There is literally no difference between Hawaii and Tahiti core over clocking. The only difference is ram oc'ing.
There is, in % terms. 7970 came clocked at 925mhz and many chips hit 1175-1200mhz, the Lightning and Matrix could do 1250-1300mhz. In % terms, 7970 kills R9 290X.
See, 7970 was about 8-10% behind 680 but when both were overclocked, it could match an overclocked 680. R9 290X cannot match an overclocked 780Ti. We look at base performance and then look at % overclock because enthusiasts do overclock. While R9 290X is close to a stock 780Ti, once the 780Ti is overclocked, the difference grows in favour of NV, not shrinks. With Maxwell bringing 35% increase in IPC, and it'll be more likely to win the overclocking % battle as has the 285/480/580/780Ti before it.
Also, if you read the posts, it was mentioned that if AMD goes larger die, it might overclock better. R9 290X shows the opposite. At best, Hawaii reaches 7970's top speeds but it's not any better that's for sure.
@RS, you cannot be serious with comparisons of potential max OC as a major factor, look at the 7950, 45-50% OC were possible. Doesn't mean jack, because AMD set the default clocks way too low to position their stack in perf/$ appropriately.
Doesn't mean jack? Overclocking means a heck of a lot for enthusiasts spending $500+ on GPUs. The fact that 7950 overlocked 45-50% is what made it such an amazing GPU compared to 660Ti. Overclocking is what makes 780Ti clearly superior to R9 290X for single GPU use.
In the past, AMD lost 15% performance but it had a price/performance to match: 5870/6950/6970. With 7970, AMD got away with the $550 price because of bitcoin mining. Right now AMD is facing this very situation with R9 290X. The card isn't faster than 780Ti OC but its priced very close to it. Once AMD throws away the game bundle and/or price/performance card, it's not longer viable to buy it over the better overclocking NV flagship. In the past, ATI commanded premium prices because it was faster - 9800XT, X850XT PE, X1950XTX.
Looking at the current reviews with updated drivers from both sides, I've already linked to you Computerbase.de that finds R290X essentially matching 780ti that is allowed 100% fanspeed and power limit increased.
That review doesn't have 780Ti max OC vs. R9 290X mac OC though. Take 780Ti Classified and it'll beat any R9 290X in a single GPU match up on air.
R9 290X at 1.22 Ghz can't even beat a 780Ti Ghz edition that's not overclocked.
http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/foru...5702-powercolor-r9-290x-pcs-4gb-review-8.html
So a smaller die is matching or beating a bigger die, and in CF vs SLI, beats it outright at 4K by large margins. That's bad?? Show poor signs of things to come, how is that even a proper interpretation?
But Kepler is an old architecture, tracing its roots back to Fermi. It's actually more amazing that Kepler can even keep up with GCN. Maxwell is in turn NV's "GCN" - it's their new architecture in a while. The performance/watt of 750Ti is spectacular and that's only on 28nm.....once Maxwell moves to 20nm, it'll be even better.
There is a reason AMD labeled Hawaii as GCN 1.1 because its a slight change from Tahiti as GCN 1.0, if anything, VI being GCN 2.0 should hint to the observer that it will be a major change.
I hope for the PC gaming landscape that AMD can compete for flagship performance next round but I am not too optimistic. Last time NV introduced a new GPU architecture with a node shrink, it blew AMD away - 8800GTX. Maxwell = brand new architecture (newer than GCN) and a node shrink. Maxwell is already very efficient at script mining with 750Ti. It should fix Kepler's compute weakness per mm2. GPUs are now primarily power constrained. Since Maxwell architecture was designed for mobile first, once you scale such an efficient design, it will be very powerful on the desktop inside a 250W TDP. I doubt GCN 2.0 was designed as efficiently.
Again, please explain how the 680 was midrange when there was only one other card around more expensive, and none from nvidia?
Internal code name, transistor count, small die size, 256-bit bus, smallest performance increase from previous generation flagship, smallest VRAM increase from 580, gimped compute performance, too low TDP for a flagship. It's too hard to prove that NV had issues with GK100 and decided to post-pone it by 1 year and release it as GK110. The other more reasonable possibility is that the demand from HPC / professionals for a large die compute chip was so high, that it was more financially profitable for NV to delay GK110 by 1 full year and start selling it to professionals around October-November 2012 (Oak Ridge), while 680 was fast enough to compete with 7970. Also,
early boxes and drivers for 680 had it as 670Ti.
NV never had a flagship with 294mm2 die size since 8800GTX. That in itself was proof that GTX680 was never a real flagship. It simply took the place of NV's flagship due to market landscape at the time. Kepler is hands down the biggest leap in inter-generational performance from NV since 7900GTX to 8800GTX. 780Ti is at least 2x faster than 580. It wasn't that 7970 was poor, but that Kepler ended up exceeding NV's expectations.
I think the 780ti is a great card, MUCH better than the 680, but I wish they wouldn't release a top end (for that time) card at 500 and call that midrange. Never in the history of GPUs has 500 been midrange, not until nvidia re-defined what expensive is with Titan.
That's true. As you can see GPU prices have sky-rocketed. 295X2 is now $1,500 when 4870X2 started off at $499 and even 7990/690 were $999. Seems to me the new single GPU flagship is now a $599-699 level and I wouldn't be surprised if this increased again next generation. Remember when AMD launched 7950 at $449 and 580 3GB was $550? Now with R9 290 at $430-450 and 780 dipping to similar levels, those old prices seem ridiculous. The upside is most PC games are still console ports and for the average PC gamer, GTX760 is pretty fast for 1080p. I think AMD has seen NV raise prices across the board and follow suit. Now, the old flagship prices of $499-549 are going to be in the history books. One now has to wait either longer to upgrade to newer tech, or suck it up and pay 50-75% higher prices than historical averages. On paper, if mid-range Maxwell and R9 380X beat 780Ti and they are priced at $499-549, they'll sell like hot cakes since 780Ti is now at $650-750; and that's why AMD and NV can do a 1-2 wave launch of 20nm like they did 7970-> R9 290X and 680 -> 780Ti. Sucks for us gamers.
If you think $500 is expensive for a mid-range and $800-$1000 for high end, I don't think you will like the prices on 20nm.
...and no more script mining to finance those upgrades.Better have some coins/monies left over from the mining craze of the last 4-5 years to weather the storm. :awe: