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AMD get it together, pretty please. Nobody wants to live in a world where only NVidia produces discrete GPUs! That 32GB seems too high for cost constrained con

AMD get it together, pretty please. Nobody wants to live in a world where only NVidia produces discrete GPUs! That 32GB seems too high for cost constrained consumer market though - may be they will have a leaner variant for desktops/gaming.

bryanlarsen 11y ago
It could be argued that AMD does have it together. If you look at the benchmarks for pretty much any particular price point, AMD & nVidia cards are roughly comparable. AMD is better at some games and resolutions, and nVidia is better at others. Rarely is the difference more than 10%. nVidia used to have a sizable power/noise advantage, but Fury appears to close that gap. AMD even seems to be closing the driver stability gap. But the Internet effect on the video card market is huge. There are hundreds of online benchmarks, huge fanboy communities, et cetera. The benchmarks magnify small differences causing a winner-take-all effect. The communities create a bandwagon effect. It's a wonder that AMD maintains the share that it does. Yes, AMD is obviously #2, but it should be a close #2. In most markets close #2 is not a bad position to be in.
- raverbashing 11y ago
  Not sure about their graphics division, but AMD has stopped innovating in the CPU department...
  - dman 11y ago
    They are working on Zen - which is a ground up rearchitecture. They have limited resources so the existing designs (Opterons and APUS) are only receiving minor incremental updates until Zen lands. Zen is expected in 2016, AMD's continued existence as a serious CPU maker depends on it.
    - raverbashing 11y ago
      Good to know, I haven't followed the CPU news lately Zen definitely looks interesting, let's see if it's as big as a success as the K7 architecture > AMD's continued existence as a serious CPU maker depends on it I agree
  - bryanlarsen 11y ago
    So has Intel. Skylake (2016) and Sandy Bridge (2010) have roughly comparable single core desktop benchmarks. Power/performance ratios have increased drastically, but that's mostly because of process improvements. AMD has been stuck on 28nm for a long time, but that's not AMD's fault.
    - cwyers 11y ago
      > AMD has been stuck on 28nm for a long time, but that's not AMD's fault. How isn't it?
      - icegreentea 11y ago
        AMD is a fabless chip designer (like nearly everyone except Intel and Samsung). They rely on foundries for manufacturing. AMD relies on GlobalFoundries (and NVidia relies on TSMC). Both manufactures have skipped on either foundries 20nm process since apparently the output didn't suit GPU performance requirements.
        cwyers 11y ago
        > AMD is a fabless chip designer (like nearly everyone except Intel and Samsung) Okay, but they didn't used to be. They sold all their fabs. And when their reliance on third-party fabs meant they couldn't keep up with Intel, they did... nothing. Now, you could argue that they don't have the resources to do anything. But that doesn't mean it's not their fault that they didn't do something, it just means they couldn't.
        phatfish 11y ago
        I think the issue was they couldn't keep their own fabs running hot enough at a large enough scale with just the volume of silicone they were selling. If the fab sitting idle or production is bellow running cost then they are in trouble. Better to spend that money on R&D.
        11y ago
  - ris 11y ago
    Is this a joke? AMD are currently pioneering the biggest shake up in CPU architectures in decades through the Heterogenous System Architecture.
    - dharma1 11y ago
      Interesting. Is it different from integrated GPU solutions from Intel?
