Dark days, AMD share price at lowest ever.

[D.P.]

It causes stuttering, hows that useful?

It doesn't cause stuttering.

Windows takes a good 300-600mb of VRAM even in full screen, the driver simply allocates the windows dma memory to the last 512MB. Job done, the card is has a full 1GB more VRAM.

 

[andybird123]

They did enable it lol They released a new updated driver in 15.7... Review was for 300 series why give out drivers for other GPUs that are not getting tested/reviewed ??

It makes no sense to add other GPUs into a press driver all you doing is adding more things that can go wrong...

Get your feedback from press release and then add that into already working driver builds hence 15.7 driver release.

Simple!

I cant believe how massively dim you seem to be suggesting you are.
Of course 290's are going to be tested alongside a new card release because competent reviewers test different hardware on the same system and drivers to show if something is worth upgrading to. A 20% jump on top of an overclock makes the 390's look much better than they really are and not many reviewers will go back and redo their review when new drivers come out a month later. It was deeply dishonest in exactly the same way as "forgetting" to mention a 4gb card only has 3.5gb running at full speed.

 

[andybird123]

So, are the 290X/390X performing equally now? At same clocks of course.

Or was their definitely an architectural tweak?

Clock for clock they are exactly equal.
And use the same amount of power and overclock to the same terminal clocks.

They are the exact same card.

 

[D.P.]

Nvidia lied in their marketing for the product and didn't correct the mistake for months after launch.

only when users created a programme to highlight the flaw that was causing performance degradation and made it public did nvidia even admit it was an issue.

They designed a handicapped card and sold it like a full card blatantly misadvertising the gtx 970.

They cashed in while they rode the wave. End of

They didn't design a handicapped cRd, they designed a card with an extra 1GB of very useful memory where 512Mb although slower than the the rest is still significantly faster than pulling data from system ram. That is a very good design, and some I hope we will see more of in he future, with correct marketing material.



I have already said that nvidia screwed up by not making this difference clear to reviewers, correcting reviews once it was obvious the differences were not communicated, and offered all owners a full refund.

 

[JediFragger]

They was defo work on power efficiency on the 300 series... So the 300 series will Overclock much better. But clock for clock they shouldn't be much difference.

Ok cool. I think these cards are going to shine in DX12 so would be a good buy now (for the mid-range gamer)

 

[mmj_uk]

Hmm yeah, total coincidence that they released review drivers that just happen to include a big performance boost and they "accidentally" forgot to enable it on the 2** series when people at home could do that with a simple ini edit

The best part about that was how they left their users waiting 2-3mths for new drivers prior to the launch, so not only were their 3xx/Fury 'review' drivers chock full of optimisations but their 2xx drivers had been intentionally neglected for months prior.

 

[D.P.]

What would happen if AMD did die though. nVidia especially will **** us over for years to come *cough* 8800 *cough*. Intel have been "reasonably" good with no real competition, but having NO competition? Who knows.
Ideally, we need AMD to have a "win" at some point and a third company join in the GPU-games. Bring back 3dfx

Intel's IGPUS are slowing catching up with vodka and AMD low end. If AMD disappeared leaving a nvidia monopoly in the short term we would see less releases with smaller bumps but intel could well realize the potential and become more aggressive. At first the low and mid end could become quite hotly contested and then the high end.

The intel Phi could become a very competent future GPU.




Thinking about it I'm nit sure AMD will get bought out, they will end up selling off IP to try and stay afloat and then hit bankruptcy is my prediction. Now one really wants to take on intel+nvidia, or either of them separately. Qualcomm and Samsung don't really care about most if AMD's products.

 

[nitram100]

Started with the 290 when they bumped up their price.

AMD were only attractive to me as they offered similar performance but cheaper, now they are the same price as year old Nvidia cards and offer no improvements.

Will be my last AMD card I reckon.

 

[Martini1991]

It doesn't cause stuttering.

Windows takes a good 300-600mb of VRAM even in full screen, the driver simply allocates the windows dma memory to the last 512MB. Job done, the card is has a full 1GB more VRAM.

It's a 256 bit card, it could and should just have normal 4GB VRAM like a GTX980 (Or, better example, like a GTX 770 etc does)

I don't know where you're getting this extra VRAM lark from.

