With DX12, is it still a good idea to buy nVidia?

[Gdourado]

Hello, how are you?

I was reading an article on dx12 and how the GPU pipelines will work and also several benchmarks.

All these seem to favor AMDs architecture and he higher stream count.

Benchmarks even place the 270 euros 290x ahead of the 450 euros GTX 980...

With this in mind, is it a better idea to save some money and go AMD now or will nVidia catch up with future drivers?

Even though drivers can only take you so far when there are these big architectural differences...

Thoughts?...

Cheers!

[Gdourado]

One source:

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2015/08/directx-12-tested-an-early-win-for-amd-and-disappointment-for-nvidia/

[ZetZet]

No one knows anything. I would say yes.

[SkilledRebuilds]

IMO - It's not like Nvidia does not know about it and will shift accordingly on newer hardware.

 

If you like Nvidia, get Nvidia, if your not fussed, get whichever performs the best for the pricing.

[JebKerman]

iirc neither AMD nor nVidia's current lineup fully support DX12, they support parts of it. meaning with current generation hardware they'll trade places from game to game.

 

and another iirc DX12 isn't necessarily async compute (the bit AMD currently performs better at) I'd say it could go either way, or no way at all. Buy based on driver features and other biases more than anything

[Nexxus]

iirc neither AMD nor nVidia's current lineup fully support DX12, they support parts of it. meaning with current generation hardware they'll trade places from game to game.

 

and another iirc DX12 isn't necessarily async compute (the bit AMD currently performs better at) I'd say it could go either way, or no way at all. Buy based on driver features more than anything

is pascal expected to fully support dx12?

[manikyath]

well.. we are basing ourselves on one alpha stage benchmark that -for all we know- may be heavily amd biased.

 

i feel like when wanting to make a decision based on DX12 we need to wait until a decent number of independent benchmarks start rolling in (5-6 different ones, by different people)

 

and well... the next series of nvidia cards is kinda starting to get close as well... we'll see what happens there..

 

HBM2 is gonna be big, and not only in the DX12 department.

[JebKerman]

is pascal expected to fully support dx12?

I don't know, I'd imagine next gen cards on both sides would.

[Grrizz]

My opinion on current hardware is AMD will have an advantage in the many objects type of games (RTS, etc.) while Nvidia will retain the lead in the pretty as possible type of games (FPS, etc.).

BUT I would not buy anything current for a DX12 build, both sides are lacking and by the time there is enough content on/coming to the market to warrant a DX12 build both companies will have their next gen (actual DX12) cards on the market not to mention there are other technical advancements that should make the wait all the more worth while (beyond the typical evolution of GPUs).

[DannyDem]

I doubt nvidia will suddenly lose "perfomance" because of that... look at fable legends benchmark, even at dx12, 980ti is still in the lead. Guess it's way too soon to tell 

[Hiebly]

I doubt DX12 is going to significantly improve one company over the other.

[Gdourado]

Before a graphics card renders a scene, the CPU first has to send instructions to the GPU. The more complex the scene, the more draw calls need to be sent. Under DX11, Nvidia's driver tended to process those draw calls more efficiently than AMD's, leading to more consistent performance. However, both were held back by DX11. GPUs mostly consist of thousands of small cores (shaders), so they tend to excel at parallel workloads. But DX11 was largely serial in its thinking: it sends one command to the GPU at a time, usually from just one CPU core.

In contrast, DX12 introduces command lists. These bundle together commands needed to execute a particular workload on the GPU. Because each command list is self-contained, the driver can pre-compute all the necessary GPU commands up-front and in a free-threaded manner across any CPU core. The only serial process is the final submission of those command lists to the GPU, which is theoretically a highly efficient process. Once a command list hits the GPU, it can then process all the commands in a parallel manner rather than having to wait for the next command in the chain to come through. Thus, DX12 increases performance.

This is what I am talking about.

Architecture...

NVidia has been evolving with less processing cores and more focus on speed, with 980 being able to clock to 1500 at times with boost.

AMD has been focused on processing cores with the 290X having more than 2800 cores but only 1000 clock speed.

Speed has been favoring serial processing, that's why nVidia is having so much better performance with dx11.

But dx12 is more about parallel processing, that's why I am asking...

The fury for example... With more than 4000 cores has the possibility to destroy even the mighty 980ti with dx12...

Cheers!

[JustCallMeVlad]

What DX12 game can we play right now? None.. Nvidia will respond. Right now the amd fans just love to spread fear.

[Zenedge]

is dx12 even that big of a leap in graphics?

dx 11 still looks really good until now

[JustCallMeVlad]

This is what I am talking about.

Architecture...

NVidia has been evolving with less processing cores and more focus on speed, with 980 being able to clock to 1500 at times with boost.

AMD has been focused on processing cores with the 290X having more than 2800 cores but only 1000 clock speed.

Speed has been favoring serial processing, that's why nVidia is having so much better performance with dx11.

But dx12 is more about parallel processing, that's why I am asking...

The fury for example... With more than 4000 cores has the possibility to destroy even the mighty 980ti with dx12...

Cheers!

Possibility is the key word

[BrightCandle]

There are two ways to argue this. One is that we have the hardware features (async compute to AMD but many others to Nvidia) in at least one manufacturers card and thus the games developers will use them and this will decide which card wins or looses and perhaps Nvidia or AMD has such poor performance without that feature that it simply wont be worth playing it on that card. This is an extremely unlikely scenario and this is because:

 

Games are written to run on the hardware their customers have. So if they are 80% running Nvidia (as they are today based on the market data) then if you don't run well or at all on Nvidia hardware you'll get a tonne of abuse for it and your game will see enough refunds to be returned. So instead of doing that obvious dumb thing you write your game to run on the hardware they have and as a result it works great on all the hardware. This is much more likely and how the industry actually works.

[gilang01]

now? yes. it seems DX12 and other low level APIs are more compute based than anything else. I myself jumped ship to a 290x lightning from a 970 gaming 4G. I get similar performance without loosing money in the process. plus the lightning can overclock like nuts, leaving the 980 and 390x in the dust with proper power

[Humbug]

If there are two GPUs which are priced similarly and perform similarly on DX11 games then I would pick the AMD one.

[Gdourado]

If there are two GPUs which are priced similarly and perform similarly on DX11 games then I would pick the AMD one.

Gigabyte 980 G1 for 450 euros.

MSI 290X Lightning for 350 euros.

https://www.techpowerup.com/mobile/reviews/Gigabyte/GeForce_GTX_980_G1_Gaming/27.html

What is the best option?

980 is faster in DX11. The question is if it is 100 euros faster?

And for the next year, will the 980 still hold the advantage?

Cheers!

[Gdourado]

And he difference from 290x to 290x Lightning is almost nothing...

https://www.techpowerup.com/mobile/reviews/MSI/R9_290X_Lightning/24.html

[Humbug]

And for the next year, will the 980 still hold the advantage?

We only have two DX12 benchmarks. These suggest that the 290x will catch up to 980.

Still I expect the G1 gaming 980 especially when overclocked will be a bit faster than any 290x even with DX12.

 

And he difference from 290x to 290x Lightning is almost nothing...

The difference is in how cool it stays when overclocking including the VRMs.

 

Anyway for 100 bucks less I would get the 290x lightning.

[gilang01]

290x lightnings are known to be beast overclockers. Their VRMs are as robust as any GPU can get. expect 1200/1650 (0r 1700 if you're willing to push it hard enough) out of this GPU. that clock alone is enough to outperform a reference 980 (though the G1 will wipe the floor once overclocked).