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Gwaihir
Dec 8, 2009
Hair Elf
A card that's both louder and hotter than the GTX480 was is pretty impressive. As someone that used a GTX480 for all of a week ( it was only 350$ thanks to a mistake on Dell's site, don't look at me like that) before getting a Thermalright Spitfire, holy poo poo do not get this thing unless you have water or a similarly outrageous air cooler ready to go.

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Wistful of Dollars
Aug 25, 2009

Or just wait for the custom coolers. :downs:

real_scud
Sep 5, 2002

One of these days these elbows are gonna walk all over you

El Scotch posted:

Or just wait for the custom coolers. :downs:
Apparently you don't even need to wait since the card pcb's are still the same from the 7970 and people have been using the Arctic Accelero III to get a much quieter solution.

Stanley Pain
Jun 16, 2001

by Fluffdaddy

real_scud posted:

Apparently you don't even need to wait since the card pcb's are still the same from the 7970 and people have been using the Arctic Accelero III to get a much quieter solution.

Those are 2 or 3 slot coolers? I'm going to assume like other 3 fan designs they actually suck at moving the hot air out the back like blower cards?

I was thinking of getting that cooler but in Crossfire I might actually want the blower type cooling.

Rahu X
Oct 4, 2013

"Now I see, lak human beings, dis like da sound of rabbing glass, probably the sound wave of the whistle...rich agh human beings, blows from echos probably irritating the ears of the Namek People, yet none can endure the pain"
-Malaysian King Kai
The 290 has me feeling pretty mediocre. Sure, it's got amazing price/performance, but at the cost of having another loud hot pocket. Sure, you can slap on an Xtreme III to alleviate it, but you can only get a 12% OC out of it for the most part. A 780 can get a good bit more than that.

That's also not to mention that, according to Tom's Hardware, the retail 290s might be worse off in OCing and actual performance than the sample they got directly from AMD.

quote:

Had we simply tested our R9 290 sample against the previously-reviewed 290X, we would have concluded that the slightly cut-back Hawaii GPU comes pretty darned close to AMD’s flagship, spanking GeForce GTX 780 and going up against Titan. Priced at $400, that would have been something special indeed.

However, the two retail Radeon R9 290X boards in our lab are both slower than the 290 tested today. They average lower clock rates over time, pushing frame rates down. Clearly there’s something wrong when the derivative card straight from AMD ends up on top of the just-purchased flagships. So who’s to say that retail 290s won’t follow suit, and when we start buying those cards, they prove to underperform GeForce GTX 780? We can only speculate at this point, though anecdotal evidence gleaned from our experience with R9 290X is suggestive.

That being said, the 290 also fell sort of where I thought it would. It's pretty much a 780 for cheaper, and comes pretty drat close to its big brother. I can only imagine what the 290 will do to 290X sales though, as they are both so close in terms of performance that it would be rather silly to opt for a 290X instead. You'd either have to be an AMD diehard, or care so much about having that "X" in your spec sheet, to get a 290X over a 290.

Rahu X fucked around with this message at 15:17 on Nov 5, 2013

dataupload
Nov 4, 2013

Rahu X posted:

That being said, the 290 also fell sort of where I thought it would. It's pretty much a 780 for cheaper, and comes pretty drat close to its big brother. I can only imagine what the 290 will do to 290X sales though, as they are both so close in terms of performance that it would be rather silly to opt for a 290X instead. You'd either have to be an AMD diehard, or care so much about having that "X" in your spec sheet, to get a 290X over a 290.

I feel like there will be a more appreciable difference once after-market coolers have been released, and all this heavy throttling subsides (hopefully). There was also some mention/speculation of how the press samples could be quite a bit better than the retail cards, esp. based on what seems to have happened with the 290X.

I also agree in it's stock configuration the R9 290 makes very little sense as a gamer (sure, as a hardware/benchmark enthusiast), and is a tad disappointing.

