[Rumor (Various)] AMD R7/9 3xx / Fiji / Fury

[RussianSensation]

Then you want a GTX 970 reference card. (Many of the AIB versions don't support HDMI 2.0, but the reference version does. And the Nvidia blower is very quiet on the 980, so it should be even more so on the 970.)

So I was browsing this review, then stumbled upon this, then found this review.

Apparently HDMI 2.0 doesn't have enough bandwidth to do 4K @ 60Hz with 4:4:4 chroma and many videophiles are reporting this, suggesting the best way to use a 4K monitor for desktop+media is to still use DisplayPort 1.2.

I think a lot of people just compare HDMI 2.0 and DisplayPort by just looking at the specs, but specs are often marketing. When users do in-depth analysis with tests that show HDMI 2.0 isn't good enough, I pay attention! Learned something new today.

Also, this made me realize how lacking AT forums have become over the years, where people spend pages and pages arguing about re-brand this, re-brand that, despite neither AMD nor NV moving the performance much from a $399 290 that launched more than 1.5 years ago. Fact is both NV and AMD failed us this generation with mid-range cards since 970/980 barely moved the mark from 10-months old 290/290X cards. After 290/290X were selling for $220-280 for 6 months and most here didn't want to hear how awesome their price/performance was and that one could easily buy a cool and quiet 290 (in fact after-market 290 cards could be bought for $200 on Black Friday of last year), and yet now, it's doom and gloom. Once 290 series sells out, all we'll have is $329 390, $389 390X and the same 970 card from 9 months ago.

So many months wasted on this forum related to arguments about $0.50-1 saved in electricity a month, but yet truly interesting things like a 39.5" 4K panels selling for $599 isn't even discussed on our videocard forum.

AMH A399U UHD 39.5" 3840X2160 16:9 4K LED Monitor 60Hz DP1.2 HDMI2.0

I had to ask a couple experienced users in PMs about monitor recommendations cuz it seems here in the videocard section a lot of people are more excited if a new mid-range card uses 50W less power and is 5% faster than a $399 card released late 2013 while they are gaming on a POS 22-24" 1080P panel. Fact is this gen has been 290/970 OR 980Ti/Fiji, 960 is crap, 285 is crap, 750/750Ti are slow gaming crap, 270/270X are ancient (you can easily find R9 280 for $150 new or used 7950/7970 cards that blow Pitcairn away), so really this entire gen has been yawn-worthy, both AMD and NV are equally to blame - a pure 28nm stop-gap, just as many predicted anyway. The only interesting cards to have released since November 2013 are GTX980Ti and TX. Hopefully Fiji delivers cuz anyone who skipped 290/290X/970 since November 2013 shouldn't at all care about R9 300 series, period. If someone waited this long to buy a gaming card and didn't jump on a $200-240 290 or a $300 970, $150 R9 290, bought a used 7950/7970 card, what were they thinking that AMD would release a $299 card 30% faster than a 290X?

Still, to call this generation the worst ever is twisting history. The worst 2 generations of all time are GeForce 5 and HD2000, nothing even comes remotely close. This generation still delivers the goods when it comes to flagship cards - 980Ti OC is spectacular. The people who got screwed are budget and mid-range gamers, such as 960 beating 760 by 10-11% > 1.5 years later or now this R9 290 barely better than a $399 R9 290 from > 1.5 years ago. But trying to shift everything on AMD is hilarious considering a mid-range 980 was $550 for 8 months and is now only approaching $470 (FAIL). Both AMD and NV failed to deliver the goods in the $150-500 space up to now. So really, let's be objective on that point at least.

Most people who waited this long did so because they were interested in $500+ cards, that is 980Ti, Fiji PRO and Fiji XT level products. For 6+ months fire-sale 290/290X and awesome game-bundles on 970 were recommended as is. It was easy to predict that 390/390X would not have any hope of matching a 290/290X on price/performance at launch, it was obvious given how 290X was just 6-12% slower than a 980 but cost $280 when 980 was $550. Not to mention it was brought up by various posters how newer cards often have worse price/performance vs. fire-sale prices of older gen products.