      - ris 11y ago
        Yes. The two processors will eventually share the same memory space. But I am not wikipedia and I won't go into more detail here.
- noir_lord 11y ago
  I've used http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html and https://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html https://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html for years. It's some what asinine to reduce the complexity down to a single number but I've found that they are usually pretty reflective of what you find in practice.
- x3sphere 11y ago
  As someone who has bought AMD cards for the past 5 years for gaming, I switched over to Nvidia this time. You've overlooked that Maxwell / 980 Ti has a ton of overclocking headroom. OC to OC, you're looking at 20-30% performance difference at more commonly used resolutions like 1440p and 1080p. The gap narrows only at 4K. Voltage is locked on Fury right now and AMD isn't saying why. The best OC I've seen on one is 10% higher clocks, with Maxwell 30% is common. Huge difference considering both cards are in the same price bracket. Lastly pricing is also an issue with the Fury cards. Usually AMD undercut Nvidia, but this time the flagship matches the 980 Ti in cost. As the underdog, AMD is going to have a tougher time winning people over at the same price point. This happens in any market. I like to support the underdog, but I couldn't this time given the large disparity in OC performance.
  - bduerst 11y ago
    OOB they tend not to be that different, hardware wise. I didn't care either way until NVidia pulled the hairworks stunt, which was a pretty controversial move.
  - bryanlarsen 11y ago
    You're illustrating my point. You're OC'ing the cards (which the vast majority of consumers don't do), but even after taking that step there's only a 20-30% gap (and less at the more important resolution of 4K). That's a significant difference, but it's not huge. But it's winner-takes-all -- there's no reason to buy even a slightly inferior card.
- TrevorJ 11y ago
  Gotta say though, in terms of driver stability and user experience in terms of related software, etc, NVIDIA has the edge.
dman 11y ago
AMD already has HBM chips out (Fury X and Fury) and already has a shipping chip with 32 GB of memory (S9170). If you are willing to work with OpenCL the double precision rating of AMD chips is very compelling (look at the W9100 that has been out for a while now has a peak rating of 2.62 TFLOPS double precision!). I am looking forward to HBM equipped firepro cards where the double precision support isnt gimped.
rbanffy 11y ago
> 32GB seems too high for cost constrained consumer market This thing is definitely not for the consumer market, much less the cost constrained one. This is a small dedicated number crunching machine that, for reasons unfathomable to me, can spit out rendered 3d environments with admirable speed. I liked to joke that no serious computer has keyboard/mouse/video ports because no serious computer would be used like that. That assumption held well until the late 80's. ;-) But no. For gaming, this is the superlative of overkill.
rasz_pl 11y ago
Funny you say 'AMD get it together', because its AMD who designed HBM in the first place. Just like it was AMD who pioneered GDDR5 in graphic cards. This article you just read is typical Nvidia "we are the best .. in 2 years, you just wait!!1". They produced same charts, slides and test results before releasing Tegra, Tegra2 and Tegra3. Every time it was supposed to revolutionize industry and beat competition, every time it released late and benched slower than products on the market.
- blinkingled 11y ago
  I meant AMD get it together financially, of course AMD is to be thanked for lot of things including AMD64!

