Replace 295x2 with Titan X?

[tential]

I don't see how the Titan X is your best choice. Chances are it's not going to be better than the cheaper GTX 980 Ti. Do you really want to sink that cash into a card, then sell it and get a GTX 980 Ti? Why not just skip the hassle and go straight for the GTX 9809 Ti?

 

[3DVagabond]

He's actually correct.

Buy a Titan X for example, and it will run all games just fine, including AMD GE games.

Didn't you notice in recent AMD GE games like Dragon Age Inq or Civ BE, NV is still faster?

You buy AMD, you run GameWorks titles like crap. You buy NV, you run everything good.

So, the obvious solution is for AMD to pull the same shenanigans. How would that work out for you and I?

The proper response is to not support it. Surely you can reason that out.

I don't see how the Titan X is your best choice. Chances are it's not going to be better than the cheaper GTX 980 Ti. Do you really want to sink that cash into a card, then sell it and get a GTX 980 Ti? Why not just skip the hassle and go straight for the GTX 9809 Ti?

It's not even the cost. It's allowing yourself to be boned like that. Where is some peoples self esteem? It's not like they didn't do it before. Everyone should see it coming this time. Where is the value in the Titan-X? "But it's a prosumer card with fully enabled DP." Even that argument, as weak as it was, can't be made this time. There is no justification except that nVidia is taking advantage except that nVidia is taking advantage of their loyal client base.

 

[RussianSensation]

Didn't you notice in recent AMD GE games like Dragon Age Inq or Civ BE, NV is still faster?

AMD doesn't sell a $550 980 or $1000 Titan X equivalent. As far as I know a $290-300 R9 290X is faster in those 2 titles than any NV card in that price range. Kinda pointless to state that NV runs DAI/Civ BE faster with a card that costs 80-90% more, or in the case of the Titan a card 3X more expensive.

--

OP, I would wait for GM200 6GB consumer / 390X. You should be able to sell the R9 295X2 for $500 or so in the next 2-3 months but if R9 390 non-X/consumer GM200 6GB are $500-600 and provide 90%+ of Titan X's performance, you get to save a lot more than the loss of depreciation by keeping the R9 295X2. If you have the $ to burn and won't be upset if there is a $550-650 card with near Titan performance in the next 3 months, then sure, get the Titan X.

So, the obvious solution is for AMD to pull the same shenanigans. How would that work out for you and I? The proper response is to not support it. Surely you can reason that out.

That would be the worst of all worlds - buy an AMD card for AMD-optimized games and an NV card for NV-optimized games. My solution is to pick up GW titles for $5-10 on bargain bin as I refuse to support titles where the developer sides with NV to not allow vendor agnostic optimizations for the GW's source code for AMD. GW's is nothing like GE/TWIMTPB of old. At least during TWIMTBP era, NV worked with the developer to optimize the game/code for its specific architecture but technically speaking AMD/ATI could have spent time to optimize drivers to get the performance up to speed. Today GW's not only ruins AMD's performance but 99% of all GW's titles run like total garbage vs. the hardware required for that level of graphics -- which means it even hurt NV gamers with older generation of cards.

 

[3DVagabond]

That would be the worst of all worlds - buy an AMD card for AMD-optimized games and an NV card for NV-optimized games. My solution is to pick up GW titles for $5-10 on bargain bin as I refuse to support titles where the developer sides with NV to not allow vendor agnostic optimizations for the GW's source code for AMD. GW's is nothing like GE/TWIMTPB of old. At least during TWIMTBP era, NV worked with the developer to optimize the game/code for its specific architecture but technically speaking AMD/ATI could have spent time to optimize drivers to get the performance up to speed. Today GW's not only ruins AMD's performance but 99% of all GW's titles run like total garbage vs. the hardware required for that level of graphics -- which means it even hurt NV gamers with older generation of cards.

Of course it would be, but that will be AMD's only solution if people insist on being so thick.

Remember Crysis 2? Worked out fine for nVidia. Became the poster child for their superior tessellation. Worked out fine for them then, and since people refuse to learn from the past, they are going to keep on doing it.

