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Techgoudy
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Re: AMD Crossfire VS NVidia SLI

Tue Oct 01, 2013 8:47 am

superjawes wrote:
Well that depends on your budget, but a 7950 for $200 is one of the best out there. That is with a deal Newegg was running that I think expires tomorrow, but when the new Radeons hit, a slower card will be at the $200 mark, and the next step up is a $300 card. Btw, this is what I bought this weekend along with the rest of my new computer (personal :D ).

So if you can't get in on that, it might be smart to let the market adjust for the new Radeons and see where the values land for Red and Green cards. You could pick out the rest of the components that you want (SSD size, CPU, case, etc.) and see where your GPU budget falls. The benefit of this is that if deals come along for your other components, you can float that into the GPU budget if you like and get something better.


I'm looking at spending about $200-$500 on a single GPU solution. (Would've been a slightly higher buget for a dual-GPU configuration). I just don't want to splurge on a $500 GPU if I can get a $250 GPU that performs excellent. One side of me wants to wait for the new Radeons, however I have seen the 7950's priced at $200 or slightly above. Those deals look awesome.

Which leaves me to ask the question if you were to buy a GPU right now, which one would you buy and why?
 
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Re: AMD Crossfire VS NVidia SLI

Tue Oct 01, 2013 4:17 pm

End User wrote:
That was beautiful. I cried.
What is your current gaming rig spec?
Oh, my pigs say hi.


We should build a pig-pen!
Currently gaming mostly on a single 7850 in the HTPC because I've really embraced the whole sofa-gaming thing these last couple of years.

The desktop PC is a pair of 7950's in crossfire upgraded from <a whole bunch of single cards> since my last long-term setup of two GTX285's.

Honestly, Crossfire sucks, and has sucked since the X1950 days (the first time I tried it).
In case you're wondering why I bother with it, I have a stack of spare 7850's, 7870's and 7950's at work for failure replacements. I can get home in 5 minutes to fetch the borrowed cards if they were ever actually *needed* but I don't like to waste "backup hardware". Besides, it's a perk of the job ;)

SLI also used to suck, pretty much the same as Crossfire sucks now; I'm actually not fit to comment on it since I'm approaching four years out of touch with Nvidia, - they took a direction with Kepler that moved away from compute which is what we actually use these cards for. I'd take a titan or a 780 in a heartbeat, but 2x Radeon is what we have right now.

The last card I actually bought with my own money was a GTX460, so I'm not financially invested in either Crossfire or SLI and I still think they're an inferior solution right up until the point where you cannot get a single card that handles your needs.

In case you're wondering I'm running 2560 so the constant 60fps really isn't possible on even a single 7970GE unless I want to make some fairly major IQ and settings compromises. Honestly, I get plenty of fun running games at 1080p on my TV. The single 7850 seems to do a decent job, and at 10 feet away from me, even 720p looks reasonable.

But yeah, my pigs are red and I'm looking forward to putting today's frame-pacing lipstick on them when I get home.
I doubt it'll make my gaming as immediate and smooth as the FPS number in the top left corner claims but I'm working my way through Crysis 3 so it's a pretty good test....
Congratulations, you've noticed that this year's signature is based on outdated internet memes; CLICK HERE NOW to experience this unforgettable phenomenon. This sentence is just filler and as irrelevant as my signature.
 
Airmantharp
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Re: AMD Crossfire VS NVidia SLI

Tue Oct 01, 2013 5:23 pm

Techgoudy wrote:
Which leaves me to ask the question if you were to buy a GPU right now, which one would you buy and why?


An HD7950 with a decent blower- I believe that there's a third-party blower out there that's functional. And I'd spend as little as possible on it, maybe $250 max.

But I wouldn't buy a GPU right now; the 'tides are changing', with games coming that will make the average 2GB-3GB of memory per gaming GPU look woefully inadequate, on top of an impending AMD release (and re-release) and corresponding Nvidia hardware and/or pricing response.