It's almost always the way with high-end cards that their "little-brothers" tend to stomp on them in terms of viability/pricing. The GTX 670 pretty much wrecked the GTX 680's sales for example. AMD should have waited at least for after-market 290Xs to be a thing before dropping the 290 onto the market, because the way it stands now, few people are going to buy either until after-market cards are available (and if the performance continues to be so close, few people are going to buy a 290X, period).

dataupload fucked around with this message at 15:47 on Nov 5, 2013

Canned Sunshine
Nov 20, 2005

CAUTION: POST QUALITY UNDER CONSTRUCTION



Rahu X posted:

The 290 has me feeling pretty mediocre. Sure, it's got amazing price/performance, but at the cost of having another loud hot pocket. Sure, you can slap on an Xtreme III to alleviate it, but you can only get a 12% OC out of it for the most part. A 780 can get a good bit more than that.

That's also not to mention that, according to Tom's Hardware, the retail 290s might be worse off in OCing and actual performance than the sample they got directly from AMD.


That being said, the 290 also fell sort of where I thought it would. It's pretty much a 780 for cheaper, and comes pretty drat close to its big brother. I can only imagine what the 290 will do to 290X sales though, as they are both so close in terms of performance that it would be rather silly to opt for a 290X instead. You'd either have to be an AMD diehard, or care so much about having that "X" in your spec sheet, to get a 290X over a 290.
In its current incarnation, yeah, it's somewhat mediocre. But I think you're ignoring the bigger picture - the vast majority of 290s sold will likely be custom cooler versions, where the heat and noise generated will not be a concern (through a ASUS DirectCU II system or a MSI Frozr system and watch the temps and noise drop). As we've seen with the R80X now, custom cooled versions can be had for relatively small price increases - $10 - $20. So now all of a sudden you're getting 780 performance for $410-420; I wouldn't call that mediocre. I know you just bought a 780, so not sure if that's part of the mediocreness. ;)

The Tom's article is "concerning", but given that Tom's is the only one I've seen raise that issue so far, I'm more likely to err on the side of Tom's being Tom's, and not any devious plot in terms of a true difference in cards. Remember - the driver AMD urgently released is what made the difference for the card, not any particular hardware change (as everyone else pointed out). And with quick-release, beta drivers comes deviations in performance. I would wait to see how the retail cards end up.

As for the 290X, it'll be subject to the same affects as the 290 in terms of custom cooling: lower heat and noise and/or higher overclocks. You're right though, right now the 290 provides no reason for anyone to go with the 290X.

Arzachel
May 12, 2012

Rahu X posted:

The 290 has me feeling pretty mediocre. Sure, it's got amazing price/performance, but at the cost of having another loud hot pocket. Sure, you can slap on an Xtreme III to alleviate it, but you can only get a 12% OC out of it for the most part. A 780 can get a good bit more than that.

I call bullshit on this. The vast majority of launch day review oc tests are hilariously awful. "The slider won't go any higher in catalyst, so I guess that's the best it can do" awful. People are running 290X at 1100 with stock volts on custom air cooling and 1200+ slightly overvolted, why would you think the 290 would do significantly worse?

Stanley Pain
Jun 16, 2001

by Fluffdaddy

Arzachel posted:

I call bullshit on this. The vast majority of launch day review oc tests are hilariously awful. "The slider won't go any higher in catalyst, so I guess that's the best it can do" awful. People are running 290X at 1100 with stock volts on custom air cooling and 1200+ slightly overvolted, why would you think the 290 would do significantly worse?

Because he just got a 780 ;)

Rahu X
Oct 4, 2013

"Now I see, lak human beings, dis like da sound of rabbing glass, probably the sound wave of the whistle...rich agh human beings, blows from echos probably irritating the ears of the Namek People, yet none can endure the pain"
-Malaysian King Kai

SourKraut posted:

In its current incarnation, yeah, it's somewhat mediocre. But I think you're ignoring the bigger picture - the vast majority of 290s sold will likely be custom cooler versions, where the heat and noise generated will not be a concern (through a ASUS DirectCU II system or a MSI Frozr system and watch the temps and noise drop). As we've seen with the R80X now, custom cooled versions can be had for relatively small price increases - $10 - $20. So now all of a sudden you're getting 780 performance for $410-420; I wouldn't call that mediocre. I know you just bought a 780, so not sure if that's part of the mediocreness. ;)

I do agree with that. At stock (or factory OCed) clocks with custom coolers is where it will really shine, but I just don't see that much potential in it for overclocking. The 290 seems like a better card outright, but if you factor in overclocking, the 780 seems like it would pull ahead.

