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Nvidia past generation GPUs aging terribly
- Thread starter wachie
- Start date
General Lee
Member
It's been the standard practice for a long time. Once new gen GPUs come out, Nvidia and AMD will stop optimizing for the previous gen. This time AMD hasn't had any new cards so they keep optimizing what they have, while Nvidia optimizes only for the new gen. It looks bad, but it's nothing out of the ordinary.
This is the reason
Yes. AMD's cards on GCN are continuing to see improvements because when AMD does any driver optimization, it helps their ENTIRE line of GCN cards. NVIDIA has to do separate work for Kepler and Maxwell, so Kepler isn't getting as much love.
The most unbiased way to look at this, IMO, is that AMD is just in a unique situation to easily keep improving older cards (280x is the same card as a 7970). I don't think it is a case of NVIDIA taking a deliberately deceitful route to force upgrades.
The comparisons are with a 290 and 280X. GCN is GCN is GCN. The 280X is the same card as a 7970.
+1 to all of this.
Once AMD's architecture changes you'll see the same thing on the AMD side, and it will likely be even more drastic.
Yeah, thats definitely not what I was suggesting.
So come 2016, we have Pascal and Fiji with HBM2. Will Maxwell suffer the same because AMD looks to continue (largely) the GCN architecture while Pascal will be again a new architecture. I would say the architectural difference between Pascal and Maxwell would be greater than Maxwell and Kepler.
Well, we are a long way off from this. AMD is just focusing on iterations of GCN. Even if they completely change architecture, you're still looking at a 6+ year shelf life for older products that continually receive performance updates, which is pretty great.
More Fun To Compute
Member
Nvidia drivers are the best as long as you only want to play the latest big name release on the latest nvidia card.
Yeah, I know. That's why I mentioned earlier I may switch teams if my 980ti suffers the same fate.
I just put a Radeon r9 280x in my brothers build because of this. The card is a monster for $199.99.
FunkyLounge
Member
Depends on what will the next architecture look like. And don't forget, AMD will go through similar changes with HBM and the next batch of cards, so I would not look for stability there.
I switched teams and got a regular 290 a while back. I kind of regret it, it brought a lot of very specific troubles that I did not encounter previously on the green team. I would stay where you are personally.
I picked up a 290 awhile back to pit it in my secondary gaming rig for $270 right after the litecoin mining crash. My main system has a 780Ti Classified Kingpin that I spent nearly $1100 on including water block. The purchases were only separated by a few months.
The idea that the 290 could eventually be the better card of the two seems insane.
Very good points. I'm sure I'll be on my 980ti for at least 2 years (god I hope so) so I'll have plenty of time to see how the dust settles with HBM.
Nvidia nerfing drivers over time because process shrinks aren't pushing things forward anymore.
Whereas the competition needs software enhancement to push the brand forward.
thelastword
Banned
Can you imagine if AMD had optimized drivers and there wasn't so much CPU overhead against that of Nvidia's......
This is absolutely false.
I think for the most part (I could be very wrong) on paper AMD cards have always been superior?
Yeah, people aren't getting worse performance than they already had, they just arent seeing the performance gains AMD cards are seeing (again, AMD takes forever to release said optimized drivers).
Fiji's architecture looks largely based on the GCN, so what you are hoping for (radical change and poor aging over time) doesnt seem likely. Time will tell.
Are you the AMD equivalent of Unknown Soldier? Or is this sarcasm?
Big Papa Husker
Member
I still am using my 2GB 670 along with my 2500K OC'd @ 4.5GHZ... Haven't tried Witcher 3 yet though.
SeeNoWeevil
Member
I imagine driver changes boost performance on newer cards at the expense of older cards, if I had to guess. Nvidia already optimise per game (which I image degrades performance for other/older games).
You should probably read the links a bit more.
amd drivers are better.
Where is the evidence showing Kepler performance was killed on purpose? Because it can't run the Witcher 3 as well as AMD?
That's tin foil hat stuff guys, show me benchmarks of games that aren't brand new where Kepler did well previously and is shit now. (Hint, they don't exist).
Didn't Nvidia acknowledge gimped Kepler performance and promise a patch?
Don't think it did anything.
I've got a GTX 660-- runs gzDoom at a gazillion FPS, that's all I really use it for!
