(GURU3D RUMOR) AMD Polaris 10 GPU To Offer Near 980 Ti Performance For 299 USD?

[JDG1980]

True, however, if we promised to never use an FPS counter again, most of us would never know the difference anyway! Without FPS counters, both companies would lose 80% of their sales per year.

I don't do any AAA gaming, but I can definitely notice when videos and emulators drop frames. I suppose it's less of an issue if you turn V-Sync off (or use one of the adaptive sync methods), but if you are expecting a smooth and constant 60fps and get stutters, it's not hard to spot.

 

[Vesku]

Yes, I should've phrased myself more carefully. The fact is that Polaris 10 isn't bringing anything new with regards to performance, and will probably be weaker than Fury X, and the common forum user (or at least this is correct for me) wants to be blown away by performance.

If you're a 970/980/290/390 (x)/Fury owner, upgrading to Polaris would probably be more of a side-grade. Pascal will probably be a much better upgrade path for more performance. I'm sure that 290x users are itching for an upgrade, and if you're looking for something significant from AMD you have to wait at least 5/6 more months for Vega.

Polaris will probably be a great upgrade path for 380x/960 (or lower), htpc (SFF?) and mobile, however it is less exciting (IMO) and that's why rumors have been slowly inflating Polaris performance numbers.

Anyone with those cards should hold out for the HBM2 offerings, imo.

 

[tential]

True, however, if we promised to never use an FPS counter again, most of us would never know the difference anyway! Without FPS counters, both companies would lose 80% of their sales per year.

Without FPS counters, a GPU review in its entirety would be like this:

"The new GPU feels a little smoother when playing these games. Other than that, nothing changed. Keep your old one"

Again moonbogg, this is why I can't stress enough to gamers to get a freaking Gsync/Freesync monitor. Then, it doesn't matter what camp you have, you have smooth gaming which is the same as effectively removing the FPS counter.

Will you pay more if you go Nvidia? Probably, but you'll still always get smooth gaming.

What's the point of being in a situation where you have to figure out the faster GPU card from both camps?
You know Nvidia is more expensive with Gsync, but whatever you decide to choose, the gaming is smooth.

It's a no brainer to me, get freesync/gsync, (just pick your favorite vendor, or pick the cheapest which is what I prefer), and then get the GPU in your price range.....

Smooth gaming.

Sadly, adaptive sync really hasn't taken off, and I blame this for AMD on them not pushing it more.
For Nvidia, it's look at as a premium option and costs that much, so meh I can see Nvidia not pushing that to the masses, but AMD is screwing up with Freesync.

 

[3DVagabond]

Yep, I look forward to buying no fewer than two Pascal cards at launch. Guess I'm just a moron for not buying AMD, eh?

You can buy whatever you want to. It's your money. Just don't think it's the only solution. Or, that their aren't people who purchase perf/$ and expect cards to last longer than a year or so before performance starts to deteriorate.

Those people are justified in how they value their spent money. You don't care as long as it lasts until something faster replaces it. Although, it's looking like Maxwell is wilting early.

 

[beginner99]

2) Fury X uses the most efficient memory controller and memory type in AMD's entire stack. The HBM1 memory controller alone is smaller than a typical GDDR5 controller AMD has built since 2012. That means unlike all those next gen mid-range cards, Polaris 10 will have a far inferior memory bandwidth compared to Fiji. This is not even debatable because even if Polaris 10 has 100% memory efficiency, since the fastest GDDR5 is 8Gbps, it will never even touch Fury X's real world 387 GB/sec throughout.

Exactly. Memory bandwidth is the marker number 1 that Polaris 10 will not reach fury or 980Ti levels. They would need and epic break through in compressing to get that levels of performance with a 256-Bit GDDR5 bus or some serious magic secret sauce in their drivers for memory management.

390/390x performance (at 1080p) seems reachable with some improvements but that level of performance for $250 has been available for years in US on deals or via ebay in other countries. It's not really earth shattering performance/$ increase. So it would have to be around $200 at 390 level to be really interesting.