Frankly, from what I've read it costs $250 million - $1B to redesign a GPU. If true, it's actually good long-term that AMD didn't sink that $ into 28nm node on the low-end to mid-range considering 2016 brings 14nm/16nm HBM GPUs and the existing GCN stack is good enough to last another 15 months considering the awful performance of 750/750Ti/960 cards. The biggest cons of R9 290 series were noise levels and temperatures and these 2 are completely addressed now. Most people on forums disregarded 290 series because of noise levels and temps, power usage was tertiary because someone can put up with a card that uses 75W extra power but now when it sounds like a jet engine. Do small refreshes like this suck? Yes, but for anyone who hasn't lived under the rock for the last 6 months on this forum, it was a given that this entire 28nm gen would suck, other than flagship $500+ cards.

Oh well, looking forward to Fiji vs. 980Ti.

 

[geoxile]

IIRC Brad Wardell of Stardock did say AMD had something big planned for E3, and he implied it was software related.

IIRC he said something like "People will be saying, why didn't we do this before!" in a video interview. It could just be empty hype, but I guess we'll find out then.

 

[x3sphere]

So I was browsing this review, then stumbled upon this, then found this review.

Apparently HDMI 2.0 doesn't have enough bandwidth to do 4K @ 60Hz with 4:4:4 chroma and many videophiles are reporting this, suggesting the best way to use a 4K monitor for desktop+media is to still use DisplayPort 1.2.

I think a lot of people just compare HDMI 2.0 and DisplayPort by just looking at the specs, but specs are often marketing. When users do in-depth analysis with tests that show HDMI 2.0 isn't good enough, I pay attention! Learned something new today.

HDMI 2.0 certainly has enough bandwidth to do 4K/60Hz/ 4:4:4. I've tested it myself on one of the Samsung 4K sets.

However , it cannot do 4K/60Hz/ 4:4:4 if HDCP 2.2 is active due to added overhead. No current video cards support HDCP 2.2, but it will be required for 4K Blu-ray. That's something to consider for HTPCs at least - a non-issue for productivity or gaming use though.

I think the only reason people want HDMI 2.0 support is because there aren't many large 4K monitors with DP. The Samsung sets are good, have low input lag (around 30-40ms) and are pretty affordable, but unfortunately don't have a DP port.

edit: I didn't realize that 40" 4K Seiki was out now though, seems monitor manufactures are starting to address this market.

 

[RussianSensation]

HDMI 2.0 certainly has enough bandwidth to do 4K/60Hz/ 4:4:4. I've tested it myself on one of the Samsung 4K sets.

However , it cannot do 4K/60Hz/ 4:4:4 if HDCP 2.2 is active due to added overhead. No current video cards support HDCP 2.2, but it will be required for 4K Blu-ray. That's something to consider for HTPCs at least - a non-issue for productivity or gaming use though.

I think the only reason people want HDMI 2.0 support is because there aren't many large 4K monitors with DP.

All the good 4K PC monitors have DP, what do you mean? The opposite is true though - there are not many affordable high-quality 4K TVs worth buying right now, not to mention unless someone is rocking dual Hawaiis/GM204s/980Ti or Fiji, 4K gaming with modern AAA games is going to be a bad gaming experience on such slow videocards as a 970 or a 390. Also, it's pretty tough to game on a 50-70" 4K TV on your computer desk; which means it's very difficult to use a 50"+ TV for both PC and gaming purposes.

If you ask any real 4K gamer on this forum or other forums, they will tell you unless you have flagship cards, don't even bother with 4K gaming on Medium settings or it'll look way worse than a 32" 2560x1440 panel with very high settings. That's why many gamers are going 2560x1440 60-120Hz (some with FreeSync/GSync) because they realize this. It's the elites who are buying 980Tis of this world who are going 4K.

HDMI 2.0 on cards like 960/970/980 is a marketing gimmick for gaming at this moment since those cards have no hope to play 4K AAA games at good settings on a 4K monitor, which means HDMI 2.0 would be just the same be a marketing gimmick on any R9 300 series. If 390/390X had HDMI 2.0 or not, it wouldn't matter since they would be nearly as slow as a $270 290X! If someone wants an HTPC card to connect to a 4K monitor, get a 750 series. Anyone who can afford a great quality 4K TV is spending thousands on that TV, which means they can afford a proper $650 980Ti for gaming on said TV. Otherwise, what kind of 4K PC monitor that's been recommended doesn't have a DP connector?

