Amd Volcanic Islands details

[Heinz68]

In any case, it is not the Titan killer that was expected by some. Nvidia has more headroom for a counter than AMD does if we take power, temps and noise into account and the fact that the 780 Ti will also come with custom coolers

I think few people if any were talking about Titan killer before the real reviews. But lets face it, now I can convincingly say it is Titan killer, simple based on performance price ratio and there is still some room left for aftermarket cooler.

If Titan is not dead now GTX 780 Ti is going to give the final punch, but all my credits go to R9 290X because without it we would never get to see the GTX 780 Ti at least not at reasonable price.

So the bottom line is everybody but Nvidia should be very happy today, there are more positives than negatives.

[tajoh111]

I think few people if any were talking about Titan killer before the real reviews. But lets face it, now I can convincingly say it is Titan killer, simple based on performance price ratio and there is still some room left for aftermarket cooler.

If Titan is not dead now GTX 780 Ti is going to give the final punch, but all my credits go to R9 290X because without it we would never get to see the GTX 780 Ti at least not at reasonable price.

So the bottom line is everybody but Nvidia should be very happy today, there are more positives than negatives.

I think, its more of a Nvidia, profit margin destroyer.

However as a card, Titan seems superior from an architectural standpoint. Generally no weak points besides price which is what AMD is attacking fiercely.

Like the 7970 initially, Nvidia made it easy for Titan to be out priced. However Titan's super rip off pricing made it really really easy. If Nvidia had not been so ridiculous in the first place, 290x reviews at the price it currently set at wouldn't seem so positive.

If Titan was priced at 650(maybe with 3gb of memory) and the gtx 780 was 499 dollars, it would have been such a vulnerable spot for AMD to attack . Titan should have been the gtx 780 in the first place while the gtx 780 should have been the 770.

[vario]

From engineering standpoint this card is sort of a win, for 20% more die area they get 38% more shaders, larger bus,and a 100% more ROPs

[Heinz68]

I think, its more of a Nvidia, profit margin destroyer.

However as a card, Titan seems superior from an architectural standpoint. Generally no weak points besides price which is what AMD is attacking fiercely.

Like the 7970 initially, Nvidia made it easy for Titan to be out priced. However Titan's super rip off pricing made it really really easy. If Nvidia had not been so ridiculous in the first place, 290x reviews at the price it currently set at wouldn't seem so positive.

If Titan was priced at 650(maybe with 3gb of memory) and the gtx 780 was 499 dollars, it would have been such a vulnerable spot for AMD to attack . Titan should have been the gtx 780 in the first place while the gtx 780 should have been the 770.

I'm sorry can't agree with you about the superior architecture, it is just much bigger that's all.
Die Size:
R9-290X = 424mm2
GTX Titan = 551mm2

[Tuvok-LuR-]

I love how the performance preview from a few days (bioshock 4K) was one of the worst test for the 290x

[tajoh111]

I'm sorry can't agree with you about the superior architecture, it is just much bigger that's all.
Die Size:
R9-290X = 424mm2
GTX Titan = 551mm2

R9-290x is actually 438mm2. BTW

But I am not talking simply about transistor density, which r9 is really impressive. I am taking both cards as a whole. But I wonder if this is the source of all hawaii's woes? If they didn't make this so high, would the current problems be alleviated?

If priced the same, taking into account desirable power consumption, heat, noise, overclocking headroom and performance. Gk110 takes it and literally across the board.

From a characteristic standpoint, what product do you believe has more finesse?

The most impressive thing about Hawaii is pricing, but remove that and it just is a brute force product being pushed to its limits to only catch titan.

This is essentially a smaller Fermi, but without that crazy compute specialization(Fermi quadro 6000 still competes with w9000 7970). But instead of beating the competition, it only matches it.

Its impressive in some ways but is marred by inefficiency which in the super computing world and workstation world is more important than performance per die size.