As for the me buying the 780, it wasn't really a factor. I will say though, before I read the reviews, I was starting to think I wasted a huge chunk of cash because I could get the same stock performance as a 780 for $100 less. I was beginning to think I should call up Newegg and change that replacement RMA to a refund in order to buy the 290 instead. :doh: After reading the reviews though, I chilled the gently caress out and realized that the 780 still wasn't a total ripoff.

Rahu X fucked around with this message at 16:38 on Nov 5, 2013

PC LOAD LETTER
May 23, 2005
WTF?!

Rahu X posted:

The 290 seems like a better card outright, but if you factor in overclocking, the 780 seems like it would pull ahead.
So scroll to 8:10 for the numbers but these guys compared a OC'd 780 (an "average" OC'er, not a top clocker) vs a OC'd R9 290 (reference cooler). It works out that you'll end up paying $100 extra for a 1fps advantage @ 1440p resolution if you buy the 780GTX over the R9 290.

No benches at 4K, but the 290 will probably eke out a win at that resolution.

Rahu X
Oct 4, 2013

"Now I see, lak human beings, dis like da sound of rabbing glass, probably the sound wave of the whistle...rich agh human beings, blows from echos probably irritating the ears of the Namek People, yet none can endure the pain"
-Malaysian King Kai

PC LOAD LETTER posted:

So scroll to 8:10 for the numbers but these guys compared a OC'd 780 (an "average" OC'er, not a top clocker) vs a OC'd R9 290 (reference cooler). It works out that you'll end up paying $100 extra for a 1fps advantage @ 1440p resolution if you buy the 780GTX over the R9 290.

No benches at 4K, but the 290 will probably eke out a win at that resolution.

Argh. Fine. :argh:

Maybe you're right. Maybe I should get on the phone with Newegg and request they change that replacement RMA to a refund, and use the money I get back to buy a 290 and an Xtreme III instead.

While I'm not too keen on having a 3 slot card, I can't argue with the pressure. :sweatdrop:

Parker Lewis
Jan 4, 2006

Can't Lose


Is there a website that would help me compare the performance of an R9 290 vs. two GTX 760's in SLI?

I'm trying to figure out if I'd be better off adding a second card to my existing 760 or selling it and putting the money towards an R9 290, for 1080p120 gaming.

PC LOAD LETTER
May 23, 2005
WTF?!
edit:/\/\/\/\/\Don't know of a site with those numbers up yet but generally 2x 760's will be around 10% faster on average than a Titan @ 1600p resolution. If you're willing to deal with SLI's quirks, and your PSU will be OK with it, a 2nd 760 would probably be the best bang for the buck option for you.

Rahu X posted:

While I'm not too keen on having a 3 slot card, I can't argue with the pressure. :sweatdrop:
Heheh I know you'll be happy with either card so don't let the pressure get to you too much. Personally while I'm really impressed with what AMD has pulled off performance + price-wise with the R9 290 I'm actually really interested in the TrueAudio aspect of these new cards.

I know it needs game support (so many games won't benefit at all) but the idea of getting positional audio that is the next best thing to true binaural audio in game, especially a game like Thief, has me excited.

PC LOAD LETTER fucked around with this message at 17:13 on Nov 5, 2013

Stanley Pain
Jun 16, 2001

by Fluffdaddy

Rahu X posted:

Argh. Fine. :argh:

Maybe you're right. Maybe I should get on the phone with Newegg and request they change that replacement RMA to a refund, and use the money I get back to buy a 290 and an Xtreme III instead.

While I'm not too keen on having a 3 slot card, I can't argue with the pressure. :sweatdrop:

That video states it really well at the end. Boils down to what do YOU value most. $100, or more heat/loudness from your video card.