Philips BDM4065UC has DP.
Acer B326HK has DP
BenQ BL3201PH has DP
Samsung U32D970Q has DP

Even a $400 Monoprice 4K monitor has not 1 but 2 DP connectors!

Just about anything that's even remotely considered a good 4K PC monitor has DP. If it doesn't, it's probably not worth buying (i.e., large TV that probably has massive input lag). Maybe the Vizio 4K TVs might be just 1 exception, still I doubt their input lag will match any high quality PC Monitor.

 

[escrow4]

Who cares about 4K. Its ain't mainstream. 4K will only pick up when you can pick up a cheap half decent monitor for $150 and a cheap(er) half decent card that can drive it. Just like 1080p. Consoles can't even do 1080p consistently, devs won't bother optimising for 4K on PC until its actually worth their time. I'm still on 24" 1200p, found no reason to switch up. Titan X is barely enough to max out base settings @ 1200p @ 60FPS (never mind 120FPS) anyway.

And sub $200 GPUs will never be enough to jack settings up on recent titles. May as well buy a console if you can only afford to play console settings.

 

[96Firebird]

HDMI 2.0 on cards like 960/970/980 is a marketing gimmick cuz it's basically worthless for actual games.

I can't believe I'm actually reading this nonsense... There are plenty of older games that run fine @ 4K on a 970/980, even some newer games if you turn settings down... Then, when you're done gaming, you can use all that screen real estate for productivity.

And before you mentioned people didn't recommend waiting for the 390X because of the 290X deals? That couldn't be further from the truth. It was recommended to wait by plenty of people, as long ago as the beginning of the year.

 

[x3sphere]

All the good 4K PC monitors have DP, what do you mean. The opposite is true though - there are a total of 0 affordable high-quality 4K TVs worth buying right now, not to mention unless someone is rocking dual Hawaiis/GM204s/980Ti or Fiji, 4K gaming with modern AAA games is going to be a bad gaming experience on such slow videocards as a 970 or a 390.

If you ask any real 4K gamer on this forum or other forums, they will tell you unless you have flagship cards, don't even bother. That's why many gamers are going 2560x1440 60-120Hz (some with FreeSync/GSync) because they realize this. HDMI 2.0 on cards like 960/970/980 is a marketing gimmick cuz it's basically worthless for actual games. If someone wants an HTPC card, get a 750 series. Anyone who can afford a great quality 4K TV is spending thousands on that TV, which means they can afford a proper $650 980Ti for gaming on said TV. Otherwise, what kind of 4K PC monitor that's been recommended doesn't have a DP connector?

I meant up until recently there weren't many options as far as large 4K monitors go (40" and above), so people were turning to 4K TVs. Not that 4K monitors in general don't have DP. From my experience with 4K, you need at least a 40" minimum if you want to use it with 1:1 scaling at a reasonable distance without cranking the DPI. All those 32" monitors are too small, and while some 40" offerings are out now, there's still no curved ones unless you go with a TV.

I'm not all that interested in 4K right now myself. I had one of the 4K Samsung TVs and the GPU requirements are too demanding and I didn't want to keep spending thousands on an SLI/CF setup each year to keep up. I ended up selling my set and buying a 1080P OLED instead.

At any rate there's a huge Samsung TV thread over on [H]... I disagree it's a marketing gimmick, there's a lot of people gaming on these sets - http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1853884.

 

[LTC8K6]

Why is it reporting extra compute units?

Hawaii has 40, this one is reporting 44.

ps. 390 is 10% above R290, and matches R290X graphics score in Firestrike. If 390X is 10% above R290X, that puts it = 980. The only useful metric now is power use.

290x has 44
290 has 40

As far as I know, anyway.

Full Hawaii supposedly has 48.

 

[RussianSensation]

I can't believe I'm actually reading this nonsense... There are plenty of older games that run fine @ 4K on a 970/980, even some newer games if you turn settings down... Then, when you're done gaming, you can use all that screen real estate for productivity.

Ya, let's name anyone on this forum who can afford a good 4K PC monitor or a great 4K TV and only has a budget for a $300-400 videocard? When you say older games, that basically excludes almost ALL AAA games released in the last 3 years. Did you bother looking at the benchmarks? A single 980Ti/TX max overclocked is hitting 30-40 fps in games.

