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[wachie]

As a follow up to the previous thread, for which the original credit still rests with mkenyon and Crisium. So revisited the performance deltas and added a new data point with the 1080 review from techpowerup.

So in that thread, I ended up with saying that the aging problem is hopefully limited to Kepler and does not repeat with Maxwell, now with more time on our hand, I decided to add Maxwell into the mix.

And note that the only DX12 game that techpowerup is using is RoTR, these numbers would be much much worse if they used any of the other DX12 or async compute titles like Ashes and Hitman.

I wonder how Maxwell will fare in the next year. The trend doesnt seem to be stopping.

 

[Easy_D]

You know, looking at this, I'm quite fine with less than stellar OpenGL performance.

I wonder *why* this is happening though, is it hardware related or purely related to the drivers? Or is it just that AMD's drivers were so shit for a while that Nvidia's counterparts looked better and as AMD is slowly trying to get their stuff together, the performance gap is starting to close?

 

[Aklamarth]

I wonder *why* this is happening though,

It's called planned obsolesce. nvidia wants those upgrade money.

 

[Sword Of Doom]

You know, looking at this, I'm quite fine with less than stellar OpenGL performance.

I wonder *why* this is happening though, is it hardware related or purely related to the drivers? Or is it just that AMD's drivers were so shit for a while that Nvidia's counterparts looked better and as AMD is slowly trying to get their stuff together, the performance gap is starting to close?

It's not just against AMD though. GTX 780 should not be outperformed by a 960 imo but it is. The recent Doom is an example

 

[thequickandthedead]

This is some scary shit

 

[Quotient]

How much is AMD improving their drivers?

 

[Caayn]

Being able to write drivers for one architecture that the last few series of GPUs utilize helps AMD a lot in this regard.

AMD's "future proof" cards will suddenly drop off a cliff the moment that AMD comes with a completely new architecture. Similar to what we see with NV.

That's the reason this is happening. Not planned obsolesce or other crazy theories.

 

[Easy_D]

It's not just against AMD though. GTX 780 should not be outperformed by a 960 imo but it is. The recent Doom is an example

Oh, that's ass. So it's sort of as if a R9 285 outperformed a 390X? Aka bonkers?

 

[AstroNut325]

This is why I'm still trying to get an AMD card.

 

[-bakalhau-]

It's not just against AMD though. GTX 780 should not be outperformed by a 960 imo but it is. The recent Doom is an example

I got a used GTX 780 (up from a 660ti) for 100$ 2 weeks ago because a GTX 960 wasn't enough of an upgrade for me for 200$. I just happen to be playing with a 960 (ASUS RoG G20) at work along an i7 6700k and DDR4 RAM, and in all 5 games I've played both at work and at home, even though at home I only have an i7 920, my 780 is absolutely beating the 960... Even at DOOM.

 

[Phinor]

It's called planned obsolesce. nvidia wants those upgrade money.

Or maybe their cards and drivers are simply more ready at launch? Not much room to improve. Couldn't be though, it's an evil plan to sell new cards.

I'd rather see AMD release their cards in a better state and not have to rely on years of improvements.

 

[Zojirushi]

You know, looking at this, I'm quite fine with less than stellar OpenGL performance.

I wonder *why* this is happening though, is it hardware related or purely related to the drivers? Or is it just that AMD's drivers were so shit for a while that Nvidia's counterparts looked better and as AMD is slowly trying to get their stuff together, the performance gap is starting to close?

Someone in the other thread already tried to explain this, it's because AMD has been using the same architecture all this time while Nvidia switched things around.

The theory is that GCN cards' performance will go to shit once Polaris is out for a while, we'll have to see about that I guess.

Anyway, shilling for either one of these companies is always stupid, the only thing one can guarantee is that both would always do the thing which maximizes profit for them (duh) it's just that right now Nvidia is in a much more fortunate spot to do so effectively than AMD.

 

[daninthemix]

I am genuinely interested in Polaris if it can hold a candle to Pascal. For this reason and the Freesync / G-sync mafia racket.

 

[jett]

Dat unparalleled Nvidia driver support.*

*for a limited time only

I assume the same thing will be happening to Maxwell cards. Seems like it already is.

 

[Trogdor1123]

Dear god... I don't want to see what my 560ti is at now lol.

And to be fair, this just means that amd got better, it doesn't mean nvidia got worse in terms of real world performance.

 

[wachie]

The theory is that GCN cards' performance will go to shit once Polaris is out for a while, we'll have to see about that I guess.

That will be interesting to look at for sure.

