• Welcome to TechPowerUp Forums, Guest! Please check out our forum guidelines for info related to our community.

GK104 Faster then the HD7970! But not really???

Joined
Oct 6, 2009
Messages
2,820 (0.53/day)
Location
Midwest USA
System Name My Gaming System
Processor Intel i7 4770k @ 4.4 Ghz
Motherboard Asus Maximus VI Impact (ITX)
Cooling Custom Full System Water cooling Loop
Memory G.Skill 1866 Mhz Sniper 8 Gb
Video Card(s) EVGA GTX 780 ti SC
Storage Samsung SSD EVO 120GB - Samsung SSD EVO 500GB
Display(s) ASUS W246H - 24" - widescreen TFT active matrix LCD
Case Bitfenix Prodigy
Power Supply Corsair AX760 Modular PSU
Software Windows 8.1 Home Primeum
So I always don't put much stock into what Charlie at Semiaccurate.com says. But this article did make a little sense to me. Not only did it make a lot sense to me but It I found it very interesting. I also found it quite possibly true. Read it check it out and leave some comments.....

http://semiaccurate.com/2012/02/01/physics-hardware-makes-keplergk104-fast/

Nvidia’s Kepler/GK104 chip has an interesting secret, a claimed Ageia PhysX hardware block that really isn’t. If you were wondering why Nvidia has been beating the dead horse called PhysX for so long, now you know, but it only gets more interesting from there.
Sources tell SemiAccurate that the ‘big secret’ lurking in the Kepler chips are optimisations for physics calculations. Some are calling this PhysX block a dedicated chunk of hardware, but more sources have been saying that it is simply shaders, optimisations, and likely a dedicated few new ops. In short, marketing may say it is, but under the heat spreader, it is simply shaders and optimisations.
The market has treated hardware PhysX like an unexplained sore that shows up a week after a night you can’t remember through a tequila induced haze. Numbers vary about the absolute magnitude of PhysX’s overwhelming success, but counts of 2011 game releases supporting hardware acceleration range from a low of two to a high of six. The snowball has pretty much stopped rolling, or to be more accurate, it never started, all the developers SemiAccurate spoke with indicate that their use of PhysX hardware acceleration was a cash flow positive experience, but we didn’t talk to all six listed.
With this new bit of information, one big question is answered, but specific hardware implementations details are a bit murky. Is the ‘hardware block’ dedicated to physics calculations when there are some being issued, or is it a AMD/GCN like multiple instruction issue? Is it just shaders with an added op or two that speed up math routines heavily used by physics simulations? How much die area is spent on this functionality? This isn’t very clear, and given the marketing materials Semiaccurate has seen, explanations will only serve to impede the impending hype.
That said, SemiAccurate is told Kepler/GK104 will be marketed as having a dedicated block, and this will undoubtedly be repeated everywhere, truth not withstanding. Luckily, since most of the target audience isn’t technically literate, it may “become fact” through the VIECOOCDF (Vast Internet Echo Chamber Of Often Repeated Dubious Facts). Lowering the collective intelligence can be profitable if not ethical. Luckily, the story doesn’t end here, it gets much worse.
This part ties in to the story SemiAccurate published a few weeks ago saying that Nvidia would win this generation. A lot of people have been asking about Kepler/GK104 performance and if it is really that good. The short story is yes and no, depending on your views on some very creative ‘optimisations’ around physics.
We stated earlier, Kepler wins in most ways vs the current AMD video cards. How does Nvidia do it with a $299 card? Is it raw performance? Massive die size? Performance per metric? The PhysX ‘hardware block’? Cheating? The easy answer is yes, but lets go in to a lot more detail.
GK104 is the mid-range GPU in Nvidia’s Kepler family, has a very small die, and the power consumption is far lower than the reported 225W. How low depends on what is released and what clock bins are supported by the final silicon. A1 stepping cards seen by SemiAccurate had much larger heatsinks than the A2 versions, and recent rumours suggest there may be an A3 to fix persistent PCIe3 headaches.
To date, an A3 spin has not been confirmed, but if it is necessary, it will likely push out the late March/early April release date by at least a month. One other possibility is for Nvidia to pull an Intel and release cards without the official PCI SIG stamp, adding it when A3 silicon is available. In any case, the number of PCIe3 supporting computers on the market is minimal, so functionally speaking, it doesn’t matter. You may loose a small bit of theoretical performance, but for a mid-range part, it is unlikely to be noticeable. Marketing is a completely different story though, one not closely tied to the reality most of us live in.
The architecture itself is very different from Fermi, SemiAccurate’s sources point to a near 3TF card with a 256-bit memory bus. Kepler is said to have a very different shader architecture from Fermi, going to much more AMD-like units, caches optimised for physics/computation, and clocks said to be close to the Cayman/Tahiti chips. The initial target floating among the informed is in the 900-1000MHz range. Rumours have it running anywhere from about 800MHz in early silicon to 1.1+GHz later on, with early stepping being not far off later ones. Contrary to some floating rumours, yields are not a problem for either GK104 or TSMC’s 28nm process in general.
