pMax
Regular
...you need to leave at least something to 3rd parties to differentiate, no??
Also, I wonder if PS4 games using computing effects will take advantage of the 8 ACEs in new AMD gen... that would be a hit for AMD over NVIDIA.
AMD: Volcanic Islands R1100/1200 (8***/9*** series) Speculation/ Rumour Thread
...you need to leave at least something to 3rd parties to differentiate, no??
Also, I wonder if PS4 games using computing effects will take advantage of the 8 ACEs in new AMD gen... that would be a hit for AMD over NVIDIA.
I wouldn't say an 8% gap between the 290X and Titan is "crushing".
http://tpucdn.com/reviews/AMD/R9_290X/images/perfwatt_2560.gif
With a better cooler they'd probably be about equal.
I think in the past it was really a battle between gaming versus compute + gaming architecture.
Not so much now.
Fair enough if you're comparing it to Titan when 290X is set to Fermi mode. Otherwise, it's 22%.
Let's me say it in a different way: do you think AMD is happy about their perf/W numbers compared to the competition?
tongue_of_colicab
Veteran
So we really need to wait for somebody like Asus to put a decent cooler on this thing? Personally I've become to hate noise, there just isn't any reason anymore to have loud coolers.
As i have allready write it, it is really hard to compare it only based purposely on games benchmark.. It will move and be different with each game lineup used... Its an interessant number to watch, but its not an absolute number with the way it is done on review for determine it.. See it as a pictures of it, based solely on the review.. but not as an absolute number of the efficiency or not of the architecture.
I dont say it is a wrong picture, its clear Nvidia have got a little advantage on this lately, but you will get numbers all over the place depending the games used.
tongue_of_colicab
Veteran
boxleitnerb
Regular
You realize that one can set Titan to "Fermi mode" as well? 290X is hardly faster under comparable conditions, if at all.
The card does get dinged in reviews for being too noisy, but most GPU buyers probably won't care much. That's why I post this explicitly in the architecture thread.
But I'm sure the AMD cares: this GPU seems to be hitting thermal limits quite often. It needs a very noisy cooler and it inevitably has voltage regulator cost and complexity consequences too. Improve the power efficiency by 22% and it'd blow the Titan completely out of the water with a die that's ~15% smaller too. (Or they could have grown the die for an even bigger lead.)
My understanding is that 20nm won't give a huge improvement in terms of power (can somebody confirm?), so in the pathological case of no power related architecture fixes, all they can do is reduce die size.
So, yes, some people care: the AMD engineers. And they're probably working very hard right now to fix it.
Interesting. Performance is on par with Titan unless at 4K (which let's face it is next to useless right now) but performance/£ destroys it.
Taking the crazy pricing of Titan and the 780 out of the equation though you can argue that the 290X only provides normal/acceptable value. i.e. $550 for the equal fastest chip available is about right IMO. Of course serious kudos goes to AMD for not engaging in the price gouging that Nvidia did with their last 2 GPU's and as consumers we are big winners as this will bring high end GPU prices back down to normality. So a big thanks to AMD for that.
Technically though I'm a tiny bit dissaponted. Titan performance is great, I wasn't expecting a Titan killer but matching it is decent - although given the timeframes of release faster across the board, even by a little would have been nicer.
My main dissapointment though is the power consumption & nose levels. Power consumption as I was expecting this to be highly efficient as we've all seen Bonaire to be - clearly GCN doesn't scale up that great in terms of power draw. And noise because I put great value on a quiet GPU. Not all do though so I won't go on about that to much. Better coolers may help but I've a feeling people may be pinning to much hope on that. I can't see AMD using a piece of crap on their new top end GPU that's clearly very power hungry already.
Finally, it would have been nice to see a bit more coverage of TruAudio. Thats the big differentiator for me with the 290X but it's gone virtually ignored in the two reviews I've read. Can't we get some more details and examples of what it wll bring to the audio table?
Taking the crazy pricing of Titan and the 780 out of the equation though you can argue that the 290X only provides normal/acceptable value. i.e. $550 for the equal fastest chip available is about right IMO. Of course serious kudos goes to AMD for not engaging in the price gouging that Nvidia did with their last 2 GPU's and as consumers we are big winners as this will bring high end GPU prices back down to normality. So a big thanks to AMD for that.