If it wasn't for its ridiculous price, titan is pretty much perfect. We also have to remember GK110 wasn't designed to be a gaming chip first, it was designed to be a workstation or supercomputing product first.

[boxleitnerb]

I'm sorry can't agree with you about the superior architecture, it is just much bigger that's all.
Die Size:
R9-290X = 424mm2
GTX Titan = 551mm2

Hawaii is 438mm2, is newer (better utilization of the process), has no dedicated DP units and - contrary to Titan - has no deactivated units.
Bad comparison

[[XC] Oj101]

Please stop posting baseless rumors. It's because of posts like this that people's hopes are stretched too far and then they end up complaining that performance doesn't live up to some imaginary figures.

You call it baseless based on what? It comes within a few percentage points of the TITAN while costing significantly less, it outright beats the 780 (not just in price/performance but overall performance as well), I know what it can or can't do on LN2. I'm sure you know all of this too.

Hey SKYMTL, I'm not wanting to start an argument or anything so please don't take it like that. Why did you say I was spreading baseless rumours? Your review shows pretty much what I've been saying since the beginning of the month Again, I'm not looking for a fight, you're one of my favourite reviewers and I'm just wondering why my message was met with such animosity.

[Evantaur]

Hey SKYMTL, I'm not wanting to start an argument or anything so please don't take it like that. Why did you say I was spreading baseless rumours? Your review shows pretty much what I've been saying since the beginning of the month Again, I'm not looking for a fight, you're one of my favourite reviewers and I'm just wondering why my message was met with such animosity.

He simply didn't want bulldozer2 :P

[aussie-revhead]

From the few reviews I read the 290x is only ahead at very high resolution, so my single screen will be just fine with my 780L. I am curious to see how much headroom the 290x gains with water cooling, and then if that is enough to outperform my Lightning at max clocks.

I know it has only just come out but does anyone have any idea when we might see non-ref 290x from the usual manufacturers, but most importantly the Lightning?

[[XC] Oj101]

He simply didn't want bulldozer2 :P

But that would imply that I said it would beat anything NVIDIA has to offer for the next two years

Pricing in South Africa is quite good for a change, coming in a fair amount cheaper than the GTX 780. It's the first time in a while that we've avoided pre-release/launch-day price gouging.

[Stukov]

Some of us here MAY initially buy a refrence.... but I would expect the lot of us to be looking for lightnings and DirecitCU II Tops and things of this nature.

Two words -- Water cooling

[SKYMTL]

Hey SKYMTL, I'm not wanting to start an argument or anything so please don't take it like that. Why did you say I was spreading baseless rumours? Your review shows pretty much what I've been saying since the beginning of the month Again, I'm not looking for a fight, you're one of my favourite reviewers and I'm just wondering why my message was met with such animosity.

It was a generalized observation. I make it in pretty much every thread.

Luckily, this time the rumor ended up being right but the practice of blowing performance out of proportion needs to stop. Look no further than Bulldozer, R9 280X (or "HD 8870" as some called it) and countless other products. It was a friendly word of warning. No more, no less.

[[XC] Oj101]

It was a generalized observation. I make it in pretty much every thread.

Luckily, this time the rumor ended up being right but the practice of blowing performance out of proportion needs to stop. Look no further than Bulldozer, R9 280X (or "HD 8870" as some called it) and countless other products. It was a friendly word of warning. No more, no less.

Awesome It's nothing personal, I reference you a lot and consider you one of the best sources for reviews around. I was just confused when it appeared you were saying my info was inaccurate as I'm sure you knew what I knew at the same time. My info wasn't a rumour though, thanks to industry contacts and friends I'm privy to a lot of info before most so long as I never give away my sources. I'm sure you understand

[Heinz68]

Hawaiii is 438mm2, is newer (better utilization of the process), has no dedicated DP units and - contrary to Titan - has no deactivated units.
Bad comparison

Definitely bad comparision, completely different price range, you can't be more right.

So Titan has about 25% bigger die size and the R9-290X at almost half price is faster in gaming. It's a good question if some units are deactivated or they just did not make the perfect cut.