 

[Silverforce11]

So, the obvious solution is for AMD to pull the same shenanigans. How would that work out for you and I?

It would work out alright for me since I'm on AMD hardware currently and it would diminish my desire to pay extra for NV GPUs knowing it will run like crap on AMD GE titles.

If Dragon Age Inq, Civ BE and later especially Star Citizen (!!) run horribly on NV, it would definitely make me avoid NV GPUs!

 

[3DVagabond]

It would work out alright for me since I'm on AMD hardware currently and it would diminish my desire to pay extra for NV GPUs knowing it will run like crap on AMD GE titles.

If Dragon Age Inq, Civ BE and later especially Star Citizen (!!) run horribly on NV, it would definitely make me avoid NV GPUs!

Come on? Are you really that detached from reality?

 

[Silverforce11]

Come on? Are you really that detached from reality?

What?

If games that I enjoy playing run like crap on a particular brand of GPUs, you want me to go and pay a lot of money for said GPUs?? Are you kidding me?

 

[3DVagabond]

What?

If games that I enjoy playing run like crap on a particular brand of GPUs, you want me to go and pay a lot of money for said GPUs?? Are you kidding me?

And what happens when you want to play a game that runs like crap on the GPU you own? Go out and buy the other one? You have to be bright enough to see the folly in what you are saying and to be able to see the logical outcome. It will kill PC gaming. You'd be better off to buy a console and not to have to worry about what is and what isn't going to run well.

It's best to do as Russian suggests and not buy the games on release. post on the game's boards that you are not going to buy it on release because you aren't going to allow them to collect money from an IHV for jerking the people around that are really paying the bills, YOU AND I! It is so important to get the ROI right away that even if people simply boycotted the title for 1 week before buying it, they'd sit up and pay attention. Sheeple won't do it though.

 

[RussianSensation]

What?

If games that I enjoy playing run like crap on a particular brand of GPUs, you want me to go and pay a lot of money for said GPUs?? Are you kidding me?

I think you missed his point. TWIMTPB/GE are marketing programs that generally speaking were 'natural' optimizations that came from the close knit relationship of the developer and the GPU vendor. In the past, if some of those titles ran better on brand-specific hardware, there was nothing wrong with buying NV/ATI/AMD for those games as one wasn't promoting "unfair / proprietary locking." However, buying brand specific GPUs to run 'locked GW' titles is the equivalent of sending a signal to NV that what they are doing is perfectly OK. If so, imagine a world if AMD started vendor locking all source code for every GE title? Broken SLI, horrible performance on NV cards. Many of us don't want such a future. I can easily wait until 99% of GW titles drop to $5-10 by which point I might have already upgraded to new GPUs, drivers have been improved and the games have been patched. Then again, for me most new games aren't worth $50-60 to begin with so I have no problems waiting 6-12 months or longer to pick up a game. Of course, it's your $ so you are free to choose what games/GPUs to buy and so on. I think with GW's though, for many of us it's the principal that counts about what kind of PC gaming future we would want to see. I honestly would much rather buy an XB1/PS4 and buy their exclusive must have games than pay $50-60 for any GW title.

About the only GW title that I am upset will be GW is TW3. AC Unity, Watch Dogs, Dying Light - none of those falls into the category of a must have PC game, with the former 2 being medicore/average at best.

 

[digitaldurandal]

Keep in mind as well if you buy NV and want adaptive sync you are stuck with gsync and will pay a higher premium than free sync.

I would say wait a few months since it is likely that the 980ti and 390x will be out soon and then make a decision.

If you do like GameWorks titles you are forced the NV route especially with CF solutions. However I don't think most of the GameWorks games lately have been worth buying at all. FC4 is the same as FC3 but with stuttering even on NV (may be resolved now.) AC:U what a terrible title to get free with your NV card!

I don't buy those titles if they dont work properly on AMD but I was not very tempted to in the first place.

NV makes good hardware but their licensing business practice really hurts PC gaming. I would be interested to see market research on how much it has influenced their sales.

 

[Silverforce11]

And what happens when you want to play a game that runs like crap on the GPU you own? Go out and buy the other one? You have to be bright enough to see the folly in what you are saying and to be able to see the logical outcome. It will kill PC gaming.