Technically though I'm a tiny bit dissaponted. Titan performance is great, I wasn't expecting a Titan killer but matching it is decent - although given the timeframes of release faster across the board, even by a little would have been nicer.
My main dissapointment though is the power consumption & nose levels. Power consumption as I was expecting this to be highly efficient as we've all seen Bonaire to be - clearly GCN doesn't scale up that great in terms of power draw. And noise because I put great value on a quiet GPU. Not all do though so I won't go on about that to much. Better coolers may help but I've a feeling people may be pinning to much hope on that. I can't see AMD using a piece of crap on their new top end GPU that's clearly very power hungry already.
Finally, it would have been nice to see a bit more coverage of TruAudio. Thats the big differentiator for me with the 290X but it's gone virtually ignored in the two reviews I've read. Can't we get some more details and examples of what it wll bring to the audio table?
The card does get dinged in reviews for being too noisy, but most GPU buyers probably won't care much. That's why I post this explicitly in the architecture thread.
But I'm sure the AMD cares: this GPU seems to be hitting thermal limits quite often. It needs a very noisy cooler and it inevitably has voltage regulator cost and complexity consequences too. Improve the power efficiency by 22% and it'd blow the Titan completely out of the water with a die that's ~15% smaller too. (Or they could have grown the die for an even bigger lead.)
My understanding is that 20nm won't give a huge improvement in terms of power (can somebody confirm?), so in the pathological case of no power related architecture fixes, all they can do is reduce die size.
So, yes, some people care: the AMD engineers. And they're probably working very hard right now to fix it.
I agree. The problem isn't to much for the 290x that it draws a lot of power (other than the fact it's noisy - which will be a bg issue for some), it's for the GCN architechture on 28nm in general. With that kind of power draw, despite having a smaller die than Titan it seems as if GCN has been pushed as far as it will go on this node. In comparison though Titans pretty power efficient, has some diabled units (not sure if the 290x does) and from what we're hearing about the 780Ti, has lots of head room to get cooler and more power efficient still. That doesn't bode well to me.
D
Deleted member 13524
Guest
Not really...
Cheapest I see is 495€ but most of them are north of 510€.
It's still comfortably 100€ below most of the GTX780 offerings, though.
I get the feeling the custom versions of the R9 290 will be much more of a sweetspot for those seeking the best price/performance ratio.
Still.. crossifred HD7950s is starting to look so good... Those are getting really cheap in the used market.
I think they would rather lose a little on perf/W and win by a bit more on perf/mm2, which is likely to be the reason why they went for the latter.
D
Deleted member 13524
Guest
I think the consumer is infinitely more happy with the huge performance/cost boost they just got with these new cards.
Those worrying for perf/watt can just wait for 20nm.
7950 have allways been a really attractive choice, specially after the cut down on price ( end of 2012 if im right ) and the bundles. if you are'nt in the market for the best performance, want the max for benchmarks, and dont search the highest fps you can see on review.. and they overclock really well too if you have voltage control...
The little brother is offtly really attractive from both nvidia and AMD ( 570-670, 5850-7950 as example )..
Im sure the R9-290 will really fit well in this category too. We will need wait reviews, but i hope a little bit AMD will for the next generation tight the performance gap between the little brother and the top card ( even if ofc it is needed to take in account the retail card overclocked )
It's a shame then that they are a losing a significant chunk of perf/mm2 by losing in the perf/W department. Just a different way of looking at it.
Sure. But we're allowed here to talk about the engineering aspect, right?
And, as I mentioned, is 20nm better at perf/W than 28nm? If not, then there's work to be done.
1) Very nice surprise with the price! Thanks AMD!
2) Those R9 290X would surely like & shine on water cooling!
3) R9 290 vanilla i CF could be a killer combo! The new CF scaling looks outstanding.
4) Will be interesting if nVidia lowers the price on the GTX 780. They should. Hmmmm....
2) Those R9 290X would surely like & shine on water cooling!
3) R9 290 vanilla i CF could be a killer combo! The new CF scaling looks outstanding.
4) Will be interesting if nVidia lowers the price on the GTX 780. They should. Hmmmm....