Agreed
Dec 30, 2003

The price of meat has just gone up, and your old lady has just gone down

It is so loving weird that nVidia has lower power usage, cooler and much quieter despite having a bigger die. What the heck is even happening don't these guys know their roles?

I like the Shadowplay feature, and I hope AMD does something like it that is good and does not have issues. That would be cool. Because right now, the R9 290 is a hell of a card as long as you're willing to wait for aftermarket cooling solutions to hit. That much performance for $400 is at least as good as the previous champion for price:performance, the old 6800 GS cards that could flash to Ultra specs trivially. Probably better.

I feel like a sucker for buying when I did, but early adopters always get hosed - I just didn't anticipate getting quite THAT hosed. $250 less for pretty much identical performance, I'd have bought that yessir I'd have bought that. Oops.

I'm waiting on the 20nm cards to hit before I buy anything else, though, the 780 may be overpriced but it's still a hell of a performer and I'll take what I can get. Recent drivers have it clocking in at 1163MHz core and it doesn't seem especially bandwidth limited on the VRAM, though dick move nVidia holding back the 7GHz effective GDDR5 for the GTX 770 and upcoming 780Ti :mad: This thing cost fuckin' $650, and NOW it's down to $500, you definitely could have thrown a bone there you jerks.

dataupload
Nov 4, 2013

Rahu X posted:

Argh. Fine. :argh:

Maybe you're right. Maybe I should get on the phone with Newegg and request they change that replacement RMA to a refund, and use the money I get back to buy a 290 and an Xtreme III instead.

While I'm not too keen on having a 3 slot card, I can't argue with the pressure. :sweatdrop:


Seems like a lot of hassle to go through for what, $50 worth of savings after you factor in the cost of the Xtreme III? Think of all those nice nVidia goodies too (Shadowplay, games bundle, PhysX etc.)

I really don't think the GTX 780 is at all a bad purchase, esp. with the noise issues the 290 exhibits.

Arzachel
May 12, 2012

Stanley Pain posted:

That video states it really well at the end. Boils down to what do YOU value most. $100, or more heat/loudness from your video card.

The choice becomes whether Nvidias brand name, feature set and the 780 being more or less figured out by now is worth 60-70 bucks to you, once you get a custom cooler though. High end GPUs aren't really a reasonable purchase by any means, so I can't fault people going with the 780 regardless. Having to flash the bios for proper voltage control kinda sucks though.

Sidesaddle Cavalry
Mar 15, 2013

Oh Boy Desert Map

SourKraut posted:

Remember - the driver AMD urgently released is what made the difference for the card, not any particular hardware change (as everyone else pointed out). And with quick-release, beta drivers comes deviations in performance. I would wait to see how the retail cards end up.

I had wanted to ask this earlier, this was the driver that AMD extended the 290's NDA for a week for, right? I'm wondering if it's out for public release in case I missed it.

PC LOAD LETTER
May 23, 2005
WTF?!
Supposedly at stock (according to hardocp and techreport) the fan isn't that bad at all though. Its if you raise the fan cap to 60%+ is when it starts to get loud.

Brent Justice hardocp reviewer posted:

The 290 at 47% fan speed wasn't loud. The fans on these cards really don't become loud until around 60-65%. At 47% the card was not throttling, so the full performance potential was there.
I gamed with this thing right beside my head, didn't bother me

Sidesaddle Cavalry posted:

I had wanted to ask this earlier, this was the driver that AMD extended the 290's NDA for a week for, right? I'm wondering if it's out for public release in case I missed it.

hardocp posted:

For the AMD Radeon R9 290 we are using AMD supplied driver Catalyst 13.11 Beta V8. This is the second driver provided to us by AMD for the R9 290 launch review. This new driver improved performance over the Beta V6 driver by tweaking PowerTune and raising the fan speed profile to a new default of 47% over the previous default of 40%.
Looks like the driver just changed clocks, power, and fan settings but didn't do any super duper secret game specific optimizations.

