Anybody regret going red?

[Champ]

The nano isn't bad, can't deny that. My 4850 however was terrible. Never had 1440p with Nvidia, but my lightning editiong 780 was a single card beast.

 

[the54thvoid]

It's technically TressFX 3.0 which runs on DirectCompute and is open source. TressFX, as far as I can recall, has never played favoritism for either brand; on the other hand, HairWorks (NVIDIA's competing API which is proprietary and closed source) caused a ruckus with Witcher 3's release because AMD cards had framerates fall >60% when enabled compared to GTX 980s 30% (see below, TressFX is far more friendly than HairWorks).


Correct me if I'm wrong but I think you posted that RotTR graph to counter the Hitman graph. The reason why AMD does well in Hitman and not so well in RotTR is because Hitman uses async compute which boosts AMD and hurts NVIDIA.

I'd be interested in seeing an image quality comparison on RotTR too. AMD cards could easily be simulating more hair than NVIDIA cards do explaining the gap in performance. The tessellation effects (which TressFX uses) can be overridden in graphics drivers. It probably should have just been disabled for all cards because it optionally inflicts a major penalty to framerate. It's better to isolate TressFX to its own test.

Here's a benchmark that isolates PureHair:
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2016..._graphics_features_performance/6#.V0yKnI-cFaQ

FPS gained turning it from "on" to "off":
GTX 980 Ti: 107.395%
R9 390X: 107.383%

The cost is damn near identical, as it should be.


Looking back at some history, the Crystal Engine has always favored NVIDIA:
Tomb Raider - http://www.guru3d.com/articles-pages/nvidia-geforce-gtx-titan-x-review,15.html
Deus Ex: Human Revolution -http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/deus-ex-human-revolution-performance-benchmark,3012-6.html

Background: Square Enix Montreal started working on DXHR before Tomb Raider started production. Deus Ex: Mankind Divided is actually switching from the Crystal Engine of Tomb Raider (DX11)/Rise of the Tomb Raider (DX12) to the same engine Hitman Absolution (DX11) used and Hitman 2016 (DX12 + async) is using which heavily favors AMD. Ironic, isn't it?

You seem to misunderstand me. My post specifically implied cherry picking. Such as I did with a DX12 title that hammers AMD.

For the record, AMD implemented high levels of async in Hitman for a reason. I posted the link in another thread. Same way Nvidia implemented high unnecessary levels of tesselation.

Tesselation improves textures to a reasonable extent when texture design isn't the most detailed. It's a good feature but can be abused to hinder hardware that doesn't cater as well as Nvidia does .
Same is true of async. Flooding a title with unnecessarily high batch calls isnt required for most games. But AMD will do it if they can to claw back Nvidia.
So the future remains the same. However, given how well Hawaii deals with async (sometimes outperforming Fury non X) it looks as though enough has been done on that front.
Next AMD architecture can hopefully bring all round performance increase not just limited to butchering levels of async or 4k res. As many people tout, AMD gets a lot of middle market purchase so 4k isn't part of that equation.

 

[Ferrum Master]

There is actually the flickering bug on certain engines and z fighting. Skyrim is the best example. Altough I played it on 7970 much, I didn't notice it too. Also catalyst notes often flickering fixes with certain games. I had times with certain drivers ending up with red screens, freezes etc... usually it is lack of voltage, after doing hardmod and raising feedback the card became stable. So we cannot judge from one sample that all others are defective too.

So the truth lies in between. There is flickering, but on certain hardware combos, maybe defective or not. I have used various Ati cards too and had problems with both camps.

About tressFX and why to use hairworks etc...

A. Because nvidia pays to use their api.
B. Because it is faster to implement as nvidia usually helps itself.

And again. There is no wonder that same code causes more huge FPS drop due to architecture pipeline lenghts despite the overall peak compute power is the same. It's just compiling and higher level code. Who makes the sdk - rules the result.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

Tesselation improves textures to a reasonable extent when texture design isn't the most detailed.

Tesselation dynamically adds and subtracts polygons so when you get close to an object, it renders in greater detail than the model is explicitly designed for:
http://www.nvidia.com/object/tessellation.html
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ff476340(v=vs.85).aspx
It's much more than "textures."