Performance is likewise said to be a tiny bit under 3TF from a much larger shader count than previous architectures. This is comparable to the 3.79TF and 2048 shaders on AMD’s Tahiti, GK104 isn’t far off either number. With the loss of the so called “Hot Clocked” shaders, this leaves two main paths to go down, two CUs plus hardware PhysX unit or three. Since there is no dedicated hardware physics block, the math says each shader unit will probably do two SP FLOPs per clock or one DP FLOP.
This would be in line with the company’s earlier claims of a large jump in compute capabilities, but also leads to questions of how those shaders will be fed with only a 256-bit memory path. Given the small die sizes floating around, it is unlikely to be Itanium-esque brute forcing through large caches. The net result is that shader utilisation is likely to fall dramatically, with a commensurate loss of real world performance compared to theoretical peak.
In the same way that AMD’s Fusion chips count GPU FLOPS the same way they do CPU FLOPS in some marketing materials, Kepler’s 3TF won’t measure up close to AMD’s 3TF parts. Benchmarks for GK104 shown to SemiAccurate have the card running about 10-20% slower than Tahiti. On games that both heavily use physics related number crunching and have the code paths to do so on Kepler hardware, performance should seem to be well above what is expected from a generic 3TF card. That brings up the fundamental question of whether the card is really performing to that level?
This is where the plot gets interesting. How applicable is the “PhysX block”/shader optimisations to the general case? If physics code is the bottleneck in your app, A goal Nvidia appears to actively code for, then uncorking that artificial impediment should make an app positively fly. On applications that are written correctly without artificial performance limits, Kepler’s performance should be much more marginal. Since Nvidia is pricing GK104 against AMD’s mid-range Pitcairn ASIC, you can reasonably conclude that the performance will line up against that card, possibly a bit higher. If it could reasonably defeat everything on the market in a non-stacked deck comparison, it would be priced accordingly, at least until the high end part is released.
All of the benchmark numbers shown by Nvidia, and later to SemiAccurate, were overwhelmingly positive. How overwhelmingly positive? Far faster than an AMD HD7970/Tahiti for a chip with far less die area and power use, and it blew an overclocked 580GTX out of the water by unbelievable margins. That is why we wrote this article. Before you take that as a backpedal, we still think those numbers are real, the card will achieve that level of performance in the real world on some programs.
The problem for Nvidia is that once you venture outside of that narrow list of tailored programs, performance is likely to fall off a cliff, with peaky performance the likes of which haven’t been seen in a long time. On some games, GK104 will handily trounce a 7970, on others, it will probably lose to a Pitcairn. Does this mean it won’t actually do what is promised? No, it will. Is this a problem? Depends on how far review sites dare to step outside of the ‘recommenced’ list of games to benchmark in the reviewers guide.
Ethically, this could go either way, and in a vacuum, we would be more than willing to say that the cards are capable of very high performance. The problem is that the numbers that Nvidia will likely show off at the launch are not in a vacuum, nor are they very real, even considering the above caveats. Nvidia is going out of their way to have patches coded for games that tend to be used as benchmarks by popular sites.
Once again, this is nothing new, and has been done many times before. One example that is often mentioned is Starcraft II’s use of stencil buffers. People with inside knowledge of that game’s development have said that Nvidia gave Blizzard help in coding some parts of the game during the final ‘crunch’ period. The code is said to heavily use stencil buffers to fix some issues and patch over minor glitches. Again nothing unusual, AMD, Intel, and almost everyone else does this on a case by case basis, especially for AAA titles released in conjunction with new hardware.
Since Nvidia’s Fermi generation GPUs are very good at handling stencil buffers, they perform very well on this code. Again, this is normal practice, Nvidia put in the effort and now reaps the benefits, good for them. What is odd about this case, is that several knowledgeable sources have said that the code actually net decreases performance on both cards. The above tale may be anecdotal, but Starcraft 2′s release code sure seemed to use stencil buffers a lot more than you would expect, unreasonably so according to many coders. This however doesn’t constitute proof in any way, but it fits what SemiAccurate has seen Nvidia do in prior cases.
More to the point is antialiasing (AA) in Batman: Arkham Asylum. If you recall, AMD stated complaining about that game’s AA routines upon release. They directly stated that if AMD cards were detected, the game would disable AA for non-technical reasons. (Note: The original post that TechPowerUp refers to has the pertinent sections in the comments, not on the front page. It takes a little searching to find the post that also talks about several other games having similar ‘bugs’.) It goes on to state that if the card IDs were changed, the AA in the game functioned correctly on ATI hardware.
Short story, this turned in to the proverbial “epic pissing match”, with Nvidia claiming that it was Eidos that owned the code, and they were free to do with it as they feel fit. This is technically true. Unfortunately, emails seen by SemiAccurate directly contradict this. Those emails state unequivocally that Eidos should not change code written by Nvidia and provided to Eidos as a part of Batman: Arkham Asylum. At the point they were questioned on why, Eidos says they could not do anything due to advice of their attorneys.