So, get something decent now, or wait for something really useful later- or both, really.
 
superjawes
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Re: AMD Crossfire VS NVidia SLI

Tue Oct 01, 2013 5:29 pm

Techgoudy wrote:
I'm looking at spending about $200-$500 on a single GPU solution. (Would've been a slightly higher buget for a dual-GPU configuration). I just don't want to splurge on a $500 GPU if I can get a $250 GPU that performs excellent. One side of me wants to wait for the new Radeons, however I have seen the 7950's priced at $200 or slightly above. Those deals look awesome.

Which leaves me to ask the question if you were to buy a GPU right now, which one would you buy and why?

Well I bought the 7950 because it had the performance I wanted at $300 (and with 3 games) but for $200. The alternative would have been about $250 with rebates for a GTX 760, but without that much of a performance increase.

And that happened this weekend.

What performance you want is going to depend on a few factors, though. What resolution are we talking? Is this with ultra settings? What framerate is "acceptable" for you?

A 7950 would probably be overkill on a 720p monitor for many years, but if you want ultra settings in BF4 on a 1440p monitor, you might want a GTX 770 or higher.
On second thought, let's not go to TechReport. It's infested by crypto bull****.
 
Airmantharp
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Re: AMD Crossfire VS NVidia SLI

Tue Oct 01, 2013 5:32 pm

Chrispy_ wrote:
I'm actually not fit to comment on it since I'm approaching four years out of touch with Nvidia, - they took a direction with Kepler that moved away from compute which is what we actually use these cards for. I'd take a titan or a 780 in a heartbeat, but 2x Radeon is what we have right now.

The last card I actually bought with my own money was a GTX460, so I'm not financially invested in either Crossfire or SLI and I still think they're an inferior solution right up until the point where you cannot get a single card that handles your needs.

In case you're wondering I'm running 2560 so the constant 60fps really isn't possible on even a single 7970GE unless I want to make some fairly major IQ and settings compromises. Honestly, I get plenty of fun running games at 1080p on my TV. The single 7850 seems to do a decent job, and at 10 feet away from me, even 720p looks reasonable.

But yeah, my pigs are red and I'm looking forward to putting today's frame-pacing lipstick on them when I get home.
I doubt it'll make my gaming as immediate and smooth as the FPS number in the top left corner claims but I'm working my way through Crysis 3 so it's a pretty good test....


Kepler moved more toward compute- mini-Kepler had the same basic compute orientation as mini-Fermi. The GTX680 should only be a generational improvement over the GTX460/560 in compute terms, while that GTX780 is the 'actual' GTX580 successor. I understand that the marketing picture looks different- I'm only responding for the sake of clarity :).

And if you look at what AMD has been doing, going with them for compute makes sense- they didn't cut nearly as much off compute going from their 'high-end' part to their 'mid-range' part as Nvidia has done in recent history, but also note that this is one of the reasons that AMD was able to sell their mid-range part as a direct competitor to AMD's high-end part, too. For the same amount of die space, Nvidia's half-Kepler architecture found in the GTX680 and now GTX770 is far more efficient than AMD's architecture, for gaming. Far, far worse for compute, but great for gaming.

Note that while Apple is throwing half-Keplers in their laptops and all-in-ones, they're using AMD GPU's in their Pro line- wonder if the new Mac Pro is waiting on the incoming larger AMD GPU silicon and maybe maturing Mantle-style software/drivers for OS X to really take advantage of the balance of compute and rendering performance AMD has struck with GCN?
 
Airmantharp
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Re: AMD Crossfire VS NVidia SLI

Tue Oct 01, 2013 5:34 pm

superjawes wrote:
...if you want ultra settings in BF4 on a 1440p monitor, you might want a GTX 770 or higher.


You'll want two, at least, with 4GB of VRAM if you want to run BF4 at 1440p on Ultra settings. You'll also want a new CPU.

8)
 
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Re: AMD Crossfire VS NVidia SLI

Tue Oct 01, 2013 5:38 pm

Airmantharp wrote:
You'll want two, at least, with 4GB of VRAM if you want to run BF4 at 1440p on Ultra settings. You'll also want a new CPU.

And a monitor with Gorilla Glass, for when inevitably you throw your mouse at it because of DICE's eternally terrible netcode.

