AMD Radeon HD6950/6970(Cayman) Reviews

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12-21-2010, 01:34 PM
DilTech

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shadov

Depends on the approach I guess and as far as I remember AMD said in an interview that they will never de optimize games for their competitor.

That way proprietary standards like PhysX are bad, since you can have normal physics in a game or Nvidia can add a bit of green fairy dust (also known as money) to a title in production and suddenly normal features like e.g. fog are implemented in a way that will work only on NV cards.

You can call me biased, but I prefer to have standard features available to everyone. :shakes:

Someone clearly forgot Call of Juarez, where AMD had the company completely block MSAA support entirely so that it had to be run AMD's way or no way at all as NVidia had not yet optimized that method of AA. This artificially made the 2900XT look competitive with the 8800GTX(although 2 driver releases later that was nowhere near the case). To make it worse, the copy they sent NVidia was BEFORE this change, and they then sent reviewers the benchmark with it all changes literally not even giving NVidia a chance to acknowledge that there was a change.

Basically AMD have done the same, they just can't afford to do it often, or with big releases, like NVidia can. They'll lie to you and say they won't do it, but they already have... Both companies have... NVidia can just afford to do it more often while AMD has to pick like 1 game every few years.

As to the people saying they shouldn't include those games... You want them to alienate the entire population of people who do play those titles? How would you feel if you bought a new $379 video card and found out it absolutely sucks in comparison to it's competitors in 2 games you play because the reviewers felt that it would be more fair to AMD. I know I would be OUT RIGHT furious if it's a game I really enjoy playing, wouldn't you?

Fact is, AMD apparently have a weakness in their current architecture revolving around some methods of tessellation. I think it has to do with more than just drivers, or AMD would've done something about this already in the case of LP2. Also, Dead Rising 2 uses the same engine that LP2 does, so tack another title into that list, along with any other capcom titles that show up this round. AMD have a weakness in terms of standard DX11 features, NVidia apparently doesn't.
12-21-2010, 02:45 PM
zalbard

Quote:

Originally Posted by DilTech

AMD have a weakness in terms of standard DX11 features, NVidia apparently doesn't.

Depends on how you look at it. AMD chips have a sweet spot for tessellation performance. Using nearly non-existant and very heavy tessellation can cause lower performance. At least according to the slides they are releasing...
12-21-2010, 02:50 PM
ripken204

Quote:

Originally Posted by zalbard

Weird, we seem to be playing very diff games, then...

it's not too weird, the card was high end 2 years ago.
how much have computer graphics evolved since then? not very much....
for first person shooters, graphics have improved only a little thanks to those damn consoles, i have no issue playing COD4, Bad Company 2, World at War.
Starcraft II runs fine, Dragon Age 2, NFS Hot Pursuit, Fallout Vegas, Stalker.

Some games that have given me some issues:
Just Cause 2 i run nearly maxed out, metro 2033 i run nearly maxed out.
Mafia II, i cant quite remember the settings, but i think near maxed out.
crysis, duh...

Those are the only games that come to mind that I have played in the last year or two. I do have the card OCed a bit and an i7 definitely helps.
also as said previously, with the resolution i have, high levels of AA is not needed.

What card do you have and what games have given you big problems?
12-21-2010, 08:22 PM
DilTech

Quote:

Originally Posted by zalbard

Depends on how you look at it. AMD chips have a sweet spot for tessellation performance. Using nearly non-existant and very heavy tessellation can cause lower performance. At least according to the slides they are releasing...

Considering we've seen a few titles using this "nearly non-existent and very heavy tessellation", it looks like it may not be as non-existent as AMD may make it out to be. I think we all know that as time moves on tessellation usage will also increase in games. Fact is, AMD still have a weakness on the tessellation side of things, one that NVidia clearly can handle. I find it ironic how AMD were the first company to support this feature, yet they happen to be weaker in this area. What AMD need to be worried about, as well as all owners of the new AMD cards, is if crysis uses tessellation as heavily as HAWX2 does, which current rumors makes it appear that it might. If it does, then people are going to be extremely upset with their purchases.

Of course, I'm never one to gamble on the "what-if's" of the future when it comes to hardware. I look at the here and now scenario. AMD's big advantage recently had been being a half node ahead of NVidia at each step on the higher end, which allowed them to keep prices lower in comparison. Now they've lost that advantage, and will have to work around that situation, because when 28nm rolls around it's pretty clear both companies will be prepared to make the leap. It'll be interesting to see how AMD will deal with this.

Next year will definitely be an interesting year indeed for hardware. NVidia with a new architecture, and AMD should seemingly have a few changes to theirs as well.
12-21-2010, 08:35 PM
blindbox

Quote:

Originally Posted by DilTech

Considering we've seen a few titles using this "nearly non-existent and very heavy tessellation",

Name a few other than HAWX? Flat landscape was tessellated as well, by the way. AMD said they're going to fix it through drivers anyway, as complaints fell through deaf ears.

Metro 2033 we're seeing AMD rocking it
Call of Pripyat.. amazing performance there.
AVP... there's not much tesselation there anyway.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4061/a...eon-hd-6950/15
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4061/a...eon-hd-6950/19
12-21-2010, 09:12 PM
Lanek

Quote:

Originally Posted by Oztopher

I get some graphical glitching on metro, mostly when outside. It's something to do with the shadow/lighting system, it's all over the place. When i move the camera around the shadows move too, consistently.

Apart from that it looks and plays great with very high setting. I don't bother playing in DX11, (i know there is) but i see no real visual difference and FPS is quite a bit lower compared to DX10. That's with just tessellation enabled, with advanced DoF it halves my framerate.

Object motion blur on the very high preset is an absolute must :up:

Set DX11 and just uncheck DOF + PhysX ( ofc )... Tesselation is not a problem on this game, It's just DOF who kill the fps.

For the shadow problem, sadly i have no idea, if it's a driver thing it will be solved soon.
12-21-2010, 11:21 PM
kuroikenshi

http://www.koolance.com/water-coolin...roduct_id=2021???
12-22-2010, 01:12 AM
Piotrsama

Quote:

Originally Posted by DilTech

Someone clearly forgot Call of Juarez, where AMD had the company completely block MSAA support entirely so that it had to be run AMD's way or no way at all as NVidia had not yet optimized that method of AA. This artificially made the 2900XT look competitive with the 8800GTX(although 2 driver releases later that was nowhere near the case). To make it worse, the copy they sent NVidia was BEFORE this change, and they then sent reviewers the benchmark with it all changes literally not even giving NVidia a chance to acknowledge that there was a change.

AMD was not on charge at that time, don't blame them.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DilTech

How would you feel if you bought a new $379 video card and found out it absolutely sucks in comparison to it's competitors in 2 games you play because the reviewers felt that it would be more fair to AMD. I know I would be OUT RIGHT furious if it's a game I really enjoy playing, wouldn't you?

It would only be your fault for not searching reviews that benched your favorite games.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DilTech

What AMD need to be worried about, as well as all owners of the new AMD cards, is if crysis uses tessellation as heavily as HAWX2 does, which current rumors makes it appear that it might. If it does, then people are going to be extremely upset with their purchases.

Of course, I'm never one to gamble on the "what-if's" of the future when it comes to hardware. I look at the here and now scenario.

Ok, just stay with your "what-if's" on the software side :D
12-22-2010, 02:23 AM
hurrdurr

Quote:

Originally Posted by blindbox

Metro 2033 we're seeing AMD rocking it
Call of Pripyat.. amazing performance there.
AVP... there's not much tesselation there anyway.

Metro 2033 and Call of Pripyat have no noticeable tessellation. Yeah yeah, in CoP some of the shirt pockets of some guards are not just textures any more, they are polygons, but that's about it. In the case of Metro 2033 I think it has got more to do with DOF that destroys the FPS.

Out of the three, I'd say AVP has the most tessellation, I played a demo version of it, it had noticeable tessellation in the Alien models.
12-22-2010, 02:45 AM
DilTech

Quote:

Originally Posted by blindbox

Name a few other than HAWX? Flat landscape was tessellated as well, by the way. AMD said they're going to fix it through drivers anyway, as complaints fell through deaf ears.

Metro 2033 we're seeing AMD rocking it
Call of Pripyat.. amazing performance there.
AVP... there's not much tesselation there anyway.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4061/a...eon-hd-6950/15
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4061/a...eon-hd-6950/19

Metro 2033 doesn't use tessellation very heavily. It's DOF that it really puts to use in DX11 mode, as it runs it through DirectCompute to perform. Take a look at the game with Tessellation on and off, tell me how big of a difference you see.

Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the method used in LP2 also seem to have issues on AMD cards? This is an engine that all capcom games will be running on. I'm pretty sure dead rising 2 runs this engine as well, but shockingly enough I've never seen the performance reviewed on that title. That's 3 games already, a little over 1 year since DX11 cards have been released.

I always get worried when I hear the driver statement... I'm not 100% convinced this can all be fixed via drivers, if it could LP2 performance would be up as well I would think. Only time will tell though, but AMD knew this was how the results were for awhile now.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Piotrsama

AMD was not on charge at that time, don't blame them.

...

AMD bought ATi in 2006. October of 2006 was when the deal was finalized. The final official call of Juarez dx10 benchmark came out in june of 2007. The change to the benchmark took place but a few days before the release of the benchmark. This was over 6 months after AMD took control.

Yes, they still had the ATi name, but it was owned by AMD, and as such actions had to go through AMD to get the final OK.

I'm not blaming them neither. Maybe it's just me, but I don't get mad at companies for using the money I spend to make games work better on the hardware I bought. I look at that as a return on my investment. All I'm saying is, AMD claiming they'd never do such things makes me laugh....hard.... as they've done it before.

Quote:

It would only be your fault for not searching reviews that benched your favorite games.

If reviewers did what people seem to be asking for and not benching the games that NVidia have a clear lead on then wouldn't that mean you wouldn't be able to search for reviews benching those games? :confused:

Quote:

Ok, just stay with your "what-if's" on the software side :D

I just stated I don't play that route. I look at the now, and the near future. Hardware wise we know what we see. AMD competes well until extremely heavy tessellation comes into play, and apparently some methods of use of tessellation. That's not a what-if, that's what we know is a fact.

Only thing we don't know... which route the developers will take. Will they continue to go easy on the tessellation like some have, or will they start playing rough with it like others have.

Realistically, my eyes are on Crytek and what they will do, considering everything else runs good enough even on mid-range cards. :up: Cryengine 3 is likely to be licensed out a lot thanks to it's ability to play on consoles(and the SDK for the engine works with all 3 at the same time), and as such it's performance is something that we'll get use to seeing a bit of for sure.
12-22-2010, 03:28 AM
-Boris-

Quote:

Originally Posted by DilTech

AMD bought ATi in 2006. October of 2006 was when the deal was finalized. The final official call of Juarez dx10 benchmark came out in june of 2007. The change to the benchmark took place but a few days before the release of the benchmark. This was over 6 months after AMD took control.

Yes, they still had the ATi name, but it was owned by AMD, and as such actions had to go through AMD to get the final OK.

I don't think AMD had to allow everything ATi and game developers did together. Especially since AMD hardly could have integrated ATi that much at that time.
It takes years, and I'm pretty sure it was ATi staff that managed the contact with game developers. If AMD would stomp in and switch personell or try to micromanage ATi at that point the entire operation of ATi would be stalled for a long time. At that point ATi was owned by AMD, but hardly integrated.
12-22-2010, 03:53 AM
SoulsCollective

Oh god, the fanboyism in this thread. It's painful.

It's a gorram graphics card. Both nVidia and AMD want your money, and will sometimes play dirty to get it. Both are guilty; come on folks, this isn't some kind of good-vs-evil thing going on here :rolleyes:
12-22-2010, 04:36 AM
Pantsu

I don't mind games like HAWX2, FC2 or LP2 (all shoddy console ports that have gotten bad reviews) being added to the reviews. I don't think they're there because people play them (at least on PC), but because they are the cream of the crop when it comes to graphics. HAWX is picked for tessellation and LP2 for its (Nvidia) DX11 features. FC2 is just pretty and taxing in general, or at least it used to be. These are some of the most taxing applications for the graphics card, so it's reasonable that these are the games that are being tested. Of course they are Nvidia sponsored and favor it heavily, but it doesn't change the fact that if you like these games, you should have Nvidia.