Since it was the attorneys objecting, not the coders, we can only speculate that this was due to Nvidia’s financial sponsorship of the game, not any technical reason. Since sources tell SemiAccurate that Batman: Arkham Asylum only uses standard DirectX calls to implement AA, and it appears to function if the graphics card IDs are changed, this seems to be nothing other than Nvidia directly sabotaging their competition and not allowing AMD remove the lockout. Go and re-read the statements from AMD/ATI, Nvidia, and Eidos, then draw your own conclusions.
Why do we bring these two cases up in a Kepler article? Well, we hear that it is happening again. Both AMD and Nvidia have developers that they can and do ‘embed’ at game companies. This is an old and quite legitimate practice for GPU and non-GPU hardware companies. Everyone does it. It can be done ethically or not, with net performance gains for the end user or not, and with the intent to hurt or harm. In general, the more marketing money involved, the more most developers are willing to go out on a shaky ethical limbs.
One last really good example, tesselation. High end Fermi cards, GF100/110/GTX480/GTX580 are heavily biased toward geometry performance. Since most modern GPUs can compute multiple triangles per displayable pixel on any currently available monitor, usually multiple monitors, doubling that performance is a rather dubious win. Doubling it again makes you wonder why so die area was wasted.
Since Nvidia did waste that die area, helping games show that prowess off is a good thing for users, right? Look at Crysis 2, a AAA title that is heavily promoted by Nvidia, it positively flies on Fermi based cards, but performance on AMD GPUs is far less impressive. Why? The amazing detail in things like the concrete blocks, brick walls, and vast expanses of realistically modelled water. Breathtaking isn’t it? All thanks to Nvidia’s efforts to make the game experience better on their hardware. How could this be interpreted as anything but a win for users by a reasonable observer?
Nvidia is said to have around 15 developers they can embed at companies to help ‘optimise’ their code, ‘fix bugs’, and work out ‘performance problems’, even if those problems are not on Nvidia hardware. The count for other companies is less clear, but unlikely to be much different. Sources tell SemiAccurate that about half of them are currently working at Eidos on, wait for it, a patch for the recently released Batman: Arkham City game. Since Both the original and and the new Batman games are flag bearers for Nvidia’s hardware/GPU PhysX acceleration, it doesn’t take a genius to connect the dots. Since neither the patch or Kepler based video cards are out yet, we can only wait to see what the end result is.
If the purported patch does change performance radically on specific cards, is this legitimate GPU performance? Yes. How about if it raises performance on Kepler cards while decreasing performance on non-Kepler cards to a point lower than pre-patch levels? How about if it raises performance on Kepler cards while decreasing performance only on non-Nvidia cards? Which scenario will it be? Time will tell.
How many other games have had this level of attention and optimisation gifted upon them is another open question. One thing we can say is that the list of benchmarks shown off by Nvidia where Kepler has an overwhelming advantage all support PhysX. This is not to say that they are all hardware/GPU PhysX accelerated, they are not, most use the software API.
This is important because it strongly suggests that Nvidia is accelerating their own software APIs on Kepler without pointing it out explicitly. Since Kepler is a new card with new drivers, there is no foul play here, and it is a quite legitimate use of the available hardware. Then again, they have been proven to degrade the performance of the competition through either passive or active methods. Since Nvidia controls the APIs and middleware used, the competition can not ‘fix’ these ‘problems with the performance of their hardware’.
Going back to Kepler, we see that this happy and completely ethical game is going to be starting round 3, or round 17, depending on how you count. Nvidia appears to be stacking the playing field to both cripple the competition and raise their own performance. Is the performance of Kepler cards legitimate? Yes. Is it the general case? No. If you look at the most comprehensive list of supported titles we can find, it is long, but the number of titles released per year isn’t all that impressive, and anecdotally speaking, appears to be slowing.
When Kepler is released, you can reasonably expect extremely peaky performance. For some games, specifically those running Nvidia middleware, it should fly. For the rest, performance is likely to fall off the proverbial cliff. Hard. So hard that it will likely be hard pressed to beat AMD’s mid-range card.
What does this mean in the end? Is it cheating? Is it ethical? Is Kepler/GK104 going to be worth the money? Will it beat AMD’s 7970? These are all subjective decisions for you to make. What software will Nvidia show off as benchmarks to promote Kepler’s performance? That list is a little narrower. What will happen to sites that dare to test software that is not ‘legitimately accelerated’? No idea, but history offers some clues. One thing you can say for sure is that the information released prior to and with the card is unlikely to be the whole story. Legitimacy, performance, honesty, and ethics are unlikely to resemble the official talking points, and the whole truth is likely to be hidden from prying eyes for very partisan reasons. Big grains of salt around this one people, be very skeptical of everything you hear, and take nothing at face value.S|A