I'm waiting for HBM2 and first upgrade my CPU and look at 3D Xpoint.

 

[tential]

Yep, I look forward to buying no fewer than two Pascal cards at launch. Guess I'm just a moron for not buying AMD, eh?

Defensive much?
No one said you're a moron for going Nvidia.
---------
Although my personal opinion:

I think it's silly to go Nvidia and not get Gsync. And if you feel it's too expensive to get Gsync, I really feel you shouldn't be buying Nvidia then.

You should then get AMD+Freesync.

Because getting smooth gaming is what matters. I don't care who wins the FPS battle. I want to play the game in an enjoyable manner, and adaptive sync monitors fix that problem. Then, who cares who "Won" the game. You have fun.

I'm going 4K +Freesync not because I'm an AMD fanboy, but because Nvidia is making Gsync hard to put into monitors, resulting in there never being a Gsync monitor I will ever buy. EVER. I know it will never happen. I'm not waiting years for that to happen so Freesync it is.

To me, buying an Nvidia GPU without being able to afford Gsync is like buying a Mercedes and not being able to afford the maintenance it makes no sense.

But people will do what they want, I'll personally just do the most efficient route to smooth gaming.

 

[Flapdrol1337]

Wasn't the price per transistor going up with this shrink? Of course you can clock them a bit higher, but how could there be such a huge price/performance jump as a 980Ti for $300?

 

[Erithan13]

Being honest I've found myself losing enthusiasm for the Polaris launch recently. The hype train is real and I couldn't put it better than saying AMD products are being setup to fail by the slow but constant inflation of the performance expectations. I'm confident it's going to be good for AMD and bring them some much needed revenue, but for me personally I've got this lukewarm feeling of 'meh' about the whole thing now. As a 290 owner it's just darn hard to get excited about Polaris 10 if it is a sidegrade/slight upgrade in pure performance terms.

Pascal is similarly unappealing if it does offer much better performance but only at a much higher price. It's looking like a lot of us midrange/upper midrange folk are going to be stuck between Polaris offering more or less the same performance with less power consumption, and Pascal offering a serious leap in performance if you're prepared to spend way more on a GPU upgrade than you normally would. I don't think any of this is bad for AMD or NV though as long as they are competing in separate price brackets. When midrange Pascal and Vega roll around, that's when things get more interesting. It's looking likely I'll be sticking with AMD for now but I'd never discount the possibility of jumping to NV if they offer something very compelling.

 

[swilli89]

Wasn't the price per transistor going up with this shrink? Of course you can clock them a bit higher, but how could there be such a huge price/performance jump as a 980Ti for $300?

Cost per transistor also supply take into account die space. Even if transistor cost was higher, you can fit a LOT more Polaris dies on a wafer compared to Hawaii and Fury.

 

[railven]

Yep, I look forward to buying no fewer than two Pascal cards at launch. Guess I'm just a moron for not buying AMD, eh?

Eh, you get use to it around here. The AMD crowd is working over time to remind everyone that buying Nvidia is not a good choice.

Hell, Fury X is now finally faster than 980 Ti and people are shrieking "see told you so!"

If you got the money and aren't buying AMD, you're a <insert insult here>. Just get use to it, I guess.

EDIT:

Being honest I've found myself losing enthusiasm for the Polaris launch recently. The hype train is real and I couldn't put it better than saying AMD products are being setup to fail by the slow but constant inflation of the performance expectations. I'm confident it's going to be good for AMD and bring them some much needed revenue, but for me personally I've got this lukewarm feeling of 'meh' about the whole thing now. As a 290 owner it's just darn hard to get excited about Polaris 10 if it is a sidegrade/slight upgrade in pure performance terms.

Just do yourself a favor and ignore the hype. Wait for the products. The AMD Hype train has a horrendous track record.

I'm still hoping AMD brings a good game, because that G-Sync tax is just out of it's mind!

 

[Kenmitch]

Just do yourself a favor and ignore the hype. Wait for the products. The AMD Hype train has a horrendous track record. I'm still hoping AMD brings a good game, because that G-Sync tax is just out of it's mind!