What's important to realize when looking at aggregate avarage fps results from sites like TPU and HWC is that games like these (that are 50% faster on Nvidia hardware) have a noticable impact on the result, so Nvidia cards look faster on avarage. And it's true, they are, as long as you play the games that were benchmarked. The lesson here is that you should not blindly look at the end avarage results, but look at the games you play and decide based on the results in those games.
12-22-2010, 05:20 AM
Oztopher

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lanek

Set DX11 and just uncheck DOF + PhysX ( ofc )... Tesselation is not a problem on this game, It's just DOF who kill the fps.

For the shadow problem, sadly i have no idea, if it's a driver thing it will be solved soon.

Yep, that's what i meant i did, left tessellation on but disabled DOF. Phyx was of course off as well.

But still, at the main menu for example, with DX11 + tessellation only, i get like 45 fps. If i disable tessellation, then it goes up to 66 fps. If i set it to DX10 it goes up to about 68fps. This gives me room to enable AFx16 as well ;) Which IMO yields the best experience all round (on my graphics card at least).

They should stop putting tessellation on stupid things like bowls and teddy bears :shakes: start doing what AvP and the likes have done, make it a necessity to have.
12-22-2010, 05:27 AM
Motiv

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pantsu

I don't mind games like HAWX2, FC2 or LP2 (all shoddy console ports that have gotten bad reviews) being added to the reviews. I don't think they're there because people play them (at least on PC), but because they are the cream of the crop when it comes to graphics. HAWX is picked for tessellation and LP2 for its (Nvidia) DX11 features. FC2 is just pretty and taxing in general, or at least it used to be. These are some of the most taxing applications for the graphics card, so it's reasonable that these are the games that are being tested. Of course they are Nvidia sponsored and favor it heavily, but it doesn't change the fact that if you like these games, you should have Nvidia.

What's important to realize when looking at aggregate avarage fps results from sites like TPU and HWC is that games like these (that are 50% faster on Nvidia hardware) have a noticable impact on the result, so Nvidia cards look faster on avarage. And it's true, they are, as long as you play the games that were benchmarked. The lesson here is that you should not blindly look at the end avarage results, but look at the games you play and decide based on the results in those games.

The problem, as I see it, is that we have GPU sponsored games in the reviews. This is akin to having McDonalds present on an educational eating awareness review.

Surely there are game that could be used, that haven't been tainted by AMD or NVIDIA. Surely?
12-22-2010, 08:57 AM
Pantsu

Most of the AAA games are sponsored by either company so it's hopeless to find an unbiased game. And it's important that AMD and Nvidia do help the developers to get all the performance out of their cards. Of course it's another matter entirely to pay money to include proprietary features and say the developer can't accept anything from the competitor in turn. Whether either company has really done this I don't know for sure. It sure looks like that for games like LP2 or HAWX2. At least they haven't spent a moment trying to get AMD hardware to work anything like Nvidia cards.
12-22-2010, 11:33 AM
VoodooProphetII

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pantsu

Most of the AAA games are sponsored by either company so it's hopeless to find an unbiased game. And it's important that AMD and Nvidia do help the developers to get all the performance out of their cards. Of course it's another matter entirely to pay money to include proprietary features and say the developer can't accept anything from the competitor in turn. Whether either company has really done this I don't know for sure. It sure looks like that for games like LP2 or HAWX2. At least they haven't spent a moment trying to get AMD hardware to work anything like Nvidia cards.

And maybe ATI hardware just can't do those things properly. I love how we keep on blaming the company who makes hardware that works great and try to defend the company who manufacture hardware that can't cope. I'm not a game programmer but I find it hard to belief that "only" programmers and the opposition are to blame for poor performance.
12-22-2010, 12:25 PM
SKYMTL

Quote:

Originally Posted by Motiv

The problem, as I see it, is that we have GPU sponsored games in the reviews.

So what? Sponsored games equate a clear representation of the current market situation with triple-A titles.

Plus, if AMD or NVIDIA see fit to sink tons of money into a title in order to move PC gaming technology forward, why should editors purposely avoid using such products?
12-22-2010, 12:29 PM
eric66

lol yeah far cry 2 uses some crazy unearthly effects thats why nvidia cards are nearly two times faster ..... all this titles mentioned above run like crap on older generation of amd cards too and every game that have problems comes either from ubisoft or capcom which get heavily paid by nvidia
12-22-2010, 12:54 PM
BababooeyHTJ

Quote:

Originally Posted by eric66

lol yeah far cry 2 uses some crazy unearthly effects thats why nvidia cards are nearly two times faster ..... all this titles mentioned above run like crap on older generation of amd cards too and every game that have problems comes either from ubisoft or capcom which get heavily paid by nvidia

Far Cry 2 ran on ATI cards better than it did on equivalent Nvidia cards for the longest time IIRC.

EDIT: Look at the HC 4890 review.
12-22-2010, 12:55 PM
SKYMTL

Quote:

Originally Posted by eric66

lol yeah far cry 2 uses some crazy unearthly effects thats why nvidia cards are nearly two times faster ..... all this titles mentioned above run like crap on older generation of amd cards too and every game that have problems comes either from ubisoft or capcom which get heavily paid by nvidia

That's simply because AMD's driver team doesn't implement their optimizations until a later date...if at all. The same thing goes for NVIDIA as evidenced by their utter lack of 3DMark 11 SLI support.

So again: why hamstring the impartiality of an article because of slow driver development?
12-22-2010, 12:55 PM
Bowtie

Quote:

Originally Posted by SKYMTL

So what? Sponsored games equate a clear representation of the current market situation with triple-A titles.

Plus, if AMD or NVIDIA see fit to sink tons of money into a title in order to move PC gaming technology forward, why should editors purposely avoid using such products?

That's more a side effect than actual intent. To tie up performance and features to your hardware whilst avoiding your weak points in order to one-up the competition and hopefully sell more cards. These same companies will tell you how something their hardware is either lacking or not so strong at, is either unnecessary or wasteful depending on the situation. There is no noble intent here
12-22-2010, 01:43 PM
keiths

So what's the TL;DR version of this thread? :)
12-22-2010, 02:14 PM
DilTech

Quote:

Originally Posted by -Boris-

I don't think AMD had to allow everything ATi and game developers did together. Especially since AMD hardly could have integrated ATi that much at that time.
It takes years, and I'm pretty sure it was ATi staff that managed the contact with game developers. If AMD would stomp in and switch personell or try to micromanage ATi at that point the entire operation of ATi would be stalled for a long time. At that point ATi was owned by AMD, but hardly integrated.

AMD had already done quite a bit of switching around the staff by then. Considering the team up between ATi and the developers of CoJ took place after AMD bought ATi I'm sure they had more to do with it than you would think.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Motiv

The problem, as I see it, is that we have GPU sponsored games in the reviews. This is akin to having McDonalds present on an educational eating awareness review.

Surely there are game that could be used, that haven't been tainted by AMD or NVIDIA. Surely?

Maybe there are games that neither hand have touched, but frankly speaking a lot of the titles they have ARE popular games. A journalist should always look at what is popular amongst their readers whenever writing their (hopefully impartial) article. I mean, who here cares about the performance of games they will never play?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Oztopher

Yep, that's what i meant i did, left tessellation on but disabled DOF. Phyx was of course off as well.

But still, at the main menu for example, with DX11 + tessellation only, i get like 45 fps. If i disable tessellation, then it goes up to 66 fps. If i set it to DX10 it goes up to about 68fps. This gives me room to enable AFx16 as well ;) Which IMO yields the best experience all round (on my graphics card at least).

They should stop putting tessellation on stupid things like bowls and teddy bears :shakes: start doing what AvP and the likes have done, make it a necessity to have.

Only putting tessellation on a few objects will make those which lack it stand out and look flat in comparison. We have the horse power now to tessellate a majority of what's on the screen, why not take advantage of it? The only reason I can see not to do so is because AMD aren't as strong at it as NVidia is, but doing that is literally holding back graphics due to one side's weakness. That is something that should never be done, I don't care which side has the weakness, and I'll buy whichever card lacks said weakness.

Quote:

Originally Posted by SKYMTL

That's simply because AMD's driver team doesn't implement their optimizations until a later date...if at all. The same thing goes for NVIDIA as evidenced by their utter lack of 3DMark 11 SLI support.

So again: why hamstring the impartiality of an article because of slow driver development?

This x100. Fact is, just because one side performs obviously worse than the other in a game, there's no reason to leave that title out. That would've been like not benching half life 2 or the original far cry when it was still the 9800XT vs the 5950 Ultra.

The more you post, the more I seem to agree with you. Guess even though we're in different fields of writing, journalists tend to think a lot alike.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bowtie

That's more a side effect than actual intent. To tie up performance and features to your hardware whilst avoiding your weak points in order to one-up the competition and hopefully sell more cards. These same companies will tell you how something their hardware is either lacking or not so strong at, is either unnecessary or wasteful depending on the situation. There is no noble intent here

Whatever the reasoning behind it, if it means we get better looking titles than it's a win for the buyer of said products. If you think back, there were several games that definitely ended up looking better due to the money graphics companies spent to make those titles look better. The original far cry and it's DX9C patch would be a solid example.

Quote:

Originally Posted by keiths

So what's the TL;DR version of this thread? :)

6970 is not quite not as fast as people were hoping it would be. Still competitive in a lot with the 570GTX except in a few titles(like HAWX2 and lost planet 2), but is also more expensive than the 570GTX. The 2 gb of ram situation does help out at ultra high resolutions though. 6950 is the sweet spot if you feel you need a cayman for whatever reason, and overclocked it'll match the 6970 for ~$70 less.

That about sums it up in a nut-shell. :up:
12-22-2010, 02:26 PM
LightSpeed

Quote:

Originally Posted by DilTech

6970 is not quite not as fast as people were hoping it would be. Still competitive in a lot with the 570GTX except in a few titles(like HAWX2 and lost planet 2), but is also more expensive than the 570GTX. The 2 gb of ram situation does help out at ultra high resolutions though. 6950 is the sweet spot if you feel you need a cayman for whatever reason, and overclocked it'll match the 6970 for ~$70 less.

6970 is about equal, actually even slightly faster than the 570 at 1920 and above. I feel drivers will benefit the 6970 more than the 570 too. Certainly depends on the games though. They just made a major change after ~3 years(VLIW4) hence the brilliant performance in some games and relatively poor showing in some IMO. Give 'em time

Still, both are great cards and the 570 is cheaper too :up:
12-22-2010, 02:33 PM
RPGWiZaRD

Funny the only time I see DilTech around in News section is at a GPU launch, either defending Nvidia or speaking negatively about ATI/AMD. ;)
12-22-2010, 02:50 PM
DilTech

Quote:

Originally Posted by RPGWiZaRD

Funny the only time I see DilTech around in News section is at a GPU launch, either defending Nvidia or speaking negatively about ATI/AMD. ;)

When a large group speak negatively yet wrongly constantly about something, anyone impartial will end up looking biased as they correct those who were incorrect. I also correct those who say something wrong in the other direction, but generally those people are corrected far before I have a chance to say anything.

If you look around this forum, a lot of people here are practically a lynch-mob against NVidia for whatever reason. That's not an opinion either, that's an actual fact. It actually got so bad that I was asked to stay out of the gpu threads entirely for quite awhile merely because correcting people made me LOOK completely biased, even though my information was correct. Same reason most of the staff on this site stay out of GPU threads as I'm sure you'll notice. It was funny to me, because at the time there was a shiny 4850 sitting in my gaming rig, yet people said I was biased against AMD.

Think about that for a second, and things will begin to make more sense to you. :up:

I generally stay out of cpu discussion unless there is something big on the horizon because frankly speaking if you have a c2q or better most of it really isn't a big enough improvement to want to spend your time with. I mean, I'm still on a Q6600, and I haven't seen enough of an improvement over this cpu to warrant buying a new mobo, ram, and cpu yet. Before that Q6600, I only used AMD chips during the P4 vs A64 era, and once the X2's came out I pretty much would NOT touch an intel chip until the C2D showed up.

I go by what works best for what I want to do. If I see a glaring issue(like say, DX9 power on the GeForceFX series) I steer clear of it until it is proven that it's a non-issue. If people aren't informed of that possible issue, I tend to point it out to them. At present, it appears AMD may still not be up to par on tessellation performance. This isn't a sure thing, but it appears to be a possibility, which is why I stated that only time will tell if it's a driver or hardware issue.
12-22-2010, 02:54 PM
BababooeyHTJ

I just can't believe that Cayman draws more juice than a GTX280. Where are all of the hot and power hungry complaints now?
12-22-2010, 02:58 PM
Tenknics

Quote:

Originally Posted by Heinz68

Any links about that, I can't Google any but there are plenty reports about TSMC 32nm cancellation. Personally I believe TSMC cancelled the node because of so much problem with 40nm and GLobalFoundries announcing to work on 28nm.