And before you mentioned people didn't recommend waiting for the 390X because of the 290X deals? That couldn't be further from the truth. It was recommended to wait by plenty of people, as long ago as the beginning of the year.

Wrong. When people said to wait for 390X series at the beginning of the year, 390X name was implied THE flagship cards, because we couldn't have predicted 6 months ago that AMD would change the naming scheme and call 380 cards 390 cards and instead of Fiji being 390, it would be called Fury X/Pro. Since these "390/390X" cards were renamed Fiji which means the gamers on our forum who said to wait for 390X series were always talking about Fiji Pro, Fiji XT and obviously GM200 cards that would take their rightful place as flagship from the overpriced $550 980. For mid-range cards the recommendation was not to wait and just buy a 290/290X or 970 and if something showed up better, to just resell them and lose $50 of value. The recommendation for waiting was for anyone contemplating upgrades from 290/290X/780/780Ti or someone interested in spending $500+. Only someone who is completely clueless about the last 8 months of GPUs who passed on on 290/290X/970 is today upset about 390/390X cards. It was always understood the upgrade path for gamers not satisfied with 290/290X/970/980 were GM200 and Fiji cards, not Enhanced Hawaii cards.

I don't know where you honestly have been the last 8 months cuz no one said Oh don't buy a $240 R9 290 January 2015, wait 6 months for an Enhanced Hawaii card. It's interesting how you still don't understand why many people were saying to wait 6-8 months -- it was never about waiting for next gen mid-range cards.

 

[Stormflux]

So many months wasted on this forum related to arguments about $0.50-1 saved in electricity a month, but yet truly interesting things like a 39.5" 4K panels selling for $599 isn't even discussed on our videocard forum.

This specific forum on Anandtech is Video Cards and Graphics. People have been asking for a Display forum for quite a while. This forum has it's niche, just like others on the net. I'd recommend looking into the AVSForum.com for broader display discussions. HardOCP display forum is pretty good as well. Head-fi.org is great for audiophiles. But I'd understand if you want to maintain the Anandtech community.

 

[96Firebird]

Ya, let's name anyone on this forum who can afford a good 4K PC monitor or a great 4K TV and only has a budget for a $300-400 videocard? When you say older games, that basically excludes almost ALL AAA games released in the last 3 years. Did you bother looking at the benchmarks? A single 980Ti/TX max overclocked is hitting 30-40 fps in games.

Yes, I did look at benchmarks, did you? You must have missed all the games that got 40+ FPS with the 980, some even averaged over 60. But I guess those games don't matter, when you have a 4K monitor you can only play the latest and greatest at maxed settings.

Look, it's obvious you are downplaying the inclusion of HDMI 2.0 on Maxwell because it looks as though the 300-series doesn't have it... If it did, you wouldn't have said a word.

And to your second paragraph, hindsight is 20/20. I feel bad for all those people who waited.

 

[SimianR]

It's funny - I don't think there would be such backlash about the "rebrands" if AMD had placed them in the 380/380X bracket. I think it does come across as trying to play off their old cards as new higher end products. But - this release isn't really all that different from the 290/290X in the fall of 2013. The main highlight then was the 290 and 290X - and they moved the 7970 to the 280X name yet most people thought that was fine. They didn't have much to show besides those two cards. This time around it's the Fiji Pro/X but this time they are being marketed and sold as products outside of their regular branding/naming scheme. I wonder if they had just sold the Fiji as the 390 and 390X if this would all be a little easier to swallow for some people.

 

[RussianSensation]

I meant up until recently there weren't many options as far as large 4K monitors go (40" and above), so people were turning to 4K TVs.

Yes, but we are discussing this launch and the current situation where 980Ti is $650. I am pretty sure the types of gamers eyeing 4K TVs 9 months ago would have considered a 980Ti if it was available. But they didn't have a choice back then. Now that we have these choices, if someone is considering a 4K TV/monitor, they probably aren't going to buy a $1K+ TV and a $300 videocard that will choke to death for the next 20 months until 14nm.

From my experience with 4K, you need at least a 40" minimum if you want to use it with 1:1 scaling at a reasonable distance without cranking the DPI. All those 32" monitors are too small, and while some 40" offerings are out now, there's still no curved ones unless you go with a TV.