*rimshot* 8)
Thanks, I'll be here all week - try the veal!
There is a fixed amount of intelligence on the planet, and the population keeps growing :(
 
Airmantharp
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Re: AMD Crossfire VS NVidia SLI

Tue Oct 01, 2013 5:48 pm

morphine wrote:
Airmantharp wrote:
You'll want two, at least, with 4GB of VRAM if you want to run BF4 at 1440p on Ultra settings. You'll also want a new CPU.

And a monitor with Gorilla Glass, for when inevitably you throw your mouse at it because of DICE's eternally terrible netcode.

*rimshot* 8)
Thanks, I'll be here all week - try the veal!


You silly Europeans. You have bandwidth, but oh the latency!

(no problems with net code here in North Texas... even if I'm playing on a server in Canada!)
 
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Re: AMD Crossfire VS NVidia SLI

Tue Oct 01, 2013 6:02 pm

<tangent> I had way almost 1000 hours in BF2 alone (me and a buddy were one of the top heli pairs), plus a few hundred in BF2BC, and I stopped playing with BF3 because I got tired of shooting someone cleanly on the head and dying, burning a whole clip on someone's back and dying, chopper missiles not hitting targets (on a clean hit), etc. It just became aggravating and I went to play games with proper netcode, like TF2 and Tribes :)</tangent>
There is a fixed amount of intelligence on the planet, and the population keeps growing :(
 
Airmantharp
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Re: AMD Crossfire VS NVidia SLI

Tue Oct 01, 2013 6:08 pm

Wow- I've seen that, of course, but it's been pretty rare, and I have about that amount of time in BF3 (and cannot stand TF2). But I do regularly engage in mutual kills, which are pretty cool. It does sound like you're on the wrong end of the latency stick there, sorry bro!
 
michael_d
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Re: AMD Crossfire VS NVidia SLI

Tue Oct 01, 2013 6:29 pm

Techgoudy wrote:
michael_d wrote:
P.S.
This thread is highly suspecious due to such a naïve question. No more replies from the author. But there is a very large icon with a link to some website. How many people actually clicked on it?


Well i apologize for not responding back to the thread. I am a real user and I visit techreport and post relatively often. Unfortunately I have been really busy lately and didn't have access to the internet this weekend.

Regardless I appreciate the support and the different point of views. I just really wanted to try out a crossfire or SLI build to see what all the hype was about behind the technologies. However, if it makes more sense to stick with a single GPU solution instead to save myself the headache I am fine with that, especially considering it is a build for my brother and not I.

As far as single GPU cards go what would you really consider the best bang for your buck considering the new Radeons approaching the market. Would you wait or buy now?


I would definitely wait until AMD releases new products. If you are not interested in the latest and the greatest, it will certainly bring the prices down on current products.
 
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Re: AMD Crossfire VS NVidia SLI

Tue Oct 01, 2013 7:29 pm

When considering multi-GPU, it's important to remember how these solutions actually work.

Rather than the idea of "combining two GPUs to do the work", you're simply doing twice as much work in the same time. It sounds like the same thing, but the reality is that each GPU is doing all of the work in the scene. In other words, the best possible result is double the framerate, but the actuality is that when the framerate drops below ~double playable (e.g. below 50 or so), all of that fancy frame metering and pacing stuff in the world can't help you. The frames aren't coming fast or smoothly enough to 'pace', and you end up with the same unplayable mess you would on a single-GPU. This is why a single faster GPU is always better.

As I like to say, "If it ain't fast enough on one card, it ain't fast enough on two cards."

It really is just like cars. You'll notice most of your cheaper fast cars use small, turbocharged engines, while your exotics use a larger, naturally-aspirated motor. There's a lot of reasons for this, but in the end, it's because there's no replacement for displacement. The same holds true for GPUs. I'd really question whether the subjective experience on a pair of GTX770s is actually better than on my 1202Mhz GTX Titan. Tests with the Titan are done at the base 837Mhz clock speed, from which it will only turbo reliably up to ~980Mhz. You might not think that extra 220Mhz of clock speed makes a big difference, but when you're pushing 2688 cores, it's enormous.