PC LOAD LETTER fucked around with this message at 17:29 on Nov 5, 2013

Rahu X
Oct 4, 2013

"Now I see, lak human beings, dis like da sound of rabbing glass, probably the sound wave of the whistle...rich agh human beings, blows from echos probably irritating the ears of the Namek People, yet none can endure the pain"
-Malaysian King Kai
Well, it's done. For once, Newegg didn't shaft me and actually refunded the full amount back to my credit card. The lady I talked to said something about how it was originally only going to be store credit plus a $78 restocking fee, but she managed to knock both of those out. I just need to send in my free games is all.

Now, I just need to do the deed. Though with the replies I'm getting back telling me to stick with the 780, I feel like you're all trying to mess with me while I'm vulnerable.

WHY DO YOU DO THIS TO ME? :supaburn:

EDIT: And the deed is done. Have an MSI Reference 290 on the way as well as an Arctic Accelero Xtreme III. Now, I'm off to my local UPS store to send back the games.

I'm expecting everyone to make posts saying I should've stuck with the 780 now. :cheeky: While I will miss features I could have had like Shadowplay, I think price/performance is more important to me in the long run.

I hope you all enjoyed watching a man backpedal really fast on his GPU purchase.

Rahu X fucked around with this message at 18:02 on Nov 5, 2013

Agreed
Dec 30, 2003

The price of meat has just gone up, and your old lady has just gone down

Arzachel posted:

The choice becomes whether Nvidias brand name, feature set and the 780 being more or less figured out by now is worth 60-70 bucks to you, once you get a custom cooler though. High end GPUs aren't really a reasonable purchase by any means, so I can't fault people going with the 780 regardless. Having to flash the bios for proper voltage control kinda sucks though.

Yeah, when I got my 780 the only bundles were vendor-specific since it was a new product. Right now if you actually want the games in the bundle (and who wouldn't, they're all AAA games with good dev pedigrees), the bundle makes up for the price difference for the most part.

I don't know what the current state of stock BIOS voltage and boost tables looks like for MSI, Asus, or Gigabyte, but EVGA's 780 SC ACX is only $10 more than a regular SC and only $20 more than a regular 780 - as of launch it was the quietest and coolest solution for the 780 when compared to MSI's, Asus', and Gigabyte's models. It also happens to have a somewhat more aggressive voltage table, hitting 1.2V stock with the +38mV adjustment, and default turbo behavior puts it at over 1100MHz core right out the gate, several notches above a standard 780. If these things are still salient by way of comparison with other cards, I'd say it's still the one to grab if you want a GTX 780. It keeps my card at literally whatever the room temperature is at when idle and with a moderate fan profile that isn't noisy at all I haven't seen even the most demanding game take it past about 60ºC. Mine overclocks to different levels depending on the current driver revision (... yeah, that's weird, but whatever), it's comfortable at 1163MHz right now which is "pretty good" but not "astonishing."

Fun fact: I wish I'd have waited until now because god drat it it's only $510 and comes with a shitload of games. :qq:

Wistful of Dollars
Aug 25, 2009

Agreed posted:


Fun fact: I wish I'd have waited until now because god drat it it's only $510 and comes with a shitload of games. :qq:

"I wish I'd waited". The story of everyone with an interest in Hardware, ever.

necrobobsledder
Mar 21, 2005
Lay down your soul to the gods rock 'n roll
Nap Ghost
I got a GTX 680 2GB card for like $250 from a goon when the GTX 7xx series came out and I saw how little value I'd get for an extra $100+. I had burned out my GTX 560 when I was about to sell it and was without any gaming-capable card for months. Totally glad I waited. :colbert:

I've gotten smarter about buying hardware after I got burned buying a Powerbook G4 about 4 months before the first x86 Macbook showed up.

Agreed
Dec 30, 2003

The price of meat has just gone up, and your old lady has just gone down

El Scotch posted:

"I wish I'd waited". The story of everyone with an interest in Hardware, ever.