The bottom line is, if GLobalFoundries got successful 28nm process against the TSMC 32nm than TSMC could have even loose the Nvidia business. They sure could not afford that.

Just in case no one gave you any links, Charlie sums it up rather nicely in this article:

http://www.semiaccurate.com/2010/12/...thern-islands/

It actually backs up everything SKYTML said, just in more detail. And I really don't care about any bias toward the author, he actually admits he was wrong a lot in this article and he f*d up. But explains why.

Quote:

"That explains Cayman, but why weren't Cozumel and Kauai shrunk too? Why does NNI/NI-40 have four members while NI-32 only have three? That one comes down to pricing. Even before the 32nm knifing, AMD ran the numbers, and realized that for a mid-range chip, the VLIW4 architecture, while completely doable on 32nm, would not be as cost effective as one made from selectively borrowing from NI-32, and backporting to 40. Cost per area equivalent bit TSMC, and cost them a lot of wafer starts.

Long before TSMC surprised the world about 32nm, or lack thereof, Cozumel and Kauai were killed and replaced by Barts, Turks and Caicos. In a nice bit of synergy, when 32nm was killed and the decision to backport Ibiza was made, a lot of the key pieces of the chip were already ported, or well into the process of being ported to 40nm. Give and ye shall receive."

Its actually an interesting read...
12-22-2010, 02:58 PM
DilTech

Quote:

Originally Posted by BababooeyHTJ

I just can't believe that Cayman draws more juice than a GTX280. Where are all of the hot and power hungry complaints now?

I think everyone expected it this time to be honest. We all knew this was going to be AMD's hottest and most power hungry chip since the HD 2900xt.

Quote:

Originally Posted by LightSpeed

6970 is about equal, actually even slightly faster than the 570 at 1920 and above. I feel drivers will benefit the 6970 more than the 570 too. Certainly depends on the games though. They just made a major change after ~3 years(VLIW4) hence the brilliant performance in some games and relatively poor showing in some IMO. Give 'em time

Still, both are great cards and the 570 is cheaper too :up:

That's what I was pointing out in my little summary. Initially people were mad because for whatever reason they expected GTX 580 like performance, even though people like Sky MTL were telling them that expecting that much would lead to their disappointment, thus my statement.

Also the 1920 and above was covered in that too. :up:

The poor showing in some titles may be due to tessellation power(hawx2 for example), but we won't know for sure until we see if AMD can correct performance there in future drivers.

The 6950 2gb really is the sweet-spot for cayman though.
12-22-2010, 03:57 PM
Bowtie

Quote:

Originally Posted by DilTech

The poor showing in some titles may be due to tessellation power(hawx2 for example), but we won't know for sure until we see if AMD can correct performance there in future drivers.

Even with tessellation off in hawx2, the nvdia cards pull well ahead or AMD falls well back depending on where one stands. Same with lost planet 2, another nvdia sponsored title....
12-22-2010, 04:05 PM
Olivon

Quote:

Originally Posted by BababooeyHTJ

I just can't believe that Cayman draws more juice than a GTX280. Where are all of the hot and power hungry complaints now?

They're noisy too ... :(
12-22-2010, 04:15 PM
RPGWiZaRD

Anyway we shouldn't complain so much because right now there's very great competition in every price segment which hasn't been the case for a very long time and prices change/have changed quite a lot lately for the better if you look back only a couple of months. :D
12-22-2010, 04:19 PM
Calmatory

Quote:

Originally Posted by DilTech

If you look around this forum, a lot of people here are practically a lynch-mob against NVidia for whatever reason. That's not an opinion either, that's an actual fact.

..and the problem for you is? I think it's just hilarious. I see no problem with it really.
12-22-2010, 04:24 PM
RPGWiZaRD

^ Yea I'm sure many other here sees it like this, I know I do. Also I know it will lead to unnecessary arguing/thread crapping and possibly flamebaiting etc. so I think it's just better to let the biased people think what they do, most don't care if they are wrong or right anyway.
12-22-2010, 04:27 PM
Frodin

Quote:

Originally Posted by BababooeyHTJ

I just can't believe that Cayman draws more juice than a GTX280. Where are all of the hot and power hungry complaints now?

The 6950 is best-in-class in performance per watt, only beaten by the lowly 5450 in Techpowerup´s test, at least in 1680x1050 and up:
http://techpowerup.com/reviews/HIS/R...D_6950/30.html

It draws less power than the GTX 280 in all tests by 17- 67w, except for BD- playback where it draws 6w more:
http://techpowerup.com/reviews/HIS/R...D_6950/27.html

The 6970 is quite a bit less efficient though, drawing 12w less in idle and up to 38w more under load:
http://techpowerup.com/reviews/HIS/R...D_6970/27.html

The GTX 280 is not in the performance per watt charts, but I think it is safe to say that it would be way below either Cayman, much more than the around 20% lower power consumption vs the 6970.

I think, all in all, that the 6950 is a pretty solidly performing card, priced around 80% of the 6970 and GTX 570 which are priced equally locally.

Edit: I don`t know where you read that the Cayman GPUs draw more power than a GTX 280, I just checked the results in a second review I had read earlier (Anandtech), and there the GTX 285 (which is even better than the GTX 280 in this regard) draws more power than both 6950/70 in all tests:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4061/a...eon-hd-6950/24
12-22-2010, 04:40 PM
BababooeyHTJ

Quote:

Originally Posted by Frodin

The GTX 280 is not in the performance per watt charts, but I think it is safe to say that it would be way below either Cayman, much more than the around 20% lower power consumption vs the 6970.

GTX280 is also two and a half years old.

Quote:

I think, all in all, that the 6950 is a pretty solidly performing card, priced around 80% of the 6970 and GTX 570 which are priced equally locally.

This I can agree with. 6950 looks like the hell of a card. 6970 on the other hand I can't see one reason to buy one over GTX570.
12-22-2010, 04:56 PM
Frodin

Quote:

Originally Posted by BababooeyHTJ

GTX280 is also two and a half years old.

I know, you were the one saying it draws less power than Cayman, I was just trying to say that the 6950/70 are still pretty efficient after all. The 6970 is also beating all GTX 400/500 series card in performance per watt in 1680x1050 and up, except the GTX460. Also notice my edit of the last post.

Quote:

Originally Posted by BababooeyHTJ

This I can agree with. 6950 looks like the hell of a card. 6970 on the other hand I can't see one reason to buy one over GTX570.

I don`t know, it`s a a little more efficient, priced around equally here, and it has more memory than the 570. It really depends on what you would use them for.
12-22-2010, 05:07 PM
Solus Corvus

Quote:

Originally Posted by BababooeyHTJ

This I can agree with. 6950 looks like the hell of a card. 6970 on the other hand I can't see one reason to buy one over GTX570.

I agree, there is no one reason to buy a 6970 over a GTX570. Similarly, there is no one reason to buy a GTX570 over a 6970. They are about evenly matched, so it comes down to individual usage/preference.

If you are running high resolution, multiple cards, and/or multiple monitors then a 6970 might be the card to get. If you run lower resolution, want to save a few bucks, want physx, or play games with very high tessellation then a GTX570 might be what you want to get instead. These "one point to rule them all" arguments might sound nice, but they rarely mirror how we actually use cards in our daily lives.
12-22-2010, 06:18 PM
keiths

Are there others like rage3d's review? They added measuring power usage for multimonitor setups. For a single monitor, the 6950/70 are 10 watts less, but the gtx 570/580 are 22 watts less for multimonitor. That's hurting the 6950/70 in my eyes(you can guess which way I'm leaning for a monitor upgrade.) I'd be interested in hearing whether that power usage could be tweaked down.
12-22-2010, 07:52 PM
Lanek

depend what monitor upgrade you speak about, if it's for use in Eyefinity or Surrround ( 3 monitors ), you need 2 GPU in SLI for Nvidia.

As for media, and multimonitor ( + media playback ), i will ask me if they have been able to push all the same video treatment they have use on the AMD for the Nvidia ( deblock, noise, mosquito, contrast dyn, 0:255, white brilliant, color flesh etc... ) there's a big difference on accelerate the video by the GPU ( VLC; Flash player, Cyberlink, MPHC ) adding those different methods on the GPU usage.
12-22-2010, 08:51 PM
Macadamia

Quote:

Originally Posted by keiths

Are there others like rage3d's review? They added measuring power usage for multimonitor setups. For a single monitor, the 6950/70 are 10 watts less, but the gtx 570/580 are 22 watts less for multimonitor. That's hurting the 6950/70 in my eyes(you can guess which way I'm leaning for a monitor upgrade.) I'd be interested in hearing whether that power usage could be tweaked down.

Try using 2 monitors that have any difference in resolutions/refresh rates on GF100. Buuuuuuuurn.
12-22-2010, 09:53 PM
STEvil

Quote:

Originally Posted by keiths

Are there others like rage3d's review? They added measuring power usage for multimonitor setups. For a single monitor, the 6950/70 are 10 watts less, but the gtx 570/580 are 22 watts less for multimonitor. That's hurting the 6950/70 in my eyes(you can guess which way I'm leaning for a monitor upgrade.) I'd be interested in hearing whether that power usage could be tweaked down.

Were they measuring system power draw or monitors+system power draw? Too lazy to look :(
12-22-2010, 11:45 PM
Shadov

Quote:

Originally Posted by BababooeyHTJ

GTX280 is also two and a half years old.

Remember that HD 6000 had to stay on 40nm similar to HD 5000.

That way I guess AMD was unable to break the laws of physics and produce a chip with more transistors/performance and decrease the power draw.

But hey, HD 6000 still leads the wat/performance charts, so you shouldnt be complaining. :shrug:
12-23-2010, 03:25 AM
Johnny87au

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shadov

Remember that HD 6000 had to stay on 40nm similar to HD 5000.

That way I guess AMD was unable to break the laws of physics and produce a chip with more transistors/performance and decrease the power draw.

But hey, HD 6000 still leads the wat/performance charts, so you shouldnt be complaining. :shrug:

Dont forget CF scaling/price-performance ratio :D, Shadov Are you aussie? Use to know a guy called Shadovv who played wow.. ;)
12-23-2010, 10:25 AM
[XC] hipno650

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shadov

Remember that HD 6000 had to stay on 40nm similar to HD 5000.

That way I guess AMD was unable to break the laws of physics and produce a chip with more transistors/performance and decrease the power draw.

But hey, HD 6000 still leads the wat/performance charts, so you shouldnt be complaining. :shrug:

The HD6870 maybe leads in Perf per watt but the 6900 series is just a TINY bit better then GTX 5XX's perf per watt.

looks like to get the extra DX11 Performance both GPU manufacturers needed to up the power consumption.

looking at things now AMD and Nvidia have extremely comparable GPU's both offer strong DX11 performance, are priced similar, use almost the same amount of power and have half decent stock coolers... i really comes down to if you want a larger Frame buffer (HD6970) or support for GPGPU that is actually useful/Physx (GTX 570)

what I am disappointed with is that fact that we never really got the price war we were hoping for...
12-23-2010, 11:02 AM
Heinz68

Quote:

Originally Posted by RPGWiZaRD

Funny the only time I see DilTech around in News section is at a GPU launch, either defending Nvidia or speaking negatively about ATI/AMD. ;)

+1

Quote:

Originally Posted by DilTech

When a large group speak negatively yet wrongly constantly about something, anyone impartial will end up looking biased as they correct those who were incorrect.

There is a large group of people talking negatively about AMD incluiding you. Are they all impartial and unbiased? One more time including you? I doubt so.

Quote:

Originally Posted by RPGWiZaRD

If you look around this forum, a lot of people here are practically a lynch-mob against NVidia for whatever reason. That's not an opinion either, that's an actual fact.

Sure it is your opinion and since when is your opinion a fact.

Just maybe some people have good reason to be unhappy with some of the Nvidia tactics, some of which looks like doesn't bother you at all.
12-23-2010, 11:06 AM
VoodooProphetII

Quote:

Originally Posted by DilTech

When a large group speak negatively yet wrongly constantly about something, anyone impartial will end up looking biased as they correct those who were incorrect. I also correct those who say something wrong in the other direction, but generally those people are corrected far before I have a chance to say anything.