What NV is doing hasn't killed PC gaming at all. Why do you think if AMD did it as well would kill PC gaming?

Why is it NV can do that, crippling AMD performance and forcing developers to not share source code so AMD can optimize GameWorks games.. but as soon as AMD joins onboard, they're gonna kill PC gaming?

As it is, there's zero incentive for me to pay extra for AMD GPUs.

But I enjoy games like GTA V & Witcher 3, there's a LOT of incentive for me to pay extra for an NV GPU.

Fair? No. That's why AMD is losing the longer this goes on. Take a look at the [H] review recently of 980 vs R290X. The performance gap? 25-50%!! OMFG pwned. Why? A bunch of neutral (AMD GE like Crysis 3 & BF4, where NV runs very well) titles and mostly GameWorks titles in their tests.

Just look at OP, he's complaining about bad CF for a bunch of games, particularly GameWorks titles that he enjoys. There's no way you can recommend he gets AMD GPUs.

 

[Vesku]

At this point I think they should at least provide custom code that runs well on AMD and make sure it's mostly unoptimized for Nvidia and encourage their Gaming Evolved partners to use it. Then restrict providing to Nvidia source and preview binaries. Mirroring Nvidia behavior. I think following Nvidia 100% on this behavior may be the only way a vocal majority of dGPU purchasers might finally say "Enough!".

If for some odd reason the internet outrage rises against it this mimicking by AMD, despite the mellow reception to things like GameWorks, they can openly state "We are open to signing an agreement with Nvidia to share libraries and preview game binaries for optimization."

 

[RussianSensation]

What NV is doing hasn't killed PC gaming at all. Why do you think if AMD did it as well would kill PC gaming?

Why is it NV can do that, crippling AMD performance and forcing developers to not share source code so AMD can optimize GameWorks games.. but as soon as AMD joins onboard, they're gonna kill PC gaming?

No one alludes that if AMD were to follow GW's to the letter, PC gaming would die instantly. But this level of GPU-optimized segregation would absolutely hurt PC gamers overall even more than GW's alone does today. It would mean 25-50% gap in many titles which means you'll basically need to buy NV+AMD GPU. CF/SLI wouldn't help you since in a lot of titles those would be broken.

As it is, there's zero incentive for me to pay extra for AMD GPUs. But I enjoy games like GTA V & Witcher 3, there's a LOT of incentive for me to pay extra for an NV GPU. Fair? No. That's why AMD is losing the longer this goes on.

Ok, so go and buy an NV GPU. With locked GW's source code, GM200/Titan X(s) should continue to outperform R9 390 card(s).

There's no way you can recommend he gets AMD GPUs.

To each his own. NV didn't own up to bumpgate and offered 0 compesnation to those affected until they were sued. They purposely black box/lock source code for GW's, more or less doubled prices for mid-range and high-end cards (680/980 to $500-550 from $250 for GTX460/560Ti range and $1000 Titan cards from $500 GTX280/480/580), lied about GTX970's memory/ROP partition and offered 0 compensation, continuously promote proprietary locked standards with GSync/PhysX, have drivers that kill cards, save $ on reference VRMs that result in blown up GTX570/590 cards, threw Kepler's driver's optimizations off a bridge once Maxwell comes out.

We didn't even get to the part where GTX980 is $550 and Titan X is $1000. If someone can actually afford a Titan X, they do not need to go on a forum and ask for advice if they should sell an R9 295X2 to get the Titan X considering a Titan X + waterblock/Accelero + OC ~ R9 295X2. It should be obvious if you can easily afford a $1000 card (i.e. it's like $10-100 to you), then you do not need to ask for advice if it's worth buying.

 

[AnandThenMan]

But I enjoy games like GTA V & Witcher 3, there's a LOT of incentive for me to pay extra for an NV GPU.

Fair? No. That's why AMD is losing the longer this goes on. Take a look at the [H] review recently of 980 vs R290X. The performance gap? 25-50%!! OMFG pwned. Why? A bunch of neutral (AMD GE like Crysis 3 & BF4, where NV runs very well) titles and mostly GameWorks titles in their tests.