[edit] I thought about this some more and thought I should elaborate to make my point clearer.

Basically, the way these GPUs work is by having one card render a frame, and then the other card render the next, and so on. The cards have equivalent performance, so in theory they should be able to maintain the same framerate, and thus intermesh like the gears of a well-oiled war machine. In practice, there are a few reasons this breaks down.

However, what it means in practical terms is that you will (almost) never become able to run a game -- or higher settings on a game -- that you couldn't before by adding a second GPU. The only situations in which this works are when you're right on the cusp -- say 25fps minimum -- and adding a second GPU puts you up into ~50FPS range. But even then, this is unreliable; if you get into a really heavy scene, like a big combat, your FPS and frame latency variance will tank hard.

That's not to say SLI and Crossfire are useless; far from it, especially for acolytes of the Church of Lightboost such as myself. SLI and Crossfire will let you take a game that already runs well and double your framerate -- a huge boon when you're trying to get the absolute fastest response time.

Still, it's important to remain realistic about what multi-GPU can do. It's a nice benefit of the modern generation of cards, but it's really no comparison to a single, larger GPU.
 
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Re: AMD Crossfire VS NVidia SLI

Wed Oct 02, 2013 1:32 am

auxy wrote:
It really is just like cars. You'll notice most of your cheaper fast cars use small, turbocharged engines, while your exotics use a larger, naturally-aspirated motor. There's a lot of reasons for this, but in the end, it's because there's no replacement for displacement.

The coolest exotic relies upon a small displacement V8, electric motor and turbos.

I'd take lightness over displacement any day of the week.

auxy wrote:
I'd really question whether the subjective experience on a pair of GTX770s is actually better than on my 1202Mhz GTX Titan. Tests with the Titan are done at the base 837Mhz clock speed, from which it will only turbo reliably up to ~980Mhz. You might not think that extra 220Mhz of clock speed makes a big difference, but when you're pushing 2688 cores, it's enormous.

I think my SLI setup would do just fine against your Titan rig.

auxy wrote:
if you get into a really heavy scene, like a big combat, your FPS and frame latency variance will tank hard.

I'm playing BF4 Beta and performance is fantastic on full 64 player maps using Ultra settings @ 2560x1440.

"Metro Last Light is tough on video cards, but the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 770 SLI setup gave a nice performance boost and made the game run much smoother. At 2560×1600 we were running at nearly 60 FPS and were 30% faster than a GeForce GTX Titan. "

The also tested BF3.

Their 770s are 2GB cards running at 1059/7012 @ 2560×1600. I'm running faster cards with double the GPU memory at a lower resolution (1254/8000 @ 2560x1440).

There were SLI performance issues when they switched to a three panel setup to run at 5760×1080. Fortunately I use a single display.
 
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Re: AMD Crossfire VS NVidia SLI

Wed Oct 02, 2013 9:57 am

auxy wrote:
When considering multi-GPU, it's important to remember how these solutions actually work.

Rather than the idea of "combining two GPUs to do the work", you're simply doing twice as much work in the same time. It sounds like the same thing, but the reality is that each GPU is doing all of the work in the scene. In other words, the best possible result is double the framerate, but the actuality is that when the framerate drops below ~double playable (e.g. below 50 or so), all of that fancy frame metering and pacing stuff in the world can't help you. The frames aren't coming fast or smoothly enough to 'pace', and you end up with the same unplayable mess you would on a single-GPU. This is why a single faster GPU is always better.

As I like to say, "If it ain't fast enough on one card, it ain't fast enough on two cards."

It really is just like cars. You'll notice most of your cheaper fast cars use small, turbocharged engines, while your exotics use a larger, naturally-aspirated motor. There's a lot of reasons for this, but in the end, it's because there's no replacement for displacement. The same holds true for GPUs. I'd really question whether the subjective experience on a pair of GTX770s is actually better than on my 1202Mhz GTX Titan. Tests with the Titan are done at the base 837Mhz clock speed, from which it will only turbo reliably up to ~980Mhz. You might not think that extra 220Mhz of clock speed makes a big difference, but when you're pushing 2688 cores, it's enormous.