If you look around this forum, a lot of people here are practically a lynch-mob against NVidia for whatever reason. That's not an opinion either, that's an actual fact. It actually got so bad that I was asked to stay out of the gpu threads entirely for quite awhile merely because correcting people made me LOOK completely biased, even though my information was correct. Same reason most of the staff on this site stay out of GPU threads as I'm sure you'll notice. It was funny to me, because at the time there was a shiny 4850 sitting in my gaming rig, yet people said I was biased against AMD.

Think about that for a second, and things will begin to make more sense to you. :up:

I generally stay out of cpu discussion unless there is something big on the horizon because frankly speaking if you have a c2q or better most of it really isn't a big enough improvement to want to spend your time with. I mean, I'm still on a Q6600, and I haven't seen enough of an improvement over this cpu to warrant buying a new mobo, ram, and cpu yet. Before that Q6600, I only used AMD chips during the P4 vs A64 era, and once the X2's came out I pretty much would NOT touch an intel chip until the C2D showed up.

I go by what works best for what I want to do. If I see a glaring issue(like say, DX9 power on the GeForceFX series) I steer clear of it until it is proven that it's a non-issue. If people aren't informed of that possible issue, I tend to point it out to them. At present, it appears AMD may still not be up to par on tessellation performance. This isn't a sure thing, but it appears to be a possibility, which is why I stated that only time will tell if it's a driver or hardware issue.

+1 But like yourself I can see why it is better to let the people think and say what they want to as long as it is not against ATI. Shame.
12-23-2010, 11:25 AM
StimulatedBoy

Quote:

Originally Posted by DilTech

If you look around this forum, a lot of people here are practically a lynch-mob against NVidia for whatever reason. That's not an opinion either, that's an actual fact.

Dear Mr. DilTech,

Although we all appreciate any effort to correct facts and obvious mistakes on our behalf, I guess that most of us already have a mother and/or a father and are in no need of another one. Anyway, I’m sorry to hear about your experience with us and I do hope that we will behave more restrained/correct in the time to come.

At the same time I feel the need to say the obvious as there – in my view - are some very good reasons as to why Nvidia have got their fair share over the last couple of years. What actually triggered this post was your wording “…for whatever reason…” and I started to wonder where you have been lately.

The disrespect that Nvidia has shown us – the buyers of their cards and software - over the last couple of years are to the best of my knowledge breath-taking and unprecedented in any “Fortune 500” company; I have actually never seen someone :banana::banana::banana::banana: their pants as many times and in the ways that JHH has been over the last couple of years.

I’m sure that you’re aware of most of his :banana::banana::banana::banana:ty pants but believe that listing some of them will help us all:

1. The renaming of the renaming of the renaming of the renaming of the renaming of the renaming …
2. Woodscrew gate
3. The announcement of the announcement of the announcement of the announcement of the announcement…
4. “Business practise” like an Italian Godfather combined with Jim Carrey’s impersonation of someone that completely has lost their mind – Big arse ego, Assassins Creed, etc. comes to mind +++.
5. “Can of whoop arse”…
6. For some more examples please have a look at Saaya’s signature… :-)

I honestly believe that one has to have a JHH mobile on vibrate stuck up one’s arse if one’s not capable of grasping the above or actually just agreeing. However, there’s been a change over the last months and I can only hope that The Board of Directors, the CEO and the administration understand how this has hurt the company’s reputation and credibility, and has changed their practise.

We are sick and tired of “whoop arses” and just want JHH to shut the :banana::banana::banana::banana: up and deliver the goods; No more talk, just walk the walk. Then, and only then, I believe that Nvidia will be taken seriously and the lynch-mob disappears. I know for sure that’s when I’ll start considering buying their stuff again.

Rob

Ps. I don’t look at AMD/ATI as the innocent company, although they are called “The peasants company” in the Far East due to their lack of market professionalism. They have however, kept their mouth shut and delivered to the their best of capabilities. Merry xmas to you and you’re family.
12-23-2010, 11:32 AM
StimulatedBoy

Quote:

Originally Posted by Olivon

They're noisy too ... :(

6970 are noisy? I have a couple of 6970's installed in my PC right now and they don’t create any more noise than the previous 5870's that were installed prior to this week’s change... Fan is set to 30% like I normally do and that's it???
12-23-2010, 11:53 AM
Shadov

Quote:

Originally Posted by [XC] hipno650

The HD6870 maybe leads in Perf per watt but the 6900 series is just a TINY bit better then GTX 5XX's perf per watt.

looks like to get the extra DX11 Performance both GPU manufacturers needed to up the power consumption.

looking at things now AMD and Nvidia have extremely comparable GPU's both offer strong DX11 performance, are priced similar, use almost the same amount of power and have half decent stock coolers... i really comes down to if you want a larger Frame buffer (HD6970) or support for GPGPU that is actually useful/Physx (GTX 570)

what I am disappointed with is that fact that we never really got the price war we were hoping for...

Actually that statment is far from truth, heres a power/performance graph from a web-site that isnt oversaturated by the way its meant to be played titles - though they are still included:

http://img576.imageshack.us/img576/4407/powero.jpg

http://img576.imageshack.us/i/powero.jpg/
12-23-2010, 11:58 AM
[XC] hipno650

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shadov

Actually that statment is far from truth, heres a power/performance graph from a web-site that isnt oversaturated by the way its meant to be played titles - though they are still included:

http://img576.imageshack.us/img576/4407/powero.jpg

http://img576.imageshack.us/i/powero.jpg/

or a real review... considering the GTX 570 is only .02% slower at 1920 with 4XAA compared to the 6970 that would put the GTX 570 as better per-watt who knew....

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum...review-25.html
12-23-2010, 12:04 PM
BababooeyHTJ

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rob Halford

6970 are noisy? I have a couple of 6970's installed in my PC right now and they don’t create any more noise than the previous 5870's that were installed prior to this week’s change... Fan is set to 30% like I normally do and that's it???

30% fan speed isn't even enough for my 6870.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shadov

Remember that HD 6000 had to stay on 40nm similar to HD 5000.

That way I guess AMD was unable to break the laws of physics and produce a chip with more transistors/performance and decrease the power draw.

But hey, HD 6000 still leads the wat/performance charts, so you shouldnt be complaining. :shrug:

They seemed to do a pretty good job with Barts. Cypress has better performance per watt than Cayman XT, btw.
12-23-2010, 12:08 PM
Shadov

...

Quote:

Originally Posted by [XC] hipno650

or a real review... considering the GTX 570 is only .02% slower at 1920 with 4XAA compared to the 6970 that would put the GTX 570 as better per-watt who knew....

I'm truly sorry, but I don't consider reviews that used biased results from Lost Planet 2 as "real"... They should also add HawX 2 and be done with the almost unplayed but favour NV games list? :rofl:

Of course I dont look at it that seriously, but it irks me somehow when reviewers choose to not notice that something is seriously wrong/flawed with the results in a given game title. :shrug:
12-23-2010, 12:40 PM
SKYMTL

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shadov

I'm truly sorry, but I don't consider reviews that used biased results from Lost Planet 2 as "real"... They should also add HawX 2 and be done with the almost unplayed but favour NV games list? :rofl:

Of course I dont look at it that seriously, but it irks me somehow when reviewers choose to not notice that something is seriously wrong/flawed with the results in a given game title. :shrug:

Please do explain because your reasoning seems to be flawed.

Lost Planet 2 isn't any different from a large number of upcoming DX11 titles that put forth some serious GPU requirements. It uses a large number of DX11-specific features which is why AMD's HD 5000-series struggled. The HD 6000-series will STILL struggle simply because both Barts and to a lesser extent Cayman largely incorporate architecures which are meant to live in a pre-DX11 world. Cayman has changed this somewhat as evidenced by the large increase versus Cypress in some DX11 titles.

There is absolutely no bias involved. IMO, it is AMD's fault that framerates are poor in many new titles as their drivers completely fail to address known performance optimization issues again and again. Anyone who fails to recognize this is looking at the market with blinders over their eyes.
12-23-2010, 12:43 PM
Frodin

Quote:

Originally Posted by [XC] hipno650

The HD6870 maybe leads in Perf per watt but the 6900 series is just a TINY bit better then GTX 5XX's perf per watt.

The GTX 480, 570 and 580 are around 55, 70 and 75% as efficient as the HD 5950 in resolutions that matter for these high end cards:
http://techpowerup.com/reviews/HIS/R...D_6950/30.html

A little higher vs the 5970, around 70 and 90% efficiency:
http://techpowerup.com/reviews/HIS/R...D_6970/30.html

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rob Halford

Dear Mr. DilTech,
Stop being the Nvidia nNanny™ etc

Thank you for putting words to how I portray this company nowadays! Although, as you mention, they seem to have got a lot better better since the Fermi launch, perhaps that was a breaking point for them in more than one way.
12-23-2010, 12:56 PM
Shadov

Quote:

Originally Posted by SKYMTL

Please do explain because your reasoning seems to be flawed.

Lost Planet 2 isn't any different from a large number of upcoming DX11 titles that put forth some serious GPU requirements. It uses a large number of DX11-specific features which is why AMD's HD 5000-series struggled. The HD 6000-series will STILL struggle simply because both Barts and to a lesser extent Cayman largely incorporate architecures which are meant to live in a pre-DX11 world. Cayman has changed this somewhat as evidenced by the large increase versus Cypress in some DX11 titles.

There is absolutely no bias involved. IMO, it is AMD's fault that framerates poor in many new titles as their drivers completely fail to address known performance optimization issues again and again. Anyone who fails to recognize this is looking at the market with blinders over their eyes.

IF you REALLY think that AMD couldn't have addressed an "older" title like Lost Planet 2 with their driver optimizations then we must be living on a different planet.

Furthermore if you think that its only due to drivers that GTX 470 is on par with HD 6970 and HD 5970 then your planet is further away then I thought. :shrug:

That way as I mentioned you SHOULD DEFINITELY add other NV lead sponsored titles and be done with your almost unplayed but in review games list. Maybe then you will stop using the excuse that others have blinders over their eyes, while more likely it might be your occasionally "green perception" that fails to notice how biased those Lost planet 2 results are for a review!
12-23-2010, 01:14 PM
Final8ty

Quote:

Originally Posted by SKYMTL

Please do explain because your reasoning seems to be flawed.

Lost Planet 2 isn't any different from a large number of upcoming DX11 titles that put forth some serious GPU requirements. It uses a large number of DX11-specific features which is why AMD's HD 5000-series struggled. The HD 6000-series will STILL struggle simply because both Barts and to a lesser extent Cayman largely incorporate architecures which are meant to live in a pre-DX11 world. Cayman has changed this somewhat as evidenced by the large increase versus Cypress in some DX11 titles.

There is absolutely no bias involved. IMO, it is AMD's fault that framerates are poor in many new titles as their drivers completely fail to address known performance optimization issues again and again. Anyone who fails to recognize this is looking at the market with blinders over their eyes.

I don't care about what hardware does best at what so let me be specific about my point.

Lost Planet 2 makes inefficient use of GPU power to what is seen on screen
HAWKS 2 make inefficient use of tessellation.

The best looking game are still manly DX9 & when Dx10 & 11 is an option all we see is frame hit for nearly no noticeable difference.

Many games being console ports & the console game didn't need it for it to be a good game & you should not have to pay through the nose to have a gfx card to run the PC version just because its adds something barely noticeable just because the gfx card had such a feature.

Use it because its needed & in amounts that's needed & not just because its exits.
12-23-2010, 01:14 PM
Pantsu

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shadov

IF you REALLY think that AMD couldn't have addressed an "older" title like Lost Planet 2 with their driver optimizations then we must be living on a different planet.

It could be that AMD simply hasn't wasted a moment to try to fix the performance on this particular Nvidia sponsored title even if they could have, so it's a compound of Nvidia optimizing and AMD not doing anything.

And personally I wouldn't waste my time with it either. Who actually plays this game? IMO :banana::banana::banana::banana:ty games that nobody plays shouldn't be included in reviews no matter how fancy graphics there might be. IMO it's just one of the games Nvidia likes to pick and "enhance" so it'll end up in these reviews in search for eyecandy. :down:
12-23-2010, 01:38 PM
SKYMTL

Quote:

IF you REALLY think that AMD couldn't have addressed an "older" title like Lost Planet 2 with their driver optimizations then we must be living on a different planet.

