NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980 4 GB

[JethroBodine]

Maybe not three years earlier but definetly sooner.

Remember when AMD was nothing and intel was everithing? rest my case.

Remember?

What? This year? Last? 2012? 2011? I have a harder time remembering to when AMD was something, because I think it was June 2006.

My guess is this will only get worse. No competition for intel on the horizon. Maxwell boots them out of laptops effectively. Low margins on console chips. If I'm right on slight core revisions for upcoming GPUs tough sledding ahead for AMD.

 

[N3M3515]

Remember?

What? This year? Last? 2012? 2011? I have a harder time remembering to when AMD was something, because I think it was June 2006.

My guess is this will only get worse. No competition for intel on the horizon. Maxwell boots them out of laptops effectively. Low margins on console chips. If I'm right on slight core revisions for upcoming GPUs tough sledding ahead for AMD.

What i was impliying, is that AMD was nothing long ago(14 years), and managed to beat intel(performance/power - wise), with fewer resources than it has now, can they do it again? i don't know, but there's a good chance it happens. It's normal.

 

[JethroBodine]

What i was impliying, is that AMD was nothing long ago(14 years), and managed to beat intel(performance/power - wise), with fewer resources than it has now, can they do it again? i don't know, but there's a good chance it happens. It's normal.

There's a "good chance" AMD will beat intel when they're behind in IPC, process node, losing money practically every quarter for many years, and having a market cap equal to about one quarter of profits for intel?!

 

[64K]

I would say 500Watt would be safe for SLI gtx 980 4GB and 400 watt would be safe for a single gtx 980 4GB. You want at least 100watt breathing room to make sure your PSU has a long life.

That being said, my 1200watt PSU is seriously overkill now.

No it wouldn't. To SLI the GTX 980 would overload the 500 watt PSU.

 

[frdmftr]

What matters to most consumers is performance per dollar and not how much wafer they get. I have never bought a card based on the size of its wafer. The power efficiency is an important perk though.

Does anyone know someone who buys hardware for the size of its chip rather than performance or value? I am starting to wonder what you are arguing for. That Nvidia shouldn't succeed doing more with less wafer and profiting? I want AMD to recover but they seem behind in every way.

Preformance should be rewarded. but with Kepler Nvidia switched from being the green team to the Greed team. The $200 price point for Nvidia's mid range goes all the way back to the 8000 series. Watch what happened with Kepler

GF 104 332mm2 $199 (GTX 460)
GF 114 360mm2 $199 (GTX 560)
GK 204 294mm2 $500 (GTX 680)

Overnight the price went up 150% By sleight of hand the X80 series became a mid range card in the line up. And the new flagship is now $1000
Again, of course preformance should be rewarded but at what point does it become gouging?
Look at what this pricing did to those that would later purchase a 780 when the 290 was released.
Had Nvidia kept the 680 with the GK 110 as origionally planned we the consumer could actually buy an Nvidia card with out wasting money on something that will be devalued 33% overnight

The same is true for the 780ti. and the hit anyone who bought one is taking. Not a very good way to treat loyal customers.

Of course chip development takes time and obviously AMD wasn't sitting on the hawaii chip. All I'm saying is if Nvidia released the 680 with the GK110 chip and charged $600 from the get go how much sooner could have amd come to market with the 290 series? Not to mention at that point it would have held the $600 price point for some time and the consumer could have bought with confidenfce. AND at the end of the day Nvidia makes more money. Increased duration of sales for the GK 204 at a price point of $400 and the GK 110 at $600. AND along with it would have been a steeper reduction of price of the 7900 series from AMD.
As you can see the greed from Nvidia hurt the game developers, the gamers and the development of this industry as a whole.

So today we are left with a chip that not that long ago was at a $200 price point. Of course the preformance is very impressive but if they were making money with this chip at $200 they are now making truckloads of money at $550 and laughing thier way to the bank with your money.

 

[DaedalusHelios]

No it wouldn't. To SLI the GTX 980 would overload the 500 watt PSU.

Yeah with a 100watt+ breathing room 600watt sounds safer. http://us.hardware.info/reviews/562...way-sli-review-test-results-power-consumption

Haswell-E with GTX 980 SLI consumes 429W on their test. I am sure you couldn't run furmark and get that though.

