Q&A SESSION WITH JAMES PRIOR FROM AMD / OcUK STREAMED TOMORROW, ASK QUESTIONS!

[KillBoY_UK]

For me top end cards should be all about the most performance for 350watts. I would love to see cards rated by power use. What do you put first performance per watt or watts to performance? Performance should come first in the gaming market.

And it does for me too but its all has to be within reason but would I switched from a 980ti SLI hybrid setup to if the 1080ti was a 600w card rather than a 6=300w no not unless it was very cheap.

Would I want 600w of heat to be dumped into my WC loop or case, no as i would have ramp up fans or get more fans and rad space, extra cost or noise

Would I of liked to upgrade my PSU as well and or overstress my current one, no, extra cost and noise

Some peoples might card that fit a ITX case but not sound like a banshee which you could'nt do with a 600w card with in a dual slot cooler or even a 4 slot cooler in a normal size case

a lot of people (or maybe just me) would prefer a 300w with 90% performance of its 600w competitor.

Yes performance is important but its not the be all and end all not matter if your buying high end or low end

 

[FoxEye]

Well to some lesser extent and in specfic areas, but more power means higher potential performance. It's that simple.

The 970 150watt? is bettered by cards pulling more power regardless of clock speed.

That's absolutely, 100% provably false, when comparing different architectures - which we were doing.

I know you like AMD, but honestly trying to give the impression that they hit a home run with Polaris and Vega is just not fooling anyone. To go so far as to say that more power draw = better card... that's just plain wrong.

 

[Gregster]

For me top end cards should be all about the most performance for 350watts. I would love to see cards rated by power use. What do you put first performance per watt or watts to performance? Performance should come first in the gaming market.

I think APUs will take a big slice out of the graphics cards market over the coming years. Intel are at 3.3Tflops intergrated into an 4c8t chip now? A chip like that should offer the performance for 2-3 megapixel gaming.

Crazy way of looking at it. The best case scenario is a super fast card using very little power and this allows for more cores, which in turn allows for more performance. Looking at it from your POV, Vega is a massive win, as it uses so much power over anything else.

 

[Martini1991]

If Nvidia produced a 350W GPU I think AMD would be in the dust.

 

[jigger]

That's absolutely, 100% provably false, when comparing different architectures - which we were doing.

I know you like AMD, but honestly trying to give the impression that they hit a home run with Polaris and Vega is just not fooling anyone. To go so far as to say that more power draw = better card... that's just plain wrong.

Nonsense. Performance comes with power use. The fastest card will pull the most power not the other way round.

 

[FoxEye]

Nonsense. Performance comes with power use. The fastest card will pull the most power not the other way round.

So how do you explain Vega vs 1080 ti?

Either you're saying that Vega is faster or you're saying that the 1080 ti draws more power. Both are false.

So where you going with this...?

 

[jigger]

So how do you explain Vega vs 1080 ti?

Either you're saying that Vega is faster or you're saying that the 1080 ti draws more power. Both are false.

So where you going with this...?

One is more efficient with its power use. Obviously...

In the case of Vega it pulls more power than required for some reason.

 

[Martini1991]

Can jigger just get banned for being a troll?

 

[Kaapstad]

Crazy way of looking at it. The best case scenario is a super fast card using very little power and this allows for more cores, which in turn allows for more performance. Looking at it from your POV, Vega is a massive win, as it uses so much power over anything else.

This^

Making a fast GPU is very similar to making a fast car engine. F1 racing is all about building fuel efficient engines which with scale also produce a lot of horsepower.

Efficiency and performance are on the same side of the equation.

 

[FoxEye]

Nonsense. Performance comes with power use. The fastest card will pull the most power not the other way round.

One is more efficient with its power use. Obviously...

In the case of Vega it pulls more power than required for some reason.

Can jigger just get banned for being a troll?

+1

 

[jigger]

This^

Making a fast GPU is very similar to making a fast car engine. F1 racing is all about building fuel efficient engines which with scale also produce a lot of horsepower.

Efficiency and performance are on the same side of the equation.

Not really unless you introduce a limitation. In this case fuel efficiency. Remove the fuel efficiency requirement and that should alow for increased performance.

 

[FoxEye]

Not really unless you introduce a limitation. In this case fuel efficiency. Remove the fuel efficiency requirement and that should alow for increased performance.

You'll only be correct if there is only one design that all teams use.

Where there are multiple competing designs, it is almost guaranteed that efficiency will vary between them.