That means AMD should make sure GCN happy encrypted code goes into all console ports (which is a lot of games) and that code runs horrible on Nvidia hardware. This would be the same thing Nvidia is doing, and it won't kill PC gaming right?

 

[RussianSensation]

That means AMD should make sure GCN happy encrypted code goes into all console ports (which is a lot of games) and that code runs horrible on Nvidia hardware. This would be the same thing Nvidia is doing, and it won't kill PC gaming right?

Why wouldn't you want to own a $500 NV + $500 AMD card in your rig? Sounds awesome. I remember how no NV owners cried foul over this....

If this happened consistently in nearly every GE title, there would be outrage.

That's the point of AMD - they aren't willing to get down to NV's unethical/dirty business practices to gain market share. I remember how HardOCP and many other sites would later exclude Dirt Showdown in GPU testing as they felt it wasn't a fair game to test a game blatantly optimized for GCN. Yet, NV had full access to Dirt Showdown source code and optimization but yet most sites today, including HardOCP, have their their test suite filled with locked source code GW titles. Double standards FTW (or NV marketing ad dollar revenue).

Think about it, if a major site like TPU, TechReport, AT, HardOCP rips a particular GPU apart, how likely are they going to be sent future samples of GPUs for review? How likely is an NV AIB to pay for ads on their site? The whole reviewer industry is biased. There are only few sites that remain that can be trusted. More or less this became 100% obvious once GTX960 reviews came out.

---

Anyways, back on topic. If the OP can easily afford a Titan X + waterblock/Accelero swap, and is willing to overclock to 1.45Ghz+, I'd say go for it. Otherwise, I'd wait 2-3 months for R9 390/GM200 consumer cards.

 

[Vesku]

If this happened consistently in nearly every GE title, there would be outrage.

That's the point of AMD - they aren't willing to get down to NV's unethical/dirty business practices to gain market share. I remember how HardOCP and many other sites would later exclude Dirt Showdown in GPU testing as they felt it wasn't a fair game to test a game blatantly optimized for GCN. Yet, NV had full access to Dirt Showdown source code and optimization but yet most sites today, including HardOCP, have their their test suite filled with locked source code GW titles. Double standards FTW (or NV marketing ad dollar revenue).

AMD is a business and needs to earn money to keep providing GPUs to customers. Their current "don't be evil" style doesn't seem to be working very well in that regard as you clearly point out. I'd rather they join in but be open to a detente with Nvidia if the customers get angry enough, the business equivalent of a judo flip, than not have the money to keep R&D up and deliver good products.

 

[Ramses]

Or avoid the games and not reward them for their dodgy practices. What you are suggesting is the equivalent of paying ransom. Prepare to dig even deeper if you buy into it.

Bout my opinion on the matter at this point.
It's easy to say just buy x card, or that everyone does it(or should do it)
or that a person is just missing out by not going along.
But I can't condone it or participate in it any more than I have to.
At my age missing out on a few games is a mighty small price to be
able to hold onto one of my dwindling list of principles.

 

[RussianSensation]

AMD is a business and needs to earn money to keep providing GPUs to customers. Their current "don't be evil" style doesn't seem to be working very well in that regard as you clearly point out. I'd rather they join in but be open to a detente with Nvidia if the customers get angry enough, the business equivalent of a judo flip, than not have the money to keep R&D up and deliver good products.

There is a way better alternative. Professional reviewers refuse to test/include any GW title in all CPU/GPU reviews. This way, NV's entire GW strategy will fail. If you think about it, can you name 1 great GW title that is well optimized? Reviewers have a job as well about being transparent and standing up for what's right. NV is exploiting its financial and market share leverage but the reviewers also have power. Thus far, they have failed to exercise it.

The alternative you propose would mean even more PC gamers buying less PC games because they run like garbage on their specific GPU, as they will be unwilling to use both an AMD/NV GPU in their system (due to cost, PSU issues, heat output, driver compatibility problems, etc.).

At my age missing out on a few games is a mighty small price to be able to hold onto one of my dwindling list of principles.