Sure they could have. But they DIDN'T. Why should a certain title not be used because AMD is too damn slow on driver optimizations or just doesn't care?

Quote:

Furthermore if you think that its only due to drivers that GTX 470 is on par with HD 6970 and HD 5970 then your planet is further away then I thought. :shrug:

Fermi was always targeted towards DX11 titles and its performance shows that. Cayman and Barts are a hodge-podge of two generations of products; an older one and a newer one. You don't seem to understand this one fact for some reason.

Plus, as I said: AMD could very well have comparable performance if they bothered to optimize their drivers for it. I for one won't bury my head in the sand just because someone's driver development is spinning their wheels.

Quote:

That way as I mentioned you SHOULD DEFINITELY add other NV lead sponsored titles and be done with your almost unplayed but in review games list.

That's actually a great idea. I should stop playing lip service to all the trolls who refuse to realize that both NVIDIA'a AND AMD's developer relationship programs should be rewarded. If anyone wants to sponsor a title, I am all for that since it pushes technologies that would otherwise not be seen in this overly consolized PC gaming market. If you aren't all for that and don't agree that it should be rewarded, then shame on you.
12-23-2010, 01:44 PM
SKYMTL

Quote:

Originally Posted by Final8ty

Lost Planet 2 makes inefficient use of GPU power to what is seen on screen.

Lost Planet 2 makes great use of GPU resources but has features that require more DX11 feature support than past (and even some present) AMD cards could provide. Otherwise, even Cayman can play this game at high resolutions without any issue whatsoever.

Quote:

HAWKS 2 make inefficient use of tessellation.

Says AMD. Any editor with two marbles banging around their head knows that this statement only covered up for AMD's lack of optimizations when the game was released. Case closed.
12-23-2010, 01:52 PM
tajoh111

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rob Halford

Dear Mr. DilTech,

Although we all appreciate any effort to correct facts and obvious mistakes on our behalf, I guess that most of us already have a mother and/or a father and are in no need of another one. Anyway, I’m sorry to hear about your experience with us and I do hope that we will behave more restrained/correct in the time to come.

At the same time I feel the need to say the obvious as there – in my view - are some very good reasons as to why Nvidia have got their fair share over the last couple of years. What actually triggered this post was your wording “…for whatever reason…” and I started to wonder where you have been lately.

The disrespect that Nvidia has shown us – the buyers of their cards and software - over the last couple of years are to the best of my knowledge breath-taking and unprecedented in any “Fortune 500” company; I have actually never seen someone :banana::banana::banana::banana: their pants as many times and in the ways that JHH has been over the last couple of years.

I’m sure that you’re aware of most of his :banana::banana::banana::banana:ty pants but believe that listing some of them will help us all:

1. The renaming of the renaming of the renaming of the renaming of the renaming of the renaming …
2. Woodscrew gate
3. The announcement of the announcement of the announcement of the announcement of the announcement…
4. “Business practise” like an Italian Godfather combined with Jim Carrey’s impersonation of someone that completely has lost their mind – Big arse ego, Assassins Creed, etc. comes to mind +++.
5. “Can of whoop arse”…
6. For some more examples please have a look at Saaya’s signature… :-)

I honestly believe that one has to have a JHH mobile on vibrate stuck up one’s arse if one’s not capable of grasping the above or actually just agreeing. However, there’s been a change over the last months and I can only hope that The Board of Directors, the CEO and the administration understand how this has hurt the company’s reputation and credibility, and has changed their practise.

We are sick and tired of “whoop arses” and just want JHH to shut the :banana::banana::banana::banana: up and deliver the goods; No more talk, just walk the walk. Then, and only then, I believe that Nvidia will be taken seriously and the lynch-mob disappears. I know for sure that’s when I’ll start considering buying their stuff again.

Rob

Ps. I don’t look at AMD/ATI as the innocent company, although they are called “The peasants company” in the Far East due to their lack of market professionalism. They have however, kept their mouth shut and delivered to the their best of capabilities. Merry xmas to you and you’re family.

Whoop ass was 2 and a half a years ago and it hasn't been mentioned since. It is time to let go. JHH has been alot more humble lately.

And as for AMD keeping their mouth shut, they have been as mouthy as Nvidia back in their hey day. Hence the hype behind the 69xx series.

Most of the things you mentioned have no effect on the consumer like woodscrew cards and the announcement of an announcement.

The only thing that has some sort of effect is the renaming and they have been doing alot less of that recently.

As for questionable business practises, it strange that you are hammering on Nvidia(and won't buy one for it), but you own an Intel system. If you want to talk about questionable business practises, they are the ones that wrote the book on it, in the tech industry.
12-23-2010, 01:53 PM
Final8ty

Quote:

Originally Posted by SKYMTL

That's actually a great idea. I should stop playing lip service to all the trolls who refuse to realize that both NVIDIA'a AND AMD's developer relationship programs should be rewarded. If anyone wants to sponsor a title, I am all for that since it pushes technologies that would otherwise not be seen in this overly consolized PC gaming market. If you aren't all for that and don't agree that it should be rewarded, then shame on you.

I don't think that's the point that people don't think pushing technologies is a good idea but the way its been pushed in an inefficient manner is what's gets people upset that alone played right into the hands of the consoles with both NV & ATi users getting fed up with upgrading for very little noticeable visual gain because it using a feature now that a game a year ago didn't but requires much more processing power but looks no better.

Its looks like less about giving us m,ore features to make games better for us & more a way to get up to buy yet more hardware each year.
The visual leap from the latest DX9 titles to the DX11 are tiny but the processing power needed has increased greatly because the DX11 features are used badly.
12-23-2010, 02:03 PM
Final8ty

Quote:

Originally Posted by SKYMTL

Lost Planet 2 makes great use of GPU resources but has features that require more DX11 feature support than past (and even some present) AMD cards could provide. Otherwise, even Cayman can play this game at high resolutions without any issue whatsoever.

Says AMD. Any editor with two marbles banging around their head knows that this statement only covered up for AMD's lack of optimizations when the game was released. Case closed.

Lost Planet 2 doesn't look no better to me than Lost Planet.
The difference between tessellation on & off is a joke because its not used to smooth off anything in the game & used purely to make spikes & bumps bigger when if they needed to be that big in the first place then they could of designed them to be in the first place.

The tessellation in that game does not make the game look better it just makes it look different.

And as i had said to you already im not talking about what the ATI v NV cards can do its about what the games are doing is what i care about.

UT3 still looks better than most games i play today & yet it uses allot less resources.

Inefficient use of resources is inefficient use of resources no matter how well the hardware can cope.
12-23-2010, 02:08 PM
[XC] hipno650

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shadov

I'm truly sorry, but I don't consider reviews that used biased results from Lost Planet 2 as "real"... They should also add HawX 2 and be done with the almost unplayed but favour NV games list? :rofl:

Of course I dont look at it that seriously, but it irks me somehow when reviewers choose to not notice that something is seriously wrong/flawed with the results in a given game title. :shrug:

well thats fine for you. but I for one actually PLAY LP2 on the PC so it performance is important to me... it's not the reviewers job to try to paint both companies as even as possible in PERFORMANCE it is the reviewers job to show the performance of popular demanding games. and there is no way around it. AMD's performance in LP2 is trash. and it does not matter why. is LP2 Nvidia sponsored. yes. that does not change the fact that LP2 performs bad on AMD. it may a part of the reason why but AMD still performs bad. if you don't play LP2 then ignore it and look at games that you play, pretty simple. people wanna see game performance. if reviewers took out all the sponsored games then there would be no games left to benchmark. just because it's Nvidia sponsored does not change the fact that people play the game and it's performance is important...

also I have NEVER seen any other site explain in extreme detail how they review GPU's and WHY they review GPU's they way they do. HWC has done that. if there is another please point me in it's direction and i will read it but until then HWC has EARNED respect for it's reviews because they explained how and why they review the way they do and it makes sense to me.

another thing to think about is the relevance of Perf-watt. i know lots of people have different opinions on it but really does how many watts your card uses affect how your GPU performs? no it does not. for example lets say we have a new GPU come out that uses 20watts full load but only performs as good as a 5750 and is priced at $300, who is going to by it? Nobody in their right mind. because for an extreme gamer running a screen of 1080p or more a 5750 does not cut it performance wise... I have a 5870 that was in my Main Rig before I upgraded to a GTX 480, ya it uses less power but it was not giving me the performance I was looking for at 1080p the GTX 480 is much faster I have found and yes it uses more power but I could care less because my performance is drastically higher... i still have that 5870 by the way in my secondary comp and it works great for when a buddy comes over... don't get me wrong using less power is great but i find it ranks at the bottom of features I look for in a new video card...
12-23-2010, 02:48 PM
DilTech

Quote:

Originally Posted by SKYMTL

Please do explain because your reasoning seems to be flawed.

Lost Planet 2 isn't any different from a large number of upcoming DX11 titles that put forth some serious GPU requirements. It uses a large number of DX11-specific features which is why AMD's HD 5000-series struggled. The HD 6000-series will STILL struggle simply because both Barts and to a lesser extent Cayman largely incorporate architecures which are meant to live in a pre-DX11 world. Cayman has changed this somewhat as evidenced by the large increase versus Cypress in some DX11 titles.

There is absolutely no bias involved. IMO, it is AMD's fault that framerates are poor in many new titles as their drivers completely fail to address known performance optimization issues again and again. Anyone who fails to recognize this is looking at the market with blinders over their eyes.

Once again.... This x100.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shadov

IF you REALLY think that AMD couldn't have addressed an "older" title like Lost Planet 2 with their driver optimizations then we must be living on a different planet.

Furthermore if you think that its only due to drivers that GTX 470 is on par with HD 6970 and HD 5970 then your planet is further away then I thought. :shrug:

That way as I mentioned you SHOULD DEFINITELY add other NV lead sponsored titles and be done with your almost unplayed but in review games list. Maybe then you will stop using the excuse that others have blinders over their eyes, while more likely it might be your occasionally "green perception" that fails to notice how biased those Lost planet 2 results are for a review!

Shadov... I'm just going to go ahead and tell you, look through SkyMTL's review history. Dig back, we'll wait. He's been EXTREMELY unbiased the entire time his site has been around. I'm just assuming you don't realize that he's not one of those reviewers that do everything they can to paint one side or the other badly.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Final8ty

I don't care about what hardware does best at what so let me be specific about my point.

Lost Planet 2 makes inefficient use of GPU power to what is seen on screen
HAWKS 2 make inefficient use of tessellation.

The best looking game are still manly DX9 & when Dx10 & 11 is an option all we see is frame hit for nearly no noticeable difference.

Many games being console ports & the console game didn't need it for it to be a good game & you should not have to pay through the nose to have a gfx card to run the PC version just because its adds something barely noticeable just because the gfx card had such a feature.

Use it because its needed & in amounts that's needed & not just because its exits.

What is your exact reasoning to say LP2 or HAWX2 makes "inefficient use" of tessellation? That's a real question by the way, no sarcasm to be found in there.

Personally, I kind of like the idea that they make the PC version look as amazing as they can. I mean, we have the ability to change our options in the menu should we not have the gpu power to max it out, right? Why not give those people who have the cream of the crop some additional eye candy since they bought a $500 card?

What you're essentially asking now is that the PC version look like the console version, just a higher resolution... You do realize that, right?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Heinz68

+1

There is a large group of people talking negatively about AMD incluiding you. Are they all impartial and unbiased? One more time including you? I doubt so.

Sure it is your opinion and since when is your opinion a fact.

A fact can be proven, an opinion cannot. What I stated as a fact there is very easily proven. Want to prove it yourself? Go through any random gpu thread here outside of the GTX560 thread(it's probably the only one that hasn't erupted into flames yet), tell me what you find.

I've corrected people who incorrectly flame AMD products as well, it's just that usually when THAT occurs someone else does it within 30 seconds of the post happening and as such it'd become redundant for me to do the same thing.

Quote:

Just maybe some people have good reason to be unhappy with some of the Nvidia tactics, some of which looks like doesn't bother you at all.