[edit] I thought about this some more and thought I should elaborate to make my point clearer.

Basically, the way these GPUs work is by having one card render a frame, and then the other card render the next, and so on. The cards have equivalent performance, so in theory they should be able to maintain the same framerate, and thus intermesh like the gears of a well-oiled war machine. In practice, there are a few reasons this breaks down.

However, what it means in practical terms is that you will (almost) never become able to run a game -- or higher settings on a game -- that you couldn't before by adding a second GPU. The only situations in which this works are when you're right on the cusp -- say 25fps minimum -- and adding a second GPU puts you up into ~50FPS range. But even then, this is unreliable; if you get into a really heavy scene, like a big combat, your FPS and frame latency variance will tank hard.

That's not to say SLI and Crossfire are useless; far from it, especially for acolytes of the Church of Lightboost such as myself. SLI and Crossfire will let you take a game that already runs well and double your framerate -- a huge boon when you're trying to get the absolute fastest response time.

Still, it's important to remain realistic about what multi-GPU can do. It's a nice benefit of the modern generation of cards, but it's really no comparison to a single, larger GPU.


I disagree almost entirely with everything you posted here with the exception of the very last sentence (and even then only in part).

If you can afford a single faster card, within reason, get that. If you can't, get as much as you can now and add a second one down the road if there isn't a better alternative.
Victory requires no explanation. Defeat allows none.
 
auxy
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Re: AMD Crossfire VS NVidia SLI

Wed Oct 02, 2013 6:08 pm

Waco wrote:
I disagree almost entirely with everything you posted here with the exception of the very last sentence (and even then only in part).

If you can afford a single faster card, within reason, get that. If you can't, get as much as you can now and add a second one down the road if there isn't a better alternative.
Did you even read my post? That's more or less what I said, or, at least, the obvious recommendation based on what I said.
Last edited by auxy on Wed Oct 02, 2013 6:22 pm, edited 1 time in total.
 
auxy
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Re: AMD Crossfire VS NVidia SLI

Wed Oct 02, 2013 6:20 pm

Sorry for the double post, my phone is retarded and I can't seem to fix it on my phone.
End User wrote:
The coolest exotic relies upon a small displacement V8, electric motor and turbos.
Calling a Mclaren the coolest exotic already puts your taste in question...

End User wrote:
I'd take lightness over displacement any day of the week.
Nevermind that "lightness" in this case would be running an easier game. lol. OBVIOUSLY the lighter load is going to work better.

End User wrote:
I think my SLI setup would do just fine against your Titan rig.
I like how you ignore the context of my statements and present an example that supports an entirely different metric than what I was talking about. That's nice! Ultimately irrelevant, though.

End User wrote:
I'm playing BF4 Beta and performance is fantastic on full 64 player maps using Ultra settings @ 2560x1440.
Of course it is. It's not like a single 770 is slow. What relevance does this have to anything? I never said it would be bad.

It's like you purposefully misconstrued the meaning of my post to serve your own agenda and justify your purchase, when it doesn't need justifying! Weird! It's almost like you have some insecurities about your choice.

Maybe you should go over my post again.
 
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Re: AMD Crossfire VS NVidia SLI

Wed Oct 02, 2013 6:59 pm

auxy wrote:
End User wrote:
The coolest exotic relies upon a small displacement V8, electric motor and turbos.
Calling a Mclaren the coolest exotic already puts your taste in question...

Question away!

auxy wrote:
End User wrote:
I'd take lightness over displacement any day of the week.
Nevermind that "lightness" in this case would be running an easier game. lol. OBVIOUSLY the lighter load is going to work better.

Silly me.I thought we were talking about cars. And as far as cars go there is a replacement for displacement.

auxy wrote:
End User wrote:
I think my SLI setup would do just fine against your Titan rig.
I like how you ignore the context of my statements and present an example that supports an entirely different metric than what I was talking about. That's nice! Ultimately irrelevant, though.

I think my SLI setup would do just fine against your Titan rig. :P

auxy wrote:
End User wrote:
I'm playing BF4 Beta and performance is fantastic on full 64 player maps using Ultra settings @ 2560x1440.
Of course it is. It's not like a single 770 is slow. What relevance does this have to anything? I never said it would be bad.