I'm kinda loving around since we've apparently got Rahu in a tizzy :D I don't actually wish I waited, I just wish I could get some free money and extra poo poo. I've been playing some really fun games with incredible visuals at super high performance since like June. And my 680 wasn't providing the level of performance + visual fidelity that I was after. There's always something around the corner, sometimes you find it's the same thing but better and you go "aw drat it" but I don't actually regret the purchase, I just wish I could get in on some of the cool poo poo going on with cards for sale now, but I've been an early adopter of new poo poo often enough to know that fact of the matter is you are going to end up seeing much better deals on the same thing down the road - I knew what I was getting into, but that doesn't mean I can't kvetch about it later :)


necrobobsledder posted:

I've gotten smarter about buying hardware after I got burned buying a Powerbook G4 about 4 months before the first x86 Macbook showed up.

Now if this had happened to me, I'd REALLY REALLY loving WISH I had waited. Ouch.

Rahu X posted:

I'm expecting everyone to make posts saying I should've stuck with the 780 now. :cheeky: While I will miss features I could have had like Shadowplay, I think price/performance is more important to me in the long run.

I hope you all enjoyed watching a man backpedal really fast on his GPU purchase.

Man you really messed up, think about the opportunity cost here and what you're actually getting, I don't know if you've fully thought this through. You might just want to think about it and maybe reconsider. I mean you don't really know the long run, but right now there are some preeeetty killer features on the 780 and it sure is a performer, and did you check out that games bundle? Shadowplay is so cool, too, man it's cool. I'm just saying, these things take some thought, maybe think it over again, who knows, just give it some thought, you know?

Agreed fucked around with this message at 18:34 on Nov 5, 2013

redstormpopcorn
Jun 10, 2007
Aurora Master

El Scotch posted:

"I wish I'd waited". The story of everyone with an interest in Hardware, ever.

I've determined that there is no "best" time to buy hardware. There is, at most, a least-worst time when the stars (availability, compatibility, and coupons) align and you have to bite the bullet and hope you're throwing your money down the right hole.

Proud Christian Mom
Dec 20, 2006
READING COMPREHENSION IS HARD
For any mortals reading along you should understand that all of the above people are bleeding edge crazy and you shouldn't be regretting any purchase you've made lately

Rahu X
Oct 4, 2013

"Now I see, lak human beings, dis like da sound of rabbing glass, probably the sound wave of the whistle...rich agh human beings, blows from echos probably irritating the ears of the Namek People, yet none can endure the pain"
-Malaysian King Kai

Agreed posted:

Man you really messed up, think about the opportunity cost here and what you're actually getting, I don't know if you've fully thought this through. You might just want to think about it and maybe reconsider. I mean you don't really know the long run, but right now there are some preeeetty killer features on the 780 and it sure is a performer, and did you check out that games bundle? Shadowplay is so cool, too, man it's cool. I'm just saying, these things take some thought, maybe think it over again, who knows, just give it some thought, you know?

Now I know you're really messing with me. :cheeky:

Though honestly, I think the only thing I'll miss is Shadowplay, but that alone is not reason enough to really purchase one GPU over another. It's a great feature though.

As for the games, I never really take those into account. Besides, I hear Arkham Origins is kind of poo poo anyway, and I've never really been one for Assassin's Creed or Splinter Cell.

If anything, I was actually more interested in AMD's Never Settle bundle when I was originally looking at getting a 7970GE around a month and a half ago, because it actually had some games I was interested in (Saints Row IV and FC3: Blood Dragon). Just a shame it wasn't available for my purchase, but oh well.

Also, the same could be argued on the side of AMD. I mean, they have Mantle and True Audio, man! Those are some pretty killer features too! :jerkbag:

Though I swear, if I have to hear Kingpin lecture me for an hour about how great True Audio is during a presentation about VIDEO cards again, I'll have to shoot myself.

Rahu X fucked around with this message at 19:05 on Nov 5, 2013

Wistful of Dollars
Aug 25, 2009

go3 posted:

For any mortals reading along you should understand that all of the above people are bleeding edge crazy and you shouldn't be regretting any purchase you've made lately

Unless it was a 780 a week prior to the price drop. :v:

Agreed
Dec 30, 2003

The price of meat has just gone up, and your old lady has just gone down

go3 posted:

For any mortals reading along you should understand that all of the above people are bleeding edge crazy and you shouldn't be regretting any purchase you've made lately

There might be a tiny morsel of 100% pure truth to this, hmm, it's hard to judge.