If this is true I guess the bad news is I don't see the GK104 being enough to drive AMD HD7970 prices down. Also while I do understand the thought process behind Nvidia's business model here. I am still not sure if I agree with the way they would be going about it.
If this is really the new era of video cards we are going into..... (Some would argue it's been this way for awhile) then I must say we will have to start building our systems around the games we want to play. Which I don't agree with at at all.
 
Joined
Oct 29, 2010
Messages
2,972 (0.61/day)
System Name Old Fart / Young Dude
Processor 2500K / 6600K
Motherboard ASRock P67Extreme4 / Gigabyte GA-Z170-HD3 DDR3
Cooling CM Hyper TX3 / CM Hyper 212 EVO
Memory 16 GB Kingston HyperX / 16 GB G.Skill Ripjaws X
Video Card(s) Gigabyte GTX 1050 Ti / INNO3D RTX 2060
Storage SSD, some WD and lots of Samsungs
Display(s) BenQ GW2470 / LG UHD 43" TV
Case Cooler Master CM690 II Advanced / Thermaltake Core v31
Audio Device(s) Asus Xonar D1/Denon PMA500AE/Wharfedale D 10.1/ FiiO D03K/ JBL LSR 305
Power Supply Corsair TX650 / Corsair TX650M
Mouse Steelseries Rival 100 / Rival 110
Keyboard Sidewinder/ Steelseries Apex 150
Software Windows 10 / Windows 10 Pro
Big grains of salt around this one people, be very skeptical of everything you hear, and take nothing at face value.

That's a good advice from Charlie regarding his own article.
 
Joined
Oct 6, 2009
Messages
2,820 (0.53/day)
Location
Midwest USA
System Name My Gaming System
Processor Intel i7 4770k @ 4.4 Ghz
Motherboard Asus Maximus VI Impact (ITX)
Cooling Custom Full System Water cooling Loop
Memory G.Skill 1866 Mhz Sniper 8 Gb
Video Card(s) EVGA GTX 780 ti SC
Storage Samsung SSD EVO 120GB - Samsung SSD EVO 500GB
Display(s) ASUS W246H - 24" - widescreen TFT active matrix LCD
Case Bitfenix Prodigy
Power Supply Corsair AX760 Modular PSU
Software Windows 8.1 Home Primeum
That's a good advice from Charlie regarding his own article.

Agreed Like I said in my very first sentence I don't often take a lot of stock into what Charlie says. But with that out of the way. He is sometimes correct. He has also been correct on enough things that I do believe he really does have contacts in some certain places. Whether he is actually using them here or just making up this story still has to be seen. But something tells me that this is more plausible then not.
 
Joined
Aug 7, 2007
Messages
2,723 (0.45/day)
Processor i5-7600k
Motherboard ASRock Z170 Pro4
Cooling CM Hyper 212 EVO w/ AC MX-4
Memory 2x8GB DDR4 2400 Corsair LPX Vengeance 15-15-15-36
Video Card(s) MSI Twin Frozr 1070ti
Storage 240GB Corsair Force GT
Display(s) 23' Dell AW2310
Case Corsair 550D
Power Supply Seasonic SS-760XP2 Platinum
Software Windows 10 Pro 64-bit
I wouldn't be surprised if this article was true. Nvidia did have around 4-5 months of extra time in order to refine Kepler. It all depends on the price now, which I'm sure will be the old-fashioned >$600 for their flagship card :banghead:
 
Joined
Oct 6, 2009
Messages
2,820 (0.53/day)
Location
Midwest USA
System Name My Gaming System
Processor Intel i7 4770k @ 4.4 Ghz
Motherboard Asus Maximus VI Impact (ITX)
Cooling Custom Full System Water cooling Loop
Memory G.Skill 1866 Mhz Sniper 8 Gb
Video Card(s) EVGA GTX 780 ti SC
Storage Samsung SSD EVO 120GB - Samsung SSD EVO 500GB
Display(s) ASUS W246H - 24" - widescreen TFT active matrix LCD
Case Bitfenix Prodigy
Power Supply Corsair AX760 Modular PSU
Software Windows 8.1 Home Primeum
I wouldn't be surprised if this article was true. Nvidia did have around 4-5 months of extra time in order to refine Kepler. It all depends on the price now, which I'm sure will be the old-fashioned >$600 for their flagship card :banghead:

Although I don't believe the GK104 is supposed to be their flag ship card. I believe it supposed to compete more with the HD7950/HD7870.

Here's one thing I noticed though with this. Who cares if I can play PhysX games at 1000FPS most of them are old or not all that exciting. Only a couple come to mind that are all that great and most of them have been released for quite some time already.
Even if this is not only limited to just PhysX which I am sure it won't be....does that mean ever other game that I want to play that is not optimized for Nvidia will just run like shit on kepler?
 
Joined
Nov 13, 2007
Messages
10,209 (1.71/day)
Location
Austin Texas
Processor 13700KF Undervolted @ 5.6/ 5.5, 4.8Ghz Ring 200W PL1
Motherboard MSI 690-I PRO
Cooling Thermalright Peerless Assassin 120 w/ Arctic P12 Fans
Memory 48 GB DDR5 7600 MHZ CL36
Video Card(s) RTX 4090 FE
Storage 2x 2TB WDC SN850, 1TB Samsung 960 prr
Display(s) Alienware 32" 4k 240hz OLED
Case SLIGER S620
Audio Device(s) Yes
Power Supply Corsair SF750
Mouse Xlite V2
Keyboard RoyalAxe
Software Windows 11
Benchmark Scores They're pretty good, nothing crazy.
Although I don't believe the GK104 is supposed to be their flag ship card. I believe it supposed to compete more with the HD7950/HD7870.

