More R9 290X details, NDA lifts October 15th

Unknown-One said:
They've had the design 17 months without releasing a consumer card (and with no competition available to compel them to release a consumer card). That's "sitting on it" as far as I'm concerned.
Click to expand...

You don't really get this market well I think. GK110 has yield problems (to be expected it's a massive die) they are using binning to make up for that but you still aren't doing great profits wise. It took approximately 10 months for them to get yields high enough to release consumer cards from the salvaged chips? That is not an intelligent design. It was not ready for consumers for 17 months ago. They were selling it in a different market for prices that were cushioned well enough that they could justify the yield issues and even now you have the Titan priced at 1000$. GK110 if they would have released it 17 months ago would have been highly unprofitable and in very limited quantities in the consumer market.
 
The Mac said:
Most enthusients dont give a rats ass about thermal envelope.

MOAR FPS is all they care about.
Click to expand...
Uh-huh, sure. Try running SLI / Crossfire with two 250w cards, trust me, you'll notice the difference vs. two 195w cards. Especially if you went with dual-fan coolers instead of blower coolers.

500w for Crossfire HD 7970's vs. 390w for SLI GTX 680's... and the 680's are faster... and the 680's have working frame pacing in all situations. Nvidia didn't really have anything to worry about there.
 
again, gamers dont care.

They will just throw more cooling, and a bigger power supply at it. (for the younger ones, perhaps the parents care when they see the electric bill...lol)

lots of people have crossfired 7970, and 780 as well; under water as well as air. what your point?
 
Mungojerrie said:
You don't really get this market well I think.
Click to expand...
I've just been stating what has already gone down...

Nvidia designed this chip over a year ago, and have been coasting on it ever since (thanks largely to a lack of competition). That's a pretty sweet ride for them, and has likely given them additional resources to put towards Maxwell's development.

Mungojerrie said:
GK110 has yield problems (to be expected it's a massive die) they are using binning to make up for that but you still aren't doing great profits wise. It took approximately 10 months for them to get yields high enough to release consumer cards from the salvaged chips?
Click to expand...
There's also the alternative possibility: Yeilds are actually ok, and it took ~10 months to build up a launch-supply of low-quality cores.

Mungojerrie said:
It was not ready for consumers for 17 months ago.
Click to expand...
The design itself was ready (since it's exactly the same design, unmodified, that they did eventually launch. Just because TSMC's assembly line is/was was having issues doesn't mean the design wasn't ready.

Mungojerrie said:
GK110 if they would have released it 17 months ago would have been highly unprofitable and in very limited quantities in the consumer market.
Click to expand...
And they were under zero pressure from AMD to rectify that situation. So they sat on it and let TSMC get up to speed while AMD was toiling away developing a new chip.
 
Unknown-One said:
Uh-huh, sure. Try running SLI / Crossfire with two 250w cards, trust me, you'll notice the difference vs. two 195w cards. Especially if you went with dual-fan coolers instead of blower coolers.

500w for Crossfire HD 7970's vs. 390w for SLI GTX 680's... and the 680's are faster... and the 680's have working frame pacing in all situations. Nvidia didn't really have anything to worry about there.
Click to expand...

The Mac said:
again, gamers dont care.

They will just throw more cooling, and a bigger power supply at it.
Click to expand...

Honestly, really depends. Both of you are actually correct.

You have to realize that not every gamer is an enthusiast gamer with $1000 to $2000-plus rigs.

You can think of a gamer as falling on either two extremes:
Casual gamer <-----------------------------------------------------------> Enthusiast gamer
​
Either side will likely have a gaming console to play, regardless of what side.

On one end, the casual gamer has a mid-range PC system with stock clocks, stock coolers, run of the mill $30 to $50 PC case.

On the other end, the enthusiast gamer probably has a higher end PC system with possibly overclocked processor, video card, and memory inside a $80 to $300 case. He/she most likely has a liquid cooled or custom cooling kit installed.

All of my friends are towards the casual gamer side, no liquid cooling, no overclocking. As long as it runs, can load games from Steam and League of Legends, and can play it smoothly (around 30FPS) at 1680x1050 or 1080p, they're fine. At the same time, their computers are affordable and fit within their budget. All their computers cost less than $1000.

I have no friends on the other extreme, however. But, I know that many computer users on [H] probably fall towards that end of enthusiast gamers.

So, technically you are both correct. It all depends on what kind of PC gamer you are-- casual or enthusiast? Majority of the casual gamers I know don't care about fancy coolers or cases. As it long as it runs fine, they're ok with it. On the other end, this wouldn't suit a lot of players and they'll most likely want to squeeze out as much performance as possible out of their system and cool it at the same time to maintain that high performance.
 
The Mac said:
again, gamers dont care.
Click to expand...
Suuuure they don't... I've seen plenty of people take issue with noise, heat, and power consumption when it comes to massive gaming rigs.