A lot of gamers have been mentioning that 40" for 4K should be the minimum, but to me 4K gaming is the holly grail of gaming now. I would not want to do 4K gaming with compromises. I don't see the point of getting a mediocre/average 4K TV and a mid-range GPU. After-all, what's the point of 4K gaming if you are compromising FPS and IQ to such extremes where you are cutting corners on the TV side and the GPU side? Just to have 4K? Sounds gimmicky. It seems you agree with me too as so does escrow4.

I'm not all that interested in 4K right now myself. I had one of the 4K Samsung TVs and the GPU requirements are too demanding and I didn't want to keep spending thousands on an SLI/CF setup each year to keep up. I ended up selling my set and buying a 1080P OLED instead.

:biggrin: Nice.

At any rate there's a huge Samsung TV thread over on [H]... I disagree it's a marketing gimmick, there's a lot of people gaming on these sets - http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1853884.

Again, I am sure someone is playing older games or Indie titles over HDMI 2.0 on a 4K Samsung TV but what games/IQ are they getting? As you said, you realized the GPU demands would be insane and you were right. Cards like 970/290X get destroyed at 4K in older games.

2012 game

early 2013 game

early 2013 game

and now, newer games - get ready to laugh at 970/290X performance

slideshow

slideshow

slideshow

slideshow

If someone wants a budget gaming setup for 4K, they are looking for used after-market R9 290s, not a new $390 R9 390X! Therefore, complaining about lack of HDMI 2.0 ports is irrelevant if the objective is 4K gaming - what you need is the most graphics horsepower you can possible get in that price range and nothing from AMD/NV touches a $350-440 R9 290s in CF for 4K.

Yes, I did look at benchmarks, did you? You must have missed all the games that got 40+ FPS with the 980, some even averaged over 60. But I guess those games don't matter, when you have a 4K monitor you can only play the latest and greatest at maxed settings.

I actually did. 4K gaming at Guru3D, AnandTech, GameGPU, for the last 7-8 months. 970/980/290X all fail in almost all AAA games released in that time. Also, someone of us don't want to go out buy a $1K 4K TV and a $550 980 and then play at 30-40 fps. 30-40 fps is optimistic too since 980 doesn't hit 40 fps, in case you need a refresher I provided a lot of benchmarks already.

Look, it's obvious you are downplaying the inclusion of HDMI 2.0 on Maxwell because it looks as though the 300-series doesn't have it... If it did, you wouldn't have said a word.

I wouldn't have cared if they had it or not for 4K gaming since I realize a single 390/390X isn't good enough, just like a single 290/290X wasn't either. Not only is the percentage of 4K gamers < 1% on Steam, I bet the percentage of those 4K gamers who use mid-range cards is tiny.

I'm actually someone that bout 970s specifically because of HDMI 2.0 . It's not a gimmick. 970 SLIs is fine for 4K except for new AAA open world games and stuff like Crysis 3.

That's not what's being discussed. We are talking about single card setups being used for 4K gaming via HDMI 2.0 -> i.e., single $329 R9 390 and $389 R9 390X lacking HDMI 2.0 now. Now, one can buy 980Ti for $650 that's better than 390 CF or 970 SLI which means it's no longer relevant if 970 or 390 has HDMI 2.0 for 4K in CF/SLI as of this launch because someone spending $650+ on 2 such cards is better off getting an after-market 980Ti. Of course if you already had a 4K TV 8 months ago and didn't want to wait for GM200, by all means 970 SLI was a good buy, but we are talking about today's marketplace.

The main point he is missing is that anyone who read this forum closely and had a budget of $200-350 didn't sit for 8-9 months waiting for Enhanced Hawaii cards. He keeps pushing this theory but it was understood a long time ago that a real upgrade path for gamers who skipped 290 or GM204 series was GM200 or Fiji cards (or 14nm, etc.). Also, anyone truly on a budget who followed these forums knew about $200-250 after-market 290 cards and many gamers kept saying how an Enhanced Hawaii would not beat those cards on price/performance.

 

[tdslam720]

I'm actually someone that bout 970s specifically because of HDMI 2.0 . It's not a gimmick. 970 SLIs is fine for 4K except for new AAA open world games and stuff like Crysis 3. I can run GTA 5 / W3 4k Max everything except AA with at least 30fps. People really overblow how intensive 4k gaming is. So you can't play a handful of games 60fps ultra. It's not like you either have to play GTA 5 or Chips Challenge. Whole bunch of games in between.