Here's one thing I noticed though with this. Who cares if I can play PhysX games at 1000FPS most of them are old or not all that exciting. Only a couple come to mind that are all that great and most of them have been released for quite some time already.
Even if this is not only limited to just PhysX which I am sure it won't be....does that mean ever other game that I want to play that is not optimized for Nvidia will just run like shit on kepler?

you're thinking of the GK114
 
Joined
Jul 19, 2006
Messages
43,585 (6.74/day)
Processor AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D
Motherboard ASUS TUF x670e
Cooling EK AIO 360. Phantek T30 fans.
Memory 32GB G.Skill 6000Mhz
Video Card(s) Asus RTX 4090
Storage WD m.2
Display(s) LG C2 Evo OLED 42"
Case Lian Li PC 011 Dynamic Evo
Audio Device(s) Topping E70 DAC, SMSL SP200 Headphone Amp.
Power Supply FSP Hydro Ti PRO 1000W
Mouse Razer Basilisk V3 Pro
Keyboard Tester84
Software Windows 11
Although I don't believe the GK104 is supposed to be their flag ship card. I believe it supposed to compete more with the HD7950/HD7870.

They've fallen behind. By the time they release their "flagship" card, AMD will be just abot ready to launch their next series. We still don't have an actual timeframe for any new Nvidia card. Then again, things can change very quickly as far as these things go.
 
Joined
May 22, 2010
Messages
2,516 (0.50/day)
Location
Canada
System Name m1dg3t | DeathBox | HairPi 3
Processor 3570k @ 4.0 1.15v BIOS | q9550 @ 3.77 1.325v BIOS
Motherboard Asrock z77e iTX | p5q Dlx 2301 BIOS
Cooling Custom Water | D-14 & HR-03gt | Passive HSF
Memory Samsung MV-3V4G3D 4g x 2 @ 1866 1.35v | OcZ RpR 2g x 4 @ 1067 2.2v
Video Card(s) MSi 7950 tf3 @1000 / 1350 | Asus 5870 V2 @ 900 / 1275
Storage Adata sx900 256Gb / WD 2500 HHTZ | WD 1001 FALS x 2
Display(s) BenQ gw2750hm | 46" Sharp Quatron
Case BitFenix Prodigy - m0dd3d | Antec Fusion Remote MAX
Audio Device(s) Onboard Toslink > Yamaha HTR 6290 | Xonar HDAV1.3 > Yamaha DSP z7
Power Supply Ocz mXp700w | Ocz zx850w | Cannakit 5v 2.5a
Mouse Logitech G700s | Logitech G9x - Cable Repaired
Keyboard TT Meka G1 - Black w Cherry Blacks| Logitech G11
Software Win7 Home | Xp sp3 & Vista ultimate | Raspbian
Benchmark Scores Epeen!! Who needs epeen??
Isn't that the same guy who was spreading lie's a couple week's back? In any event untill i see one being reviewed i'll believe nothing anyone say's about it. Afterall we're talkin' about Nvidia here, seem's like someone is trying to take a bite out of AMd's sale's. AGAIN :laugh:
 
Joined
Oct 6, 2009
Messages
2,820 (0.53/day)
Location
Midwest USA
System Name My Gaming System
Processor Intel i7 4770k @ 4.4 Ghz
Motherboard Asus Maximus VI Impact (ITX)
Cooling Custom Full System Water cooling Loop
Memory G.Skill 1866 Mhz Sniper 8 Gb
Video Card(s) EVGA GTX 780 ti SC
Storage Samsung SSD EVO 120GB - Samsung SSD EVO 500GB
Display(s) ASUS W246H - 24" - widescreen TFT active matrix LCD
Case Bitfenix Prodigy
Power Supply Corsair AX760 Modular PSU
Software Windows 8.1 Home Primeum
Isn't that the same guy who was spreading lie's a couple week's back? In any event untill i see one being reviewed i'll believe nothing anyone say's about it. Afterall we're talkin' about Nvidia here, seem's like someone is trying to take a bite out of AMd's sale's. AGAIN :laugh:

No I believe you are thinking of couple of different rumors that were going around recently. (Examples HD7980 with 4000 shaders due on april 1st and the other 7980 toxic on sapphires card list as well as other rumors) Charlie had nothing to do with those that I am aware of. He has been involved with other instances of planting what some believe as misinformation. But this round so far has not been one of those instances.
I guess what also leads me to believe this to be more true then false is the specifics he seemed to have rattled off here. They are not too outlandish and seemed to be pretty precise. Or at least as precise as the NDA will allow someone to be.
Not to mention the time Charlie has been accused to give out false information it has been in AMD/ATI's favor. His last few articles concerning this gens video cards have been pretty fair if not leaning toward the Nvidia side.
He has been right in the past I've seen it. Plus if he isn't right ever everyone would have stopped listening to him.

They've fallen behind. By the time they release their "flagship" card, AMD will be just abot ready to launch their next series. We still don't have an actual timeframe for any new Nvidia card. Then again, things can change very quickly as far as these things go.

