Nvidia Pascal to launch in June

[Bokishi]

We need a faster video card now! 980ti too weak for most new games at max settings 4K...

 

http://wccftech.com/nvidia-pascal-debut-gtc-2016-launch-june/

[Gorgon]

Soo. Whatever you do it would be stupid to buy anything before the new cards and the attendant price drops. I could really use a new card, but a 3 month placeholder. That's a bit too much of a waste of money.

[Bokishi]

Potentially 17 billion transistors, 32gb vram, 1tb/s bandwidth, 12 tflops this thing is going to be a beast among beasts

[Gorgon]

I'm hoping there is going to be a winner somewhere down the lower price ranges as 14 mn chips become more common, but it sounds like the thing if you want something capable of running 4k and you don't care what things cost. 

[mkreku]

AMD Polaris to launch in summer 2016:

 

http://wccftech.com/amd-confirms-polaris-gpus-released-school-season-desktops-laptops/

[mkreku]

Potentially 17 billion transistors, 32gb vram, 1tb/s bandwidth, 12 tflops this thing is going to be a beast among beasts

 

 

Head to head again.

 

Source: http://wccftech.com/amd-unveils-polaris-11-10-gpu/

[Ganrich]

I'm actually eyeballing AMD for the first time in a while. Spec wise Polaris looks to be on an even footing, but it seems (probably because of Mantle's fingerprints on Dx12/Vulkan) their cards are more feature rich for the new APIs. Most of the Dx12 comparisons show a larger gain for AMD while using more features, and this is with their current lineup of cards. So, these new cards are likely more compliant, and will have more gains. Also, AMD have more partnerships with companies using the new APIs than Nvidia. It's an odd turn of events as AMD couldn't get as many partnerships as Nvidia prior to dx12/Vulkan.

 

I will likely wait till Zen to see if I can make my new rig 100% AMD for the first time in nearly a decade. Both Zen and Polaris look promising. I may snag a Polaris card before then, though.

 

I'm not knocking team green, as both my current rigs are both Intel/Nvidia, but the GFX industry is starting to look a little too much like a monopoly at the moment. We need AMD to not fall.

[Bokishi]

I agree competition is a good thing. Back 10 years ago when the green and red were always head to head, high end graphics card performance was doubling every year. Right now it's like, every 5 years?

[Bartimaeus]

I mean, it's not like nvidia and AMD haven't at least been comparable. Intel and AMD, on the other hand...

[Gorgon]

Actually they have both had the lead. Long time ago, but AMD ruled the (CPU) world in the 90s. They were given permission by intel to create x86 processors so Intel's buyers would still have a source for chips if say the intel plant got leveled in an earthquake or something. True story. 

 

Certain compilers are designed to run better on Intel hardware than AMD, it's kinda like what NVidia does with physics and god-rays. etc. They want their proprietary tech to run on everything, but run much better on their hardware. 

[Bartimaeus]

I'm aware, however, that has not been the case for, what, almost a decade now?

 

(e): Since they were at least close, that is.

Edited March 3, 2016 by Bartimaeus

[Ganrich]

I'm aware, however, that has not been the case for, what, almost a decade now?

Nvidia's Gameworks is still using those shenanigans to hurt AMD. They persuade devs to go bananas with certain features that AMD cards have trouble running. Tesselation is an example. Other things happen as well. This is so they look better in early benchmarks and people that don't look deeper assume Nvidia's cards are mostly on top... When it is more neck and neck.

 

Look at Fallout 4. At launch Nvidia was handing AMD their butt on most benchmarks, and if you look at current benchmarks (after patches from Bethesda and AMD driver updates) it is more even and sometimes favor AMD. Some devs have spoken out about Gameworks, and now AMD has their open source equivalent called GPUOpen. They hope that their equivalent being open source will force Nvidia to use some transparency with Gameworks. We will see if that bears fruit. I doubt it. AMD isn't innocent either. They convinced SquareEnix to use Tressfx with the first Tomb Raider reboot. It caused the game to run like crap on Nvidia cards for a while, but you could turn that effect off. So it isn't that bad.

 

But, yeah, AMD is more competitive with their GFX cards, but they have a stigma of having bad drivers. Something I know is far from true in the Windows environment. (Their Linux drivers are bad, but that is a whole other can of worms). AMD also has higher wattage on their cards, and that means more heat. However Polaris is 14nm, and that lowers their wattage significantly. They showed a video of battlefront using a Polaris card vs a 950, they locked FPS to 60, ran it at medium settings, and they were around 85 watts while the 950 was around 145 watts. It's pretty significant.

 

I think DX12 and Vulkan will help AMD in this regard, though. It will reset Nvidia's perceived lead in drivers while showing a huge boost in AMDs hardware. I really don't think Nvidia is ready for DX12/Vulkan. Another thing to remember is the consoles have GCN cards in them, and that means any games ported to DX12/Vulkan will be easier to get working with cards of a similar architecture (namely GCN). So, AMD has played an incredible game of Chess here, and it should pay off as it looks like it is all lining up.

