What incentive does Nvidia have .....

[Make]

Who cares about the Bus size when the performance is there regardless.

The fact is, the 970 performs as well as a 290 at much less power consumption.

Raw numbers, no other stuff needed.

Yes, the 290 can be overclocked and overvolted, with even greater power consumption and heat.

 

[win8.1]

I agree so the moral of the story is...

1) Blame Nvidia for launching 980 cards that should be at 970 pricing:

Yep if they had launched the 980 at 970 prices that would be something or when they launch their true high end give the same bang for buck as the 290 did.

 

[ubersonic]

No offense, but I'd happy to exchange 256-bit bus for 384-bit bus (and higher memory bandwidth) at the cost of slightly higher temp and power-consumption any day.

The R9 280/280X both have a 384-bit bus and lower memory bandwidth* than a 970/980 (stock vs stock), if you wanna chuck me another 970 ill give you my 280X


*R280X: "Up to 288 GB/s", R280: "Up to 240 GB/s", 970/980: "effective 300GB/s plus" (224GB/s bus with hardware compression).

-----------

I really don't get all this hate, Nvidia launched a new card giving 780/290 beating performance and 780ti/290X beating overclocking performance and priced it under the 780/290. They also launched a card giving GTX690/HD7990/Titan Black beating performance and priced it under some R290X cards, why all the hate

 

[GoogalyMoogaly]

I don't think you can really blame Nvidia for releasing the mid-range card initially when AMD have nothing to worry them. I'm sure if AMD's 290X card performed 25% better than it does then Nvidia would've had to release a top end part to get sales from the enthusiasts, but if they can release a mid-range card that performs around the same as AMDs card and cost about the same while being more efficient and running cooler, then why not. It has enough reasons to be bought over the competition.

The 290X comes out with Titan like performance and AMD have done amazing, despite the power draw and heat output.
The 970 comes out with 290 like performance and Nvidia are disappointing and screwing people over because they should be releasing something better, despite the fact it does all that with less power draw and heat.
It doesn't seem like both companies are being judged by the same rules to me!

Would I have liked a larger bus on the 900 series cards that have been released so far? Yeah why not, can't hurt can it?
Would I have like faster RAM on the R9 200 series cards to make use of the 512-bit bus? Yeah, that'd be nice too.

I'm not too worried about bus size or ram speed though if the performance is there.
If there was a card with 256-bit bus with 1500MHz RAM and it outperformed a card with 384-bit bus and 2000MHz RAM which card would I buy? The fastest one. Are there really people here that would buy the one with the biggest bus and fastest RAM just because it had a bigger bus and faster RAM and completely ignore performance?

I realise people are going to try to find something to pick holes in it with and with the price, power draw, heat, OC ability and performance of the 970 it doesn't leave much, but really?

 

[Marine-RX179]

The R9 280/280X both have a 384-bit bus and lower memory bandwidth* than a 970/980 (stock vs stock), if you wanna chuck me another 970 ill give you my 280X


*R280X: "Up to 288 GB/s", R280: "Up to 240 GB/s", 970/980: "effective 300GB/s plus" (224GB/s bus with hardware compression).

Seriously you guys...you all love taking things out of context do you?

I was refering to "on the same GPU, I'd rather have a 384-bit bus with slightly higher temp and power consumption over 256-bit bus for the sake of slightly lower temp and power-consumption".

A 970 on 384-bit bus would be noticably faster than the 256-bit 970, due to not only the wider bus size, but also the higher memory bandwidth.

 

[Nelly]

Yep if they had launched the 980 at 970 prices that would be something or when they launch their true high end give the same bang for buck as the 290 did.

They won't ever do that unless AMD pull their fingers out and release a high end card quicker than Nvidia can, and at a cheaper price at launch.

Needs to be competition at 980Ti level from AMD at say £400 to £450 for custom cards, because then the Nvidia cards would not be worth their current value.

Just means Nvidia can make lot's of $$$ while AMD are behind schedule.

If you had hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of shares in Nvidia you wouldn't be saying what you are saying now.

Not repeating myself again...

 

[win8.1]

I like how OP keeps trying to hammer home the gimped 256bit bus in every post in this thread even though he knows and has been told it doesn't affect 99% of users. Guess what OP your 290 can't cope with 4k very well either with it's higher bus! Here's a bigger one for you.

If the bus size did not make that much difference why does all the real top end Nvidia cards all come with larger buses than 256bit? Of course it might not make much difference on the 970 now as they have probably shortchanged on the shaders, rops etc. compared to full fat Maxwell but you definitely won't get Nvidia offering 256bit on it as even Nvidia know it will limit performance then. That the 970 only competes with Amd's 290 a year on in performance shows there is shortchanging somewhere. Thanks for the large bus by the way.

 

[bru]

Oh for gods sake, If people are going to bang on about something can you at least get your facts right.