This is another great point. Nvidia's GK114 is not supposed to release until late Q3 or even Q4 of 2012. If this happens I am almost positive that AMD will have something waiting for Nvidia. If Nvidia wants to make a real impact this round they need to come with their best foot forward first. Otherwise we will have another GTX 480 vs. HD5870 situation on our hands.
I would also like to add that my place of business is a Nvidia distributor that gets Nvidia cards well in advance of when they usually release. So far I have not seen us get anything in for testing. ( But that could change any day as well)
 
Last edited:
Joined
Jul 10, 2011
Messages
788 (0.17/day)
Processor Intel
Motherboard MSI
Cooling Cooler Master
Memory Corsair
Video Card(s) Nvidia
Storage Samsung/Western Digital/ADATA
Display(s) Samsung
Case Thermaltake
Audio Device(s) On Board
Power Supply Seasonic
Mouse A4TECH
Keyboard UniKey
Software Windows 10 x64

the54thvoid

Intoxicated Moderator
Staff member
Joined
Dec 14, 2009
Messages
12,378 (2.37/day)
Location
Glasgow - home of formal profanity
Processor Ryzen 7800X3D
Motherboard MSI MAG Mortar B650 (wifi)
Cooling be quiet! Dark Rock Pro 4
Memory 32GB Kingston Fury
Video Card(s) Gainward RTX4070ti
Storage Seagate FireCuda 530 M.2 1TB / Samsumg 960 Pro M.2 512Gb
Display(s) LG 32" 165Hz 1440p GSYNC
Case Asus Prime AP201
Audio Device(s) On Board
Power Supply be quiet! Pure POwer M12 850w Gold (ATX3.0)
Software W10

If Nvidia sponsor a game and give devs money then that is very well accpeted. AMD do it too. Having ultra powerful hardware to do specific things that are coded into a TWIMTBP game is also not a bad thing.
The bad thing is, as CD pointed out in the S/A article is for the GK104 at least, it may possibly result in mainstream performance in non sponsored titles.

Now, what folk ae missng is that if the GK104 does sell for the touted super low price (unlikely, surely) then it will be pitted against the mainstream cards anyway, so mainstream performance should be expected.

For a long time we've always compared cost versus perf. If GK104 has mediocre mainstream performance but is costed significantly cheaper than the 79xx series then it is NOT a bad thing. If this same card has the power in certain titles to annihilate top end gpu's then that makes it a kind of eclectic superhero (like Hancock).

Also, driver optimisiations can still elevate the hardware. Even now, crossfire 79xx's are tanking somewhat at 2560 on some titles.

I would gladly pay less bucks for a mainstream card that can excell against cards costing hundreds more in certain titles.

But, we'll all still have to wait and see because until it's benched we're still pissing in the wind.

And if NV have strict review criteria with strict benchmarks, I think W1zzard should diplomatically not review it, so if we dont get a TPU review, we know we can't trust the card and if W1zz does test it, then we'll know it's at least an open review.
 
Joined
Oct 29, 2010
Messages
2,972 (0.61/day)
System Name Old Fart / Young Dude
Processor 2500K / 6600K
Motherboard ASRock P67Extreme4 / Gigabyte GA-Z170-HD3 DDR3
Cooling CM Hyper TX3 / CM Hyper 212 EVO
Memory 16 GB Kingston HyperX / 16 GB G.Skill Ripjaws X
Video Card(s) Gigabyte GTX 1050 Ti / INNO3D RTX 2060
Storage SSD, some WD and lots of Samsungs
Display(s) BenQ GW2470 / LG UHD 43" TV
Case Cooler Master CM690 II Advanced / Thermaltake Core v31
Audio Device(s) Asus Xonar D1/Denon PMA500AE/Wharfedale D 10.1/ FiiO D03K/ JBL LSR 305
Power Supply Corsair TX650 / Corsair TX650M
Mouse Steelseries Rival 100 / Rival 110
Keyboard Sidewinder/ Steelseries Apex 150
Software Windows 10 / Windows 10 Pro
The more I read into that the more I think the guy hasn't got a clue about what's going on but pretentiously tries to find explanations for his own very personal theory about Kepler.

This PhisX stuff is fishy, I mean in any run of benchmarks there's only one title, Batman AC that uses phisX which is NV proprietary and can be enabled or disabled. When you do a benchmark of this game for AMD and NV cards you don't enable phisX because AMD is not supported!

So what are the other games that Charlie is talking about where NV shines and where it bombs because it is clearly not about phisX but games that are or are not coded mysteriously to support either NV either AMD better?

So, if this phisX stuff magically increases the powers of Kepler it should do this in only one title commonly used for benchmarks, what about the other titles where the new chip is much better than the 580 and Tahiti?

I mean, 50% difference in performance (that is 10% over the 7970 in NV games and 40% lower than 7970 - estimated perf of Pitcairn in AMD games) from a game to another seems ridiculous.

And I really don't think NV will cherry pick the reviewers and the games they review. This would be worse publicity than launching a chip that is slower than Tahiti but is smaller, power efficient and much cheaper.
 

AsRock

TPU addict
Joined
Jun 23, 2007
Messages
18,851 (3.08/day)
Location
UK\USA
Processor AMD 3900X \ AMD 7700X
Motherboard ASRock AM4 X570 Pro 4 \ ASUS X670Xe TUF
Cooling D15
Memory Patriot 2x16GB PVS432G320C6K \ G.Skill Flare X5 F5-6000J3238F 2x16GB
Video Card(s) eVga GTX1060 SSC \ XFX RX 6950XT RX-695XATBD9
Storage Sammy 860, MX500, Sabrent Rocket 4 Sammy Evo 980 \ 1xSabrent Rocket 4+, Sammy 2x990 Pro
Display(s) Samsung 1080P \ LG 43UN700
Case Fractal Design Pop Air 2x140mm fans from Torrent \ Fractal Design Torrent 2 SilverStone FHP141x2
Audio Device(s) Yamaha RX-V677 \ Yamaha CX-830+Yamaha MX-630 Infinity RS4000\Paradigm P Studio 20, Blue Yeti
Power Supply Seasonic Prime TX-750 \ Corsair RM1000X Shift
Mouse Steelseries Sensei wireless \ Steelseries Sensei wireless
Keyboard Logitech K120 \ Wooting Two HE
Benchmark Scores Meh benchmarks.
I wish some one would put a bullet in Charlie's head already..
 