R9-290X is also trading blows with Titan in compute. (This one is also for tajoh111)

I noticed on other forums most people are way more excited about the R9-290X launch than on this forum.

[vario]

I have a weird question to people in the know.
New powertune sets dynamically clocks based on powerdraw and mainly temperature that a preset max FAN speed can achieve.
So, if one would manually (or via some software) decrease V and still maintain stability, wouldnt that in effect overclock the card ,because of the lowered temps and pdraw ?
My experience is ,pretty much every cpu and gfx card has its default volatage set somewhat more than they really need, and undervolted card would take longer to heat up.
If taht was the case, that would be some weird ass overclockin :P

as an example, my HD6950 with unlocked shaders to 6970 runs on my stock 6950 voltage and even then i still can OC beyond def clocks for 6970 (a little but yea)

EDIT

I know it wouldnt hit higher than MAX BOOST speed, but on average it would run higher clocks

[flopper]

I noticed on other forums most people are way more excited about the R9-290X launch than on this forum.

best price/performance value card in 15 years.

[Swanie]

But that would imply that I said it would beat anything NVIDIA has to offer for the next two years

Pricing in South Africa is quite good for a change, coming in a fair amount cheaper than the GTX 780. It's the first time in a while that we've avoided pre-release/launch-day price gouging.

What is the indicative pricing in SA?

[spursindonesia]

From engineering standpoint this card is sort of a win, for 20% more die area they get 38% more shaders, larger bus,and a 100% more ROPs

But from another perspective, its specs are basically a slightly more than doubled Pitcairn, but power consumption actually goes higher than what it supposes to have, so that's rather disappointing. It seems AMD GCN GPUs are great efficiency performer at low and mainstream level, but getting worse as it scaled upward. The opposite happens with NVidia's Kepler GPU family, GK 106 & 108 are meh, but GK 104 is great, and the upcoming GK 180 is just as good.

[vario]

But from another perspective, its specs are basically a slightly more than doubled Pitcairn, but power consumption actually goes higher than what it supposes to have, so that's rather disappointing. It seems AMD GCN GPUs are great efficiency performer at low and mainstream level, but getting worse as it scaled upward. The opposite happens with NVidia's Kepler GPU family, GK 106 & 108 are meh, but GK 104 is great, and the upcoming GK 180 is just as good.

Well theres that, cooler is also a fail, and probably part of the reason its so hot, thing is i think they pushed it just this little more too far to just eek out the titan, undervolting just a bit with better cooler and i think its gonna be awesome for this amount of die area.I undervolt while overclocking pretty much everything from AMD, but then cooling must be appropriate.
Anyhow, at that price.Its just all round great.They are probably gonna set R290 clocks lower, im very interested how much they will be able to lower V and power consumption with that.

[cx-ray]

http://www.computerbase.de/videos/20...und-gtx-titan/

[[XC] Oj101]

What is the indicative pricing in SA?

R7,999 to R9,500, depending on the brand. That approximately ties in with our current average pricing of paying R14 to the Dollar (not straight exchange rate, I'm adding local supplier market, retail markup and VAT). Very often we pay R16.50 to R20 to the Dollar (GTX 780 launch price in SA was about R17 to the Dollar).

[spursindonesia]

Well theres that, cooler is also a fail, and probably part of the reason its so hot, thing is i think they pushed it just this little more too far to just eek out the titan, undervolting just a bit with better cooler and i think its gonna be awesome for this amount of die area.I undervolt while overclocking pretty much everything from AMD, but then cooling must be appropriate.
Anyhow, at that price.Its just all round great.They are probably gonna set R290 clocks lower, im very interested how much they will be able to lower V and power consumption with that.

I agree with you.

[Hornet331]

best price/performance value card in 15 years.

no that was the 5870.

[LordEC911]

no that was the 5870.

I dunno, getting a 4850 before launch day at $150 is my best.