SPCR is full of people trying to get gaming machines quiet. I've spent quite a bit of effort getting mine near-silent.

The Mac said:
lots of people have crossfired 7970, and 780 as well; under water as well as air. what your point?
Click to expand...
The 780 didn't enter into the point I was making (was strictly between the 680 and the 7970).

Point was that, given the choice between GTX 680 SLI and 7970 Crossfire, the GTX 680 SLI was the obvious choice. Cooler, quieter, faster, no frame-pacing issues. Nvidia had nothing to worry about.

This wasn't relevant to the point I was making, but since you brought it up... If you want to compare GTX 780 SLI and HD 7970 crossfire, the situation looks even more bleak. The GTX 680 was already 22% more efficient per-card (same performance, lower power consumption) The GTX 780 is over 30% more efficient per-card (more performance, same power consumption). If money is no object, then the choice is pretty clear.
 
I am specificlly referring to enthusiest gamer, as i am one, and all my firends are.

Noise sure, but heat? who cares...It doesnt even enter the picture when making buying choices..

Again, efficiency is irrelvent, only performance is, and to some degree price point (from an enthusiest gamer standpoint)
 
Last edited:
The Mac said:
I am specificlly referring to enthusiest gamer, as i am one, and all my firends are.
Click to expand...
I'm firmly in that club as well, dropping $600+ on graphics cards.

The Mac said:
Noise sure, but heat? who cares...
Click to expand...
More heat = more noise. It's a pretty simple equation :p

I'd also prefer my PC not be a space heater. It's hard enough to keep my office cool as it is, especially during summer.

The Mac said:
Again, efficiency is irrelvent, only performance is, and to some degree price point (from an enthusiest gamer standpoint)
Click to expand...
How is efficiency irrelevant? It means you get more performance with less heat (and therefor, less noise / less money spent on cooling).

Getting 30% more performance with no increase in heat/noise/power consumption is more worthwhile than getting a 30% increase in performance accompanied by a 30% increase in heat/noise/power consumption.

If efficiency is irrelevant than I assume you'll be picking up that sweet new 5.0 GHz AMD processor with a 220w TDP :p
 
because i just dont give a damn. ( i dont want to speak for everyone, but i conclude based on my preferences, and everyone i know that this attitude in in the majority of enthusiast gamers)

It either gives me more fps, or it does not

it could be the most inefficient card on the planet, as long as it gives me my 5 extra fps, ill take it.

heat does not equal noise. it MAY equal noise.

Water blocks, after market coolers, etc...
 
The Mac said:
it could be the most inefficient card on the planet, as long as it gives me my 5 extra fps, ill take it.
Click to expand...
So I assume you're looking at buying a GTX 780 or Titan, then... since they'll give you more FPS than the card in your signature.

The Mac said:
heat does not equal nose.

Water blocks, after market coolers, etc...
Click to expand...
More heat ALWAYS equals more noise.

Water cooling does not necessarily mean you can get your system as quiet as a more efficient air-cooled machine. More heat means you need more surface area and/or more CFM. More surface area means you need more fans (or more powerful fans). More (or faster) fans means more noise.

You still have to get rid of the same amount of heat, you're just channeling all of it to a radiator first. Slightly more efficient (assuming the additional pump noise doesn't negate the gains gotten from centralizing the heat output)...
 
BS.

It MAY equal noise.

i said price point to some extent: Titan is outside my pricepoint. However if i was purchasing in that segment, yes, titan would be my choice.

My Sapphie 7970 was the fastest card in the under $600 segment when i was purchasing.
 
The Mac said:
BS.

It MAY equal noise.
Click to expand...
Unless you get into ridiculously large passive / convective cooling, more heat always equals more noise. You're stuck with air as the final transfer medium either way, and it has finite capacity for heat absorption at given CFM / surface area combinations.

The guys over at SPCR will back me up on this. Best way to get a quiet machine is to choose the most efficient components for the desired performance level FIRST rather than trying to deal with excess heat after the fact. Treat the problem, not the symptoms.

The Mac said:
i said price point to some extent: Titan is ridiculous, id rather crossfire 7970s for better FPS.
Click to expand...
I said the Titan or the 780, not just the Titan.

And crossfire 7970's arguably doesn't deliver any performance increase, depending on the situation. If you're running Eyefinity, Crossfire is regrettably still pretty much useless.:(
 
i have revised my prior post, please reread

Im not interested in a silent PC, im interested in a FAST pc, so it irrelevent.

I know 1/2 dozen people with xfire eyfinity without a single problem, so i dont know what you are talking about.
 
The Mac said:
Im not interested in a silent PC, im interested in a FAST pc, so it irrelevent.
Click to expand...
Perfectly relevant for most people, who prefer not to work next to leaf-blowers

All the flack Nvidia caught for how loud the FX 5950 Ultra was (comparisons ranging from leaf-blowers to hairdriers) is proof enough that a large number of people care about heat/noise.