 

[RussianSensation]

And to your second paragraph, hindsight is 20/20. I feel bad for all those people who waited.

You are confused about who waited. People who skipped 290/290X/970/980 don't care about 390/390X cards. They waited for Fiji and GM200. Anyone else who thought there would be a $299-399 card 30-50% faster than a 290X must have been in lala land considering this is still 28nm node. If you are playing 390 naming scheme semantics, you should drop it cuz it's not working. When our forum discussed waiting for 390/390X cards, the "390 series" naming was implicit of Fiji 3500-4096 shader cards with HBM. For all intents and purposes what people referred to as R9 380 series is what AMD is launching as 390 series and 390 series is what AMD is calling Fury.

Those who waited will end up with a 980Ti or a Fiji card that will wreck a 980, so why would anyone feel bad for anyone who skipped 290/GM204 series? Those people did the right thing because today a 980Ti smokes a 980 @ the same clocks for only $150 more.

Your argument is funny too cuz you waited 10 months to get a 5% faster 970 with less VRAM over a $400 10 months old 290, but now you are feeling sorry for people who supposedly waited for Enhanced Hawaii for 8 months? So 5% faster, $70 less expensive while someone who got a 980Ti is getting 30-40% more performance against a 980 overclocked and 50% more VRAM over a $550 980. You are mistaken if you think experienced gamers on this forum recommended someone with a budget of $200-350 (max) to wait 8 months for Enhanced Hawaii cards. That simply did not happen. Those gamers were long ago recommended 290/290X/970. For those who wanted to spend $500+, it was smart to wait for GM200/Fiji and skip the overpriced 980. ^_^ Those who didn't want to wait but still wanted a power house setup that wouldnt' be obsolete in 8 months, listened to good advice and got 970 SLI for $110 more (or 295X2/290 CF or 290X CF). Today 970 SLI, 290 CF/290X CF / 295X2 are still great setups and 980 is a performance outdated card that is trying as hard as possible to cement its place as a $500 mid-range Maxwell card which have have really launched at $399-449. Even now against a $650 980Ti, it's probably $50 overpriced. A lot of gamers on this forum feel that way too.

Instead of addressing Karlitos' and my point that this entire $150-500 generation from both NV and AMD has been a lacklustre besides 980Ti/Titan X and 750Ti for HTCP (and possibly Fiji), you jump on the re-brand hating bandwagon. The biggest elephant in the room isn't 390/390X refreshes, but that 970/980 also failed in moving the performance metrics against ancient 290/290X cards. Sure they sold well but as we know high sales don't mean the product was worth buying. Toyota Corolla sells well too and it's garbage.

Maybe you should address the elephant in the room how both AMD and NV failed to dramatically change the GPU landscape since an after-market November 2013 R9 290 came out at $399.

 

[Noctifer616]

IIRC Brad Wardell of Stardock did say AMD had something big planned for E3, and he implied it was software related.

IIRC he said something like "People will be saying, why didn't we do this before!" in a video interview. It could just be empty hype, but I guess we'll find out then.

It was not about E3 but Build, the MS conference.

It was regarding the multi-adapter feature. What it allows is the use of the iGPU alongside the dGPU for extra performance. So anyone with an Intel CPU could see performance gains from the iGPU in games that use that feature.

He claims a 20% performance boost.

https://twitter.com/draginol/status/594312861167550464
https://twitter.com/draginol/status/594308070198681601

 

[96Firebird]

I actually did. 4K gaming at Guru3D, AnandTech, GameGPU, for the last 7-8 months. 970/980/290X all fail in almost all AAA games released in that time. Also, someone of us don't want to go out buy a $1K 4K TV and a $550 980 and then play at 30-40 fps. 30-40 fps is optimistic too since 980 doesn't hit 40 fps, in case you need a refresher I provided a lot of benchmarks already.

Look again, you'll find plenty of games that are playable. Check HardOCP, TPU, AT, TechReport, etc... I know, they are American sites and they're run by typical Americans and blah blah blah, spare me the drama. Why are we only including games within the last 8 months? Who made up that random timeline?

Face it, people are using the HDMI 2.0 ports on the Maxwell cards. Whether you think they should be or not (like that opinion matters to them at all), they are. And to say it is all just a gimmick is laughable at best, trolling at worst.