Back to HairWorks and Witcher 3: HairWorks is not optimized at all to run on GCN. HairWorks is also closed source so AMD can't craft a fix of their own. AMD cards can do tessellation as well as NVIDIA cards as demonstrated by the Dirt games. Because AMD couldn't directly optimize HairWorks, AMD did the only thing they could do to improve performance and that's turning down the amount of tessellation in the driver.

That said, it seems like Wticher 3 is about the only title to use HairWorks. It appears to be a dead end API as it should be.

Edit: NVIDIA apparently saw the writing on the wall and open-sourced HairWorks: http://wccftech.com/nvidia-gameworks-hairworks-github-release/


Async shaders are all about GPGPU at the same time as satisfying the graphics pipeline (read: not a separate card). Ashes of the Singularity, for example, runs physics calculations on the GPU on top of graphics. In terms of game development, especially on consoles, that's huge. It allows games to do things they couldn't do previously. Not only that, the things they do are meaningful to the game where PhysX, for example, has devolved into eye candy because it runs like crap on Intel/AMD (because NVIDIA has no intention to optimize it nor giving the source to them so they could optimize it at a reasonable price). Async shading does work on NVIDIA cards but it incurs a FPS penalty where, on AMD cards, it boosts FPS likely because of freeing up the CPU.

 

[medi01]

I missed all the bad generations.

There was nothing wrong with neither 7xxx nor with great 5xxx.
380 was pretty good too. (with Sapphire coolers, non-freaking audible ^^)

It's actually the die size that drives the production costs up, and yes, it's significant enough to cause the higher pricing that we are seeing.

This is so damn wrong on so many accounts that I'm not sure if you are serious or just trolling. Here is a list, pick any point:

• It's a high end chip, there is no competition, yet it costs even more than previous gen chip, which again had no competition and was priced "generously".
• It's roughly 300mm2 vs 980Ti's 600mm die size
• AMD employs 7000 engineers, budgets of 20-30 million are laughable even to them in this context
• 699$ suddenly translated into 789€ in Germany, which is 880$, I guess Germans are getting chips built from even better, "bio" silicon waffers, lol
• nVidia commands nearly 80% of the market, selling 4 times what AMD does, how does that apply to the earnings from each sale to cover R&D expenses pretty please?

Frankly, it would be funny if it wasn't so sad.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

Here's a video showing a tech demo of what would become HairWorks and TressFX 2.0:

It starts with HairWorks and ends with TressFX.

It looks like TressFX has a lot of antialiasing going on making the hair look blurry where the HairWorks looks sharp and clear. But the framerates! HairWorks visably lags where TressFX is pegged at 60 fps and doesn't really deviate from it. Granted, this is two years old.

I think I would use HairWorks for pre-rendered videos and TressFX for real-time rendering.

Edit: I think Deus Ex: Mankind Divided will be the first game to use TressFX 3.0...it may look on par with HairWorks without the massive performance penalty.

There's some movement of hair in the trailer but the hair is generally short with no wind. The hair looks really good (doesn't have the blurriness of TressFX 2.0):

 

[Aquinus]

6870 - screen corruption

I used the 6870 for 6 years and never encountered screen corruption. Just saying.

 

[basco]

never regretted going either red or green.
the 5870,7970,290 i owned are great cards

 

[Melvis]

I never regret going red and for the most part of my 10yrs with AMD cards it was great! The only reason I changed was I had nothing but dramas from my 2x 280x's that the last 10 driver updates from 15.7 just broke alot of the games I played and I just had enough and moved back to the green team.

 

[Frick]

Experiences vary greatly and I will tell a short story that's an example of that: Remember that XFX GeForce 8600 GTS that overclocked like hell? It also was using a proprietary MOLEX to PCI-E-like connector on the GPU which provided both +12v and +5v. Without knowing this at the time, I used a PCI-E power connector to power it since the key was the same and tried using it (for those of you who don't know, PCI-E power connectors only provide +12v.) The GPU was fine but, it ended up frying DDC on one of my monitors.

That is pretty epic.

Edit: About corruption/flickering: I had that with my HD7850, a slight flicker in games, mostly recognizable in dark areas, but it turns out there was something with me using a DVI-VGA adapter. I had the same problem on the GTX760, but much worse.

 

[Ebo]

never had any problems with any of my red cards, ever since ATI 8500 back in the day.