Preformance should be rewarded. but with Kepler Nvidia switched from being the green team to the Greed team. The $200 price point for Nvidia's mid range goes all the way back to the 8000 series. Watch what happened with Kepler
~snip~
So today we are left with a chip that not that long ago was at a $200 price point. Of course the preformance is very impressive but if they were making money with this chip at $200 they are now making truckloads of money at $550 and laughing thier way to the bank with your money.

Pure capitalism is a system self-controlled by greed. Nvidia is just another supplier. If you had say one thousand cards you made a month and charged $200 when people were fully willing to buy it for $550, would that make you very good at running a business?

I would like to get more for less too. They will charge as much as they think will maximize profits because publicly traded companies are out to maximize profits for their shareholders. Dealing with what volumes they can produce and how many customers are willing to pay a given amount. They don't sit down and talk about what they think will be fair and decide that way.

 

[JethroBodine]

Preformance should be rewarded. but with Kepler Nvidia switched from being the green team to the Greed team. The $200 price point for Nvidia's mid range goes all the way back to the 8000 series. Watch what happened with Kepler

GF 104 332mm2 $199 (GTX 460)
GF 114 360mm2 $199 (GTX 560)
GK 204 294mm2 $500 (GTX 680)

Overnight the price went up 150% By sleight of hand the X80 series became a mid range card in the line up. And the new flagship is now $1000
Again, of course preformance should be rewarded but at what point does it become gouging?
Look at what this pricing did to those that would later purchase a 780 when the 290 was released.
Had Nvidia kept the 680 with the GK 110 as origionally planned we the consumer could actually buy an Nvidia card with out wasting money on something that will be devalued 33% overnight

The same is true for the 780ti. and the hit anyone who bought one is taking. Not a very good way to treat loyal customers.

Of course chip development takes time and obviously AMD wasn't sitting on the hawaii chip. All I'm saying is if Nvidia released the 680 with the GK110 chip and charged $600 from the get go how much sooner could have amd come to market with the 290 series? Not to mention at that point it would have held the $600 price point for some time and the consumer could have bought with confidenfce. AND at the end of the day Nvidia makes more money. Increased duration of sales for the GK 204 at a price point of $400 and the GK 110 at $600. AND along with it would have been a steeper reduction of price of the 7900 series from AMD.
As you can see the greed from Nvidia hurt the game developers, the gamers and the development of this industry as a whole.

So today we are left with a chip that not that long ago was at a $200 price point. Of course the preformance is very impressive but if they were making money with this chip at $200 they are now making truckloads of money at $550 and laughing thier way to the bank with your money.

A. NVIDIA sells on performance, not wafer size. People buy based on performance, not wafer size.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Zotac/GeForce_GTX_660/27.html

The 660Ti (mid-range chip for the Kepler gen at $300) outperforms last gen top chip, the GTX580. The GTX660 (4th highest performing Kepler) outperforms last gen's 2nd highest chip, the 570.

B. As big of an AMD supporter as you are, you should be very happy NVIDIA sold GTX680s for $500 instead of $200. (or even $300) Know why? Not one person on the planet would have bought an AMD part if GTX680s cost $200. Everyone would have GTX680s and AMD would be out of business.

C. $500 is not NVIDIA's high end price point now. If people stop buying their $750-$1000 cards, prices may come back down to $500, but I wouldn't count on it unless AMD actually competes. If you want to blame anyone for NVIDIA's pricing, blame AMD. Look at their last launch the 290X. Yes, they caught up to the Titan in performance in the 50db meltdown mode, but the cards were definitely second class compared to Titans and 780s. Noisey little blast furnaces, while NV was selling cool and quiet cards.

Roy Taylor of AMD says "We love competition!" and "You ain't seen nothing yet!" but their engineering isn't backing him up to date. Maybe we'll see a change today with their announcement, but until they actually compete NVIDIA will charge first tier prices and AMD will take the scraps and keep losing market share.

 

[rtwjunkie]

I don't know if anybody here can say the gtx 980 is a midrange card as a "fact" unless Nvidia confirms it with you though. Or are you saying you consider it a midrange card and that is your opinion? Fact and opinion are not the same thing. Maybe you have information you are breaking NDA on?

Why do you consider GTX 680 a midrange card? It filled the "high end" single GPU spot in the Nvidia GTX 600 series product lineup.

What he is referring to is not the cards being midrange, but the chips used IN those cards. And on that matter he is correct. The current high-end card is built on the mid-range Maxwell(GM204). GM200 is nearly ready, thus your high-end chip will be released eventually to a high(er) end card that no one here can actually guess correctly at yet.