I suggest you read your own post again:
auxy wrote:
if you get into a really heavy scene, like a big combat, your FPS and frame latency variance will tank hard.


auxy wrote:
It's like you purposefully misconstrued the meaning of my post to serve your own agenda and justify your purchase, when it doesn't need justifying! Weird! It's almost like you have some insecurities about your choice.

I do own a car with a turbo. Maybe I should sell it and buy a 2014 Z28.

Edit: But seriously. You went on a crazy uninformed SLI attack and you expect me not to defend the technology? Sheesh. Perhaps it is you who has insecurities about your choice.

auxy wrote:
Maybe you should go over my post again.

Oh stop! You're killing me.
Last edited by End User on Thu Oct 03, 2013 5:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.
 
Captain Ned
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Re: AMD Crossfire VS NVidia SLI

Wed Oct 02, 2013 7:19 pm

And at this point it's time for everyone to retreat to a neutral corner and take a few deep breaths before anyone says something I might regret.

Thanks for listening.
What we have today is way too much pluribus and not enough unum.
 
Airmantharp
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Re: AMD Crossfire VS NVidia SLI

Wed Oct 02, 2013 7:50 pm

Captain Ned wrote:
And at this point it's time for everyone to retreat to a neutral corner and take a few deep breaths before anyone says something I might regret.

Thanks for listening.


I propose a round of beers- auxy's back!
 
Techgoudy
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Re: AMD Crossfire VS NVidia SLI

Wed Oct 02, 2013 7:57 pm

Well as far as I can tell there are a lot individuals pointing to NVidia cards. Any happy Radeon 7900 series owners out there that would like to contest with their experience?
 
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Re: AMD Crossfire VS NVidia SLI

Wed Oct 02, 2013 8:08 pm

Techgoudy wrote:
Well as far as I can tell there are a lot individuals pointing to NVidia cards. Any happy Radeon 7900 series owners out there that would like to contest with their experience?

I think the AMD R7/R9 reviews will be out on October 15. Don't buy anything until then.
 
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Re: AMD Crossfire VS NVidia SLI

Thu Oct 03, 2013 7:00 am

I'm extremely happy with my 7970 - as I was with both my 4870 and the 6970, but then, I don't run Crossfire, because, it's you know... broken right now. After a final release driver with frame pacing and the R9 comes out, then we have a level playing field. But if you are set on dual cards today and cant wait a couple of weeks. SLI is where it's at.
 
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Re: AMD Crossfire VS NVidia SLI

Thu Oct 03, 2013 8:09 am

Aphasia wrote:
After a final release driver with frame pacing and the R9 comes out, then we have a level playing field.


The green team's pacing is in their hardware, and has been since the G80. There is only so much AMD can do to fix their borked cards with a driver, and I have the feeling it is still going to rely heavily on game profiles to pull it off. The R9's frame times have not been reviewed so that's entirely speculative. I would have been pissed if I bought 2 79x0 cards in 2012 thinking I was getting the best experience money can buy.

I'm hoping the R9 delivers something good but I'm biting my tongue until TR and Anand have some real numbers. The leaked benches aren't really that impressive, and don't tell the whole story without frame times. Maxwell is just around the corner and AMD is positioning themselves against Kepler, which has been out almost as long as Southern Islands. They were first out of the gate and dragged Southern Islands out longer than it needed to be, and now it almost seems like they're playing catch up with their upcoming release rather than setting a new bar.
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Aphasia
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Re: AMD Crossfire VS NVidia SLI

Thu Oct 03, 2013 11:08 am

True, and that one of the points I hope that R9 will level the playingfield a bit since it's actually new silicon.

Considering that it's not really released, or final on driver side, I expect there to be a great difference. Some earlier releases have been able to squeak out several tens of percent between pre-release and final so. But any so called leaked benches I take with even more of a grain of salt then what I would take a developer promise.

