**Nvidia GeForce GTX 970 / 980 Review Thread**

[TheRealDeal]

No you are wrong, you go by core naming and the core that powers the 970/980 is the mid-range core.

The full blown core will be running the higher cards.

No you go by the name of the card. This is Nvidia's new high end and that's a fact. Sure they will have a higher end coming whenever but for now this is the cream of the crop and there new high end. Nvidia are giving it the high end moniker so agree with me.

 

[almighty15]

Yes. I've had them over 1600MHz core!!

I would imagine memory bandwidth limitations would kick in then as a GTX780 running at that clock can also run into bandwidth problems?

When's your review going up?

 

[almighty15]

No you go by the name of the card. This is Nvidia's new high end and that's a fact. Sure they will have a higher end coming whenever but for now this is the cream of the crop and there new high end and Nvidia are giving it the name.

Well every review site disagrees with you and calls these the middle Maxwell.

So well leave it there.

 

[triss]

No you are wrong, you go by core naming and the core that powers the 970/980 is the mid-range core.

The full blown core will be running the higher cards.

You are both right and wrong, Yes core naming used to be the thing,, Bur atm 780's are EoL and i dont think 770's are yet? Its why ATM 980 is the flagship card ,We might not see it as such but thats the place atm Nvidia has for them, I think we all know really they are simply new gen midrange , but for now thats top tier

Milking in progress

 

[Silent_Scone]

I shall test with more voltage soon.

But Classy's are not on roadmap, but am sure they will come, but probably end of year!

Surprised at that, but honestly if the new drivers release the 1.212v lockout there will be no need for most end users

 

[eyetrip]

Decent price for 970 (for lowest

But stupid price for 980

 

[Akagi]

Well every review site disagrees with you and calls these the middle Maxwell.

So well leave it there.

They are the middle Maxwell cards, but that isn't the point he was making.

 

[SkeeterUK]

Is it just me but theres a lot of poor brands in the lists as well as poor looking coolers on em. Like they were rushed. To me half the coolers look like ones from 10 years ago, the few that are ok are the usual msi and asus etc ones.

 

[thecorrector]

I'll explain it to you Rare, why AMD is in trouble.

I understand, but the only reason they are replacing mid range cards is because they don't have the performance. Nvidia are obviously aware of this hence their pricing.

So where is their high end release? I think I understand nvidias business model now, which really started with the 680. Launch a mid range card, marketed as a high end piece.

I don't think AMD are going to need to do a lot to beat these cards at all. And who gives a monkeys if they use a bit more power, so long as they can harness that and turn it in to performance.

If you understood the industry, you would understand they are are deep deep trouble.

(r9 285)Tonga is the successor to (gtx 7970)Tahiti the same way the gtx 980 is the successor of the gtx 680.

Looking at their characteristics they are very similar, power, size of die, and even shaders(2048). They starkly difference in performance which is the biggest item of value. The gtx 980 is 75% faster(maybe 64% faster than full tonga). This is bigger than most generational gaps with a node thrown in for good measure.

AMD hawaii(r9 290x) part was AMD attempt to make a monolitic chip good at computing to compete with the gk110(gtx 780 ti).

AMDs new part coming out that is supposed to be their performance part is called fiji and is upscaled Tonga(r9 285). They are based on the same architecture and are part of the same series called pirate islands.

This will be the successor to hawaii or r9 290x. This as you said wouldn't be bad if you didn't care about power or heat and Nvidia didn't release anything else. However Nvidia is releasing an update to gk110 called gm200 that uses the same architecture maxwell. Most rumors have it coming out earlier than Fiji.

So what you think is going to make a better performance part.
A part scaled up from r9 285 or a card scaled up from the gtx 980. And looking at the size and power consumption of both, they both can be scaled up 50%.

This is why AMD is screwed.

This is the type of beating Intel gave AMD 8 years ago with core 2 duo and it cratered their CPU division.

