AMD: R9xx Speculation

Ok.... what if you are at a CPU bottleneck for one of the cards? What happens to those results, do you get a appreciable performance difference? No you don't, that's why just reading the end numbers means nothing if you don't have something up in your head to actually understand what is going on.

If you wanted to say that the GTX580 is 50% or more faster under a certain set of circumstances in certain tests then that's what you should have said and then you could have defended/argued that with actual data.
 
Its not a certain set of circumstances, its under what can be tested, without hitting bottlenecks that would skew the results in one direction or another. It goes both ways if you go to high of settings then the 6870 will hit bandwidth and possibly memory limitations vs the 580 gtx.
 
Its not a certain set of circumstances, its under what can be tested, without hitting bottlenecks that would skew the results in one direction or another. It goes both ways if you go to high of settings then the 6870 will hit bandwidth and possibly memory limitations vs the 580 gtx.

You just eliminated almost every test ever run on any card, ever.
 
Now if 6970 would be competitive with GTX580, or even faster, AMD could command extra price tag, think of:

6930 - 299$ (spots opens up for a salvage Caymans)
6950 - 350-380$, depending on performance
6970 - 499$ (NV would be forced to lower GTX580 price by 100$ or more)
6990 - 599$ or even 699$ (!)

It would be a huge win for AMD, as well as massive profits.

You do realize that the MSRP of the GTX580 is $499. Thus is they are competitive Nvidia doesn't need to do squat and if AMD is noticeably faster they could get away with a $50 drop unless the doomsday 6950 = 580 scenario happens which is unlikely.
 
You just eliminated almost every test ever run on any card, ever.


No I didn't, there is a pattern when those limits gets hit on either card, its very easy to see because the variation of the fall off in FPS is escalated. Its like flowing water, if you have two rivers both have the same volume of water but one river has narrowing banks at one end, the river that has the narrowing banks the amount of water that is delivered decreases, but if we look at where the banks are equal on both rivers the amount of water is the same.
 
Well I am just wondering why some of the games in such a low resolution are won by the 5970 if it CPU limited?

Just picking the first game Techpowerup reviewed...
avp_1024_768.gif
 
Well I am just wondering why some of the games in such a low resolution are won by the 5970 if it CPU limited?

Just picking the first game Techpowerup reviewed...
avp_1024_768.gif

It's obviously CPU limited because the GTX 580 isn't 50%+ faster than 6870. That's Razor1's definition of CPU limited. Because there are obviously absolutely no other reasons why it would be less than 50% faster. :p

And I don't even like the 6870, POS card. :p

Regards,
SB
 
Well I am just wondering why some of the games in such a low resolution are won by the 5970 if it CPU limited?

Just picking the first game Techpowerup reviewed...
avp_1024_768.gif



I don't know what you expect. That all cards should show exactly the same FPS and that is your definition of "CPU limited"? :rolleyes: Isn't it (CPU limited) just clearly visible when a given card is used at low resolution with a processor A and faster processor B, and it shows better scaling with that faster processor B than if the situation is the same but the resolution is higher. That means it is more CPU limited. But a card is not CPU limited only if despite a faster processor, it doesn't show any scaling. Right?
 
Even though that was very difficult to read, I will try to respond.

If a card is CPU limited, then no other card should be able to achieve a higher frame rate.
:rolleyes:<< just thought I should throw that in, since you seem to like it so much.
 
Yeah at least use search button or something before annoying the rest of us with useless rolleyes.

Edit: OK that is harsh, but man, do we need to clarify what cpu limited is?
 
If a card is CPU limited, then no other card should be able to achieve a higher frame rate

That is incorrect. Different drivers; they can be cpu-limited at different frame rates. Do not expect if Nvidia and AMD are being CPU limited for them to have the same frame rates.
 
That is incorrect. Different drivers; they can be cpu-limited at different frame rates. Do not expect if Nvidia and AMD are being CPU limited for them to have the same frame rates.

so in the instance above where the AMD card is 25% faster you are saying that it is CPU limited because of Nvidia drivers?
 
Here's the thing, virtually every game on any GPU is going to be CPU limited at some point. In other words, the GPU will be waiting for either a short interval or a long interval while the CPU does what needs to be done.

However, what some people generally mean when they say CPU limited is that rather than occasionally waiting for the CPU, the GPU may be waiting quite often for the CPU. When it becomes extreme, then some considering it almost completely CPU limited, for example when most graphics cards start to show no variation in frame rates.

But that's just an excessive case.

If games start to show miniscule variation between Enthusiast and budget-mainstream, sure leave it out. Otherwise, it's entirely relevant to continue to use them, IMO.

Just like there were cries that 5870 was less than 50% faster than the card it replaced across a broad spectrum of games. But if using Razor1's idea of cherry picking only those games that show the best increases, it could have easily been shown to be 80-100% faster than the card it replaced.

Regards,
SB
 
If you take into account lower res and lower af and af settings yeah, but either of these cards are not really stressed at those settings so you can't really find relative performance at those settings.
As long as the CPU is fast enough, GF1xx actually increases its lead in low resolutions because framerates get insanely high and setup becomes a bigger factor. HAWX is one example.

Anyway, I wasn't talking about low res, I was talking about all of them. The only time that the average show greater than 50% advantage for the 580 is at 2560x1600 w/4xAA, when the results are skewed by a test or two where memory constraints make the 6870 perform at 1/10th the speed of the GTX 580.
 
I know this is old info, is it possible this is why Cayman was delay to Dec 13, 2010 ??

I think thats it...GTX580 came, AMD saw its "expected" perf...and decided to take plan B...use some time to calculate how high they can sell Cayman...the changes we heard....should definitely put 6970 at 580 or higher levels...then there is the renaming and repositioning of parts...BartsXT did perf closer to 5870 than 5850...6870 should come closer to 5970....so i expect 6870 to be around 499 too...
 
I know this is old info, is it possible this is why Cayman was delay to Dec 13, 2010 ??

The problem I have with the 'delay' is that in order for AMD to get Xmas sales, is for them to have the item in stock. With this late release, the 6970 is not going to hit the shelve in time overseas for it to become a present.

F**king AMD irritate me when they do shit like this. Guess I'll look into buying the card much, much later now instead.
 
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so in the instance above where the AMD card is 25% faster you are saying that it is CPU limited because of Nvidia drivers?

OMG!!! OMG!!! OMG!!!
Of course not. You can not expect all cards performing at the same level because of poor processor power. Period.
 
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