Nvidia is dominating the GPU arena

[FarligOpptreden]

You have an AMD card? Farlig I am so so sorry.

RIP

Yup, a blistering fast one at that. I've always been kinda rebellious in everything I've done, so out of principle I won't get an nVidia GPU. Besides, my card kicks ass for the amount of money I paid!

[DuckKnuckle]

Yup, a blistering fast one at that. I've always been kinda rebellious in everything I've done, so out of principle I won't get an nVidia GPU. Besides, my card kicks ass for the amount of money I paid!

Haha yeah that's all that matters dude. As long as you're happy with your purchase.

AMD does give good price/performance.

[FarligOpptreden]

Haha yeah that's all that matters dude. As long as you're happy with your purchase.

AMD does give good price/performance.

You're just Nvid... I mean Green with envy!

[StaggerLee]

When I have more time on my hands I'll dig up some more threads, where guys have older scores on their 780ti's and with the new GTX980 and you'll notice the difference, on top of that like I mentioned the 780ti is a far better card than a GTX980 when it comes to the actual hardware in each card.

I don't think it's easy to determine which GPU actually has better hardware as they use two different architectures purported to be completely revolutionary at the time they were released. It does seem that the 780ti is faster in the areas that matter (memory bandwidth and processing power[source, source]), but it's not as black and white that one is higher so it's automatically better. Software also has to utilise this efficiently, which I guess is largely a driver issue. So if what you say about Nvidia gimping the older cards in favour of the new is true, then this could be one strong argument for that, but again it's not so simple to compare.

I've also done some testing when a friend of mine asked me about it.
As someone that owned a 780Ti since launch and a 980 since launch I have also noticed how the 980 has magically gotten faster and the 780ti has somehow slowed down or is just sitting at the same spot, this was especially noticeable in Far Cry 4.

Again I don't think it's fair to use anecdotal evidence as justification, confirmation bias is a very potent persuader. The only real way to settle the matter is to present hard numbers. One way would be to compare the performance of the 780ti when it performed at its peak, with older drivers. If Nvidia truly are gimping the card, then it should perform better than the 980 on a game like Far Cry 4, even with outdated drivers. Alternatively, one could compare the performance of the 780ti on Far Cry 3 or 2013's Ass Creed with its best-performing drivers and the new drivers. If they are being gimped, it should perform worse with the new drivers.

And of course the 980 is getting magically faster, they are supposed to be improving the drivers aren't they

I really don't get how you can say its not fair to expect them to continue to optimize the 7xx range. So that basically means Nvidia is saying fuck you all, even though we can get more performance out of our cards we won't be bothered to do so. Now all of a sudden you have a R9 280X starting to beat a 780 and a 290 starting to perform like a 780ti because Nvidia can't be bothered.

It's only fair to expect them to optimise a specific product for a certain length of time. The 780ti was launched in November 2013. They offer driver support for their cards for nearly 5 years at a time, which is a long time, expecting optimisations for the same period is unrealistic. On the other hand the R9 280/290 etc are AMDs latest cards, they are obviously going to keep receiving optimisations until AMD releases a new series, at which point their optimisations will likely stop, just like Nvidia's.

On top of that Nvidia's drivers are slipping badly, AMD these days are crushing them when it comes to releasing fully functioning drivers.

This is unfortunately true, but only really for the mid-lower end cards. Not that it's excusable to let your drivers slip on such cards, I'm just saying I wouldn't expect it to affect a 780ti.

In the future I have no doubt that they'll be a bit more open, but their reaction and lack of giving a shit when it happened didn't paint a pretty picture.

Also true unfortunately (except the part about them being more open).

As far as the 970 goes, I've tested it and the cards do run incredibly well with excellent performance @ 1080P and 1440P, its once you start running UHD in Sli that the mem config starts rearing its ugly head. As soon as the mem hits 3.5gb games start stuttering and become incredibly annoying to play, a problem that is not present on the GTX980 and that alone tells me this mem config is a stupid idea.

And here is the crux.

The very reason that Nvidia was able to provide a performance card at such a good price range as the 970 was because of the memory configuration. It simply comes down to the fact that they were able to use their manufacturing output quantities more efficiently. If they were not able to individually disable segments of the L2 cache, then they might not have been able to utilise the GPUs with failed L2 cache units and the overhead cost from the manufacturing process would have gone up. This would likely have increased the price of both the 970 and 980 -based cards. Relative to what the card could have been if it was released without the memory configuration as it is now, the overall value of the card is improved.

The memory configuration is the price that you pay for having a great card at a very reasonable price. It's the compromise, the trade-off. The card performs exceptionally well in most user configurations but will start to suffer a performance drop in extreme use-cases. The old cliche applies: you get what you pay for.

Edit: So nice to have a proper debate on the forum for once

Lol. In that spirit. The above is not meant to absolve Nvidia of any wrong-doing (or to demean AMD), I simply believe that it's not quite the time ready the pitchforks. Yet.

[InSanity]

I must be honest i think this is just one of those things that comes down to previous experiences i have no particular love or hate for either brand but lately i have tended to be more enjoying nvidia and amd has become quiet with their latest cards

[The Joker]

[MENTION=9032]StaggerLee[/MENTION]

Will respond when I have some time
YOu really should come over some day so we can bench a bit.

[hideinlight]

Both the GTX970 amd GTX960 can get away with a 450w power supply.
http://www.wootware.co.za/review/pro...1/category/48/

And you can get a really high quality gold rated PSU for R600

So Galaxa GTX 960 + gold rated power supply for R600 works out around R3600

Now if you get a similar performing card like the R9 280x, you end up paying more for the GPU, more for the power supply (and probably get one of lesser quality) and more for the electricity bill.

At this point Nvidia in the lead.

Although you cannot count out the R9 270 and R9 270x for a slightly lower price point, because at that level Nvidia lineup like the GTX750/GTX750 ti kinda sucks.