I'll say this 1000 times... maybe I'm the only one who still uses their brain when buying parts, but frankly speaking the only thing I look at when I am thinking about buying a product is the product and it's competitor. I don't care what that company told people(most of those "people" were investors, not buyers btw), I only care about the product itself. It's not like JHH saying he'll open a "can" killed 50,000 baby seals or anything, or like woodscrews were used to torture my mother or anything. Every company that deals with millions or billions of dollars is doing something shady, in case you didn't know.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rob Halford

Dear Mr. DilTech,

Although we all appreciate any effort to correct facts and obvious mistakes on our behalf, I guess that most of us already have a mother and/or a father and are in no need of another one. Anyway, I’m sorry to hear about your experience with us and I do hope that we will behave more restrained/correct in the time to come.

At the same time I feel the need to say the obvious as there – in my view - are some very good reasons as to why Nvidia have got their fair share over the last couple of years. What actually triggered this post was your wording “…for whatever reason…” and I started to wonder where you have been lately.

The disrespect that Nvidia has shown us – the buyers of their cards and software - over the last couple of years are to the best of my knowledge breath-taking and unprecedented in any “Fortune 500” company; I have actually never seen someone :banana::banana::banana::banana: their pants as many times and in the ways that JHH has been over the last couple of years.

I’m sure that you’re aware of most of his :banana::banana::banana::banana:ty pants but believe that listing some of them will help us all:

1. The renaming of the renaming of the renaming of the renaming of the renaming of the renaming …
2. Woodscrew gate
3. The announcement of the announcement of the announcement of the announcement of the announcement…
4. “Business practise” like an Italian Godfather combined with Jim Carrey’s impersonation of someone that completely has lost their mind – Big arse ego, Assassins Creed, etc. comes to mind +++.
5. “Can of whoop arse”…
6. For some more examples please have a look at Saaya’s signature… :-)

I honestly believe that one has to have a JHH mobile on vibrate stuck up one’s arse if one’s not capable of grasping the above or actually just agreeing. However, there’s been a change over the last months and I can only hope that The Board of Directors, the CEO and the administration understand how this has hurt the company’s reputation and credibility, and has changed their practise.

We are sick and tired of “whoop arses” and just want JHH to shut the :banana::banana::banana::banana: up and deliver the goods; No more talk, just walk the walk. Then, and only then, I believe that Nvidia will be taken seriously and the lynch-mob disappears. I know for sure that’s when I’ll start considering buying their stuff again.

Rob

Ps. I don’t look at AMD/ATI as the innocent company, although they are called “The peasants company” in the Far East due to their lack of market professionalism. They have however, kept their mouth shut and delivered to the their best of capabilities. Merry xmas to you and you’re family.

I guess the big difference is I just look at the product itself.

Although, you can scratch A.C. off your list. The code AMD sent Ubisoft broke the title, we went over that 1000+ times on this forum. AMD didn't fix the code(remember, a LOT of lights shined THRU buildings... the torches on the castle come to mind), so ubisoft removed the path from the title. I mean, they added it for AMD in good faith, it didn't work properly, amd didn't fix it, ubisoft removed it. Notice they didn't re-enable it when NVidia released the 4xx series and had a card suddenly that could perform it? It's because the code itself was buggy!

It's things like that which irk me. People making decisions due to mis-information and spreading that mis-information to others to do the same thing. I mean, staff members of a site SHOULD be correcting people when they're wrong, right?

Hope that makes sense to you.
12-23-2010, 03:28 PM
Final8ty

Quote:

Originally Posted by DilTech

Once again.... This x100.

What is your exact reasoning to say LP2 or HAWX2 makes "inefficient use" of tessellation? That's a real question by the way, no sarcasm to be found in there.

Personally, I kind of like the idea that they make the PC version look as amazing as they can. I mean, we have the ability to change our options in the menu should we not have the gpu power to max it out, right? Why not give those people who have the cream of the crop some additional eye candy since they bought a $500 card?

What you're essentially asking now is that the PC version look like the console version, just a higher resolution... You do realize that, right?

I have really said what makes LP2 bad usage of tessellation.

HAWX2 makes bad use of tessellation because it does not add any more detail at a given level & is no difference from adding more & more AA on a given game way past the point of noticeable visual returns but just because we can.

The PC version don't look like the console versions anyway & it does not need high level of tessellation to make a PC game look better because then your claiming that was the only difference until now when that's far from the case.

I can run my games at a higher AA & AF settings than i do & still hold a smooth 60fps Vsync but i don't run a game at i higher setting if i don't notice the difference because its just waste with no noticeable gain & we should not be promoting silly implementations in games just to say we are different.

There is to much using of power to polish a turd in PC games atm, Dirt 2 with tessellation on the crowd which still look like crap & there are better examples of crowds in games with no tessellation but besides that the game is great.
12-23-2010, 08:46 PM
cegras

Quote:

Originally Posted by SKYMTL

Please do explain because your reasoning seems to be flawed.

Lost Planet 2 isn't any different from a large number of upcoming DX11 titles that put forth some serious GPU requirements. It uses a large number of DX11-specific features which is why AMD's HD 5000-series struggled. The HD 6000-series will STILL struggle simply because both Barts and to a lesser extent Cayman largely incorporate architecures which are meant to live in a pre-DX11 world. Cayman has changed this somewhat as evidenced by the large increase versus Cypress in some DX11 titles.

There is absolutely no bias involved. IMO, it is AMD's fault that framerates are poor in many new titles as their drivers completely fail to address known performance optimization issues again and again. Anyone who fails to recognize this is looking at the market with blinders over their eyes.

Maybe because Lost Planet 2 sucks, and so did Lost Planet one and no one on PC plays it.

Forget PC, even the console platform was taunted for having a terrible control scheme.

I'm surprised you never tested COD MW2 (although it's not demanding, it's certainly a relevant game, perhaps at high IQ settings), Civ 5 (late game situation?? It's the first game to actually lag my computer, and it's not even a FPS, has DX11 settings w/ tesselation), Bad Company 2, even SC II, or COD: black ops? With your much advertised timedemo / real world walkthrough testing, this would yield the most valuable data on GPUs on the internet.

Although it's highly likely that these games will get ripped by the GPUs in question, you should realize that they are important because they serve as important relative standards for us. If we see a card we know performing well in COD5 we can translate it's perf. over to the other games or future games. It's the most important because we most likely have these games and can compare our current perf. to new cards and see what sort of upgrade they provide.

Not everyone buys GPUs to play new games. Some buy GPUs to improve oldish ones.
12-23-2010, 09:10 PM
eXa

Quote:

Originally Posted by cegras

Not everyone buys GPUs to play new games. Some buy GPUs to improve oldish ones.

I have Crysis, Crysis warhead, Shattered horizon, Metro 2033 and other games i havent even bothered to try because i still only have a 3870... :p:

Id rather not play them than play them at medium settings.
12-23-2010, 09:29 PM
cegras

Quote:

Originally Posted by eXa

I have Crysis, Crysis warhead, Shattered horizon, Metro 2033 and other games i havent even bothered to try because i still only have a 3870... :p:

Id rather not play them than play them at medium settings.

Exactly, I'm shopping for a GTX460 1gb or ~ perf. and what I really want is to double the smoothness in games I currently play like TF2 and Civ 5, and a few new games I recently bought like Dragon Rising and maybe some blockbuster FPS.

Perhaps SC II as well.

Also:

Quote:

What is your exact reasoning to say LP2 or HAWX2 makes "inefficient use" of tessellation? That's a real question by the way, no sarcasm to be found in there.

How do you not know about this? Try searching techreport on Hawx 2.
12-23-2010, 09:40 PM
seanx

I aggree with Rob_Halford about nvidias' bad tactics ...renaming etc.... and I have owned cards from both camps (as I'm sure we all have) we are all intelligent to want the best for our $$ ,
I think I liked nvidia more in recent times since they released 460gtx , since imo nvidia has always been a little too pricey for me to justify preformance ....unfortunately even more recently both camps
seem to have just hiked the general price on their products vs preformance , and now I may just wait a bit longer to buy a new card than I would've liked ( I have 5770 at the mo) ....

To expand , /rant on " I just dont get amd releasing new cards that preform lower than older gen and cost more !??? /rant
I'm probably gonna wait it out till gtx560 ( fingers crossed on pricing)
12-23-2010, 09:46 PM
seanx

Quote:

Originally Posted by SKYMTL

Please do explain because your reasoning seems to be flawed.

Lost Planet 2 isn't any different from a large number of upcoming DX11 titles that put forth some serious GPU requirements. It uses a large number of DX11-specific features which is why AMD's HD 5000-series struggled. The HD 6000-series will STILL struggle simply because both Barts and to a lesser extent Cayman largely incorporate architecures which are meant to live in a pre-DX11 world. Cayman has changed this somewhat as evidenced by the large increase versus Cypress in some DX11 titles.

There is absolutely no bias involved. IMO, it is AMD's fault that framerates are poor in many new titles as their drivers completely fail to address known performance optimization issues again and again. Anyone who fails to recognize this is looking at the market with blinders over their eyes.

I aggree
+1
12-23-2010, 09:57 PM
seanx

Quote:

Originally Posted by seanx

I aggree with Rob_Halford about nvidias' bad tactics ...renaming etc.... and I have owned cards from both camps (as I'm sure we all have) we are all intelligent to want the best for our $$ ,
I think I liked nvidia more in recent times since they released 460gtx , since imo nvidia has always been a little too pricey for me to justify preformance ....unfortunately even more recently both camps
seem to have just hiked the general price on their products vs preformance , and now I may just wait a bit longer to buy a new card than I would've liked ( I have 5770 at the mo) ....

To expand , /rant on " I just dont get amd releasing new cards that preform lower than older gen and cost more !??? /rant
I'm probably gonna wait it out till gtx560 ( fingers crossed on pricing)

I'm guessing the majority of sales come in the $180 - $250 segment
so in this case I would say bad marketing/pricing from both companies vs preformance vs old gen .... just imo

p.s I am talking about U.K pricing ..
12-23-2010, 10:07 PM
seanx

this seems a grt deal compared to the current cards pricing of both camps
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showpr...56&subcat=1830
asus gtx460 768mb = $177 , compared to a 6950 = $343 or gtx570 = $448
12-23-2010, 10:29 PM
seanx

Quote:

Originally Posted by Final8ty

Inefficient use of resources is inefficient use of resources no matter how well the hardware can cope.

Yes I aggree and unfortunately I think they (red/green) do this intentionally
"aggresive marketing" , basically make the new games run so bad on old tech that u have to keep buying new cards.... I understand that idea, making/sponsoring a game that plays fine on 5yr old tech doesnt help red/green sell more cards , however they will eventually lose "gaming market share" to the console , if prices keep rising and inefficiencies keep rising ....

Wot they don't understand imo, is that most of us will still buy new cards
regardless how well the old ones play newer games (imo) , ppl always want
better ....and as some already posted above , a lot of ppl still play/want to play older games, they just want to play them with better preformance .....

p.s and yes I'm still sort of ranting about the pricing (makes me think they released to many cards at one time tbh , - too many price points to cover, not enough preformance )
p.p.s I think the $ I've saved so far for a new card will go to some new hdds , god knows I really need the space, lol , I have 2x1tb int + 3x1,5ext , and they all 90% full ...hahaha
12-23-2010, 10:36 PM
Calmatory

Awww. DilTech <3 Nvidia. How cute. :)
12-23-2010, 11:23 PM
hurrdurr

Quote:

Originally Posted by Calmatory

Awww. DilTech <3 Nvidia. How cute. :)

I haven't seen a single post by you which talked about GPUs and didn't either praise AMD or bury Nvidia to some degree.

Unless you really think there is nothing positive Nvidia has ever done, or there is nothing negative AMD has ever done (you don't really seem to be retarded, so I assume you don't think that way), you shouldn't be calling people "fans" of a company.
12-23-2010, 11:35 PM
Shadov

Quote:

Originally Posted by SKYMTL

Sure they could have. But they DIDN'T. Why should a certain title not be used because AMD is too damn slow on driver optimizations or just doesn't care?

How about you reach out to AMD and ask about the performance difference instead of assuming that "they" dont care or "they" are to slow?
Maybe it's just you defending an unplayed and badly written title? Try to find out for all of us?

Quote:

Fermi was always targeted towards DX11 titles and its performance shows that. Cayman and Barts are a hodge-podge of two generations of products; an older one and a newer one. You don't seem to understand this one fact for some reason.

