AMD didn't have a clue(got left with their pants at their ankles bent over) that Nvidia were going to bring out a series of boosting(auto clocking) gpu's and got hammered for it in reviews, causing mass hysteria/arguments at the time.

 

[humbug]

^^^ AMD had an enormous amount of confidence in their GCN architecture, and for good reason, its brilliant.

But i would like to know what was going on inside their heads to think that Nvidia could not match them, which gave them the confidence to release the GCN GPU's with such unreasonably low clocks?

They will not be making that mistake again, i think its a mistake that's cost them an awful lot.

 

[Rusty0611]

I agree with what you're saying there Tommy as I said I think the issue was with the wording you used originally. It wasn't clear to me what you were saying.

The 680 was faster in BF3 (at overclocked) before 12.11 but not noticeably so even with an FPS counter. I think it was marginally slower in most other games.

They will not be making that mistake again, i think its a mistake that's cost them an awful lot.

Indeed. I would have probably got a 7970 had it been:

a) more towards what 12.11 is now rather than apparent stagnation and then a massive 'hello'
b) released at higher out the box clocks

The 680 was faster and cheaper when I bought mine on release day. It wouldn't have been the case had points a) and b) been somewhat addressed. Hopefully they've learned from their small mistake here.

At the end of the day, the clocks have always been able to be raised and the 7970 has been cheaper than the 680 for some time as well. Driver performance - while a little slow coming - is impressive since they announced they were changing methodology.

The old AMD issue of fixed code & regression elsewhere (caused principally by the different teams working on different driver versions I'd say) seems to have been sorted out.

I'm very happy with my 7950 although I was far from being unhappy with the 680 on a single screen . The opposite in fact.

 

[humbug]

Oh yes... The Nvidia 6## series cards are pretty damn good, they both are.

Today we are in this perfect situation where there is nothing to chose between them other than price, Nvidia and AMD are slugging it out blow for blow... competition is healthy, cost for performance is low.

What we have is exactly what we want.

 

[tommybhoy]

But i would like to know what was going on inside their heads to think that Nvidia could not match them, which gave them the confidence to release the GCN GPU's with such unreasonably low clocks?

The low clocks was to ensure they got a higher amount of cards out the door, that's why there is different voltage/Asic due to the 'secret' algorithms in there power delivery, if they had to wait for guaranteed 1GHz chips, they would never have got the jump on Nvidia, while costs would be higher due to chip binning.

 

[humbug]

The low clocks was to ensure they got a higher amount of cards out the door, that's why there is different voltage/Asic due to the 'secret' algorithms in there power delivery, if they had to wait for guaranteed 1GHz chips, they would never have got the jump on Nvidia, while costs would be higher due to chip binning.

I didn't know that, it explains a lot, thanks Tommy.

 

[tommybhoy]

^
Np.

 

[weehamish]

@ weehamish.

What's all this rubbish about frame spiking? There are plenty of reviews that plot frame rate graphs such as hardOCP, I suggest you look at those and you will notice there is no overall difference.

With all the problems you have had with your cards, you saying that overclocking leads to stuttering, talking about frame spiking, I would suggest most of your problems lie between your keyboard and your chair.

Please dont rage on man :\

I said i tested both at default and then overclocked the 7850 at stock volts please learn to read! Stop being a moaning ****! Raging coz you probs own an AMD card, ill soon own an AMD card its not like i want it to spike its just what ive came across, what a ****! Please fully star out swear words.

Anyways this is what i noticed maybe the 660 plays more friendly with this system i dunno, maybe i got dodgy 7850s, i know for certain one was dodgy OCUK confirmed so who knows??

Anyways if theres no difference between the 2 then the 7970 and 7950 are by far the 2 best cards going and the prices are amazing for beating 670s and 680s! I mean how much do Nvidia think physx is worth? W
I read Nvidia cards can do other stuff that AMD cant, like special AA and crap? Who knows more about this?

 

[spoffle]

Please dont rage on man :\

I said i tested both at default and then overclocked the 7850 at stock volts please learn to read! Stop being a moaning ****! Raging coz you probs own an AMD card, ill soon own an AMD card its not like i want it to spike its just what ive came across, what a ****! Please fully star out swear words.

Anyways this is what i noticed maybe the 660 plays more friendly with this system i dunno, maybe i got dodgy 7850s, i know for certain one was dodgy OCUK confirmed so who knows??

Anyways if theres no difference between the 2 then the 7970 and 7950 are by far the 2 best cards going and the prices are amazing for beating 670s and 680s! I mean how much do Nvidia think physx is worth? W
I read Nvidia cards can do other stuff that AMD cant, like special AA and crap? Who knows more about this?

Everyone read your post and you said something different to what you're claiming you said now.

People are telling you that you're wrong because you are. You've made silly conclusions based on a ridiculously small sample size, a poor testing methodology and general all round cluelessness.

He wouldn't have had to post that if you hadn't been talking so much rubbish (being completely blunt about it). It really does concern me that your day job is assembling HP computers yet you are so clueless.

One thing nvidia cards don't do is spike fps.

Nvidia will happy sit in the middle say 50 fps while the amd will go 30-60 spikes. So it moves all over really fast while Nvidia will stay at a steady frame rate.

I've went amd this time i just hope the spiking isn't as bad and its more smooth.