Sentacotus Posted March 17, 2016 Share Posted March 17, 2016 (edited) Don't know how many of you are into PC Gaming/Enthusiast stuff but I figured I'd make a thread for something that's been in PC news lately. That is of course the new Graphics architectures that both AMD and Nvidia are set to talk about Q2 2016. AMD has Polaris and Nvidia has Pascal. There have been several rumors about each of these cards with both competitors trying to one up the other whether its in regards to VRAM, nm, speed, and tech improvements. It will be interesting to see what they come out with. Personally, I'm curious to see if AMD has anything up their sleeve as generally I think they've been pretty aggressive with their price points. While I love my current MSi GTX 980 and will be content with it for a long time I will be interested to see if these new cards can adequately play in 4K without the need of crossfire or SLI configurations as that's not only expensive but quickly becomes a game of diminishing returns and in Nvidia's case (can't speak for AMD) some games don't even support it all that well especially on launch day. Anyone have any thoughts? Edited March 17, 2016 by LordTaco42 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Samias Posted March 17, 2016 Share Posted March 17, 2016 (edited) Current gen Nvidia and AMD are pretty much on par with each other, perhaps with AMD getting the edge currently. Generally speaking the differences look like this: Nvidia: +Better energy efficiency, runs cooler, quieter fans, better driver management, less reliance on the power of your CPU. PhysX and Hairworks are optimized for Nvidia products because they were built by Nvidia in the first place. -Current drivers are SHIT. Very hard to find a stable driver for Windows 10 at the moment. Current generation of cards are not as optimized to move into DX12. GTX970 has less VRAM than advertised (3.5GB rather than 4GB) AMD: +R390 is nearly as powerful as GTX980 but closer to the price point of the GTX970. Superior VRAM. Already has DX12 support. -Older generation AMD cards have poor drivers. Generally louder, larger and more power hungry than their Nvidia counterparts. Many games are also optimized to run on an Nvidia card rather than AMD (see: PhysX, Hairworks) I don't game super hard so the 970's cheaper price point is fine for me right now but my EVGA-branded card has issues with running its fan and partially overheating and I recently had to get an RMA when my previous card died. Although my system is only a year old and I just got the GPU replaced I'm tempted by the R390 or perhaps some of the next gen cards if my current brand of card continues to be temperamental. The Pascal architecture is just such an improvement on Maxwell that it motivates me to want to get a replacement for stability's sake. I don't know if AMD has any big changes on the horizon as the R390 is already a major improvement over their last gen as far as architecture is concerned. I feel like they'll continue the trend of brute power over fidelity. Edited March 17, 2016 by Samias Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Excellen Browning Posted March 17, 2016 Share Posted March 17, 2016 Graphics on PC are pretty much brute forced to begin with. It comes with the territory of having 30 years worth of games on the system, the crapton of other hardware they have to run with, and the multitude of OS's they have to work under. I doubt either of the new architectures will be able to run 4K on high graphical settings. The last generation was far from being able to handle it, and I doubt a new generation will see more than a 10-15% boost in performance. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sentacotus Posted March 17, 2016 Author Share Posted March 17, 2016 (edited) Current gen Nvidia and AMD are pretty much on par with each other, perhaps with AMD getting the edge currently. Generally speaking the differences look like this: Nvidia: +Better energy efficiency, runs cooler, quieter fans, better driver management, less reliance on the power of your CPU. PhysX and Hairworks are optimized for Nvidia products because they were built by Nvidia in the first place. -Current drivers are SHIT. Very hard to find a stable driver for Windows 10 at the moment. Current generation of cards are not as optimized to move into DX12. GTX970 has less VRAM than advertised (3.5GB rather than 4GB) AMD: +R390 is nearly as powerful as GTX980 but closer to the price point of the GTX970. Superior VRAM. Already has DX12 support. -Older generation AMD cards have poor drivers. Generally louder, larger and more power hungry than their Nvidia counterparts. Many games are also optimized to run on an Nvidia card rather than AMD (see: PhysX, Hairworks) I don't game super hard so the 970's cheaper price point is fine for me right now but my EVGA-branded card has issues with running its fan and partially overheating and I recently had to get an RMA when my previous card died. Although my system is only a year old and I just got the GPU replaced I'm tempted by the R390 or perhaps some of the next gen cards if my current brand of card continues to be temperamental. The Pascal architecture is just such an improvement on Maxwell that it motivates me to want to get a replacement for stability's sake. I don't know if AMD has any big changes on the horizon as the R390 is already a major improvement over their last gen as far as architecture is concerned. I feel like they'll continue the trend of brute power over fidelity. Yeah the whole 970 fiasco about the VRAM was not good. Although according to tests and Nvidia the other 500mb only kicks in when its needed. Other than that though the 970 is a great price to performance card. I kinda wish I got that instead or just spent the extra dough on the 980ti but lesson learned. It does kinda suck how most games are optimized for Nvidia and leave AMD cards like a stick in the mud despite sometimes better specs overall. Graphics on PC are pretty much brute forced to begin with. It comes with the territory of having 30 years worth of games on the system, the crapton of other hardware they have to run with, and the multitude of OS's they have to work under. I doubt either of the new architectures will be able to run 4K on high graphical settings. The last generation was far from being able to handle it, and I doubt a new generation will see more than a 10-15% boost in performance. I would think that would be a major selling point though given that even the best cards out right now can't really do it and at best get 1440p with decent framerates (on a single card). For me and my situation it won't really be worth upgrading until there are single cards capable of 4K. Although I might be tempted if 980ti card prices go down after Pascal and Polaris come out but even then I think I can still get away with my regular 980 for awhile. Edited March 17, 2016 by LordTaco42 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kingddd Posted March 17, 2016 Share Posted March 17, 2016 (edited) currently satisfied with my budget build of i5 and GTX 960 right now since 1080p resolution is still sufficient enough. Unless we ever get another 8800 GT, that would be an amazing thing to happen. Edited March 17, 2016 by kingddd Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sentacotus Posted March 17, 2016 Author Share Posted March 17, 2016 Unless we ever get another 8800 GT, that would be an amazing thing to happen. If that ever happens then I'll probably piss my pants 1080p is more than good enough as is its just with 4K monitors and TVs becoming more and more affordable it'd be nice to see a powerhouse card able to actually do it. Of course graphics are not everything and its ultimately the gameplay that matters but it does seem like both Nvidia and AMD have been struggling to find a way to adequately do it on a single card. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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