Both cards are targeted at DX11 market and If I may remind you both of them run majority of DX11 games well. Of course if you go overboard with tesellation levels then Fermi pulls ahead, but it also suffers a huge performance loss. Though as a reviewer could you answer the question - was tesselation meant to add complexity without visible IQ improvement? I guess not and there goes your overhyped NV advantage. :shrug:

Quote:

Plus, as I said: AMD could very well have comparable performance if they bothered to optimize their drivers for it. I for one won't bury my head in the sand just because someone's driver development is spinning their wheels.

Again dont assume and ask why a GTX 470 is on par with HD 5970 and HD 6970 in the game that you have carefully selected for a review? As I mentioned if you think that AMD couldnt have optimized their drivers for an older game like lost planet 2 then you either think to highly of Nvidia driver team or choose to ignore that something is wrong...

Quote:

That's actually a great idea. I should stop playing lip service to all the trolls who refuse to realize that both NVIDIA'a AND AMD's developer relationship programs should be rewarded. If anyone wants to sponsor a title, I am all for that since it pushes technologies that would otherwise not be seen in this overly consolized PC gaming market. If you aren't all for that and don't agree that it should be rewarded, then shame on you.

I agree that open standards should be rewarded, though proprietary PhysX approach should be dropped since it dosent add anything new then a vendor lock to standard features. Though thats of course my opinion and you as a reviewer with free access to all cards may see it differently. :rolleyes:
12-24-2010, 12:02 AM
seanx

I appreciate all the work all the reviewers do .....however could we start a poll or something on games to be reviewed with a list of cards ...? any1 interested ? SkyMTL ?
and maybe some specific scenes ? for example I hear that in crysis at the end vs the big boss there's a lot of screen action and causes jerky graphics issues ....
12-24-2010, 12:18 AM
seanx

Quote:

Originally Posted by cegras

Maybe because Lost Planet 2 sucks, and so did Lost Planet one and no one on PC plays it.

Forget PC, even the console platform was taunted for having a terrible control scheme.

I'm surprised you never tested COD MW2 (although it's not demanding, it's certainly a relevant game, perhaps at high IQ settings), Civ 5 (late game situation?? It's the first game to actually lag my computer, and it's not even a FPS, has DX11 settings w/ tesselation), Bad Company 2, even SC II, or COD: black ops? With your much advertised timedemo / real world walkthrough testing, this would yield the most valuable data on GPUs on the internet.

Although it's highly likely that these games will get ripped by the GPUs in question, you should realize that they are important because they serve as important relative standards for us. If we see a card we know performing well in COD5 we can translate it's perf. over to the other games or future games. It's the most important because we most likely have these games and can compare our current perf. to new cards and see what sort of upgrade they provide.

Not everyone buys GPUs to play new games. Some buy GPUs to improve oldish ones.

+1
I still play zero hour shockwave 1.0 , and at the end of a huge battle with
plenty of units on the screen there's some graphic jerkiness indeed ...
please solve for f(x)
12-24-2010, 12:41 AM
Leeghoofd

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shadov

How about you reach out to AMD and ask about the performance difference instead of assuming that "they" dont care or "they" are to slow?
Maybe it's just you defending an unplayed and badly written title? Try to find out for all of us?:

So you think that AMD are not aware that their cards/drivers are not optimised for the mentioned titles. They even tell reviewers not to use them particular titles when reviewing their hardware. So why not have a look into it. it's liek telling a kid not to smoke cigarettes, he might try it after all...

If SkyMTL didn't use them titles, noone would even know what's going on. Imagine, even if the games is total crap to you, that someone buys a brand new card for it and gets the same performance as a lower specced card or a card he owned before.
And even if it's a badly written title, there are loads of games that could use better multi core CPU support or even multi GPU support...

Really man if their is one website that I could vouch for for not being biased or putting out half done reviews, it has to be Hardware Canucks...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shadov

Again dont assume and ask why a GTX 470 is on par with HD 5970 and HD 6970 in the game that you have carefully selected for a review? As I mentioned if you think that AMD couldnt have optimized their drivers for an older game like lost planet 2 then you either think to highly of Nvidia driver team or choose to ignore that something is wrong...:

Think you realy have it by the wrong end... you indirectly imply he's green team biased, while it clearly shows you are 100 % red team... stop trolling. If you don't like it, too bad...then don't read it... and live happily in ya own CAREFULLY and SELECTED world...

Maybe you can get together with Calmatory and share a flat and dicuss the rest of the biased world...

Merry Xmass all...
12-24-2010, 01:20 AM
Shadov

Quote:

Originally Posted by Leeghoofd

So you think that AMD are not aware that their cards/drivers are not optimised for the mentioned titles. They even tell reviewers not to use them particular titles when reviewing their hardware. So why not have a look into it. it's liek telling a kid not to smoke cigarettes, he might try it after all...

If SkyMTL didn't use them titles, noone would even know what's going on. Imagine, even if the games is total crap to you, that someone buys a brand new card for it and gets the same performance as a lower specced card or a card he owned before.
And even if it's a badly written title, there are loads of games that could use better multi core CPU support or even multi GPU support...

Really man if their is one website that I could vouch for for not being biased or putting out half done reviews, it has to be Hardware Canucks...

Think you realy have it by the wrong end... you indirectly imply he's green team biased, while it clearly shows you are 100 % red team... stop trolling. If you don't like it, too bad...then don't read it... and live happily in ya own CAREFULLY and SELECTED world...

Maybe you can get together with Calmatory and share a flat and dicuss the rest of the biased world...

Merry Xmass all...

Of course your opinion is 100% valid and legit and others are trolling? Great, Im glad you like the review since somehow your personal approach to others and standards seem to fit the overall picture that is being discussed here.

Anyway once again if someone tries to draw conclusions on e.g. power/performance ratios in a review based on biased titles then I still think that its not the best approach.

Merry Xmas to you also though I will skip the troll part. :clap:
12-24-2010, 01:34 AM
Final8ty

Quote:

Originally Posted by seanx

Yes I aggree and unfortunately I think they (red/green) do this intentionally
"aggresive marketing" , basically make the new games run so bad on old tech that u have to keep buying new cards.... I understand that idea, making/sponsoring a game that plays fine on 5yr old tech doesnt help red/green sell more cards , however they will eventually lose "gaming market share" to the console , if prices keep rising and inefficiencies keep rising ....

Wot they don't understand imo, is that most of us will still buy new cards
regardless how well the old ones play newer games (imo) , ppl always want
better ....and as some already posted above , a lot of ppl still play/want to play older games, they just want to play them with better preformance .....

p.s and yes I'm still sort of ranting about the pricing (makes me think they released to many cards at one time tbh , - too many price points to cover, not enough preformance )
p.p.s I think the $ I've saved so far for a new card will go to some new hdds , god knows I really need the space, lol , I have 2x1tb int + 3x1,5ext , and they all 90% full ...hahaha

Indeed but it didn't used to be as bad as now.
I have been totally disappointed with what's been done with DX after DX9 & just having the new techs implemented does not make a good looking game as that awful AMD tech demo proves, DX is just a tool & not a magic all will look pretty paint brush.

Just like PhyXS get tacked on to some games too many DX11 features are just tacked on for the hell of it too, you cant make up for bad art direction with throwing lots of DX11 tech at it.

Too much effort is put in to games being more statically technically better but in a practical sense they are not because of how the extra tech is used in a very ineffective way.

I think the consoles are allot to blame because besides a hi res texture pack more geometry & effects the art direction is made for them in mind & throwing DX11 features at it is fail because it was not designed with DX11 in mind.

Many times you see people making comments about how they cant see the difference with some DX11 features turned on & off.

Tessellation is one that pops up allot with many saying they cant see the difference because of where its been used so in the case of LP2 they exaggerated to say hey look but that is no better than the over exaggerated use of Bloom, DOF, Yellow Colour Filter & Motion Blur all of which i turn off if the option in there to do so because even if there is a lower settings its still over the top for my tastes.

Yes we will keep buying cards :) anyway but we are not enough.
12-24-2010, 01:37 AM
Final8ty

Quote:

Originally Posted by eXa

I have Crysis, Crysis warhead, Shattered horizon, Metro 2033 and other games i havent even bothered to try because i still only have a 3870... :p:

Id rather not play them than play them at medium settings.

Exactly what i had done.
12-24-2010, 02:29 AM
Leeghoofd

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shadov

Of course your opinion is 100% valid and legit and others are trolling? Great, Im glad you like the review since somehow your personal approach to others and standards seem to fit the overall picture that is being discussed here.

Anyway once again if someone tries to draw conclusions on e.g. power/performance ratios in a review based on biased titles then I still think that its not the best approach.

Merry Xmas to you also though I will skip the troll part. :clap:

So only optimised titles ( being it software or hardware wise) need to be included then ? Isn't that what biased is really about ?

My opinion : Include as many titles as possible. That provide the reviewer with a good constant output. The latter is what is essential for a reviewer. FYI I can bench F1 2010 10 times and get 10 different outcomes, sometimes miles apart... which makes it impossible to me to do a good judgement.

If I bench Lost planet 2 ( and I have) I get a pretty constant output, which is what I need to base conclusions upon... I don't care if it makes a card shine yes or no. If the card sucks monkey balls on a certain game, why not make it public ? Being it Lost Planet 2 or Hawx 2...

The 69xx series are a nice evolution , but nothing revolutionary. Not good enough to get the performance crown back... Admitting I was a bit dissapointed as the PR slides were telling me otherwise...

But it's a good step in the right direction. ATI will be back !!
12-24-2010, 02:49 AM
Shadov

Quote:

Originally Posted by Leeghoofd

The 69xx series are a nice evolution , but nothing revolutionary. Not good enough to get the performance crown back... Admitting I was a bit dissapointed as the PR slides were telling me otherwise...

But it's a good step in the right direction. ATI will be back !!

Havent you noticed that HD 5970 still holds the "performance crown" and ATI is no more?
Just pointing out some facts... ;)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Leeghoofd

So only optimised titles ( being it software or hardware wise) need to be included then ? Isn't that what biased is really about ?

When you try to generate statistics and draw conclusions you shouldn't base them on results that are an exception for either one of the vendors. I hope that someone with English as their mother language can explain it better to you.

For example games like Lost Planet 2 or HawX2 could tell you that GTX has a superb power/performance ratio compared to Radeons which isnt true. This is what I call biased and unprofessional, since adding those 2 titles heavily swings the results in one direction (while 99% of games would tell you otherwise).

Reviewers should avoid such situations imho, since its misleads normal users that don't have proper IT know-how.
12-24-2010, 03:22 AM
Leeghoofd

If these were the only two titles tested you are 100% right, but there were loads of other titles tested not ? Plus if you look at eg LP2 results, the 69xx series perform better than the 58 and 68xx series... so good progress there...

If you add the remark that AMD didn't want you to test these particular titles as performance, it should be clear enough that their cards don't shine (yet) with these titles... it always has been that some games run better on another brand, while others run ultra smooth on your hardware...

I really don't see your problem...
12-24-2010, 03:31 AM
Lanek

Ohh guys, stop attack SKY, it's a reviewer, so don't make him hate AMD .:D specially when i think he's objective for both brand, and it's really rareful to find that this days.

For L2P and Hawx2, there's no luck an AMD cards will be able to compete in this games, the games bring 200% performance on Cuda based cards, as they use plenty the geomtry shaders of GF100. ( SV position 4 float for 4 shaders )
Here the parralelism performance of the GF100 is completely in use .... impossible for AMD to fight there, there cards are not made for do this ( but for render normal operation )

both games have reduced quality outside the geometry ( AI planes look to be rendered in a DX8 games, explosion and effects are from another age (looking like bitmap from eighties) textures are really poor, even a 16bit console can render them ) .. BUt, the environnement geometry is pushed to the limit with the tesselation and for be sure "other graphism" rendering will not interfer in the performance, they have just completey decrease all other features.
In reality Hawx2 is more for be rendered by Quadro FX of a standard GPU, pushing the parralel operation to the maximum but for this they need to clean the work of the normal renderer and so decrease all other ressource.

It's why a GT430 is as fast of a HD5870, or a GTS450 kill completely a HD5870 2gb in this game. look the FPS in DX11, if i was MS i will push this game for show how fast can be a game in DX11 ...150fps average with a single card ( push all and just remove the AA and tesselation and any card will be in the 300fps... for a game of 2010 .. lol ), we are far of Crysis or Metro.. I push 161fps average on this games with 5870CFX with a scaling near of the 105% vs a single card ( 2x ) ... this is what score a GTX480 ( single GPU ) ... Even Unigine with Tesselation set to 2.0 ( the max ) don't show this difference between Cypress and GF100 .