 

[frdmftr]

A. NVIDIA sells on performance, not wafer size. People buy based on performance, not wafer size.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Zotac/GeForce_GTX_660/27.html

The 660Ti (mid-range chip for the Kepler gen at $300) outperforms last gen top chip, the GTX580. The GTX660 (4th highest performing Kepler) outperforms last gen's 2nd highest chip, the 570.

B. As big of an AMD supporter as you are, you should be very happy NVIDIA sold GTX680s for $500 instead of $200. (or even $300) Know why? Not one person on the planet would have bought an AMD part if GTX680s cost $200. Everyone would have GTX680s and AMD would be out of business.

C. $500 is not NVIDIA's high end price point now. If people stop buying their $750-$1000 cards, prices may come back down to $500, but I wouldn't count on it unless AMD actually competes. If you want to blame anyone for NVIDIA's pricing, blame AMD. Look at their last launch the 290X. Yes, they caught up to the Titan in performance in the 50db meltdown mode, but the cards were definitely second class compared to Titans and 780s. Noisey little blast furnaces, while NV was selling cool and quiet cards.

Roy Taylor of AMD says "We love competition!" and "You ain't seen nothing yet!" but their engineering isn't backing him up to date. Maybe we'll see a change today with their announcement, but until they actually compete NVIDIA will charge first tier prices and AMD will take the scraps and keep losing market share.

In all honesty I should have compared it to the 560ti to be fair as this was the fully enabled GF 114 at $250

Also, I have been a loyal Nvidia customer since my first video card, the MMX 440? There is even a pic of my 660SLI setup posted on Nvidia's site. My current set up is a 290x with a GTX 480 as my PhysX Card. The 660's were moved to my kids computers and I sold my GTX 680, I can provide you a link to my craigslist post when I sold that card.

I never said they should have sold the GK 204 for $200. Later in my post I mentioned a price point of $400 for that chip. Like I said I think innovation should be rewarded.

 

[frdmftr]

Yeah with a 100watt+ breathing room 600watt sounds safer. http://us.hardware.info/reviews/562...way-sli-review-test-results-power-consumption

Haswell-E with GTX 980 SLI consumes 429W on their test. I am sure you couldn't run furmark and get that though.



Pure capitalism is a system self-controlled by greed. Nvidia is just another supplier. If you had say one thousand cards you made a month and charged $200 when people were fully willing to buy it for $550, would that make you very good at running a business?

I would like to get more for less too. They will charge as much as they think will maximize profits because publicly traded companies are out to maximize profits for their shareholders. Dealing with what volumes they can produce and how many customers are willing to pay a given amount. They don't sit down and talk about what they think will be fair and decide that way.

 

[JethroBodine]

Nice. Yesterday there's a 9/25 announcement alluded to, with Roy Taylor saying we haven't seen anything yet and that AMD loves competition.

Today on Roy's Twitter he's got an India FirePro link, something about PayPal and Bitcoins, and "Why APUs are OK for gaming".

No competition for the GTX980 and 970 there.

Other rumors say no 290 successor coming till first half 2015. So I guess till then there might not be an competition.

Note to AMD guys: When your reference design at launch has an inferior cooling solution, that's the first impression you make and what people see in the reviews.

 

[RealNeil]

I agree about first impressions. Get it right to begin with and you'll have a lot more traction selling your products.

 

[frdmftr]

Yeah with a 100watt+ breathing room 600watt sounds safer. http://us.hardware.info/reviews/562...way-sli-review-test-results-power-consumption

Haswell-E with GTX 980 SLI consumes 429W on their test. I am sure you couldn't run furmark and get that though.



Pure capitalism is a system self-controlled by greed. Nvidia is just another supplier. If you had say one thousand cards you made a month and charged $200 when people were fully willing to buy it for $550, would that make you very good at running a business?

I would like to get more for less too. They will charge as much as they think will maximize profits because publicly traded companies are out to maximize profits for their shareholders. Dealing with what volumes they can produce and how many customers are willing to pay a given amount. They don't sit down and talk about what they think will be fair and decide that way.

I'm glad you brought up the share holders because withholding the 2304 core GK 110 was a dangerous play for them, a disservice to the gaming industry, and a huge disservice to the consumer. Allow me to explain

First of all had the 2304 GK 110 been released around the time of the GK 204 that card would have sold for $600 a Full year longer than it did and they would still realized huge profits on a GK 204 at $400. Nvidia would have completly owned the top of the market undisputed for at least 9 months. Plus with the GK 110 being more available, game developers would have seen more resources to work with on a larger scale and game development would advance.