+-

Go surfer mode....Just sit out there and wait is the way I see. Once the waves come eye each one of them and study the characteristics of each of them. Wait for the perfect one and paddle away. Of course there is a possibility that you'll pick the wrong one....Dang wait, study, weigh the pros and cons, study some more, view past history, view current performance, view features, study some more....I guess it's more complicated in the end.

 

[moonbogg]

Again moonbogg, this is why I can't stress enough to gamers to get a freaking Gsync/Freesync monitor.

I like my Gsync monitor (a lot actually. The colors are beautiful), but I have to be honest here. I'm not sure Gsync does anything for me. Sometimes I wonder if its even working. I just don't notice a difference and I feel I would have to really pay close attention to notice.
If the FPS is decently high, then Gsync isn't even noticeable as far as I have been able to tell. FPS is far more important for a smooth gaming experience IMO, but this is when FPS is very high on a high HZ monitor. Using a 60hz monitor might very well be quite different and Gsync might really be a great help in that case, such as 4K@60hz.
I think the difference between 60fps and 45fps would be very jarring and noticeable and Gsync might help a lot here, but the difference between 130fps and 90fps isn't a big deal on a 144hz monitor. I have a 144hz monitor so that's why Gsync seems less important to me personally, IMO.
In my experience if the FPS is over 80, then the game feels good no matter what, unless the game has other issues.

Wasn't the price per transistor going up with this shrink? Of course you can clock them a bit higher, but how could there be such a huge price/performance jump as a 980Ti for $300?

Let us consider that in a year, $300 might be a good fit for 980ti performance. There seems to be a chance that the big die cards will be really stupid fast, so 980ti performance should sell for $300.00 when compared to that. I would expect AMD to sell it for $300.00, but Nvidia would probably try to sell us slightly better than 980ti performance for another $650.00.
I prefer Nvidia (for now) but I think the most interesting and exiting products will be coming from AMD over the next few years, particularly because people will actually be able to buy them and a great gaming experience can be had by a lot of people and that makes it much more exciting.
No one wants to spend their damn rent money on an overpriced and soon to be underperforming Nvidia ripoff product. That's the picture that has been taking shape lately regarding their ridiculously over priced, short lifespan products. AMD is the brand to be excited about IMO.

When midrange Pascal and Vega roll around, that's when things get more interesting. It's looking likely I'll be sticking with AMD for now but I'd never discount the possibility of jumping to NV if they offer something very compelling.

Oh dude, I'm sorry. No one told you did they? The upcoming Pascal cards ARE the mid range products. Again, Nvidia is calling them high end products and will sell them for high prices, but look for yourself. They are mid range cards selling at high end prices.
Its not your fault that you fell for this trick as many people have since Kepler and somehow continue to be tricked. Nvidia used to sell high end products first and then release mid range products after. They recently started reversing that release schedule, so we get mid range cards first and high end ones later, but they STILL charge the same high end prices for the mid range cards.
They then release the high end cards and pretend like they were made by angels in the magical workshop of Santa Christ and charge you $1,000.00 EFFING DOLLARS for it. Don't do it. Its a trap.

 

[B-Riz]

Read through the thread, and it seems we have two bits of info tangentially related.

980 ti performance at a lower price, huzzah if true.

AND a lower price on a VR capable card, again, huzzah if true.

To really do what they want to do, increase VR capabilities, I would think that the new VR minimum Polaris card has to cost 50% - 75% of what the current minimum recommended VR card costs.

 

[ElFenix]

Yes.

I made my contribution by observing and reporting the historical recurrence of the same posting style as recent AMD product launches. Do you have a problem with that?

prior to your quoted post there was no one fanboying it up, in fact, most were expressing quite a dose of skepticism that both (near 980ti performance) and ($299) could be true, or might only be true in *certain games*.

so, your post setting up your pejorative comments was nothing more than a strawman. that's not a contribution. and you're shading much closer to this

1) No trolling, flaming or personally attacking members. Attacking other members personally and purposefully causing trouble with no motive other than to upset the crowd is not allowed.

than you are to this

Deftly attacking ideas and backing up arguments with facts is acceptable and encouraged.