 

[TheRealDeal]

I would imagine memory bandwidth limitations would kick in then as a GTX780 running at that clock can also run into bandwidth problems?

When's your review going up?

We know there's higher to come and i am not disputing that fact. However at this moment this is Nvidia's high end. Nvidia say so with there name and performance is backing it up as well. I think Nvidia have done a decent job with this release on 28nm.

 

[RavenXXX2]

Not looking good for AMD, I assume more price drops? Their next part needs to be very special indeed.

 

[Kaapstad]

If you understood the industry, you would understand they are are deep deep trouble.

(r9 285)Tonga is the successor to (gtx 7970)Tahiti the same way the gtx 980 is the successor of the gtx 680.

Looking at their characteristics they are very similar, power, size of die, and even shaders(2048). They starkly difference in performance which is the biggest item of value. The gtx 980 is 75% faster(maybe 64% faster than full tonga). This is bigger than most generational gaps with a node thrown in for good measure.

AMD hawaii(r9 290x) part was AMD attempt to make a monolitic chip good at computing to compete with the gk110(gtx 780 ti).

AMDs new part coming out that is supposed to be their performance part is called fiji and is upscaled Tonga(r9 285). They are based on the same architecture and are part of the same series called pirate islands.

This will be the successor to hawaii or r9 290x. This as you said wouldn't be bad if you didn't care about power or heat and Nvidia didn't release anything else. However Nvidia is releasing an update to gk110 called gm200 that uses the same architecture maxwell. Most rumors have it coming out earlier than Fiji.

So what you think is going to make a better performance part.
A part scaled up from r9 285 or a card scaled up from the gtx 980. And looking at the size and power consumption of both, they both can be scaled up 50%.

This is why AMD is screwed.

This is the type of beating Intel gave AMD 8 years ago with core 2 duo and it cratered their CPU division.

You are not going to make a lot of friends here are you.

Almost forgot you have got almost everything wrong in your first post.

 

[thecorrector]

You are not going to make a lot of friends here are you.

Almost forgot you have got almost everything wrong in your first post.

Correct me then.

 

[Sacrifice]

Correct me then.

Just one thing, is 285 full tonga?

 

[Wizzfizz]

snip

Interesting first post there me hearty... Who do you work for again...?

 

[thecorrector]

Just one thing, is 285 full tonga?

r9 285 isn't full tonga. The full part has 2048 shaders vs 1792. AMD has admitted full Tonga has 4 more CU which is 256 more shaders or 14% more. But shaders scale worse as you go up as you run into other bottlenecks in the architecture. So 14% more shaders won't equal 14% more performance.

" AMD has confirmed to us that Tonga is indeed hiding four more compute units than are active in the R9 285, so the diagram above ought to be accurate in that regard. "

http://techreport.com/review/26997/amd-radeon-r9-285-graphics-card-reviewed/2

 

[inverseSquare]

Anyone seen any physical sizes for the MSI 970?

 

[Kaapstad]

Correct me then.

Don't worry there will be plenty along who will.

Here is a few to get on with.

AMD are not exactly going to fold and in recent times have shown an improvement.

You can not compare shaders on different architectures, NVidia and AMD designs are totally different.

The 980 is the successor for the GTX 770.

When AMD launched the 290X the last thing they were expecting was for NVidia to produce the 780ti, it caught them totally wrong footed.

The GM204 could be scaled up nearer to 100% on 20nm for full fat Maxwell, the GK110 chips already use nearly 7 billion transistors @28nm.

There is no full Tonga (285X) on the way and apparently there never was so LtMatt tells us.

The 980 is not 75% faster than a 285.

There are a few to start with.

 

[Boomstick777]

The GTX 970 is looking like a great lil card, able to trade blows with the 290X, low power consumption and price. The best gaming card bang for buck that Nvidia has done for a while.

 

[Geeman1979]

Owners thread needed shortly.