And before my phone dies, I didn't upgrade out of necessity, I upgraded because I had to sell my 770 before the resale value tanked on it. We went over this before... At that time, I needed a new card. And the 970s were both faster and cheaper than the 290, so guess which one I went with! :awe:

 

[alcoholbob]

HDMI 2.0 certainly has enough bandwidth to do 4K/60Hz/ 4:4:4. I've tested it myself on one of the Samsung 4K sets.

However , it cannot do 4K/60Hz/ 4:4:4 if HDCP 2.2 is active due to added overhead. No current video cards support HDCP 2.2, but it will be required for 4K Blu-ray. That's something to consider for HTPCs at least - a non-issue for productivity or gaming use though.

I think the only reason people want HDMI 2.0 support is because there aren't many large 4K monitors with DP. The Samsung sets are good, have low input lag (around 30-40ms) and are pretty affordable, but unfortunately don't have a DP port.

edit: I didn't realize that 40" 4K Seiki was out now though, seems monitor manufactures are starting to address this market.

4K60 at 4:4:4 and HDCP 2.2 is perfectly within the spec of HDMI 2.0. We are just waiting for TVs to come out with the Silicon Image SiL9777 chipset, which was only finalized at the end of 2014. It takes about a year for a design to be fleshed out and released so a full HDMI 2.0 TVs should start tricking in during Christmas 2015.

Monitors will always be years behind TVs in inputs due to low profits and low volume of premium displays compared to television sets. Just look at 1440p displays. Even in 2015 almost none of them support 1440p over HDMI, which is a HDMI 1.3/1.4 feature. Most 1440P monitors are still limited to 2005/2006 HDMI refresh rates and resolutions.

 

[3DVagabond]

what I find funny is the closer we get to the 16th, the more amd bashing appears in this thread. :twisted:

can't the hate wait for some worth while benchmarks? you would at least have a bone to pick with if there is a bone.

a straight rebrand + 100$ higher price? :twisted: after 2 years amd might as well close up shop. I honestly didn't think this could come out of an enthusiast forum.

By bashing now they get the supreme satisfaction of gloating about their prediction prowess after the fact. If wrong they were just speculating like everyone else and, given what was being said, how were they supposed to know any differently.

 

[AtenRa]

Bonaire was introduced as part of the 7000 series (7790).

Fiji obviously isn't a rebrand, but I'm not counting it as part of the 300 series because AMD isn't labeling or describing it as such.

New AMD dGPU releases after GCN 1.0 have been as follows:

• Bonaire (GCN 1.1) - March 2013
• Hawaii (GCN 1.1) - October 2013
• Tonga (GCN 1.2) - September 2014
• Fiji (GCN 1.?) - unknown, maybe this month or maybe later

And there won't be any other new AMD dGPUs this year; even the most optimistic timelines from AMD don't have FinFET+ Arctic Islands chips coming until 2016. So that's a grand total of 4 GPUs from AMD in three years. And 2014 and 2015 are seeing only a single new GPU each.


Now compare that to Nvidia's release schedule following the first round of Kepler cards:

• GK208 (Kepler 2nd generation) - April 2013
• GM107 (Maxwell 1st generation) - February 2014
• GM108 (Maxwell 1st generation) - March 2014
• GM204 (Maxwell 2nd generation) - September 2014
• GK210 (Kepler 2nd generation) - November 2014
• GM206 (Maxwell 2nd generation) - January 2015
• GM200 (Maxwell 2nd generation) - March 2015

That's four new GPUs for 2014 alone, and two more in 2015. Again, this is talking only about actual new silicon, not cut-down parts or differently clocked cards. Only 2013 was a lean year, but that's understandable since Kepler had been released fairly recently, in Q2-Q3 2012.


We can see that Nvidia is pushing forward the state of the art, and AMD is failing in their obligation to do so.

Lets concentrate above the $100 GPU Chips

1 : AMD Tahiti (HD7970-7950) January 2012
2: AMD Cape Verde (HD7770-7750) February 2012
3: AMD Pticairn (HD7870-7850) March 2012

4: AMD Bonaire (HD7790) March 2013
5: AMD Hawaii (R9 290X-290) October 2013

6: AMD Tonga (R9 285) September 2014

7: Fiji June 2015



How about NVIDIA ???