The 650Ti, the OEM 660, the 660Ti, the OEM 760, the AMD 7870XT and if you want to believe the very latest rumours the R9 285 all have a gimped bus. That is a bus width that is less than what they were designed to have.

The 980 and 970 do not. They have a 256 bit bus and they were designed to use a 256 bit bus, in this case rather effectively.

 

[Ayahuasca]

If the bus size did not make that much difference why does all the real top end Nvidia cards all come with larger buses than 256bit?

All the nvidia cards with more than 256bit bus have been beaten or matched by these new 256bit bus cards so I really don't see your point.

 

[Marine-RX179]

All the nvidia cards with more than 256bit bus have been beaten or matched by these new 256bit bus cards so I really don't see your point.

You are comparing new cards to older cards with weaker GPU.

If you love 256-bit so much, may be you start a petition for Nvidia to release that fat Maxwell on 256-bit instead of 384-bit or 512-bit, considering the wider bus size and extra memory bandwidth won't do jacks to increase performance and just making the card hotter and power-hungry?

 

[Ayahuasca]

Where did I say I loved 256bit bus? I'm just not silly enough to bang on about 1 aspect of a card that makes no difference to performance figures that are clear for everyone to see.

 

[win8.1]

They won't ever do that unless AMD pull their fingers out and release a high end card quicker than Nvidia can, and at a cheaper price at launch.

Of course. Sad but true. Amd have been the only ones lately offering real high end products at launch for a reasonable price. Takes them a bit longer though unfortunately.

 

[Marine-RX179]

No offense, but I'd happy to exchange 256-bit bus for 384-bit bus (and higher memory bandwidth) at the cost of slightly higher temp and power-consumption any day.

I wouldn't as it offers little to no performance improvements at the most played resolutions. These cards were never aimed at 4k gamers.

Where did I say I loved 256bit bus? I'm just not silly enough to bang on about 1 aspect of a card that makes no difference to performance figures that are clear for everyone to see.

 

[win8.1]

All the nvidia cards with more than 256bit bus have been beaten or matched by these new 256bit bus cards so I really don't see your point.

The point is only matched after 1 year. New gen 970 should be blowing old gen 290P's/780 out of the water not matching on performance. I know it's more than bus size that makes the performance only match a year old Amd or even Nvidia product. Nvidia are no doubt shortchanging on shaders, rop's.

 

[Panos]

They can get away with it year after year until AMD brings to the table a 980Ti capable card prior to a launch of Nvidia's 980 cards at cheaper pricing.

AMD has the 290X and the 290 out 10 months now. The non reference ones were faster and cheaper out of the box than all the non reference 780s/780Ti and Titan Black who sold with +£100 to +£300 premium. While since Spring you were able to buy 2 290s for less than a Black.

The 295X2 was cheaper than the Titan Z, and today is cheaper than a single Black.

The difference is the hype of the fanboys

I still remember all the hype in here that nothing will beat the Titan Z. It came out. Was beaten by a 290 CF at a fraction of the cost, and even from the 295X2.

When last year AMD announced the 290X everyone here was bashing it that the 780Ti and the Titan Black will cripple it. All cards came up.
After that silence, because actually you had to struggle to buy the 780Ti over the 290X. Only if you wanted to buy the brand. Or else made no sense and they were more expensive also.

Fast forward to this month.
Everyone is cheering to the 980/970 even if actually they are not that fast than the 780/780Ti nor the 290/290X.

And spare me the crap anyone who will try to point a chart on a site. When they compare a eg Vapor-X (cat 14.8) with the factory overclocked 970s/980 yes. Come around and point that chart.
By trying to use 13.12 AMD drivers with 290/290X reference blowers from last year is like comparing apples and oranges.

The same applies to GTX780. Every driver used with them on reviews is before April 2014 and all at stock speeds. The significant majority of the 780s in the market were Ghz factory clocks, and all 780/780Ti got 12% performance boost from the April drivers alone.

If you factor that, along side what cards you could buy from the 780/780Ti/290/290X the 970/980 was just nothing important.

Yes power consumption under load some will say, by what? 100W that is £0.009 per hour.
(0.9p). Which is £16.45 annually for 5 hours per day under full load for 365 days.
Does that justifies the money someone going to lose by selling his card and buying a new one? Especially when those cards going to be outdated in just few months?

Doubt it

 

[Ayahuasca]

That does not say I loved 256bit bus?

 

[chroniclard]

I like how people keep saying "mid range card" when they spank everything else.

 

[llamadal]

Some people buy by the brand regardless of performance or what the other manufacturer is offering.

Totally, when will people ditch amd and just buy the better products.

Competing on performance while melting the polar ice caps and sounding like a Chinook does not appeal.

 

[Gerard]

I like how people keep saying "mid range card" when they spank everything else.

I think your definition of "spanking" must be pretty different from most peoples.

 

[Uncle Petey]

Oh dear...