I think it's pretty obvious you're wrong. Go look at newegg reviews of the 7970s with tons of complaints about noise - most 7970s have 4 star reviews while the GTX 780 generally has 5 star across the board because of all metrics. Nearly every review there lists noise as a metric they value.
This isn't 1999 anymore. People VALUE quietness as much as you refuse to acknowledge it.
I think it's pretty obvious you're wrong. Go look at newegg reviews of the 7970s with tons of complaints about noise - most 7950/7970s have 4 star reviews while the GTX 780 generally has 5 star across the board because of all metrics. Nearly every review there lists noise as a metric they value. Heck, nearly every user review I see anywhere mentions noise as a metric they value. Nobody wants a dust buster anymore. The day of the GTX 480 is over, and we don't want it back - apparently AMD isn't aware of this.
This isn't 1999 anymore. People VALUE quietness as much as you refuse to acknowledge it. Stop defending AMD for this nonsense. THEY SHOULD NOT HAVE PUT THAT STUPID CHEAP COOLER ON THE 290/290X. PERIOD. The performance of both cards is outstanding, yet you can be guaranteed that some buyers will steer towards GTX because of the objectively worse blower cooler employed by AMD. This is something they could have prevented entirely, but now we're scratching our heads as to why they didn't.
Note that I still think the 290 is an outstanding card merely for the performance and price. It's the definite new value king of the hill. But , it could have been so much more.
While I think the 290 is the new value king by a mile, and will sell a ton of cards - I don't think this AMD philosophy is the proper one. If it is, they need to change it. The GPU landscape has changed, people value quietness now especially considering the new popularity of super small form factors. And with those small form factors, aftermarket is simply not an option.
As someone with a 780 ACX in his sig you think that you'd understand that even an expensive reference cooler isn't going to sell. All it does is raise prices.
I think it's pretty obvious you're wrong. Go look at the lack of passively cooled gaming cards and lack of custom SFF style cards (complaints about blowers mainly being reference designs because the AIBs don't produce their own) from the AIBs that actually have to make money partially by selling what people want.
So the card sounds like a foghorn? I mean, the performance is unbelievable for the price but it's not worth it if you have a card screaming all the time. Any chance Anand got a dud card?
As someone with a 780 ACX in his sig you think that you'd understand that even an expensive reference cooler isn't going to sell. All it does is raise prices.
I don't give a crap about which companies make a profit - it's rather funny you bring that up. Why should I, as a consumer, give a CRAP about that? Give me a break man.
No, it doesn't have to raise prices. People just need to start demanding better. It's pretty much as simple as that.
It's not about caring what sort of profit they make it's acknowledging that companies will attempt to fill market demands. The companies don't see much of a market for SFF style cards. If people really valued such designs over performance options then they'd be more prevalent simply because the demand would be there and profit could be made.
The rather funny thing is that better cooling directly translates into better performance with the Hawaii chip. So everything goes hand in hand. I know for sure that the 7970 cooler was loud at 55% fanspeed. Now the 290 is using 47% which is audible, but I never used my old 7970s at 55% regularly outside of a suicide benchmark run. It was too loud for my tastes.
So let's review. Better cooling produces better performance with the Hawaii chip. On top of this, another side effect is less noise. So you're defending AMD for using that stupid blower cooler when they could have, in fact, upped the performance by a noticeable margin AND have a quiet card by not cheaping out. I don't get it. I don't get why anyone would defend this.
Like I said, it's easy to overlook considering the 290's price. The value is insanely good. But I personally would not hesitate to pay 30$ more, if I were on the market, for a better reference cooler.
The rather funny thing is that better cooling directly translates into better performance with the Hawaii chip
Vesku, regardless of whether or not you believe so, noise has become more important than it used to. I'm not saying that performance all of a sudden isn't the top dog; I'm just saying that noise performance has become more relevant than before.