bryanlarsen 11y ago

It could be argued that AMD does have it together. If you look at the benchmarks for pretty much any particular price point, AMD & nVidia cards are roughly comparable. AMD is better at some games and resolutions, and nVidia is better at others. Rarely is the difference more than 10%. nVidia used to have a sizable power/noise advantage, but Fury appears to close that gap. AMD even seems to be closing the driver stability gap. But the Internet effect on the video card market is huge. There are hundreds of online benchmarks, huge fanboy communities, et cetera. The benchmarks magnify small differences causing a winner-take-all effect. The communities create a bandwagon effect. It's a wonder that AMD maintains the share that it does. Yes, AMD is obviously #2, but it should be a close #2. In most markets close #2 is not a bad position to be in.

raverbashing 11y ago
Not sure about their graphics division, but AMD has stopped innovating in the CPU department...
- dman 11y ago
  They are working on Zen - which is a ground up rearchitecture. They have limited resources so the existing designs (Opterons and APUS) are only receiving minor incremental updates until Zen lands. Zen is expected in 2016, AMD's continued existence as a serious CPU maker depends on it.
  - raverbashing 11y ago
    Good to know, I haven't followed the CPU news lately Zen definitely looks interesting, let's see if it's as big as a success as the K7 architecture > AMD's continued existence as a serious CPU maker depends on it I agree
- bryanlarsen 11y ago
  So has Intel. Skylake (2016) and Sandy Bridge (2010) have roughly comparable single core desktop benchmarks. Power/performance ratios have increased drastically, but that's mostly because of process improvements. AMD has been stuck on 28nm for a long time, but that's not AMD's fault.
  - cwyers 11y ago
    > AMD has been stuck on 28nm for a long time, but that's not AMD's fault. How isn't it?
    - icegreentea 11y ago
      AMD is a fabless chip designer (like nearly everyone except Intel and Samsung). They rely on foundries for manufacturing. AMD relies on GlobalFoundries (and NVidia relies on TSMC). Both manufactures have skipped on either foundries 20nm process since apparently the output didn't suit GPU performance requirements.
      - cwyers 11y ago
        > AMD is a fabless chip designer (like nearly everyone except Intel and Samsung) Okay, but they didn't used to be. They sold all their fabs. And when their reliance on third-party fabs meant they couldn't keep up with Intel, they did... nothing. Now, you could argue that they don't have the resources to do anything. But that doesn't mean it's not their fault that they didn't do something, it just means they couldn't.
        phatfish 11y ago
        I think the issue was they couldn't keep their own fabs running hot enough at a large enough scale with just the volume of silicone they were selling. If the fab sitting idle or production is bellow running cost then they are in trouble. Better to spend that money on R&D.
        11y ago
- ris 11y ago
  Is this a joke? AMD are currently pioneering the biggest shake up in CPU architectures in decades through the Heterogenous System Architecture.
  - dharma1 11y ago
    Interesting. Is it different from integrated GPU solutions from Intel?
    - ris 11y ago
      Yes. The two processors will eventually share the same memory space. But I am not wikipedia and I won't go into more detail here.
noir_lord 11y ago
I've used http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html and https://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html https://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html for years. It's some what asinine to reduce the complexity down to a single number but I've found that they are usually pretty reflective of what you find in practice.
x3sphere 11y ago
As someone who has bought AMD cards for the past 5 years for gaming, I switched over to Nvidia this time. You've overlooked that Maxwell / 980 Ti has a ton of overclocking headroom. OC to OC, you're looking at 20-30% performance difference at more commonly used resolutions like 1440p and 1080p. The gap narrows only at 4K. Voltage is locked on Fury right now and AMD isn't saying why. The best OC I've seen on one is 10% higher clocks, with Maxwell 30% is common. Huge difference considering both cards are in the same price bracket. Lastly pricing is also an issue with the Fury cards. Usually AMD undercut Nvidia, but this time the flagship matches the 980 Ti in cost. As the underdog, AMD is going to have a tougher time winning people over at the same price point. This happens in any market. I like to support the underdog, but I couldn't this time given the large disparity in OC performance.
- bduerst 11y ago
  OOB they tend not to be that different, hardware wise. I didn't care either way until NVidia pulled the hairworks stunt, which was a pretty controversial move.
- bryanlarsen 11y ago
  You're illustrating my point. You're OC'ing the cards (which the vast majority of consumers don't do), but even after taking that step there's only a 20-30% gap (and less at the more important resolution of 4K). That's a significant difference, but it's not huge. But it's winner-takes-all -- there's no reason to buy even a slightly inferior card.
TrevorJ 11y ago
Gotta say though, in terms of driver stability and user experience in terms of related software, etc, NVIDIA has the edge.

dman 11y ago

AMD already has HBM chips out (Fury X and Fury) and already has a shipping chip with 32 GB of memory (S9170). If you are willing to work with OpenCL the double precision rating of AMD chips is very compelling (look at the W9100 that has been out for a while now has a peak rating of 2.62 TFLOPS double precision!). I am looking forward to HBM equipped firepro cards where the double precision support isnt gimped.

rbanffy 11y ago

> 32GB seems too high for cost constrained consumer market This thing is definitely not for the consumer market, much less the cost constrained one. This is a small dedicated number crunching machine that, for reasons unfathomable to me, can spit out rendered 3d environments with admirable speed. I liked to joke that no serious computer has keyboard/mouse/video ports because no serious computer would be used like that. That assumption held well until the late 80's. ;-) But no. For gaming, this is the superlative of overkill.

rasz_pl 11y ago

Funny you say 'AMD get it together', because its AMD who designed HBM in the first place. Just like it was AMD who pioneered GDDR5 in graphic cards. This article you just read is typical Nvidia "we are the best .. in 2 years, you just wait!!1". They produced same charts, slides and test results before releasing Tegra, Tegra2 and Tegra3. Every time it was supposed to revolutionize industry and beat competition, every time it released late and benched slower than products on the market.

blinkingled 11y ago
I meant AMD get it together financially, of course AMD is to be thanked for lot of things including AMD64!