I kind of disagree. if AMD can price R290x at USD 549 which I think is very realistically possible given R280x is priced at USD 299 then I think its worth it. in titles like BF3 at 1600p 4x MSAA , R290x beats the HD 7970 Ghz by 40+%.
HD7970 OC is 70-75% faster than 6970 OC in modern games. The performance increase AMD is bringing now is going to be worse this round in those terms. Also, I am personally more excited for next gen PC games. Without that, I could care less if R9 290X was 2x faster. There is nothing on the horizon that excites me to spent $600-1200 for 2 next gen cards. I want to fire up Witcher 3 and get 20 fps on my 7970 and then put in a next gen 20nm card and get 50 fps. Then I'll be excited! :thumbsup:
With Mantle we have to wait and see if the gap between Hawaii and Tahiti widens. its because Hawaii does not have any bottlenecks like Tahiti. massive 300+ Gb/s bandwidth, 44 - 48 ROPs, 4 geometry engines (most probably 4 raster engines). The improved efficiency on the Mantle API could help extract more actual performance out of the chips and for that Hawaii is better positioned than Tahiti.
Will wait for real world benchmarks. I guess since I upgraded from an unlocked 6950 to 7970 OC, even 40% faster over my card isn't making me want to upgrade.
Most importantly gamers buy graphics cards to play the latest games. With blockbuster titles like BF4, Watch Dogs, Call of duty Ghosts launching soon now is a good time to upgrade.
But none of those have next generation graphics. Call of Duty Ghosts's graphics in particular looks crap. The game is clearly not using a next generation game engine.
20nm products are atleast 9 - 12 months away. Nvidia might come out with GM104 first in July 2014 followed by AMD with 20nm flagship in Oct 2014. 20nm wafer costs are higher than 28nm at the same point in their lifecycle due to double patterning immersion litho. these 20nm GPUs are not going to be cheap.
$599-$649 for R9 290X/780 is not cheap either. I guess I am getting older but I am not longer excited about a 40% performance increase that allows me to run BF4 with MSAA vs. no MSAA. I want to fire up a next gen game and my 7970s running it at 20 fps and I put in a next gen GPU and I am getting 50-60 fps. In the best looking PC game imo - Crysis 3 - GTX780/Titan have one of the smallest leads over 7970GE. I guess I might need to wait 2-3 years before I am wowed again by GPU tech.
In my opinion going for Hawaii XT and enjoying the performance on the latest games this holiday season and getting an upgrade 2 years later to a GPU produced on TSMC 16 FF is not a bad idea. :thumbsup:
I guess that depends where you are in the upgrade cycle. You really think we'll have 16 nm GPUs by 2015? Look how long it's taking for 20nm to arrive. I wouldn't be surprised if 16 nm only showed up in Volta late 2016.
28nm - Dec 2011 7970Ghz
28nm again - October 2013 R9 290X
Let's presume no 20nm for at least 6 months, it'll be 2.5 years from 28nm to 20nm.
Another thing, 780 has been available for a long time now. It seems like waiting for R9 290X was a waste of time. Therefore, someone who held off buying 780 up to now is probably not going to be buying 290X either since it's more or less the same level of price/performance. I guess for me the 780/290X feel like stop-gap cards. They aren't fast enough for next gen games and yet there are no next gen games yet. You are paying $600-650 to max out today's titles but if you already beat Crysis 3, TR with a 680/7970GE, there isn't much incentive to upgrade unless you just love new hardware all the time.
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As a side note, if 280X is a straight re badge of 7970GE , I think there is a possibility to flash the 280X bios on a 7970/7970GE card. It also appears there will be no reference R9 280X cards, only after-market ones.