 

[Orvogg]

Yep, I look forward to buying no fewer than two Pascal cards at launch. Guess I'm just a moron for not buying AMD, eh?

Given the picture painted by rumours at this point, if you are in it for screaming performance, that seems to be the rational way forward, as I don't expect AMD to compete in that segment until Vega. I would have to add, though, that I also expect to be able to by 2 Polaris cards for the same money as 1 Pascal.

 

[topmounter]

Read through the thread, and it seems we have two bits of info tangentially related.

980 ti performance at a lower price, huzzah if true.

AND a lower price on a VR capable card, again, huzzah if true.

To really do what they want to do, increase VR capabilities, I would think that the new VR minimum Polaris card has to cost 50% - 75% of what the current minimum recommended VR card costs.

I'm keeping my expectations low, so I'll be happy if we get at least 390/x performance at release, with much lower power reqs at <=380/x prices with the Fury/x cards sliding down in price a bit depending upon what nVidia releases.

But who knows, if AMD keeps aggressively optimizing their drivers then maybe we'll see even better performance sooner rather than later in the Polaris10 lifecycle.

 

[cm123]

Given the picture painted by rumours at this point, if you are in it for screaming performance, that seems to be the rational way forward, as I don't expect AMD to compete in that segment until Vega. I would have to add, though, that I also expect to be able to by 2 Polaris cards for the same money as 1 Pascal.

-------

I'm the rare one that is disappointed to see these sorts of comments.

To me, Video Cards look as though they are going the way now of CPU's in that we get about the same stuff with a new name and model number on it, not really much in the way of raw performance increase (I already have Titan X performance, why do I want about the same thing with a new name from AMD?).

Much of the talk (rumors) early made it seem a bit to me as though we was to have seen a huge jump in performance, that AMD was going to have large increase in performance over Nvidia and the whole world was already planning to buy AMD this generation.

So fine, focus on mainstream product, is that then because AMD can't really make a high performance part, or that they can't keep up with Nvidia, or are we really to believe they could, but just are taking a pass for now?

Will we see the same thing with Zen?

Perhaps there is a bigger point of GPU's and CPU's have generally speaking hit a plateau of sorts that in our current times with less players interested in strong performance gains between generations and such...

So while I favor AMD the underdog to score big, I think right now my hope is with Nvidia launch a major performance jump, no matter if its a $1k card... Keep the heat on AMD while then will also mean Nvidia will have plenty of mainstream card options too.

 

[swilli89]

I'm keeping my expectations low, so I'll be happy if we get at least 390/x performance at release, with much lower power reqs at <=380/x prices with the Fury/x cards sliding down in price a bit depending upon what nVidia releases.

But who knows, if AMD keeps aggressively optimizing their drivers then maybe we'll see even better performance sooner rather than later in the Polaris10 lifecycle.

That's the thing that makes this generation so different than ever before. We've never seen nVidia or AMD in total control of the massive home console market like before, and we've never seen so many new APIs like Vulcan and DX 12. There are a lot of software based things going on and I wouldn't be surprised to see a Polaris 10 beat the top GP104 in DX 12 games.

 

[Flapdrol1337]

Let us consider that in a year, $300 might be a good fit for 980ti performance. There seems to be a chance that the big die cards will be really stupid fast, so 980ti performance should sell for $300.00 when compared to that.

I sure hope so.

 

[Headfoot]

From AMD's point of view, I would also want to come out as fast as possible with laptop chips given how big that market is. As a desktop gamer, I just want something faster that my current set up on a new architecture.