:thumbsup: From the early days of PC gaming, PC gaming has been promoted as an open standard/platform. NV, as a major PC gaming player, has went against everything PC gaming has stood for from the beginning; and continues to embrace the Apple-style branding/marketing/proprietary business model to lock a consumer in. The younger generation of PC gamers seems to not care about this at all, which is a shame. The type of things NV has been doing in the last 5+ years would have caused major negative feedback/boycott from PC gamers 10-20 years ago. The younger generation growing up seems to be a lot more brand driven in their purchases/lifestyle as brands like Bose, Beats, Apple, NV are selling like hot cakes, while quantitative metrics and principles are set aside. It would be interesting to read a brand marketing/consumer preferences studies comparing various generations of consumers over the decades and their thinking styles when it comes to making purchasing decisions.

 

[Vesku]

There is a way better alternative. Professional reviewers refuse to test/include any GW title in all CPU/GPU reviews. This way, NV's entire GW strategy will fail. If you think about it, can you name 1 great GW title that is well optimized? Reviewers have a job as well about being transparent and standing up for what's right. NV is exploiting its financial and market share leverage but the reviewers also have power. Thus far, they have failed to exercise it.

The alternative you propose would mean even more PC gamers buying less PC games because they run like garbage on their specific GPU, as they will be unwilling to use both an AMD/NV GPU in their system (due to cost, PSU issues, heat output, driver compatibility problems, etc.).



:thumbsup: From the early days of PC gaming, it was always about being open. NV, as a major PC gaming player, has went against everything PC gaming has stood for from the beginning. The younger generation of PC gamers seems to not care about this at all, which is a shame.

Leaving your company to the mercy of reviewers game choices seems pretty foolhardy. Especially when a good chunk of the popular review sources show a bit more respect and deference to your competitors reviewer guidance than they show to yours. When it gets to the point they are excluding games that work better on your cards than the competitors despite several competitor patches but are perfectly fine when the opposite happens, believing you can change that through some emails or what not is silly. As I said the best way to get people angry about the situation and want a fix, i.e. want the GPU makers to stop and for reviewers to get angry along with them, is to join in. If the internet rage "mysteriously" boils up the instant AMD merely follows Nvidia's bad behavior then AMD can publicly announce they are open to a deal with Nvidia for shared optimization.

 

[garagisti]

If you ask me, if I had a 295x2, I'd wait until 16nm. 390x is going to be a good buy. Besides titan supports only dx12.1? 390x has full hardware implementation for dx12, hardware acceleration for h265/4k, plus it may be cheaper. So if you get the itch before 16nm gpus come along, there's 390X.

I'm with 3dvagabond, RS, and Anandthenman. I'd not like to support a company which locks development through contract to disadvantage competition. Worse still, that company has bent over paying customers on many occasions, as enumerated above by others. It's a wee bit like government bailing banks for all their thievery.

 

[RussianSensation]

Leaving your company to the mercy of reviewers game choices seems pretty foolhardy. Especially when a good chunk of the popular review sources show a bit more respect and deference to your competitors reviewer guidance than they show to yours. Even to the point of being seemingly angry when a game works better on your cards than the competitors despite several competitor patches but being perfectly fine when the opposite happens. As I said the best way to get people angry about the situation and want a fix, i.e. want the GPU makers to stop and for reviewers to get angry along with them, is to join in but publicly say you are open to a deal if Nvidia is if the internet rage "mysteriously" boils up the instant AMD merely follows Nvidia's bad behavior.

But it's still shocking to me that professional reviewers have closed their eyes. Can you imagine if MS threw millions of dollars at developers and thus forced them to optimize AAA games for XB1 while they ran like garbage on PS4? MS can easily afford to do that but they do not. A lot of PC gamers rip consoles and make fun of console gamers but at least console gaming optimizations on consoles are brand agnostic for the most part. There are occasional situations where the developer fails to take advantage of the PS4's added GPU/memory bandwidth/compute horsepower but it's mostly lack of budgets/time/priorities rather than MS paying the developer.

How did we even get to the point where it's OK to have proprietary graphical effects in games that don't work on another vendor's hardware? Ubisoft games like The Crew where HBAO+ is blocked from AMD hardware but it works on AMD hardware in other titles.