 

[Flow]

No problems here either.
The selling price is my reason for choosing amd cards. In general a person will have a max amount of money they are willing to spend.
So it's looking at what you can get for that amount. Amd haven't failed in that department yet.
So sure, for more money you can get faster cards, and they will usually be nvidia cards.
But I'm not willing to spend €800 for the latest and fastest card. Which will be surpassed in the next year or so anyways.

In my region prices are pretty much fixed on their respective performance, so more performance will cost more money. Hence, you'll get what you've payed for.

 

[cdawall]

Only card I have ever regretted was the gtx295. The dual pcb ones were a complete fiasco. I am currently still using my 7950's is a second rig and they still hold their own and after flashing to an r9 280 bios they pick up for dx12.

 

[thesmokingman]

I regret paying almost 500 for my nano months ago

You probably don't regret it as much as someone who spent $1000 on a gpu.

 

[GreiverBlade]

i know i will not regret going red if i have to, upon Polaris and Vega release ... nvidia did nothing worth of my 980, as i value more price to performances ratio.... and they pretty much did, this time ... as they usually do: f**k it up.

my 980 is an exception as it was the best price to perf ratio i ever had ... since i got it in a giveaway my previous 290 was still up to the task (specially at 150$... ok 280$ once under a waterblock )

i never regret going red or green... if i do go one side or another, it's mainly because i got a "killer deal"


short version: waiting for the 480 benchies ... and probably Vega before going any color ...

 

[Champ]

I still stand by my point. 480 belly flopped. When their new high-end drops NV will have surpassed twice

 

[yogurt_21]

I got my R9 290 3-4 months before the 970 came out. Not only was it cheaper, but had less power draw, was quieter, and at the time was a bit faster. While all that was tempting I still don't regret it. The card has held up and still holds up. The 3-4 months of gaming I got with the 290 compared with the 480 sli solution was infinitely more enjoyable than waiting. Plus the card will still play every new title at 1080p which is what my monitor is.

now the nano isn't my thing at all so I would have gone 980 ti prior to the 1080 launch, shoot likely still after due to the shortage.

 

[redeye]

Good memories, but

Yes, i was always disappointed... (Compared to Intel i though i wasmy last AMD card was a 6950. before that it was a 6850, then 4890, 3850... All the way back to an ATI aiw x800 .... The 6950 no longer works... (Missed up changing the heatsink)

And the last processor i had from them is the fx8350 (collectors metal tin package FTW )

(funny thing, all of my AMD motherboards (for the fx8350 processor have crapped out.) before that the 11000, 9850,9600, 3700,3200...


The disappointing thing about the fx8350, at 4.4G it was not the same as a 4790k at the same speed. (Not sure why but i was always getting 10Fps less on the amd fx8350/sli gtx980...

yet, AMD is Surviving via the console business. Which mean they will be around for a long time (also they have the only x86 license, beside INTEL)

 

[natr0n]

 

[GreiverBlade]

I still stand by my point. 480 belly flopped. When their new high-end drops NV will have surpassed twice

nope ... since the direct concurrent of the RX480 is not here already : the 1060 (surpassed twice .... i wonder if they even did that once ... on one side or another )

the RX480 was not meant to be pitted against the 1070 or 1080 ... (at last not at a price 3 time lower, even more judging by the prices of the 1070 and 1080 where i live ... i can get 2 RX480 8gb for ONE 1070 and nearly 4 RX480 for one 1080)

imho
old line was Fury 390X 390 380X VS 980 Ti 980 970 960
new line is Vega 490(hypothetical atm i know, let's say Fury since the Fury line still hold good enough to be in the 490 spot ) 480 VS 1080 1070 1060 (until the 1080Ti come out )

so it's not a belly flop, it's 100% doing what it was designed for ... being a "cheap" high midrange card (oohhh just like the 1060 ... sans le "cheap" since it's Nvidia )

even if the RX480 is lower than my 980 .... AIB custom model might change that ... who know ... (8pin 2x6pin better cooling ... mostly solving the issues )

 

[ChristineAndRusty]