Boar It
Jul 29, 2011

Mesmerizing eyebrows is my specialty
I'm not experienced with Nvidia cards so I was wondering if somebody could help me out here. I have lowered my choice to four different GTX 770 cards. They are all very similar so I guess it ultimately comes down to how good the cooler is and frequency. I've translated the page from Swedish and it should make sense unless google translate fucks up too much.

http://translate.google.com/transla...sku%3D791534%26

The Gainward card seems to have a really badass cooler. Three fans and a big heatsink so that could be worth investing in. The MSI card on the other hand has more warranty and has a faster clock frequency but not by much. Any tips would be great. Especially about the quality of the various brands.

Agreed
Dec 30, 2003

The price of meat has just gone up, and your old lady has just gone down

nVidia's Greenlight program was designed to ensure that brands don't matter and it seems to have worked based on the hardware return statistics we have available to us. AMD has huge variance in manufacturer quality, nVidia does not.

So it's up to features, warranty, etc. - they all have to be at least as good as the reference card on points like performance, power delivery, and noise level. Greenlight is pretty cool :)

Factory Factory
Mar 19, 2010

This is what
Arcane Velocity was like.
I know it's been said that AMD needs a similar program, but what would they call it? Redlight?

redstormpopcorn
Jun 10, 2007
Aurora Master
Redline. :rice:

Factory Factory
Mar 19, 2010

This is what
Arcane Velocity was like.



"I turned on Uber mode."

Canned Sunshine
Nov 20, 2005

CAUTION: POST QUALITY UNDER CONSTRUCTION



I actually wonder how long before we do see the custom cooler versions of the R9-290 and 290X. Or to see what nVidia does to counter (I wouldn't complain at all about a $400 or $430 780 GTX.

GrizzlyCow
May 30, 2011
Late November according to SweClockers according to Softpedia.

Agreed
Dec 30, 2003

The price of meat has just gone up, and your old lady has just gone down

SourKraut posted:

I actually wonder how long before we do see the custom cooler versions of the R9-290 and 290X. Or to see what nVidia does to counter (I wouldn't complain at all about a $400 or $430 780 GTX.

There is no way in the world they're going to cut prices that much when their game bundle and features actually do make up for the price difference. $500 is fine for the 780. The R9 290 being as good but lower priced is okay for now. I'd guess nVidia might yet fiddle with the 770 and below pricing, but I'm also figuring they're mainly gearing up for Maxwell's launch at this point. The nVidia "package" and the fact that they enjoy a greater marketshare among non-enthusiasts as well as among enthusiasts means they can effectively dismiss a better price:performance hardware challenge and run on brand power in the interim to getting their next generation out, and it'll be coming soon enough that all they really need to do right now is make sure they're price competitive where sane people buy stuff, and still have the card that is Definitely The Fastest for sale at a premium (and if the 780 Ti specs are accurate that's a wrap).

Canned Sunshine
Nov 20, 2005

CAUTION: POST QUALITY UNDER CONSTRUCTION



Agreed posted:

There is no way in the world they're going to cut prices that much when their game bundle and features actually do make up for the price difference. $500 is fine for the 780.

Well the game package ends on November 26th and so far we don't know of a replacement. I'm not sure the "features" are really worth an extra $100 - the main things are Shadowplay (which can also be done by 3rd party apps with low overhead) and Physx ( :laffo:). In that vein someone could make the same argument for TrueAudio and Mantle in the near future.

The current games are nice but once again the true value depends upon how the buyer values the bundle - for every person who think the games are great, there is likely someone who doesn't care at all about them.

The 780 is still a great card, but what happens if AMD comes out with the Never Settle bundle for the 280X and 290s for the Holiday push, as is rumored? The 780 is a questionable value as it is now that the 290 keeps up or surpasses at $400 before the custom cards come. Once those come and we possibly see a Never Settle bundle (and/or nVidia's bundle isn't renewed), it's lights out for the 780.