"However, HBAO+ will only work on NVIDIA GPUs in this game. AMD GPUs like the AMD Radeon R9 290X an 290 will not be able to use HBAO+, it doesn't even show up in the graphics settings. This is odd because we know HBAO+ itself is vendor agnostic. Far Cry 4 allows you to run it both AMD and NVIDIA GPUs with no issues. Therefore, the developers have artificially locked out HBAO+ to AMD GPU users, which we do not like at all." ~ HardOCP

It's pretty obvious that large sized professional PC reviewers/developers sell out to popularity/ad revenue/professional relations with the most popular/largest hardware firms. It's rare nowadays where reviewers stand up to principles, or criticize a product from a popular firm with the largest market share. Places like TR/PC Per pick and choose what marketing metrics matter in reviewers during different years/GPU generations just to up sell/hype newer cards. Pathetic.

I am not sure your solution would work as it stands against the principles AMD/ATI has been built upon. Hopefully FreeSync takes off as that has the potential to swing things in favour of AMD, regardless of what happens with GWs, if only Intel adopted FreeSync.

 

[Vesku]

But it's still shocking to me that professional reviewers have closed their eyes. Can you imagine if MS threw millions of dollars at developers and thus forced them to optimize AAA games for XB1 while they ran like garbage on PS4? MS can easily afford to do that but they do not. A lot of PC gamers rip consoles and make fun of console gamers but at least console gaming optimizations on consoles are brand agnostic for the most part. There are occasional situations where the developer fails to take advantage of the PS4's added GPU/memory bandwidth/compute horsepower but it's mostly lack of budgets/time/priorities rather than MS paying the developer.

I think MS would if they thought Sony wouldn't retaliate. Imo, the main reason Nvidia has stepped up such behavior is because AMD has been very hesitant to follow suit.

 

[RussianSensation]

I think MS would if they thought Sony wouldn't retaliate. Imo, the main reason Nvidia has stepped up such behavior is because AMD has been very hesitant to follow suit.

OK so imagine a situation if MS/Sony bribed developers/participated in such practices. You'd need to buy XB1 for XYZ games and PS4 for ABC games. All of a sudden the hardware cost for a console gamer doubles or he has to suffer worse graphics/performance and/or skip some of those games entirely. People who support GW, review GW titles, and buy NV because of GWs are supporting the exact same scenario.

 

[Vesku]

Once everyone starts doing it the situation often calms down due to customer anger. See exclusive console titles. Now often it's only exclusive to MS or Sony for a certain period.

 

[ocre]

Wow, this thread sure got sabotaged.

So am I hearing this correct? This sudden wave of posters are pretty much telling the OP just don't buy/play the games that work better on NV HW?

I think that some people are really out of touch with why people invest in gaming PCs. Totally and completely out of touch. There are people who spend hundreds on gaming keyboards, mice, speakers, headphones, sound cards, surround sound, even outrageously priced gaming routers. And that is barely touching the surface. Since the dawn of PC gaming, its been absolutely normal to go thru great lengths to game at the highest possible level. Throughout the entire history of PC gaming, it is literally countless, the number of people who bought a new graphics card just to play a single highly anticipated game.

But here I am reading multiple post suggesting that gamers should just boycott games that don't run as good on AMD hardware? Yeah, right.

What is even more bizarre is that this is coming from posters who have been around long enough to know of the old days with multiple APIs......never mind

The crazier part,
Things are tremendously better now than they were thru most of the past. It is not like you can't play these games on AMD hardware, they work fine. You just happen to get higher frame rates (and an arguably better experience) with nvidia HW. But its not like its crap on AMD HW or unplayable.

But suggesting PC gamers just not play the games they love and want just because the performance on AMD cards is not up to snuff. Yeah, good luck with that one.
The people who spend good money on PC gaming don't do it cause they have to. There are plenty of options out there, countless. People who buy gaming PCs have a love for the technology and want the best they can get. That don't just want to play games, they want to play them and enjoy them in a way that can not be achieved thru any other outlet. They want the ultimate gaming experience, top notch..... Telling these people to boycott the games they want just because of a lack in AMD performance, for what ever reason?????.....
that just sounds really really silly to me