And one of the big points for myself is actually mantle since I basically put most of my gaming time into a single game that will use it, and that is Battlefield. So if that eeks out even more performance, then i'm all over it no matter if it can run anything else as good. As long as it gives me major raise in power in BF4 compared to the 7970 I will be happy. If they will have a viable 2 GPU solution, then it'll be superb.

But then, running battlefield in 2560x1600 at good FPS takes some clout.
 
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Re: AMD Crossfire VS NVidia SLI

Thu Oct 03, 2013 12:18 pm

I'm with you on all points, Aphasia. Only thing I'll be waiting for is the 8GB versions; and I might wait for the water-cooled versions too, since it's doubtful AMD is going to have good blowers on these things.
 
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Re: AMD Crossfire VS NVidia SLI

Thu Oct 03, 2013 12:46 pm

Airmantharp wrote:
since it's doubtful AMD is going to have good blowers on these things.


This is slowly (but surely) starting to annoy me. I know blowers are more limited in terms of cooling surface area and number of fans, but damn, it's nice to have 200+ Watts of heat energy dumped outside your case and not inside where it'll just get sucked through an open cooler again.

I handled a Titan for the first time last week and now I really want a 770 (with the titan cooler) for my HTPC now. It puts anything on an AMD card to shame.
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Re: AMD Crossfire VS NVidia SLI

Thu Oct 03, 2013 6:47 pm

Airmantharp wrote:
I'm with you on all points, Aphasia. Only thing I'll be waiting for is the 8GB versions; and I might wait for the water-cooled versions too, since it's doubtful AMD is going to have good blowers on these things.

I'm with you on that one, or at least a 6GB variety if it can be done. But memory of that caliber might be a bit expensive, so it sure needs to gets used before I pay for it. Considering I run 2560x1600 I usually don't run AA, so that lesses the memory a bit, but on the other hand, newer games like BF4 has great textures, and when recommended I 3GB, then I definitely would want at least 4, but preferably 6GB. 8GB, well, that depends, but that's a whole lot of expensive memory. And while I don't to watercooling right now, I have been thinking of it, but I totally agree with you on the noise levels. I have an Asus CU II TOP 7970 today that replaced my older 6970, and why, bit because of performance, but more so because of the darn noise it made.
 
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Re: AMD Crossfire VS NVidia SLI

Thu Oct 03, 2013 7:10 pm

The memory's cheap, we've seen that. The extra cost is a function of demand and competition to meet that demand; we've yet seen the 'need' for it, but we do know it's coming. When demand increases and production increases to match, along with competition, the marginal price increase for double what we're using now on a per-card basis could easily drop to less than $50. That could happen by the end of the year, or by summer next year; and it mostly depends, I think, on what plans AMD has already laid for later this month.
 
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Re: AMD Crossfire VS NVidia SLI

Thu Oct 03, 2013 9:19 pm

Aphasia wrote:
Airmantharp wrote:
I'm with you on all points, Aphasia. Only thing I'll be waiting for is the 8GB versions; and I might wait for the water-cooled versions too, since it's doubtful AMD is going to have good blowers on these things.

I'm with you on that one, or at least a 6GB variety if it can be done. But memory of that caliber might be a bit expensive, so it sure needs to gets used before I pay for it. Considering I run 2560x1600 I usually don't run AA, so that lesses the memory a bit, but on the other hand, newer games like BF4 has great textures, and when recommended I 3GB, then I definitely would want at least 4, but preferably 6GB. 8GB, well, that depends, but that's a whole lot of expensive memory. And while I don't to watercooling right now, I have been thinking of it, but I totally agree with you on the noise levels. I have an Asus CU II TOP 7970 today that replaced my older 6970, and why, bit because of performance, but more so because of the darn noise it made.

BF4 is definitely not a game that requires a 6GB+ card. On Ultra settings with max AA @2560x1440 I saw just under 2.8GB of GPU memory used. The game looks great at lower settings and no AA. I got my memory usage down to 1.4GB and the game still looked fantastic.

CPU usage is another story.
 
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Re: AMD Crossfire VS NVidia SLI

Thu Oct 03, 2013 10:21 pm

BF4 is a 'bridge' game, not a fully next-gen game :).

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