The Mac said:
I know 1/2 dozen people with xfire eyfinity without a single problem, so i dont know what you are talking about.
Click to expand...
You know half a dozen people who are blissfully unaware that they're getting almost no actual performance benefit from the second card... Frame pacing issues are significantly worse with Crossfire + Eyefinity than they are on single-screen. Crossfire + Eyefinity tends to drop every-other-frame almost all the time.

AMD has already said they're working on a fix for the above issue for future beta drivers.
 
Last edited:
as i sad, noise yes, heat no.

and i said im not interested in a SILENT pc, that doesnt mean i want it to sound like Armageddon is coming either.
 
The Mac said:
as i sad, noise yes, heat no.
Click to expand...
As I said, heat = noise (unless you're going the extra mile to use passive / convective cooling... but that generally requires efficient low-heat components)

There are no free rides here, you can't increase heat output and not expect to have to pay for it somehow.

Edit: And getting a "great deal" on a space-heater of a GPU, only to spend hundreds on cooling, kinda nerfs the cost/performance ratio a bit vs. just getting components that already ran cool (and were just as fast) out of the box.
 
Last edited:
i disagree.

There any number of low noise cooling solutions out there. Everything from massive rads to water blocks to phase change coolers.

I know one guy who uses a commerical fan and HVAC ducting to dump his computer heat outside his house. He's a bit extreme though, he has 6 rigs going at once.

The reality is myself and everyone i know do not purchase based on efficicy or TDP,

Flat out performance is all that matters. If its faster ill buy it.

Putting things into perspective, there arent any cards that are unreasonable. Even the loudest cards are not reallly that bad for the average person, or they wouldnt sell any.
 
Last edited:
The Mac said:
i disagree.

There any number of low noise cooling solutions out there. Everything from massive rads to phase change/coolers.
Click to expand...
Phase change is about as far from "low noise" as you can get...

Unless your idea of "quiet" is sitting next to a constantly running refrigerant compressor (and a good number of fans keeping the associated radiator cool)...

The Mac said:
The reality is myself and everyone i know do not purchase based on efficicy or TDP,

Flat out performance is all that matters.
Click to expand...
I know plenty of people who purchase based on efficiency and TDP.

Performance matters, but if two parts offer the same performance and one has a 20% lower TDP... why not pick the one with a 20% lower TDP?
 
It just doesnt enter the equation for me. If 2 cards have the same performance, then it comes down to features or software bundle.

Peletier coolers do not require refrigerent or compressors.
 
The Mac said:
It just doesnt enter the equation for me. If 2 cards have the same performance, then it comes down to features or software bundle
Click to expand...
Can't really phatom that line of reasoning. If I'm looking at two graphics cards that offer near-identical performance, but one of them will throw out 20% less heat... as far as I'm concerned, that is a "feature"

The Mac said:
Peletier coolers do not require refrigerent or compressors.
Click to expand...
You said phase-change, a peltier cooler is a thermoelectric cooler, not phase-change...

They also aren't very quiet once all is said and done. You feed them with electricity, and almost 100% of that electricity is converted into heat in the process.

The "hot side" of the peltier = all the heat from the processor + all the heat generated by the power you're pumping into it. This requires an even larger heatsink and/or more fans and/or faster fans.

Not a good solution if you're trying to shut your computer up. You are effectively installing a space heater inside of your case.
 
again, SILENT isnt the goal.

not a jet engine is.

I am aware a peletier cooler is not a phase change cooler, I just threw out a couple of examples of exotic cooling solutions, there are many, many others.
 
Edit: All this reminds me, do we have a firm TDP on the 290x yet? The aux power inputs suggest an absolute maximum of 300w of power draw, but it could be rated lower than that.

The Mac said:
again, SILENT isnt the goal.

not a jet engine is.
Click to expand...
Then neither phase change or a peltier will get you what you want :p

And a low-TDP card will make it easier than a high-TDP card. The more heat you need to evacuate, the more difficult it becomes to keep the machine quiet.

But you want high-performance and quiet... well, high performance + low TDP = high efficiency.
 
Last edited:
im not sure what you dont understand.

I dont care. And most people i know dont either.

the most fps for the specific market segment im shopping in.

Nothing else.
 
The Mac said:
im not sure what you dont get.

I dont care. And most people i know dont either.
Click to expand...
I'm not sure what you don't get either...

Two cards, same speed, one is more efficient... how do you not choose the more efficient one?
 
Unknown-One said:
Edit: All this reminds me, do we have a firm TDP on the 290x yet? The aux power inputs suggest an absolute maximum of 300w of power draw, but it could be rated lower than that.