Seriously though, last modern game I bought was Dying Light, and even the much slower GNU/Linux port runs like a champ after a couple of game patches (1920x1080, ~30-60 fps depending on the area). Unless some new game comes out that I can't run-- which I don't foresee based on this year at least-- I don't see myself upgrading video cards anytime soon.
Seriously though, last modern game I bought was Dying Light, and even the much slower GNU/Linux port runs like a champ after a couple of game patches (1920x1080, ~30-60 fps depending on the area). Unless some new game comes out that I can't run-- which I don't foresee based on this year at least-- I don't see myself upgrading video cards anytime soon.
That was never the claim being made. The claim is that since Maxwell came out, nVidia stopped optimizing their drivers for Kepler in games that have been released since the launch of Maxwell, not in older games.
No, not really. It is just that their drivers improve everything back to the 7xxx series, while NVIDIA generally only improves things for the current architecture.
It's stating that NVidia's GPUs (some of the more popular ones it seems) are showing aging issues - aka, unable to hold up to the same performance even a year later that they had when first being used. They are "wearing out" as it were, where as Radeon's cards are not showing such decay in the same time frame.
FunkyLounge
Member
Don't get me wrong, I didn't mean it like this at all. I own a 290 and will for sure for some time, I sure as hell don't hope it will age poorly! That was just a speculation about a possible future outcome.
Nikodemos
Member
AMD have already flat out stated that the 5000 and 6000 series are entirely incompatible with DX12 (they don't support any of the four feature sets). On the other hand, all cards dating back to the 7750 will continue benefitting from new drivers in equal amounts (since they all have the same basic core, just with extra features in the newer iterations). That's almost three generations of cards (since the R300 series is nearly here).
Or maybe Nvidia gets it right earlier than AMD? All this proves is that Nvidia drivers mature much earlier than AMDs. All the other conspiracy nonsense is just that.
Maybe it's just me, but I'd rather have good drivers now rather than wait until my card company of choice catches up.
metareferential
Member
My Titan is holding up pretty well, after all.
Lately I have been playing AC unity and I must say that I'm impressed by the performance I get: everything maxed at 1440p (2xmsaa)I get frames from 30 to 45.
Cutscenes sometimes tank a bit in the 15-20 region but gameplay is perfectly fine thanks to gsync.
Still, I already ordered a 980ti xD
Lately I have been playing AC unity and I must say that I'm impressed by the performance I get: everything maxed at 1440p (2xmsaa)I get frames from 30 to 45.
Cutscenes sometimes tank a bit in the 15-20 region but gameplay is perfectly fine thanks to gsync.
Still, I already ordered a 980ti xD
Oh well then. Like others mentioned, that may also be because of starting better earlier for NVidia, leaving less headroom for improvement, and the opposite for AMD.
I haven't seen the kepler update for Witcher, are you sure it's even been released?
I'm pretty sure saying Nvidia "turned kepler cards into poop" infers performance was degraded on purpose. Oh, and there were a few "Nvidia pulled an Apple with kepler" claims in here already too.
Right, because they're all based on GCN and Kepler and Maxwell are not the same architecture. We've been saying this for a few posts now.
I think you're both misunderstanding the problem. I'll try to explain it. The claim is this: Let's say, on equivalent settings, GPU X (Kepler) from nVidia and GPU Y (GCN) from AMD average 60 FPS in games 1-5. Then nVidia releases GPU Z (Maxwell). In games 1-5, GPU Z average 70 FPS. Then games 6-10 launch. On average (assuming all are running the same settings), GPU X averages 50 FPS, GPU Y averages 60 FPS, and GPU Z averages 70 GPS. Owners of GPU X are now complaining "Hey, I used to average the same FPS as owners of GPU Y, but now that GPU Z launches, we get less."
Ok, that was probably not very clear XD, but I tried...
would it be better if it wasn't deceitful? forcing upgrades is how most tech companies keep sales up. i'd be surprised if amd didn't engage in this as well, but of course not to the absurd levels of Nvidia. Jenson Huang does love holding cards above his head shouting "40 million sold! 40 million sold!" infront of
No, I'm pretty sure we all have that understanding.
They're saying that ^ happens because AMD is still rocking GCN for 3 generations and take longer to optimize while Nvidia is on a different architecture and has been focusing on the newer GPU arch.