 

[Sword Of Doom]

I got a used GTX 780 (up from a 660ti) for 100$ 2 weeks ago because a GTX 960 wasn't enough of an upgrade for me for 200$. I just happen to be playing with a 960 (ASUS RoG G20) at work and even an i7 6700k and DDR4 RAM, and in all 5 games I've played both at work and at home, even though at home I only have an i7 920, my 780 is absolutely beating the 960... Even at DOOM.

As it should be. I have a 780 myself so I know that it's a powerful card but when I see benchmarks showing 960 outperforming the 780 it makes me think that something is not right. I'm on mobile right now so I can't post benchmarks but for Doom it was a 4-7fps advantage for the 960 I think.

 

[jett]

Dear god... I don't want to see what my 560ti is at now lol.

And to be fair, this just means that amd got better, it doesn't mean nvidia got worse in terms of real world performance.

Of course, it doesn't mean that older games now run worse than before, but it means that newer games probably don't run as well as they could or should.

 

[Finaika]

My poor 980 Ti

 

[K' Dash]

I discused this yesterday in the 1080 benchmark thread, this is a fact, forget about getting cheap 980ti and just get the 1070, or even better, get AMD hardware if the new Chips are good.

 

[McHuj]

Has the 780's performance decreased over time in the same benchmarks with newer driver releases?

 

[Ceallach]

Hm, interesting. I was considering jumping ship whenever u decided to upgrade from my 7990

 

[Iadien]

This is why I keep older drivers installed for my cards. I use to test new drivers to see if performance increased, but the opposite usually happened in the games I played, so I stopped updating drivers.

 

[Par Score]

I trust all of the comparisons were done against an otherwise static set of hardware and software?

Without knowing the full conditions and configurations of the various set-ups this is all pretty meaningless.

 

[wachie]

Has the 780's performance decreased over time in the same benchmarks with newer driver releases?

The % performance in OP is relative, with the baseline mentioned.

I trust all of the comparisons were done against an otherwise static set of hardware and software?

Without knowing the full conditions and configurations of the various set-ups this is all pretty meaningless.

Feel free to peruse the techpowerup review and their test rigs. With time, the test rigs get better and or newer games are added to their reviews.

It's easy to call it meaningless when with newer hardware and in newer games, the trend is consistent, across different Nvidia architectures.

 

[-bakalhau-]

As it should be. I have a 780 myself so I know that it's a powerful card but when I see benchmarks showing 960 outperforming the 780 it makes me think that something is not right. I'm on mobile right now so I can't post benchmarks but for Doom it was a 4-7fps advantage for the 960 I think.

No need to post them, I know you have seen benchmarks for it and I believe you saw that in the benchs. I have a different experience though, that's all I'm saying. In no way or shape I've seen it perform better even once (with my own eyes), even at bemnchmarks like Heaven, Valley, and UE4 Elemental demo.

I think the 960 beats a 780 in 1 out of 10 games or so going by all the benchmarks I've seen, taking into account a broader spectrum rather than only the games I've actually played. I don't think that's that abnormal in all fairness. It's a bit strange as you said, definitely, but going from my proper experience and then adding all the reviews and benchmarks I saw, I find it perfectly normal that the 780 handily beats the 960 in nearly every game, but every dozen or so games the 960 beats the 780 at 1 of them.

I absolutely got burned by the 660ti I spent 300$ on though. That 1.5GB VRAM... It started underperforming for my expectations WAAAAAY sooner than I expected...

 

[badb0y]

Or maybe their cards and drivers are simply more ready at launch? Not much room to improve. Couldn't be though, it's an evil plan to sell new cards.

I'd rather see AMD release their cards in a better state and not have to rely on years of improvements.

These cards also regressed compared to their modern counterparts as well though.

 

[Inspectah_Deck]

The theory is that GCN cards' performance will go to shit once Polaris is out for a while, we'll have to see about that I guess.

Polaris will be GCN (4th gen) and Vega will be GCN too.
There is no sign that AMD will drop the GCN architecture anytime soon, especially while all the consoles use it.

 

[wachie]

Polaris will be GCN (4th gen) and Vega will be GCN too.
There is no sign that AMD will drop the GCN architecture anytime soon, especially while all the consoles use it.

I'm guessing the theory is the shift within GCN is large enough in Polaris that we will see the same behavior with AMD.

 

[Projectjustice]

No wonder my 290 keeps performing so well with the newest games.

 

[hodgy100]

No wonder my 290 keeps performing so well with the newest games.

yeah that card was a right investment! it just keeps on trucking

 

[qa_engineer]

So can we assume the shrinking performance deltas and in some cases where there was clear performance win for AMD can be attributed to the following: improved drivers, lack of optimiztion (or more optimization favoring AMD), and the introduction of async compute on DX 12 games.