Joined
Oct 29, 2009
Messages
2,666 (0.51/day)
System Name Old Gateway / Steam Deck OLED LE
Processor i5 4440 3.1ghz / Jupiter 4c 8t
Motherboard Gateway / Valve
Cooling Eh it doesn't thermal throttle
Memory 2x 8GB JEDEC 1600mhz DDR3 / 16gb DDR5 6400
Video Card(s) RX 560D 4GB / Navi II 8CU
Storage 240gb 2.5 SSD / 1TB nvme
Display(s) Dell @ 1280*1024 75hz / 800p OLED
Case Gateway / Valve LE
Audio Device(s) Gateway Diamond Audio EMC2.0-USB 5375U ($15 a long ass time ago), Valve
Power Supply 380w oem / 65w valve USB-C
Mouse Purple Walmart special, 1600dpi. Black desk mat
Keyboard SteelSeries Apex 100 / virtual
VR HMD Lmao
Software Windows 10 / Steam OS
Benchmark Scores It can run Crysis (Original), Doom 2016, and Halo MCC. SD LE 45fps
at first it was making sense, then it quickly went to conspiracy theory.
 

qubit

Overclocked quantum bit
Joined
Dec 6, 2007
Messages
17,866 (3.00/day)
Location
Quantum Well UK
System Name Quantumville™
Processor Intel Core i7-2700K @ 4GHz
Motherboard Asus P8Z68-V PRO/GEN3
Cooling Noctua NH-D14
Memory 16GB (2 x 8GB Corsair Vengeance Black DDR3 PC3-12800 C9 1600MHz)
Video Card(s) MSI RTX 2080 SUPER Gaming X Trio
Storage Samsung 850 Pro 256GB | WD Black 4TB | WD Blue 6TB
Display(s) ASUS ROG Strix XG27UQR (4K, 144Hz, G-SYNC compatible) | Asus MG28UQ (4K, 60Hz, FreeSync compatible)
Case Cooler Master HAF 922
Audio Device(s) Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Fatal1ty PCIe
Power Supply Corsair AX1600i
Mouse Microsoft Intellimouse Pro - Black Shadow
Keyboard Yes
Software Windows 10 Pro 64-bit
So I always don't put much stock into what Charlie at Semiaccurate.com says.

The thing about Charlie is that he's good at finding and reporting interesting stories, but he draws outlandish conclusions from them and often rants unreasonably, which is what brings him down.
 
Joined
Oct 29, 2010
Messages
2,972 (0.61/day)
System Name Old Fart / Young Dude
Processor 2500K / 6600K
Motherboard ASRock P67Extreme4 / Gigabyte GA-Z170-HD3 DDR3
Cooling CM Hyper TX3 / CM Hyper 212 EVO
Memory 16 GB Kingston HyperX / 16 GB G.Skill Ripjaws X
Video Card(s) Gigabyte GTX 1050 Ti / INNO3D RTX 2060
Storage SSD, some WD and lots of Samsungs
Display(s) BenQ GW2470 / LG UHD 43" TV
Case Cooler Master CM690 II Advanced / Thermaltake Core v31
Audio Device(s) Asus Xonar D1/Denon PMA500AE/Wharfedale D 10.1/ FiiO D03K/ JBL LSR 305
Power Supply Corsair TX650 / Corsair TX650M
Mouse Steelseries Rival 100 / Rival 110
Keyboard Sidewinder/ Steelseries Apex 150
Software Windows 10 / Windows 10 Pro
Joined
Dec 6, 2005
Messages
10,881 (1.63/day)
Location
Manchester, NH
System Name Senile
Processor I7-4790K@4.8 GHz 24/7
Motherboard MSI Z97-G45 Gaming
Cooling Be Quiet Pure Rock Air
Memory 16GB 4x4 G.Skill CAS9 2133 Sniper
Video Card(s) GIGABYTE Vega 64
Storage Samsung EVO 500GB / 8 Different WDs / QNAP TS-253 8GB NAS with 2x10Tb WD Blue
Display(s) 34" LG 34CB88-P 21:9 Curved UltraWide QHD (3440*1440) *FREE_SYNC*
Case Rosewill
Audio Device(s) Onboard + HD HDMI
Power Supply Corsair HX750
Mouse Logitech G5
Keyboard Corsair Strafe RGB & G610 Orion Red
Software Win 10
Sort of on-topic... My understanding why PhisX hasn't been widely adopted, it adds a large burden of design and development time to a game. I'm sure NV targeted Arkham and provided dedicated resources to help defray that cost. In return, the essentially got them to blacklist AMD from the game (Not a surprising move by NV, they typically don't like to play with anything remotely resembling competition).

