Maxwell reviews starting to appear

Not impressive at all.... UNTIL YOU TAKE A LOOK AT POWER DRAW.

About 100+w less than the 780Ti under load. WOW, just WOW.
That won't impress me until they crank the power back up and give me 40% better performance than the 780Ti. I'm not worried about power use except insofar as it allows greater speed increases.
 
Power matters not a whit to me.

Price and performance. Period.
 
That won't impress me until they crank the power back up and give me 40% better performance than the 780Ti. I'm not worried about power use except insofar as it allows greater speed increases.

SLI users may see it differently. Not needing 1.21 gigawatt power supply for Titan Z or 295x is a big plus in my book.
 
That won't impress me until they crank the power back up and give me 40% better performance than the 780Ti. I'm not worried about power use except insofar as it allows greater speed increases.

Exactly! Those who care about a few watts can have a 750. Puurrrformance please.

The 970 might be ok if around $300.

SLI users may see it differently. Not needing 1.21 gigawatt power supply for Titan Z or 295x is a big plus in my book.

My 290x crossfire uses ~700w total system (can't remember if with monitor?).
 
and are quickly being taken down... :mad:

There are some numbers at http://wccftech.com/nvidia-maxwell-...0-15-faster-r9-290x-gtx-970-10-faster-r9-290/

The 980 seems to be slightly faster than a 780Ti and R9-290X, while the 970 is on par with a 780 and R9-290.

Not impressive at all.... UNTIL YOU TAKE A LOOK AT POWER DRAW.

About 100+w less than the 780Ti under load. WOW, just WOW.

Actually look at the thermals, 980 runs just as hot as 780 with "only" 175W TDP. And that $549 price for like what 10-15% better performance than 970?

Yeah 980 is a flop, I'm calling it.
 
Actually look at the thermals, 980 runs just as hot as 780 with "only" 175W TDP. And that $549 price for like what 10-15% better performance than 970?

Yeah 980 is a flop, I'm calling it.

Dude, temp is not rate of heat ... take that to another thread if you don't understand.
 
Forget these reviews leaking, at this point this is the worst kept secret in gpu history. The one thing that annoys me is the fact that there is no concrete time when the NDA lifts. Who else is sick of refreshing your browser and checking websites over and over? :mad:
 
LOL, glad I'm not the only one!

I'm all hopped up on coffee to give my F5 finger the strength to go on :D

Saaame here..

NDAs usually drop at noon right? Is that PDT or EST? or inbetween?

I'm checking every milestone So far;

Midnight EST Done
Midnight PST Done
Noon EST Done
Noon PST (Coming at 3P)
Midnight on the 19th EST
Midnight on the 19th PST
Anything after that I might kill myself LMAO :D
 
After checking out the specs this morning I'm not entirely sure why anyone would buy one 980 when you could buy two 970s for only a little bit more and SLI them. Am I missing something huge here?
 
no GPU that isn't drawing at least 250W and pushing the limits of what can be done on release has any place in my system

when they do that again...I will take 2 please
 
After checking out the specs this morning I'm not entirely sure why anyone would buy one 980 when you could buy two 970s for only a little bit more and SLI them. Am I missing something huge here?

No microstutter, not all games support SLI (or effectively), and SLI profiles aren't always available at launch. Those would be my reasons to go with a single card.
 
no GPU that isn't drawing at least 250W and pushing the limits of what can be done on release has any place in my system

when they do that again...I will take 2 please

As technology advances and the gpu's shrink TDP will continue to be less and less.

Based on your login, look at the cards in your case as they could be the very Last cards you buy.
 
After checking out the specs this morning I'm not entirely sure why anyone would buy one 980 when you could buy two 970s for only a little bit more and SLI them. Am I missing something huge here?

So that I retain sli as an upgrade option when the next round of cards comes and the price drops.
 
no GPU that isn't drawing at least 250W and pushing the limits of what can be done on release has any place in my system

when they do that again...I will take 2 please

I know where you're coming from. Basically that performance and price are the biggest factors. In fact I agree.