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Agreed
Dec 30, 2003

The price of meat has just gone up, and your old lady has just gone down

SourKraut posted:

Well the game package ends on November 26th and so far we don't know of a replacement. I'm not sure the "features" are really worth an extra $100 - the main things are Shadowplay (which can also be done by 3rd party apps with low overhead) and Physx ( :laffo:). In that vein someone could make the same argument for TrueAudio and Mantle in the near future.

The current games are nice but once again the true value depends upon how the buyer values the bundle - for every person who think the games are great, there is likely someone who doesn't care at all about them.

The 780 is still a great card, but what happens if AMD comes out with the Never Settle bundle for the 280X and 290s for the Holiday push, as is rumored? The 780 is a questionable value as it is now that the 290 keeps up or surpasses at $400 before the custom cards come. Once those come and we possibly see a Never Settle bundle (and/or nVidia's bundle isn't renewed), it's lights out for the 780.

They'd need to restructure their entire lineup. Maybe they well, I'm not predicting the future, just stating my take on things. Though I do think that a production proven thing like Shadowplay is actually a Good Feature vs. True Audio and Mantle being kind of nebulous, in-the-future-these-may-be-cool? things for AMD card owners. The nVidia Experience software is imo considerably better than AMD's raptr software, but that could be subjective.

The lower priced market is already crowded as hell, and chopping another $100 off the 780 would cause total havoc down there, but if it happens it happens I guess. I just feel like, and this is kind of lovely, but they've got a situation similar to Intel vs. AMD when Intel still held dramatically superior market share while shipping Pentium 4s before the architectural change back to the Pentium 3 and further development along that line - they have so much money and brand power that they can afford to not offer the best value prospect for a little while, and still have more people using their stuff by default, even if it's not placed ideally on the price:performance curve.

This month we're supposed to find out a great deal more about Mantle, including announcements about other games in development using it, so that could be a significant factor that alters the value proposition once again (or not, just a big unknown at the moment). I love the idea of TrueAudio, but it's something that is pretty easily countered if necessary, like when AMD waaaay back when put audio over HDMI on their cards and nVidia just did that too, and thus could end up just kinda fragmenting the market unnecessarily.

Here's a tangential thing that's bugging me - AMD seems like they're in a rough spot with these proprietary technologies they're working on, in that they would enjoy more success and broader adoption if they weren't proprietary (a lesson they learned too late with MLAA vs. FXAA back when shader-based AA was hot new poo poo), but at the same time they've got a lot of pressure on them to keep them proprietary in the hopes that broader adoption will end up resulting in a greater market share. I know they've upped efforts with developers lately, certainly their console wins across the board will help grease the wheels there, but it's not a panacea and they can certainly harm their own technology's chances at broader adoption while trying to capitalize exclusively on them.

I do think that nVidia could easily be more satisfied to hold the performance crown in the very high end with the 780Ti regardless of price, mainly because that's a prestige thing more than a practical thing. The number of people using $400+ graphics cards is probably a rounding error away from zero compared to the number of people using cards in the $150-$250 range. And, bonus for them, this isn't even their next generation technology. AMD's next gen is out, nVidia's won't be until next year and there's a built-in refresh when the process shrink to 20nm planar occurs. They might not be winning the high end card price war, but they're hanging in marvelously considering that they're still using technology that really launched back with the 600-series cards - they just held the GK110 chip cards in reserve until such time that they became appropriate to release. AMD, as far as I know, doesn't have a thing like that going on - they've released their new flagship technology, we're now able to buy AMD's "next gen" hardware, while nVidia's Maxwell remains in process and won't be out until 2014.

Meanwhile, AMD is still in the position of engaging in price pressure at all tiers rather than being able to unequivocally claim performance superiority. Yes, I know that the cards are apparently good overclockers, which probably means they've got a GHz edition refresh lined up for some appropriate time, but if the 780Ti is a fully enabled GK110 for videogames, it's going to have better performance than an R9 290x, and given how few people actually use the very expensive cards, all that matters there is they can say they have the fastest card, not that they are selling a shitload of the fastest card.

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