What does this have to do with GK104? Marketing... more than anything else.
 
Joined
Apr 2, 2011
Messages
2,645 (0.56/day)
So let me offer my understanding of what has happened this far:

AMD releases 79xx series of single GPU cards. They are the first to use the 28nm fabrication process.
Nvidea sees AMD performance figures, and says our GPUs will beat that performance. Lacking to say "with a few more months development time before release."
"Journalist" (I use the term loosely) sees potential for marketing to offer an inflated "performance" review, based upon GPU makers proprietary technology. This increase may or may not translate to generically higher performance in most tasks, but concludes that marketing will use these "exaggerated" performance figures to sell cards.


I don't own a single Nvidea card, given my distaste for previous experiences with them. That said, nothing has been launched or bench marked. This is a purely speculative article, with as much grounding as a hot air balloon. Wake me when this "journalist" has something credible to offer.
 

btarunr

Editor & Senior Moderator
Staff member
Joined
Oct 9, 2007
Messages
46,277 (7.69/day)
Location
Hyderabad, India
System Name RBMK-1000
Processor AMD Ryzen 7 5700G
Motherboard ASUS ROG Strix B450-E Gaming
Cooling DeepCool Gammax L240 V2
Memory 2x 8GB G.Skill Sniper X
Video Card(s) Palit GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER GameRock
Storage Western Digital Black NVMe 512GB
Display(s) BenQ 1440p 60 Hz 27-inch
Case Corsair Carbide 100R
Audio Device(s) ASUS SupremeFX S1220A
Power Supply Cooler Master MWE Gold 650W
Mouse ASUS ROG Strix Impact
Keyboard Gamdias Hermes E2
Software Windows 11 Pro
There's panic in NVIDIA, you'll find even weirder theories* than this, in the days to come. Maybe GK104 is faster, maybe it's not, but it will be late to the market.

*secret physics processing mojo.

One industry watcher said to TechEye the company is in "holy s**t" mode - having been confident that the GK104 would fight off and trounce the competition, but the timing is out of whack. When Nvidia does get its high-end Kepler chip out in the second half of the year, the competition is going to be ready with something else.
 
Last edited:
Joined
Sep 1, 2009
Messages
1,182 (0.22/day)
Location
CO
System Name 4k
Processor AMD 5800x3D
Motherboard MSI MAG b550m Mortar Wifi
Cooling Corsair H100i
Memory 4x8Gb Crucial Ballistix 3600 CL16 bl8g36c16u4b.m8fe1
Video Card(s) Nvidia Reference 3080Ti
Storage ADATA XPG SX8200 Pro 1TB
Display(s) LG 48" C1
Case CORSAIR Carbide AIR 240 Micro-ATX
Audio Device(s) Asus Xonar STX
Power Supply EVGA SuperNOVA 650W
Software Microsoft Windows10 Pro x64
I dont think its a Physx shaders i think its actually physics shaders. Meaning, games that are TWIMTBP will benefit greatly, but visually will be the same as the AMD cards. Just a software way to boost frames. This is similar to the AMD 7900 Leo tech demo.
 
Joined
Mar 24, 2011
Messages
2,356 (0.50/day)
Location
VT
Processor Intel i7-10700k
Motherboard Gigabyte Aurorus Ultra z490
Cooling Corsair H100i RGB
Memory 32GB (4x8GB) Corsair Vengeance DDR4-3200MHz
Video Card(s) MSI Gaming Trio X 3070 LHR
Display(s) ASUS MG278Q / AOC G2590FX
Case Corsair X4000 iCue
Audio Device(s) Onboard
Power Supply Corsair RM650x 650W Fully Modular
Software Windows 10
This all seems a little too outlandish...
 
Joined
Oct 29, 2010
Messages
2,972 (0.61/day)
System Name Old Fart / Young Dude
Processor 2500K / 6600K
Motherboard ASRock P67Extreme4 / Gigabyte GA-Z170-HD3 DDR3
Cooling CM Hyper TX3 / CM Hyper 212 EVO
Memory 16 GB Kingston HyperX / 16 GB G.Skill Ripjaws X
Video Card(s) Gigabyte GTX 1050 Ti / INNO3D RTX 2060
Storage SSD, some WD and lots of Samsungs
Display(s) BenQ GW2470 / LG UHD 43" TV
Case Cooler Master CM690 II Advanced / Thermaltake Core v31
Audio Device(s) Asus Xonar D1/Denon PMA500AE/Wharfedale D 10.1/ FiiO D03K/ JBL LSR 305
Power Supply Corsair TX650 / Corsair TX650M
Mouse Steelseries Rival 100 / Rival 110
Keyboard Sidewinder/ Steelseries Apex 150
Software Windows 10 / Windows 10 Pro

brandonwh64

Addicted to Bacon and StarCrunches!!!
Joined
Sep 6, 2009
Messages
19,542 (3.68/day)
OK, so here's another disturbing news from the rumor mill:

http://lenzfire.com/2012/02/entire-nvidia-kepler-series-specifications-price-release-date-43823/

This time everything is leaked, specs, prices release dates on all Kepler lineup.
Who's Lenzfire?

WTF!

 
Top