A lot of folks ignore one particular efficiency factor though. No, not the typical frames/watt. 1 - [watts wasted as heat/total wattage]. If you can get both of these efficiency factors high enough, you could have kickass performance in even a 200W package.

My point is that mandating an arbitrary wattage for your GPU doesn't make much sense.
 
SLI users may see it differently. Not needing 1.21 gigawatt power supply for Titan Z or 295x is a big plus in my book.
SLI always has been and always will be a gimped crutch. It causes too many problems. Poor scaling, microstutter, hit or miss optimization, physical size, increased heat, etc. Single card performance is the king.
After checking out the specs this morning I'm not entirely sure why anyone would buy one 980 when you could buy two 970s for only a little bit more and SLI them. Am I missing something huge here?
Yet this is still a compelling argument. Despite all the downsides of SLI, if I can get 140% of 980 performance for 120% of 980 price, it's potentially a good move.
 
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SLI always has been and always will be a gimped crutch. It causes too many problems. Poor scaling, microstutter, hit or miss optimization, physical size, increased heat, etc. Single card performance is the king.

King at 1080p 60hz sure. Many of us have graduated and moved onto wqhd or bigger years ago.
 
That won't impress me until they crank the power back up and give me 40% better performance than the 780Ti. I'm not worried about power use except insofar as it allows greater speed increases.

Power matters not a whit to me.

Price and performance. Period.


It may not be the prime concern to those on these forums, but it shouldnt come as a surpise. Nvidia has been touting its push to shift the conversation from absolute performance to performace/watt for years, and they ahve finally delivered on that.

I used to say that I didn't care about power consumption, but I guess in my old age I've become tired of having hot legs, and loud fan noises during gaming sessions. That and the SO likes the power bill low. This also has interesting implications for the mobile market, which isn't a bad investment for Nvidia, as we - the top end desktop gamers - are an ever shrinking demographic.

I wouldn't be surprised if these were great bitcoin mining cards, given the performance and the low power usage, though that is going to depend on how they do compute.

Remains to be seen how they have handled overclocking. Maybe these will be excellent overclockers, or maybe not due to firmware limitations. Time will tell.

Wouldn't be surprised if a new halo Titan model appears in the not too distant future, doing exactly what you guys are suggesting, upping the performance and taking advantage of the power draw.
 
King at 1080p 60hz sure. Many of us have graduated and moved onto wqhd or bigger years ago.

Late 2008 for me going to 1600p, and over 5 months ago for 4K IPS 60hz :).

The GTX 970 is extremely impressive. It's cheaper, better oc'ability, cooler by far, less heat output & power draw, and it has shadowplay, new downscaling features, + physx. Pretty much a no-brainer to go for a GTX 970 vs. a Radeon 290X right now... the performance difference at stock is negligible (2% faster) but that will widen oc-to-oc on air.
 
King at 1080p 60hz sure. Many of us have graduated and moved onto wqhd or bigger years ago.

Agreed.


I would much rather have a single powerful GPU over two (or more) less powerful GPU's, but sometimes even the fastest single GPU isn't fast enough.

My Titan just barely cuts it at 2560x1600 in the games I play, and I don't even play the most graphically advanced titles...

SLI would really improve if they shifted development towards split frame rendering, rather than alternate frame rendering. Right now (where supported) SFR completely removes any stuttering and input lag problems, but comes at a HUGE scaling cost. If they could engineer the cards to improve scaling in SFR and shift development towards SFR rather than AFR (which IMHO is a rather poor solution) multi-gpu's would become much more interesting.
 
no GPU that isn't drawing at least 250W and pushing the limits of what can be done on release has any place in my system

when they do that again...I will take 2 please

I fully expect Nvidia to come out with a 250W TDP Maxwell part eventually, but it will be expensive, probably double the cost of 980. Similar to how Intel releases new CPU architectures for the mainstream first, this is the direction the GPU market seems to be headed...
 