1: NVIDIA GK104 (GTX680-670) March 2012
2: NVIDIA GK107 (GTX650-640) April 2012
3: NVIDIA GK106 (GTX660) September 2012

4: NVIDIA GK110 (Titan-780-780Ti) February 2013

5: NVIDIA GM107 (GTX750Ti) February 2014
6: NVIDIA GM204 (GTX980-970) September 2014

7: NVIDIA GM206 (GTX960) January 2015
8: NVIDIA GM200 (Titan-X) March 2015

So, NVIDIA only introduced one more chip in the same period of time from 2012 to 2015 in the $100+ segment.
They may have more chips at the bellow $100 price range but we actually dont care here.

 

[flopper]

Maybe you should address the elephant in the room how both AMD and NV failed to dramatically change the GPU landscape since an after-market November 2013 R9 290 came out at $399.

Its been the main issue as Nvidia havent been able to surpass AMD yet until the TitanX at 1100euro if they really wanted to surpass AMD they price it at 299 but that didnt happen strangely enough. Now we see AMD refresh their line up add the most advanced technology in the world leading situation they been at for years where nvidia copy all their stuff. If nvidia couldnt buy HBM guess what would been as their own memory tech was a huge fail.

AMD changed the gaming landscape with Mantle/Dx12/Vulkan/Metal and are leading the revolution that is coming and nvidia are playing catch up. Fury is the card to own for anyone knowing what they buy.

Development and evolution is really difficult if we let Nvidia or Microsoft do things solely alone as they would lock in stuff or be lazy not to update code.

I am D revolution coming

 

[Erenhardt]

Rebranding lower tier cards may very well be a valid tactic to get some revenue on cheap.
Lets be honest here... No one buys nvidia gtx960 based on its metrics. They buy it "because it is nvidia and nvidia is faster - it is almost like the fastest card on the planet - GTX Titan X, but slower".

AMD is probably banking on the same strategy. Take the crown, be on the front pages, be the first to the market with new tech so you get all the news articles based on your High end product.

Most people will not afford new and shiny HBM state of the art GPU. But they will hear about it, and they will want to have some of those radeon cores HBM FTW! They will go and get what they can afford - be it all new, just released R9 390X.

Will they know if it is almost 2 year old buy? Mostly not.

There is a possibility that 390X is better binned. Anyone have a voltages that those new cards operate and how that compares to 290X?

 

[saeedkunna]

So I was browsing this review, then stumbled upon this, then found this review.

Apparently HDMI 2.0 doesn't have enough bandwidth to do 4K @ 60Hz with 4:4:4 chroma and many videophiles are reporting this, suggesting the best way to use a 4K monitor for desktop+media is to still use DisplayPort 1.2.


.

thats not true, nvidia GPU's with hdmi 2.0 can do 4:4:4 chroma @60Hz in fact i am playing on Samsung tv (UN40JU6700) with TX .

 

[Erenhardt]

Also, if this makes review sites stop using reference 290X in Quiet mode that throttles like a mad as a comparison point to nv offerings, it would be a huge win for AMD.

The performance increase between overclocked non-throttling hawaii in 390X vs throttling 290X could be quite significant.

Of-course I fully expect all review sites that used quiet-mode reference 290X in their nv gpu reviews, to use aftermarket overclocked 290X to compare it to 390X to show the least improvement.

 

[railven]

Well technically it is the same hardware. Furthermore, these prices are the same as they have been for several months. If a 290x = a 390x. You will not see street prices of 390x all that higher than current 290x street prices.

I'm well aware of that, and it's still going to cost more than previous cards. It will not be 290X == 390X in regards to price as we already see a R9 390 costing more than even current 290X with 8GBs of VRAM at a retailer (use all the mark up you want.)

Based on this:

Best Buy have $30 markup.

If we take the same markup, the R9 390 should be $339.

Really, don't assume that Best Buy have exactly the MSRP price...

And that STILL puts its above GTX 970 MSRP. Are we going to start moving goal posts and say "well Craig will be selling it for less from his van, you'll see?"

I'm basing my info on the only solid evidence, some of you guys are ignoring it going "yeah, well no" without even trying to counter the proof.

GTX 970 SSC == R9 390 at Best Buy, even with mark ups.

Some how this translates to 390x costing <$340, and I guess R9 390 some where in the $300 range?

Woof, dat logic!