 

On the note of AMD vs Intel. Zen had early estimations of gain 40% IPC gains for AMD. That puts them in the ivybridge area for single thread performance IIRC, but in a recent discussion on it AMD let slip that Zen has exceeded that. I can't find the video where I saw that, and it is AMD probably playing the marketing game so take it with a huge grain of salt. AMDs marketing on Bulldozer was pretty huge, and that turned out to be snake oil. It is enough that I am waiting, though. I also expect Zen will be quad core or more to force Intel to stop making I3s dual core, and/or lower prices on i3s and i5s. I hope it happens. These, not unlike their GFX cards, are moving to 14nm and they will have better performance/efficiency for it. So their CPUs will be cooler, and apparently AMD is putting a lot of time into the heatsink. So if you don't want to buy a 3rd party heatsink... You will hopefully get something decent with the cpu.

 

I am still using an overclocked 2500k, and haven't upgraded because it isn't worth the money for such a small gain. However, if I have a similar small gain to switch to AMD to support their effort here then I will do it. Jim Keller is a magician, and I expect Zen will be solid as a byproduct.

 

Edit: I said battlefield, but it was battlefront.

Edited March 3, 2016 by Ganrich

[Ganrich]

I agree competition is a good thing. Back 10 years ago when the green and red were always head to head, high end graphics card performance was doubling every year. Right now it's like, every 5 years?

Yup, between HBM memory, the new APIs, the power needs of VR (don't want to argue whether VR will succeed or not, but its presence in the landscape means AMD/Nvidia have to ensure their cards are capable of delivering in case it does), and GFX cards moving to 14nm I expect some solid gains in the coming years. For VR GFX Cards need to be capable of powering 2 screens running around 2k (IIRC) at 90fps with no dips or vomitting possibly ensues. I think Palmer Lucky said he was aiming to have 8k per eye in the end to finally be rid of the screen door effect. So, cards have to get beefier to keep up if VR does take off. Exciting times to be a geek.

[Bokishi]

VR with 8K per eye and running Unreal Engine 5, can probably rival reality

[Bartimaeus]

VR 8K per eye, but the vast majority of developers still won't be able to make competent face animations...

[Gorgon]

Not going to be an early adopter here when there is not even a AAA title made specifically for VR on the horizon yet. They are pretty pricey and you pay that amount again to upgrade your GFX to run one. 

 

 

900 Pounds for the HTC in Europe. We always get screwed like that.

 

Oculus haven't even bothered with an EU reseller so you pay like 20% extra for shipping and extra xbox controllers. 

[Bokishi]

Preordered the Oculus myself...not too sold yet on the Vive, and its room space requirements

[mkreku]

It doesn't have any room requirements. You can sit still with the Vive too.

[Ganrich]

Not going to be an early adopter here when there is not even a AAA title made specifically for VR on the horizon yet. They are pretty pricey and you pay that amount again to upgrade your GFX to run one.

 

 

900 Pounds for the HTC in Europe. We always get screwed like that.

 

Oculus haven't even bothered with an EU reseller so you pay like 20% extra for shipping and extra xbox controllers.

Not saying this game is AAA, but Elite: Dangerous is pretty amazing on the Rift DK2. It is a great experience. I will personally attest to it. If space Sims are your cup of tea I would recommend giving it a try if you can.

 

Star Citizen is also supposed to support VR, but they have some animations/features that will be problematic. We will see how that is handled in the end.

 

I think most AAA games will take more time since the FPS genre is a bulk of it and typical fps run speed, head bobble, camera jerk on death, etc are VR sickness inducing. These companies will wait for a population to appear on VR before attempting a game, IMHO.

 

Edit: also, mkreku is correct. The Vive "supports" moving around the room, but also allows sitting down. It is more versatile than the Rift in the end. The only thing you lose are built in headphones.

Edited March 5, 2016 by Ganrich

[Bokishi]

Been playing GTA 5 with the VR mod, I think it's the best VR experience available atm

 

http://grandtheftvr.com/

[Ganrich]

VR 8K per eye, but the vast majority of developers still won't be able to make competent face animations...

Indeed. I am reading the AMD AMA that was done a few days ago. One dev posted his personal opinion on VR technology scaling by saying that they are aiming for 16k at 240FPS. That is when they believe the tech will simulate reality. So, the game devs will need to pick up their facial animation game.

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/48e8rl/radeon_technologies_group_qa_is_happening_here_on/

[teknoman2]

from what i've read amd is going for the mid range market (under 300$ where over 80% of the consumer base is). practically  they seem to plan to start by offering similar performance to the current get at 40-50% of the price (i.e instead of getting a 600$ fury, you can get a 280$ R7 470 and have the same performance). of course these are just conjectures.

[mkreku]

http://wccftech.com/nvidia-pascal-trouble-asynchronous-compute/

 

Pascal is in ACE trouble! Bring on the GPU wars of old!!

 

In happier news:

 

http://wccftech.com/amd-vega-10-gpu-4096-stream-processors/

 

More details about AMD's Polaris/Vega GPU's surface.

[Gfted1]

Nvidia unveils first Pascal graphics card, the monstrous Tesla P100.

[Bokishi]

Looks like the Batmobile

 

http://wccftech.com/nvidia-geforce-gtx-1080-allegedly-pictured/