Thus absolute power is never the ultimate arbiter of performance. Power and efficiency together dictate performance.

Vega doesn't "use more power than required". Vega uses the power that the Vega design requires. The Vega design is less efficient in today's software and usage scenarios.

It's that simple.

AMD can either make their hardware more efficient for today's software or they can try to push devs to alter their software design. It seems that they've gone for the latter, and that makes Vega a worse design that Pascal and less efficient in the here and now.

 

[Rilot]

Nonsense. Performance comes with power use. The fastest card will pull the most power not the other way round.

No, the card that pulls the most power will pull the most power. Efficiency and performance do not always go hand in hand.
By that argument you would say that a 1970s Rover P6 3500 is faster than a 2017 VW Golf R because the Rover does 17mpg whereas the Golf does 40mpg. All the consumption figures tell you is that one is more efficient than the other. Not which is fastest.

 

[jigger]

No, the card that pulls the most power will pull the most power. Efficiency and performance do not always go hand in hand.
By that argument you would say that a 1970s Rover P6 3500 is faster than a 2017 VW Golf R because the Rover does 17mpg whereas the Golf does 40mpg. All the consumption figures tell you is that one is more efficient than the other. Not which is fastest.

Because technology has moved on. Ie the P2000 couldn't hold a candle to the 3500 regardless of how much more efficient it was than the v8.

 

[five8five]

Not really unless you introduce a limitation. In this case fuel efficiency. Remove the fuel efficiency requirement and that should alow for increased performance.

AMD removed the limitation with Vega. More power (600 Watts +) doesn't increase performance markedly though. It's a case of diminishing returns.

 

[FoxEye]

Because technology has moved on. Ie the P2000 couldn't hold a candle to the 3500 regardless of how much more efficient it was than the v8.

Technological progress is all about making things more efficient. That's how, ultimately, we get more performance, given that the laws of physics haven't changed. Improved aerodynamics, more efficient engines (both in terms of extracting power and mpg), light-weight materials... it's all about efficiency.

We don't have ever-bigger cars with bigger engines, we haven't started strapping rockets on or having two engines... every single improvement is through increasing efficiency. Efficiency is at the heart of all progress today.

In chips die-shrinks are all about improving efficiency. Efficiency of space and power. You then have a choice of doing more work or using less power in your chip. Reducing leakage is about efficiency. Reducing interference is about efficiency. Progress is the pursuit of increasing efficiency. Again, because the laws of physics haven't changed and our resources are as finite as they were 1000 years ago.

 

[jigger]

Technological progress is all about making things more efficient. That's how, ultimately, we get more performance, given that the laws of physics haven't changed. Improved aerodynamics, more efficient engines (both in terms of extracting power and mpg), light-weight materials... it's all about efficiency.

We don't have ever-bigger cars with bigger engines, we haven't started strapping rockets on or having two engines... every single improvement is through increasing efficiency. Efficiency is at the heart of all progress today.

In chips die-shrinks are all about improving efficiency. Efficiency of space and power. You then have a choice of doing more work or using less power in your chip. Reducing leakage is about efficiency. Reducing interference is about efficiency. Progress is the pursuit of increasing efficiency. Again, because the laws of physics haven't changed and our resources are as finite as they were 1000 years ago.

I'd rather see agains from effeicntcy turned into performance. Seems we've been brainwashed into looking at power use as a bad thing when we should be looking at how to make that a good thing.

 

[jigger]

AMD removed the limitation with Vega. More power (600 Watts +) doesn't increase performance markedly though. It's a case of diminishing returns.

If you get to the point that 100watts of power yields a few percent exyra performance you have to question is that worth it as you're reaching the max potential.

Some people would probably push for that last few percent though.

 

[Gregster]

Quite clear that Jigger doesn't know what he is talking about. Serious LN2 benches use power boards to give as much power as possible but requires that LN2 to keep it cool enough. The more power you produce, the more heat and the harder to keep cool. Vega is a prime example of high power and high thermals. Pascal is great at low power, high performance and great thermals.

 

[FoxEye]

I'd rather see agains from effeicntcy turned into performance. Seems we've been brainwashed into looking at power use as a bad thing when we should be looking at how to make that a good thing.

No, you don't want to use more power. You want more work done. You want the most work done for the least power. Power costs you money; work done increases your FPS. More work done is good, more power is bad.

If you could have a smooth 4k experience with a power-sipping card, or a smooth 4k experience that added £5,000 to your electricity bill each year, you would choose the former.