If there's one thing I've learned about nVidia over the years, it's that they know how to add value, even if it's just perceived, to their cards. You can only charge so many extra dollars by offering so much extra performance; eventually you will hit a point of diminishing returns where people don't care about the extra performance, and thus won't be willing to shell out additional dollars, because the card plays games well enough already. So what can you do then? Simple. You do as what nVidia has done. You target other aspects of the gaming experience that aren't directly related to performance, i.e. smoothness, noise performance, and quality drivers. Because these fields are largely untapped, you can go for the low-hanging fruit in each of the categories, improve the quality in these categories rapidly, and thus drive up the perceived value of your product a lot faster than by simply pursuing FPS-performance blindly. This is why nVidia has a large fan base; this is why they are able to sell cards which perform slower than their competition while charging a higher price; and this is why nVidia make the big margins.
Now for those guys using mITX systems, what GPU do you think they're going to buy? .
They just aren't focusing on that right now, and it's regrettable. We know the 290X performs exceptionally well, but the user experience when using uber mode? Especially in crossfire? I don't know, man.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-r9-290-review-benchmark,3659-18.html
I dont get how Tom does it, do they bench 780 with 80% fan speed to avoid thermal throttling to be balanced? Because they keep mentioning 780 at stock settings throttle and does not reach the maximum boost clocks..
I applaud this post. You're right on every point - user experience matters. Period. This is why Apple has sold a gabillion phones with insanely high profit margins. This is why Apple can get away with murder on their ipad air pricing, and people still buy it in droves. Apple has perfected the end user experience, and this creates perceived consumer demand despite the higher price.
NV is no different. They differentiate their products not only with performance, but with their software and overall balance of features. This is exactly why they have such a large fan base - this is something AMD needs to replicate. We know AMD has the capability to create high performing GPUs, but I want to see them perfect the user experience. They just aren't focusing on that right now, and it's regrettable.
I've never seen a Kepler card throttle more than 2 bins and 26mhz. Ever. Meanwhile if you're using a 290X card at 40% fan, there are cards throttling by 100-200.
The rather funny thing is that better cooling directly translates into better performance with the Hawaii chip. So everything goes hand in hand. I know for sure that the 7970 cooler was loud at 55% fanspeed. Now the 290 is using 47% which is audible, but I never used my old 7970s at 55% regularly outside of a suicide benchmark run. It was too loud for my tastes.
So let's review. Better cooling produces better performance with the Hawaii chip. On top of this, another side effect is less noise. So you're defending AMD for using that stupid blower cooler when they could have, in fact, upped the performance by a noticeable margin AND have a quiet card by not cheaping out. I don't get it. I don't get why anyone would defend this.
Like I said, it's easy to overlook considering the 290's price. The value is insanely good. But I personally would not hesitate to pay 30$ more, if I were on the market, for a better reference cooler.
I really don't give a crap about how they market their products. All I know is that with the NV control panel I get options for AO , adaptive vsync, a wide variety of AA types, better custom profiles, and I get a better gaming experience by not having to hear my GPU while gaming. I also get more versatile power management options with per application power management. Meanwhile, forcing Vsync on in CCC still doesn't work from what i've read. I know it didn't when I had my 7970s. Yes, 3 years later here we are and CCC still has broken forced vsync.
IT's not marketing. It's a better user experience. Period. Consumers will pay more for a better user experience, that should be obvious by now. Has nothing to do with marketing.
The last thing I want is for AMD to in any way shape or form do anything that even remotely resembles nVidia's way of marketing their products. You pay $100's of dollars more for your cards with the nVidia experience. I'll stick to the better value proposition.
Don't take me wrong. I'm not attacking you. I really mean it when I say I'm glad you find value in nVidia products. Personally I think they are just pure ripoff artists. At least you reap the value of the competition at lower price points AMD brings. We should both be happy AMD approaches the market the way that they do, even if it's for entirely different reasons.