Elder state? Fair enough. OK, some folks can afford huge 8 gig whatever's and boards from places that may or may not have existed in 1990, and don't forget the wireless mouse. (couldn't figure the thing out when it hit the market with a wire and ball), but from where I sit I like "RED". After a certain "Elder state" set in and I had time for hobbies, I bought one, Dell Latitude Cpi Pentium II , Windows 95. Had a lot more internet than the ones I had used in the hospital, send orders to the pharmacy, admit records to the floors from the ER. Then SETI came along. It has been and still is a learning experience-but I don't know enough, probably never will know enough. Eventually, as I am, I wanted to know how things worked. Finally I found out what all the fuss was about video cards. I had a card that was just huge, had a laugh when I read the type-I can't remember it was so long ago, but the PC ran better and faster, then AGP and those lovely VIA and Pegatron boards. I still have a couple of them laying around, AGP's.
So we decided to build a pair, the twins, and we spent a little money. The wife built her first one just about the same as I did, the not so free parts, and eventually had what we wanted, GPU and all. Now days a $10.00 USD used card is pretty spendy, but what others think is no good, Oland 2 gig, Cape Verde 1 gig, etc. I find just fine for doin what I'm doin. They'll be in a card's box from the upgrade, they still work, I never found one that didn't work. And yes, frame rates mean something to me as do shaders and unified cores. AMD. "Built on AMD Architecture". Have seen it in so many print outs, it means something to someone-especially when Bentell uses it, I always see it in there some where. AMD is fine enough. I pulled a part of the info from this everyday klunker, (it's a Hardly Possible, Pavillion dv9000) so bear with me as it is in text form, you know that works:

NUMBER_OF_PROCESSORS 2
OS Windows_NT
Path C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Windows Live;C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Windows Live;C:\ProgramData\Oracle\Java\javapath;C:\Windows\system32;C:\Windows;C:\Windows\System32\Wbem;C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\;C:\Program Files (x86)\QuickTime Alternative\QTSystem;C:\Program Files (x86)\QuickTime Alternative\QTSystem\;C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Live\Shared
PATHEXT .COM;.EXE;.BAT;.CMD;.VBS;.VBE;.JS;.JSE;.WSF;.WSH;.MSC
PROCESSOR_ARCHITECTURE x86
PROCESSOR_ARCHITEW6432 AMD64 <---**HERE**
PROCESSOR_IDENTIFIER Intel64 Family 6 Model 15 Stepping 10, GenuineIntel, ,,
PROCESSOR_LEVEL 6
PROCESSOR_REVISION 0f0a


RED, have a pile of green things that usually are handed down from friends when they go buy the "Next new release from nVidia": 9500GT,9800GT, an N740 2gig, all run, all always crave attention, always want the next PhysX, CUDA tools, or that one even wanted full control over board/ RAM/chip set/ CPU, and a driver for finding new drivers to try to get another driver..my first wife was like that, always craving attention... Just clock from the bios, install the driver and CCC if you want and sit back and it does what it's supposed to: Oland 2 gig, it set even at 1200 mem and 1200 core, benched it some where and that's what they said too. But then this is just a hobby and it's supposed to be fun, and fun usually don't cost $400.00 and get water cooled either, hmmmm.... well, maybe somewhere it does, and probably not even PC related if ya know what I mean. Sorry so long winded, don't never have much to say except once in a while I do.............................

 

[ZoneDymo]

Well lets see, Nvidia PCX5200 was... well it worked sooo yeah fine I guess.
Nvidia 7900GTO worked for a while, but drivers where a bitch.
Nvidia 8800GTS G92 worked great for a while but then got heat issues and drivers again were ass.

AMD HD6950, worked and still works great and no problems with the drivers ever soooo no, so far team RED has been really good to me.

Not that that influences my next card choice though but team RED is at least as valid a choice (and in my personal experience perhaps the better choice so far).

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

I have no regrets or favourites

 

[R-T-B]

I did have one AMD regret.

A build featuring a Phenom I (can't quite remember what, but I think it was a quad core?) and a HD 2900 XT Crossfire setup. My god that build was hot, noisy, and could barely run bioshock I maxed where the GTX 280 could do it with practically one card.

I've liked all my other AMD cards. But the early merger GPU cards were dark, bad days. I hear the CPUs after that never quite got back to their former glory, as well.

 

[P4-630]

I have no regrets or favourites

View attachment 75874

But..But... Your green apple is in the spotlight....