Now we know for a fact they were making GK 110's because of the Titan. We know there would have been a decent percentage of chips that did not make the 2600 core standard for the Titan. What were they doing with these chips, they were sitting on a shelf collecting dust thats what.

Here is where the $500 greed on the GK 204 harms everyone including the Shareholders. Now this is a what if and it didn't play out this way as we know, it just goes to show how pure greed is dangerous....

Had the Hawaii (290/290X) chip been a mere 10% faster? At best the 780 would have sold at $650 for only 5 months then it would have gone to $430 maybe $440. AND the 780ti would have only been equal to the 290X and at best the 780Ti would have only been a $620 or so card.

As We know this didn't happen, but it is almost as bad as what actually did, as I have explained above. Additionally, Nvidia's 780 pricing structure was very unstable and the consumer cleary lost value.

Capitalism is putting your best to market at a fair price regardless of what the competition is doing. What Nvidia did and are currently are doing is a plague that has infected this world. Chasing increasing margin with while withholding tech is PURE GREED plain and simple. Think about that as you rush to the store to spend $550 on a chip that had held an introductory market price of $200-$250 since 2005

 

[W1zzard]

Chasing increasing margin with while withholding tech is PURE GREED plain and simple.

Playing devil's advocate here, even though I agree with you: That's how corporations work. If you gave your money to NVIDIA as investor wouldn't you expect maximized returns on your $$ ?
If you had 1 million to invest today, would you give it to AMD or NVIDIA ?

 

[JethroBodine]

Playing devil's advocate here, even though I agree with you: That's how corporations work. If you gave your money to NVIDIA as investor wouldn't you expect maximized returns on your $$ ?
If you had 1 million to invest today, would you give it to AMD or NVIDIA ?

AMD W1zzard, because they give a gamer a decent chunk of wafer for his $500! Plus, it's cold in Wisconsin in the winter, 290X on uber mode running on a FX8350 cpu could heat the whole house! Lots of cold states out there.

 

[btarunr]

AMD W1zzard, because they give a gamer a decent chunk of wafer for his $500! Plus, it's cold in Wisconsin in the winter, 290X on uber mode running on a FX8350 cpu could heat the whole house! Lots of cold states out there.

Friendly advice, don't invest in anything.

 

[W1zzard]

Friendly advice, don't invest in anything.

Universal advice, rather spend it in some more or less meaningful way

 

[JethroBodine]

Friendly advice, don't invest in anything.

I was being facetious, because the question was self evident and stated as proof NVIDIA's strategy is a successful one.

NVIDIA and intel enjoy the position of being the first tier vendor to a market of people whose income has been largely unaffected by economic downturn. Computer gamers are often people connected to IT/IS, and other technophiles. As such, they can charge higher prices to people who have more disposable income for their hobbies.

 

[frdmftr]

Playing devil's advocate here, even though I agree with you: That's how corporations work. If you gave your money to NVIDIA as investor wouldn't you expect maximized returns on your $$ ?
If you had 1 million to invest today, would you give it to AMD or NVIDIA ?

Hubris is more dangerous than incompetence. Nvidia dodged the Hawaii bullet due to outside influences. The only reason the 780 and 780ti was able to hold the price point they did was due to the fact that you could not buy an AMD card at retail because of crypto mining. Nvidia underestimated AMD and they got lucky, I dont think that makes them a better investment.

From what I have seen on other sites the 290X is not a fully enabled chip. Given the improvements of Tonga over Tahiti and those improvements applied to a fully enabled Hawaii, I think AMD is still very much in this game.

As a side note, my hybrid PhysX rig works very well and I am Impressed with my 290X BUT if Nvidia wants to get back on track with pricing I would most likely come back. I think the driver support is better and on the few games that have PhysX I enjoy the extra effects(which explains the hybrid PhysX).

 

[JethroBodine]

From what I have seen on other sites the 290X is not a fully enabled chip. Given the improvements of Tonga over Tahiti and those improvements applied to a fully enabled Hawaii, I think AMD is still very much in this game.

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Sapphire/R9_285_Dual-X_OC/30.html

• Quite slow as performance has not improved

• Not very power efficient

• Could be quieter in idle and gaming

• Elpida memory not optimal for overclocking

• High Blu-ray power consumption

http://www.anandtech.com/show/8460/amd-radeon-r9-285-review/19

At the end of the day it brings a very minor 3-5% performance increase over the R9 280 with virtually no change in price or power consumption.

So you think if AMD brings the 3-5% improvements of Tonga to Hawaii, they will overcome the 19% performance deficit at 1080P or the 13% deficit at 25X16 reported by this site? Am I missing something?

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_980/26.html

 

[frdmftr]

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Sapphire/R9_285_Dual-X_OC/30.html

http://www.anandtech.com/show/8460/amd-radeon-r9-285-review/19



So you think if AMD brings the 3-5% improvements of Tonga to Hawaii, they will overcome the 19% performance deficit at 1080P or the 13% deficit at 25X16 reported by this site? Am I missing something?

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_980/26.html

1) preformnace would scale based on the number of cores. So a 10% or more of an increase in preformance for a card with 40% more cores is very realistic.

2) the 3-5% increase was accomplished with 33% less memory and a 33% narrower memory interface.

3) A fully enabled Hawaii chip would by itself be close to 10% faster
http://wccftech.com/amd-hawaii-gpu-...chip-48-compute-units-3072-stream-processors/

TPU is a great site however, it is not the best site to get a fair compairson of AMD vs Nvidia. the useage of older games Like Diablo 3 which heavily favor Nvidia skew the summary. Granted the 290 vs 780 it only gives the 780 a 10% preformance advantage but it is the 20 extra fps that will skew the average. Hitman is a more relevent game to benchmark in 2014 than Diablo 3 and Hitman is a game that very much favors AMD.

A few quotes from Toms Hardware and a link to the page to prove my point

"We'd also like to address the GeForce GTX 760's position on our average performance chart. Seeing the 760 sit just below the Radeon R9 270X wasn't something we expected"

"this situation is the result of a combination of factors including some newer game titles such as Thief (that favor the GCN architecture), mixed with some high-detail settings"

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/amd-radeon-r9-285-tonga,3925-14.html

 

[JethroBodine]

1

3) A fully enabled Hawaii chip would by itself be close to 10% faster
http://wccftech.com/amd-hawaii-gpu-...chip-48-compute-units-3072-stream-processors/

Dave Baumann of AMD PR has already stated publicly on his old site that the R290X is a full chip, so people probably shouldn't wait for the "full chip" that AMD launched long ago:

http://forum.beyond3d.com/showpost.php?p=1817984&postcount=2269

R9 290X is a full chip.

Which makes sense. If there was a "fully enabled" 290X chip, they probably would have launched it instead of watching NVIDIA have the top single GPU spot for the last 11 months.

 

[Fluffmeister]

GTX 980 is an overclocking monster, whilst being frugle on power.

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2014...overclocking_video_card_review/5#.VDWtlqhdWe4

Nv have achieved wonders with Maxwell.

 

[nunyabuisness]

NVIDIA MIDRANGE CHIPS/CARDS
GTX 460 = GF 104
GTX 560 = GF 114
GTX 680/660TI/770 =GK 104
GTX 980 GM 204

NVIDIA FLAGSHIP CHIPS/CARDS
GTX 480 = GF 100
GTX 580 = GF 114
GTX 780/780TI/TITAN = GK 110

Notice the pattern? Also check the size of the die.

GTX 980 is a midrange chip, that is a fact!

Tom from Nvidia who appeared on the PC Per demo video confirmed the 980 is the high end of that chip. there is no more headroom he replied for that chip!

Nvidia have dug themselves a large hole in the mid range market. the 970 and 980 both beat the 290 series cards EASILY. in power and Horsepower
but not releasing the 960 has left a hole in the midrange market. people that are constrained to sub $350 or even $300 market the 285 and 280X is still the best chip for the cash.
WHich has to lend creedence to the 960 either getting really bad yields. the GM 206 silicon isnt a good chip and isnt performing as well as the GM 204 (980/970) chip.
Either way the midrange market as long as NVidia leave the 960 out of it. are just handing over the most profitable sector in the GFX card market midrange.

 

[W1zzard]

WHich has to lend creedence to the 960 either getting really bad yields. the GM 206 silicon isnt a good chip and isnt performing as well as the GM 204 (980/970) chip.
Either way the midrange market as long as NVidia leave the 960 out of it. are just handing over the most profitable sector in the GFX card market midrange.

Or it simply means NVIDIA makes people buy the GTX 970 and 980, even though they could just afford the 960, but don't want to wait for it