It isn't a benefit.

 

[MasterOC]

It's a 256 bit card, it could and should just have normal 4GB VRAM like a GTX980 (Or, better example, like a GTX 770 etc does)

I don't know where you're getting this extra VRAM lark from.

It isn't a benefit.

I thought the issue lied with the bus itself not the VRAM . The 512mb was on something like a 32bit bus or something , not exactly sure but I don't think it was a straight memory issue

 

[RavenXXX2]

I miss pound stretcher AMD.

 

[Martini1991]

I thought the issue lied with the bus itself not the VRAM . The 512mb was on something like a 32bit bus or something , not exactly sure but I don't think it was a straight memory issue

The point is they could have had a conventional 4GB VRAM card on a 256 bit bus.

There's no "Extra VRAM" gained etc.

 

[FoxEye]

Pity GOogle aren't interested - could buy it with their pocket change given the company is worth another $65billion or so since a few days ago.

You don't make money by throwing it into a black hole

 

[humbug]

It doesn't cause stuttering.

Windows takes a good 300-600mb of VRAM even in full screen, the driver simply allocates the windows dma memory to the last 512MB. Job done, the card is has a full 1GB more VRAM.

History rewrite attempt.

 

[Martini1991]

History rewrite attempt.

You've picked the absolutely worst choice of games there, I could pick those games to make a stutter argument for every GPU on the planet.

 

[Geeman1979]

That doesn't proof jack. Could be many a reason which caused the stutter. I've had Titans stutter in games nowhere near to maxing Vram.

The 970 Vram issue, completely blown out of proportion.

Nvidia GeForce GTX 970 Revisited.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2015-nvidia-geforce-gtx-970-revisited

 

[bru]

What would happen if AMD did die though. nVidia especially will **** us over for years to come *cough* 8800 *cough*. Intel have been "reasonably" good with no real competition, but having NO competition? Who knows.
Ideally, we need AMD to have a "win" at some point and a third company join in the GPU-games. Bring back 3dfx

Sorry this is something I really don't understand.
780 over 680 was a decent performance jump, 780ti over 780 wasn't anything special, but 980ti over 980 is a good 30% jump again.

Then look at Intel, Sandy bridge, Ivy bridge, Haswell, Broadwell, Skylake. Wow some massive performance jumps there.

Nobody want AMD to die off, but they seem to be heading that way.
The currant policy of raising prices to not seem like a budget brand, might help somewhat. Unfortunately the latest generation of cards doesn't seem to have caught the publics attention enough to improve things. Maybe a rebrands and very low stocked parts wasn't the best time for them to try this, who knows.

As for the NVidia 970 memory fiasco. Personally I think it was a deplorable thing to do, there is no excuse for them at all. The sad thing is that even if they had of been honest about it and advertised the card with 500MB of slow ram and only 56 ROPs it still would be the best selling card of this last year, just without all the negative publicity. I mean even with the revealed understanding of how the memory works with the last 500 meg being slower, all the reviews and benchmarks haven't changed, it is still the same card with he same performance.

 

[andybird123]

The point is they could have had a conventional 4GB VRAM card on a 256 bit bus.

There's no "Extra VRAM" gained etc.

No, that was the other issue, it isn't a 256bit card, its a 224-bit card with a separate 32bit 512mb crossbar and the 32bit cant be actively used at the same time as the 224bit part.
That is obviously the cost of using that design and the parts they had to cut to get salvaged cores.

Thing is, at single card and 1080p (which is probably 90% of the 970's sales) it made no difference, so they should have just been upfront from the beginning. And ultimately the 970 is still the best selling gpu in the last 3 years

 

[andybird123]

You don't make money by throwing it into a black hole

AMD is currently worth 1.5billion, a drop in the ocean for google and they could just make use of the patents to prevent apple getting litigious over something in the future

 

[FoxEye]

AMD is currently worth 1.5billion, a drop in the ocean for google and they could just make use of the patents to prevent apple getting litigious over something in the future

Unless they bought them and then closed them, there's still the fact that AMD is making continual losses, and has massive debts too.

Are you suggesting Google should worry about fixing them, and competing against Intel and nV at the same time, or should buy them for patents and shut them down?