 

[wachie]

So can we assume the shrinking performance deltas and in some cases where there was clear performance win for AMD can be attributed to the following: improved drivers, lack of optimiztion (or more optimization favoring AMD), and the introduction of async compute on DX 12 games.

You can rule this one out as techpowerup uses only one DX12 game and that's not tilting this comparison.

 

[ThoughtsOfSpeaking]

This is why I keep older drivers installed for my cards. I use to test new drivers to see if performance increased, but the opposite usually happened in the games I played, so I stopped updating drivers.

Yeah same. As someone who seems to play very few AAA games on PC anyway, I don't see why I should update if everything is working fine as it is.

 

[The End]

Yeah, I just noticed this with doom benchmarks.

On the same settings, the 760 2GB was struggling to maintain 30fps whereas the 960 2GB (which historically had benchmarked at ~10% difference) was in the high 50s.

 

[Seronei]

1080/1070 is basically just Maxwell though, no major redesigns other than 16nm FT and GDDR5X. Seems pretty similar otherwise, so maybe this wont be a factor if it's related to switching to vastly different architectures?

 

[Inspectah_Deck]

So can we assume the shrinking performance deltas and in some cases where there was clear performance win for AMD can be attributed to the following: improved drivers, lack of optimiztion (or more optimization favoring AMD), and the introduction of async compute on DX 12 games.

dr_rus made a pretty good explanation:
http://m.neogaf.com/showpost.php?p=203990220
Also read the quote history for context.

 

[Shepard]

This kind if threads always make me worry about my gsync monitor purchase...

 

[smuf]

Could this be attributed to Nvidia having great driver optimisation out of the gate and AMD having more headroom for improvements?

 

[WarlockTheWise]

Could this be attributed to Nvidia having great driver optimisation out of the gate and AMD having more headroom for improvements?

That is the most likely scenario.

 

[Inspectah_Deck]

Could this be attributed to Nvidia having great driver optimisation out of the gate and AMD having more headroom for improvements?

It has mostly to do with PS4 and XO (which both use AMD GCN architecture) being the lead platforms for game devs now and then the games being ported to PC.
So AMD cards (which are also GCN) benefit from that more then Nvidia.

 

[Asd202]

Could this be attributed to Nvidia having great driver optimisation out of the gate and AMD having more headroom for improvements?

Let's not forget is that gains is what sells new cards. Faster aging means faster new buys from enthusiast and it's working for Nvidia right now by looking at their financial results.

 

[K' Dash]

Let's not forget is that gains is what sells new cards. Faster aging means faster new buys from enthusiast and it's working for Nvidia right now by looking at their financial results.

From a consumer stand point this sickens me, but the executives must be laughing on their way to the bank.

 

[badb0y]

Could this be attributed to Nvidia having great driver optimisation out of the gate and AMD having more headroom for improvements?

That is the most likely scenario.

How does this explain the GTX 970 outpacing the GTX 780 overtime? Are you suggesting nVidia also came out of the gate with unoptimized drivers for their GTX 9xx series?

 

[Rushersauce]

It has mostly to do with PS4 and XO (which both use AMD GCN architecture) being the lead platforms for game devs now and then the games being ported to PC.
So AMD cards (which are also GCN) benefit from that more then Nvidia.

This is the new "GAMEWORKS", but by Nvidia fans instead of AMD.

 

[TheAssist]

Those relative percentages though.

those >200 % performance increase probably equal to like 4 frames/s.

Not to defend either side, but it seems to be a more rational metric.

 

[General Lee]

The main reason is because AMD still relies on the same Hawaii chip and they need to optimize it, while Kepler was left on the roadside a long time ago in favor of Maxwell. The same will happen with Pascal, but you can expect the old GCN cards to be dropped off a cliff too once Polaris cards are out with their updated architecture. Perhaps not as drastically though, since the consoles still rely on it, but AMD driver support certainly will switch to Polaris only in no time.

 

[TwilightPrincess]

So AMD cards age like good wine and Nvidia cards start better but begin to decay at the moment they are released?

 

[Inspectah_Deck]

This is the new "GAMEWORKS", but by Nvidia fans instead of AMD.

I'm sporting a FX and a R9 though.

 

[demosthenes]

How does this explain the GTX 970 outpacing the GTX 780 overtime? Are you suggesting nVidia also came out of the gate with unoptimized drivers for their GTX 9xx series?

I'm not well versed in this but doesn't it make sense for a more recent piece of hardware to be able to excel more later in time than an older? Something new that the former didn't have was better?