Actually look at the thermals, 980 runs just as hot as 780 with "only" 175W
And what's wrong with that, exactly?

It just means they've used a slower fan profile than the 780, resulting in similar temps, but with less noise.
 
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UNTIL YOU TAKE A LOOK AT POWER DRAW.

why the frack would i care ?

its a gamer card, saving 10 bucks per year on power bills...i rather have more performance

10% for over a year and half old card is just shameful
especially at 599$
 
why the frack would i care ?

its a gamer card, saving 10 bucks per year on power bills...i rather have more performance
Pointing out the efficiency has NOTHING to do with saving money. Seriously, nobody cares about their electric bill around here, so get that idea out of your head.

Better efficiency means less waste HEAT for a given level of performance. Less HEAT is what we're after, because it means smaller PSUs, smaller and/or quieter coolers, and possibly better overclocks without ridiculous cooling. Potentially more headroom than their previous architecture, which leaks like crazy by comparison.
 
Do you think a Corsair HX750 PSU could support two 980s in SLI? I doubt I would need to overclock the cards themselves. That is a 750watt PSU. CPU is a i7920 overclocked to 3.7 GHz. One solid state drive and one spinner.
 
As technology advances and the gpu's shrink TDP will continue to be less and less.

Based on your login, look at the cards in your case as they could be the very Last cards you buy.

people been saying this for years, I don't buy it

Resolutions will just get bigger, post processing more intense

by the time VEGA is running 3@ 4K eyefinity/surround at 120Hz with full lightboost the next big thing will be on the horizon...and the big half kiolwatt GPU setups will be there to push it
 
why the frack would i care ?

its a gamer card, saving 10 bucks per year on power bills...i rather have more performance

You're not just saving money on your power bills. You're saving money by not having to buy a new PSU. Nvidia are also opening up new markets where people cannot buy a new PSU. With a 175W TDP, people can now SLI on a SFX PSU. People like me can now SLI on a fanless PSU.
 
And what's wrong with that, exactly?

It just means they've used a slower fan profile than the 780, resulting in similar temps, but with less noise.

In 3DMark11 and Unigine Heaven the 780 fan is spinning 300 RPM faster, but in Furmark the 980 fan is spinning 300 RPM faster.

Makes me wonder if this says something about the efficiency curve.
 
people been saying this for years, I don't buy it

Resolutions will just get bigger, post processing more intense

by the time VEGA is running 3@ 4K eyefinity/surround at 120Hz with full lightboost the next big thing will be on the horizon...and the big half kiolwatt GPU setups will be there to push it
Considering Nvidia keeps managing to release faster-and-faster cards at (or below) the 250w / 270w level, I see no reason why power consumption would suddenly need to double in order to increase performance further.
 
Considering Nvidia keeps managing to release faster-and-faster cards at the 250w / 270w level, I see no reason why power consumption would suddenly need to double in order to increase performance further.

I'm talking about xfire/SLI, I think .25kW is about right for the PCIe form factor
 
SLI always has been and always will be a gimped crutch. It causes too many problems. Poor scaling, microstutter, hit or miss optimization, physical size, increased heat, etc. Single card performance is the king.

Yet this is still a compelling argument. Despite all the downsides of SLI, if I can get 140% of 980 performance for 120% of 980 price, it's potentially a good move.

When is the last time you owned an SLI setup? I've been running SLI 680s basically since they came out with zero issues (at least that I can remember). nVidia's drivers have come a long way.
 
In 3DMark11 and Unigine Heaven the 780 fan is spinning 300 RPM faster, but in Furmark the 980 fan is spinning 300 RPM faster.

Makes me wonder if this says something about the efficiency curve.
An unmodified reference-model 780 throttles badly in Furmark, resulting in lower clocks, lower power consumption, lower temps, and lower fan speeds (and, of course, lower performance)

What you're probably seeing is the 780 over-throttling to protect itself, and the 980 continuing to run full-speed thanks to its reduced power consumption and more-efficient design.
 
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