 

[tential]

I like my Gsync monitor (a lot actually. The colors are beautiful), but I have to be honest here. I'm not sure Gsync does anything for me. Sometimes I wonder if its even working. I just don't notice a difference and I feel I would have to really pay close attention to notice.
If the FPS is decently high, then Gsync isn't even noticeable as far as I have been able to tell. FPS is far more important for a smooth gaming experience IMO, but this is when FPS is very high on a high HZ monitor. Using a 60hz monitor might very well be quite different and Gsync might really be a great help in that case, such as 4K@60hz.
I think the difference between 60fps and 45fps would be very jarring and noticeable and Gsync might help a lot here, but the difference between 130fps and 90fps isn't a big deal on a 144hz monitor. I have a 144hz monitor so that's why Gsync seems less important to me personally, IMO.
In my experience if the FPS is over 80, then the game feels good no matter what, unless the game has other issues.

Well, that's because you have 2 980Tis for a measily 1440p resolution!

4K Gsync, you'd definitely notice. It's still useful to have no matter what though. You could use DSR+Gsync I'm guessing to put enough strain on your 980Tis that it would help. Not sure though if you like DSR

 

[maddie]

-------

I'm the rare one that is disappointed to see these sorts of comments.

To me, Video Cards look as though they are going the way now of CPU's in that we get about the same stuff with a new name and model number on it, not really much in the way of raw performance increase (I already have Titan X performance, why do I want about the same thing with a new name from AMD?).

Much of the talk (rumors) early made it seem a bit to me as though we was to have seen a huge jump in performance, that AMD was going to have large increase in performance over Nvidia and the whole world was already planning to buy AMD this generation.

So fine, focus on mainstream product, is that then because AMD can't really make a high performance part, or that they can't keep up with Nvidia, or are we really to believe they could, but just are taking a pass for now?

Will we see the same thing with Zen?

Perhaps there is a bigger point of GPU's and CPU's have generally speaking hit a plateau of sorts that in our current times with less players interested in strong performance gains between generations and such...

So while I favor AMD the underdog to score big, I think right now my hope is with Nvidia launch a major performance jump, no matter if its a $1k card... Keep the heat on AMD while then will also mean Nvidia will have plenty of mainstream card options too.

Strange viewpoint.

I actually see us at the beginning of probably the best period of GPU development ever. VR, HDR, high resolution, high refresh rates. Sure we won't get all of a generation released on day 1, but, so what? Each of the present market segments will be getting a huge boost in performance. Some believe ( I'm one), that Nvidia especially will squeeze as much money as possible from their customers thus making the performance advancement seem less that it really is. make no mistake however, the journey is now starting.

This is where AMD at least, is heading.

VentureBeat: You’re very excited about VR?
Koduri: We’re just entering the VR era. You see all these VR headsets. If you see what it takes to drive a VR headset, the pixel rate requirements are almost doubled up compared to the previous iteration. That’s driving up demand for discrete graphics quite a bit. Now, if you push that forward, when you get to 16K by 16K resolution, 120Hz, you get to a pixel rate of 6 billion pixels per second. We’re not going to get there if we just rely on Moore’s Law. We have to do disruptive things to get there. That’s the goal of our division, to get to the immersive era. We need to double up our products and technology, step by step. You’ll see the key initiatives and technology this year. You’ll see more next year.
There are several opportunities to take us to the immersive era. We’ll be working with game developers and engine developers and so on. If we keep on the current trajectory, we need a million [uncertain – 6:12] per year to get us to the immersive era. This includes the performance you need not just at 200 watts. We need this performance at five watts, so that the VR experience is completely mobile. You’ll need that sense of presence.
When I set the goal, I said, “We need to get here in our lifetime.” We can’t do that with Moore’s law and hardware alone. We have to unleash software on this problem. We’ve been working with developers on all of these ideas. How can we get 16K by 16K displays refreshing at 240Hz with the picture that you want to draw? Developers want more control, on their side. They want console level GPU access on the PC.

 

[railven]

Well, that's because you have 2 980Tis for a measily 1440p resolution!

4K Gsync, you'd definitely notice. It's still useful to have no matter what though. You could use DSR+Gsync I'm guessing to put enough strain on your 980Tis that it would help. Not sure though if you like DSR

I use DSR where I can. Some games take to it really well, some have odd UI element issues (ie it's rendered at 4K, but not scaled to my 1440p monitor, so it's meant for ants!)