Then neither phase change or a peltier will get you what you want :p

And a low-TDP card will make it easier than a high-TDP card. The more heat you need to evacuate, the more difficult it becomes to keep the machine quiet.

But you want high-performance and quiet... well, high performance + low TDP = high efficiency.
Click to expand...

is a GTX 780 low power or low TDP? how about a Titan?
 
Digital Viper-X- said:
is a GTX 780 low power or low TDP? how about a Titan?
Click to expand...
There aren't any comparable cards from AMD in the same performance bracket, which is why I was asking what the TDP on the 290x was supposed to be.

But relatively speaking, the Titan is the lowest-TDP card for the given level of performance. Clocks in at 250w.
The Titan is followed closely by the GTX 780, which is about 9% slower. It's also 250w TDP.

After that things take a pretty severe nosedive...

A Radeon HD 7970 is about 30% slower than a GTX 780, but it still 250w card.
GTX 770 is in the same boat. Roughly 25% slower thanthe GTX 780, but with a stonking great 230w TDP.
GTX 680, things start to make sense again. It's still about 30% slower than the GTX 780, but at only 195w TDP.


All of the cards below the GTX 780 are fairly high-power / high TDP for the amount of performance they deliver.
I'm hoping the 290x stays 250w + is faster than the 780. If it's a 300w card then things are going to get muddy...
 
The Mac said:
I give up.
Click to expand...

Arguing with traffic signs, I bet it happens. Just let him have his fun. Clearly he's going to talk smack and argue incessantly, nothing you say or do will change that. Don't indulge that behavior.
 
I'm just waiting for this topic's trolls to die down so that I don't have to check 10 times a day to see if there is any REAL new details.
 
I agree, I don't know where the last bit of real info in this thread resides, maybe page 2-3?
 
I'm not sure which I'm more excited about. The new 290x or what nvidia will counter it with? Its going to be interesting nevertheless. :D
 
Swedish shop putt he 290x BF4 bundle for preorder. Price is.... 10000 Swedish crown, which makes it 4800 plan, which is about 1200 euro. I really hope it's just price taken from an ass and it won't be real (as with all preorder bundles), still it's.... Terrifying, that someone would price that set so high.

Source:
https://www.inet.se/kampanj/1214/amd-radeon-r9-290x-bf4

EDIT:
The other swedish shop sells it at more "comfy" price. They want "only" 7300 crowns for the bundle, which is "just" 830 euro. Seriously, even that is more than 780 Lightning or Classified, and if the price is confirmed, then AMD better deliver and really make this card as fast as Titan and much faster than 780

http://www.webhallen.com/se-sv/hard...bundle_limited_edition__battlefield_4_premium
 
Last edited:
Unknown-One said:
AMD also gave them no real reason to release fully-unlocked GK110 based consumer graphics cards... so yeah, you couldn't buy one because Nvidia was just sitting on the design / selling it on Tesla cards.
Click to expand...

Supply and demand says they have way more 780 dies than all of the others or else they would (a) sell out of 780's, or (b) be stockpiling the hell out of Titans and have cargo containers full of K6000's. The reason I say this is they don't make those chips individually. The run wafers and the yields are what they are. There must be relatively few Titan and fewer K6000 chips from each of these wafers to supply the demand of the much cheaper 780's and then Titans (Although I wouldn't be surprised if Titan sales haven't virtually dried up since the 780 launch.). So, I really doubt they aren't selling any 2880CC GK110 Geforce cards because AMD isn't pushing them to. If they had them, they'd just be lying around if they weren't selling them.
 
The Mac said:
Thats moslty what mantle is about.

When they release the update in december, if there is a >20% increase on BF4, there are going to be a butload of nv fanbois selling off their 780s and Titans.
Click to expand...

No, not nVidia Fanbois. They don't care if AMD is faster, cheaper, or anything else. They'll buy nVidia. I've seen posts where people can't even tell you what applications benefit from DP say that's the reason to buy a Titan. Those are Fanbois. People who dump their Titans and 780's for a 290X because the 290X is faster are enthusiasts.
 
Unknown-One said:
It's akin to Bugatti designing a new Veyron and then not bothering to release it because their last one ALREADY holds the speed record for a street-legal car. Competition finally catches up and, they can snap their fingers and release the new (even better) model with zero effort. Makes the competition look pretty daft...
Click to expand...

What happens if the competition catches up and releases something even faster than the one you were holding back? Then it's back to the drawing board. You wasted all that R&D because your latest design is now inferior and you are really going to suffer because you have nothing on the market but your even older, even slower design. What you should have been doing was putting the nails in your competition's coffin with that OMG awesome design you left sitting on the shelf.

If you were the CEO that made that decision you most likely just got your walking papers from the board. (Unless you own the company, of course.) ;)
 
Eurgh not the car analogies again. If you need cars to explain something so simple as a GPU, you are not using the correct analogy.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top