We are not speaking about a normal branded titles...

Read this, find the sweet point where Fermi go uppon Cypress, and you will know for what is coded Hawx2.
http://beyond3d.com/content/reviews/55/10
12-24-2010, 04:07 AM
cold2010

children on the Internet = Fail
12-24-2010, 04:07 AM
seanx

double post
12-24-2010, 04:07 AM
seanx

I'm going to generalise and say some ppl (including me) get annoyed when reviewers benchmark titles that most hardware fans (like on this site) don't play ....i.e hawk ...etc....
However I'm guessing they (the reviewers) like to have standard tests to go by and thats why they may do this....another being the use of special features e.g tessl or dx11 or wotever else ....
so the newer cards get benched by the newer games , and so goes the tech circle of life .....
The bad part is that I for one , haven't got to try hawk or batman or battleforge or any of these (to me) obscure titles .... and tbh I open up a few review sites at a time and check wot games
the're reviewing before I even read the review ....if there r "obscure" games I just close the page instantly .... I prefer "mainstream games" ( or in this case games I would play) benchmarked
as mentioned above i.e crysis1/warhead, UT3, Dirt1/2, grid,Civ5,LP2,StalkerCS/CoP,F1-2010,Needspeed, etc....
and then I will read the whole review ....
Another consideration for me is the use of older cards in the review to make comparisons against .... so in all I like sites like
guru,canuks,techpowerup,toms,anand, just to name a few

One more thing ... how come I dont see game/card round-ups anymore ? do these still exist ? u know 1 game vs 15 or so cards ...? help?
12-24-2010, 04:12 AM
Spidy

I'm going to generalise and say some ppl (including me) get annoyed when reviewers benchmark titles that most hardware fans (like on this site) don't play ....i.e hawk ...etc....
However I'm guessing they (the reviewers) like to have standard tests to go by and thats why they may do this....another being the use of special features e.g tessl or dx11 or wotever else ....
so the newer cards get benched by the newer games , and so goes the tech circle of life .....
The bad part is that I for one , haven't got to try hawk or batman or battleforge or any of these (to me) obscure titles .... and tbh I open up a few review sites at a time and check wot games
the're reviewing before I even read the review ....if there r "obscure" games I just close the page instantly .... I prefer "mainstream games" ( or in this case games I would play) benchmarked
as mentioned above i.e crysis1/warhead, UT3, Dirt1/2, grid,Civ5,LP2,StalkerCS/CoP,F1-2010,Needspeed, etc....
and then I will read the whole review ....
Another consideration for me is the use of older cards in the review to make comparisons against .... so in all I like sites like
guru,canuks,techpowerup,toms,anand, just to name a few

One more thing ... how come I dont see game/card round-ups anymore ? do these still exist ? u know 1 game vs 15 or so cards ...? help?
seanx is online now Report Post Reply With Quote
12-24-2010, 04:48 AM
Shadov

Quote:

Originally Posted by Leeghoofd

If these were the only two titles tested you are 100% right, but there were loads of other titles tested not ? Plus if you look at eg LP2 results, the 69xx series perform better than the 58 and 68xx series... so good progress there...

If you add the remark that AMD didn't want you to test these particular titles as performance, it should be clear enough that their cards don't shine (yet) with these titles... it always has been that some games run better on another brand, while others run ultra smooth on your hardware...

I really don't see your problem...

Ok lets do it this way then, just as an example to show the problem:

Lost planet 2 adds ~6% overall performance score to GTX cards and HawX 2 adds another ~6%, so in total 12%. Not much would someone uninformed say, but it throws the whole product positioning and pricing out the window. :clap:

Now the author of the review summarizes the scores from "various games" (mind the word various) and as a result GTX570 is on par with HD 6970. Though if HawX2 and LP2 wasnt included the card would be 12% slower. Now don't tell me 12% doesn't matter to enthusiasts that buy more expensive cards. ;)

Furthermore less experienced users could walk away with the impression that GTX570 is on par with HD 6970, but nowhere is it mentioned that without the two above, seldom played games HD 6970 would be ahead and a better purchase option for 99% games out there.

The fact that those games were included in the charts might also lead to other anomalies like GTX coming artificially ahead in power/performance or price/performance. Of course this are just examples and I'm not implying that one or the other card is better. I just think that reviewers should be more cautious when it comes to game choices to not accidentally misinform others.
12-24-2010, 05:55 AM
trinibwoy

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shadov

When you try to generate statistics and draw conclusions you shouldn't base them on results that are an exception for either one of the vendors.

Since you're talking about statistics I'm going to assume you've heard of selection bias. That's exactly what you're proposing which is of course ridiculous. Let's just eliminate any data points from the analysis that don't agree with our predetermined baseless hypothesis that the cards should perform closely in ALL games. :rolleyes:
12-24-2010, 05:56 AM
Leeghoofd

Well with your reasoning we can also remove AVP then as it seriously favours ATI cards, GRID 2 for NVidia ones, etc... This moot discussion is endless... like mentioned before some games run better on a particular brand...

The ATI 6970 will have stiff competition from the GTX 570 in the lower resolutions like Sky mentioned, once you up resolution and co the extra ram on the card and improved design will allow it to pull away... ATI still got the advantage for multi monitor support and co (rams help)... Multi GPU (Crossfire and SLI are also too heavily dependant on game /driver support) is as always hit and miss...

I've read up on 5 reviews now and all conclude about the same as the HC review... so they all must be biased... Both companies did a nice overhaul to reduce power consumption and heat... that's all there's to it, with the current generation, no spectacular improvements ( as promised by the PR folks )

Maybe you can give it a try yourself and give us a full unbiased approach to reviewing GPU's... think you are in for a surprise as it can't be done to suit everyone... One will nagg about the drivers, the other one want's only resolutions used on 30 inch monitors. Some want maxed out details, other :banana::banana::banana::banana::banana: about the test platform,... the list is endless... a reviewer can't win, never ever...

I always compare several sites results to get a general idea... and in my 20 years of scamming hardware sites it's the same with each generation... fan boys and co hop in and start discussions that really lead to nowhere... I just buy what suits me best. I replaced my GTX 260 with a 6850, nice upgrade and is perfectly suitable for my 24 monitor...
12-24-2010, 06:01 AM
SoulsCollective

Actually, I'd say the 6970 really does represent a spectacular improvement in that we're now finally seeing 2GB of VRAM on cards as standard, resulting in much better performance at very high and multi-monitor resolutions and improved minimum FPS. This is a pretty big thing.
12-24-2010, 06:43 AM
SKYMTL

Quote:

Originally Posted by cegras

Maybe because Lost Planet 2 sucks, and so did Lost Planet one and no one on PC plays it.

I won't defend Lost Planet 2 since we all know its reception ON THE CONCOLES wasn't that great. Personally, I had a good time playing it on the PC but that's beside the point.

Just because a game isn't well received doesn't mean that driver development should stop. Justifying poor performance by stating a game isn't popular is no way to go about looking at this industry.

Quote:

I'm surprised you never tested COD MW2 (although it's not demanding, it's certainly a relevant game, perhaps at high IQ settings), Civ 5 (late game situation?? It's the first game to actually lag my computer, and it's not even a FPS, has DX11 settings w/ tesselation), Bad Company 2, even SC II, or COD: black ops? With your much advertised timedemo / real world walkthrough testing, this would yield the most valuable data on GPUs on the internet.

If I tested 3/4 of those games, our reviews would be absolutely pointless since not one of them really puts massive strain on the GPU. Many thing Civ 5 does and I beg to differ.

BC2 is used. As was SC2 but that was removed due to the CPU playing a massive roll in the overall results.

I have played Civ 5 religiously since it was released and I can tell you that the CPU is what bottlenecks performance. Granted, there are sites using it for benchmarking purposes that somehow get low framerates on even high-end GPUs. Since they flat out refuse to publish their in-game methodology we have no idea where those numbers come from and I sure as heck can't repeat their results even after months of playing.

I don't choose games based upon popularity but rather on a combination of feature sets, benchmark run repeatability and overall GPU demands.

Quote:

Originally Posted by cegras

How do you not know about this? Try searching techreport on Hawx 2.

Paying lip service to a press release shouldn't be taken as fact.
12-24-2010, 06:45 AM
cegras

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lanek

Ohh guys, stop attack SKY, it's a reviewer, so don't make him hate AMD .:D specially when i think he's objective for both brand, and it's really rareful to find that this days.

For L2P and Hawx2, there's no luck an AMD cards will be able to compete in this games, the games bring 200% performance on Cuda based cards, as they use plenty the geomtry shaders of GF100. ( SV position 4 float for 4 shaders )
Here the parralelism performance of the GF100 is completely in use .... impossible for AMD to fight there, there cards are not made for do this ( but for render normal operation )

both games have reduced quality outside the geometry ( AI planes look to be rendered in a DX8 games, explosion and effects are from another age (looking like bitmap from eighties) textures are really poor, even a 16bit console can render them ) .. BUt, the environnement geometry is pushed to the limit with the tesselation and for be sure "other graphism" rendering will not interfer in the performance, they have just completey decrease all other features.
In reality Hawx2 is more for be rendered by Quadro FX of a standard GPU, pushing the parralel operation to the maximum but for this they need to clean the work of the normal renderer and so decrease all other ressource.

It's why a GT430 is as fast of a HD5870, or a GTS450 kill completely a HD5870 2gb in this game. look the FPS in DX11, if i was MS i will push this game for show how fast can be a game in DX11 ...150fps average with a single card ( push all and just remove the AA and tesselation and any card will be in the 300fps... for a game of 2010 .. lol ), we are far of Crysis or Metro.. I push 161fps average on this games with 5870CFX with a scaling near of the 105% vs a single card ( 2x ) ... this is what score a GTX480 ( single GPU ) ... Even Unigine with Tesselation set to 2.0 ( the max ) don't show this difference between Cypress and GF100 .

We are not speaking about a normal branded titles...

Read this, find the sweet point where Fermi go uppon Cypress, and you will know for what is coded Hawx2.
http://beyond3d.com/content/reviews/55/10

No, we should be testing a mix of old and new popular games. Techreport has a fantastic testing suite, and it would be better if only they included a source benchmark as well.

Actually, techreport proves that even SCII, Civ 5, and BF2: BC are enough to really mid range GPUs at ultra-high IQ, and so you have an interesting testing ground at medium res, high IQ.

Hawx 2 is fine for testing, but Lost Planet is critically terrible game and not relevant at all to typical gaming performance. It's almost like benching a tech demo.
12-24-2010, 06:47 AM
Calmatory

Quote:

Originally Posted by hurrdurr

I haven't seen a single post by you which talked about GPUs and didn't either praise AMD or bury Nvidia to some degree.

I loathe AMD just as much as Nvidia; with the exception that thus far they've been less restrictive and more open with their technologies which means that everyone benefits. Oh, and their µArch has been superior to Nvidia's, kudos for that. Every single company is there to screw it's customers, yet some people seem to think that "Nvidia/AMD/Intel are the GOOD guys". Wtf? :rolleyes:

Quote:

Unless you really think there is nothing positive Nvidia has ever done, or there is nothing negative AMD has ever done (you don't really seem to be retarded, so I assume you don't think that way), you shouldn't be calling people "fans" of a company.

There is nothing positive about Nvidia except G80. Dare to disagree? They're hurting the consumer, yet some people have guts to praise them. But hey, at least we've got TWIMTBP, PHYSX and CUDA!! :ROTF:

Though, I'm somewhat interested in their future advancements in GPGPU; not from graphics point of view at all. Gaming is for the weak after all. Once we get +100 GP(GPU) cores which have open(Yeah right, it's Nvidia after all. :rolleyes:) ISA and this under 1 W power consumption, I'll get genuinely interested about Nvidia again. Until then I really see them more as a joke than anything.
12-24-2010, 06:48 AM
ripken204

Quote:

Originally Posted by Spidy

I'm going to generalise and say some ppl (including me) get annoyed when reviewers benchmark titles that most hardware fans (like on this site) don't play ....i.e hawk ...etc....
However I'm guessing they (the reviewers) like to have standard tests to go by and thats why they may do this....another being the use of special features e.g tessl or dx11 or wotever else ....
so the newer cards get benched by the newer games , and so goes the tech circle of life .....

i totally agree with you.
i only look at benchmarks for the games that i have actually played or want to play, half of the games in reviews seem so silly.

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