I'd love to return to red team. Then I can get a freesync monitor and not have to pay the empire their tax. But current rumors are making me feel I'll have to wait for Vega if I want to return to red.

All in all, I paid less for my golden sample 980 Ti then I would have paid for the Fury X. So I'm not complaining about what team I ended up on But if AMD can make the right sales pitch, I got no qualms flip-flopping!

 

[Blitzvogel]

Strange viewpoint.

I actually see us at the beginning of probably the best period of GPU development ever. VR, HDR, high resolution, high refresh rates. Sure we won't get all of a generation released on day 1, but, so what? Each of the present market segments will be getting a huge boost in performance. Some believe ( I'm one), that Nvidia especially will squeeze as much money as possible from their customers thus making the performance advancement seem less that it really is. make no mistake however, the journey is now starting.

This year is certainly an interesting one, that's for sure. The combination of emerging technologies and software that actually uses them is making it all very exciting: 14nm, DX12, Vulkan, VR along with a semi-new console (PS4 Neo) and a brand spanking new one (Nintendo NX). GPUs being stuck on 28nm for 4 years has worn us all thin, and this massive shrink is bringing the massive gains, brah.

I think the amount of common technology between PCs and consoles will also being to truly merge the two. In fact I even made a video yesterday that talks about software, as opposed to hardware platforms, and why I think they are the future. New APIs will bring PCs closer to consoles in terms of efficiency, while PC technology makes consoles more useful and easier for porting the same software to and fro'. Despite AMD still being stuck in a bad financial spot, along with spotty CPU performance, it really seems like it could be their year to shine once more if Zen and Polaris really turn out to be as awesome as I think so many are predicting. More cash means more money put into engineering and research, and hopefully better products that make Intel sit up and notice.

 

[cm123]

Good point on higher refresh rates and more pixels... Normally I game at 2560 x 1440 with hopes trying keep as stable and above 144 refresh rate/frames.

It seems DX12 now may help the cause some if it really brings with it better support and latency with CF/SLi.

I see your point and take on it, this is not the platform to give up on performance, its more platform of change in a direction that should allow for real performance increases going forward.

Also makes much more sense why to release the Fury Pro Duo so as to fill the performance gap for a bit longer for those that spend bigger $$$.

Strange viewpoint.

I actually see us at the beginning of probably the best period of GPU development ever. VR, HDR, high resolution, high refresh rates. Sure we won't get all of a generation released on day 1, but, so what? Each of the present market segments will be getting a huge boost in performance. Some believe ( I'm one), that Nvidia especially will squeeze as much money as possible from their customers thus making the performance advancement seem less that it really is. make no mistake however, the journey is now starting.

This is where AMD at least, is heading.

VentureBeat: You’re very excited about VR?
Koduri: We’re just entering the VR era. You see all these VR headsets. If you see what it takes to drive a VR headset, the pixel rate requirements are almost doubled up compared to the previous iteration. That’s driving up demand for discrete graphics quite a bit. Now, if you push that forward, when you get to 16K by 16K resolution, 120Hz, you get to a pixel rate of 6 billion pixels per second. We’re not going to get there if we just rely on Moore’s Law. We have to do disruptive things to get there. That’s the goal of our division, to get to the immersive era. We need to double up our products and technology, step by step. You’ll see the key initiatives and technology this year. You’ll see more next year.
There are several opportunities to take us to the immersive era. We’ll be working with game developers and engine developers and so on. If we keep on the current trajectory, we need a million [uncertain – 6:12] per year to get us to the immersive era. This includes the performance you need not just at 200 watts. We need this performance at five watts, so that the VR experience is completely mobile. You’ll need that sense of presence.
When I set the goal, I said, “We need to get here in our lifetime.” We can’t do that with Moore’s law and hardware alone. We have to unleash software on this problem. We’ve been working with developers on all of these ideas. How can we get 16K by 16K displays refreshing at 240Hz with the picture that you want to draw? Developers want more control, on their side. They want console level GPU access on the PC.