Why AMD can't keep up with Nvidia?

[Herberti]

I wonder why nowadays AMD is struggling with their graphic cards, does Nvidia have a secret formula? How come AMD can't equal the performance of a GTX1080ti for example? Vega 64 has a TDP of 295W while the GTX1080ti its more powerful and consumes less, 250W

 

[ki8aras]

2 minutes ago, Herberti said:

I wonder why nowadays AMD is struggling with their graphics cards, does Nvidia have a secret formula? How come AMD can't equal the performance of a GTX1080ti for example? Vega 64 has a TDP of 295W while the GTX1080ti its more powerful and consumes less 250W

 

at least from what i know, it's because amd's gpu team is much smaller(at least i think so)than nvidia's team 

plus i think that amd has focused more of their resources on processors while nvidia makes gpus only

[ki8aras]

plus nvidia is quick to release optimized drivers the day a new game comes out while amd usually releases drivers about 2 every 2 months

[Drak3]

AMD can't keep up because they haven't been able to move away from GCN, which is a huge issue as scaling GCN up takes alot of work for very little payoff.

[ki8aras]

1 minute ago, valdyrgramr said:

Rushing drivers has proven issues, though.  Remember the 6 BSODs in a row for the 1060?

yeah i guess

but most of the time(i hope)they have game ready drivers on day one

[lordoftime79]

I gotta be honest with you, I think its just a lot of clever marketing!!! I have used Nvidia machines and my Daily driver is an AMD videocard and I honestly can say that in real world use i see no difference... infact I always tend to go in AMD's favour due to pricing and bang for buck... Nvidia video cards are a name, like say Addidas running shoes, sure there are Nike and Rebok but some people just prefer the Addidas brand and I think its the same kind of thing!!! if Nvidia lowered the prices to be competetive with AMD I think even more people would make the switch to team green. thats just my 2 cents! 

[Sauron]

16 minutes ago, Herberti said:

I wonder why nowadays AMD is struggling with their graphic cards

They have less money, hence a lower R&D budget. It's a chicken and egg problem, people don't buy AMD cards which means AMD makes less money and can't afford to spend much on R&D. It's also worth noting that nVidia hasn't exactly played fair with marketing in the past.

19 minutes ago, Herberti said:

Vega 64 has a TDP of 295W while the GTX1080ti its more powerful and consumes less, 250W

That's not quite true - the 1080ti is faster in games, however the Vega 64 is a more powerful card - you can see the difference in compute workloads.

[RejZoR]

11 minutes ago, ki8aras said:

plus nvidia is quick to release optimized drivers the day a new game comes out while amd usually releases drivers about 2 every 2 months

Marketing bullshit. You can also look at it from different perspective and wonder why NVIDIA needs a driver update for every game where they just work with Radeon drivers without any update... Also I very much doubt NVIDIA makes some specific magical enhancements or fixes knowing among normies, basically no one updates drivers on every actual driver release (they usually only get driver updates through Windows Update) like we geeks do.

[lordoftime79]

why is it bullshit? it seems to me that a vast portion of pc gamers get hard over Nvidia and in real world day to day use (i.e not synthetic benchmarks) AMD cards can totally hold there own but no no all you fanboys have fanned the flames and made it so AMD is a dirty word for videocards! like I say I have used both and are probably one of the few that actually prefere my AMD card. But what ever its just my humble opinion so each to there own!

 

[lordoftime79]

Just now, valdyrgramr said:

During the GPU shortage a Vega 64 was 100 bucks more than a 1080.  If you're gaming and need that level of performance why would you pay 100 bucks more?  

yea but thats not normal circumstances - the GPU shortage was caused by the minning boom... which has since crashed and led to a decent supply of both new and second hand cards at competative prices.

 

[lordoftime79]

you guys all be nuts anyway i dont pay more than 350 for a video card (im on sickness benifits due to chronic illness) so I always buy a couple of generations behind... trying to be bleeding edge is a mugs game that will only lead to a empty bank balance lol

[Drak3]

3 minutes ago, lordoftime79 said:

you guys all be nuts anyway i dont pay more than 350 for a video card (im on sickness benifits due to chronic illness) so I always buy a couple of generations behind... trying to be bleeding edge is a mugs game that will only lead to a empty bank balance lol

Not really. For me, a $700 GFX card is one of my cheaper purchases.

[lordoftime79]

my daily driver has 2 x rx 590 8gb in crossfire and got them at about 150 gbp each after the minning crash lovely high FPS in most new games! just gotta have nose for the bargins... something you learn being unable to work.

 

[lordoftime79]

2 minutes ago, Drak3 said:

Not really. For me, a $700 GFX card is one of my cheaper purchases.

currious but do you have your own appartment? i tend to find most working class people that have there own homes to keep or familys go cheaper, whilst single people or younger people who live with parents/siblings dont tent to hold back as they have more disposable income? If I am impossing then feel free to tell me to mind my buisness lol

[Drak3]

21 minutes ago, lordoftime79 said:

currious but do you have your own appartment? i tend to find most working class people that have there own homes to keep or familys go cheaper, whilst single people or younger people who live with parents/siblings dont tent to hold back as they have more disposable income? If I am impossing then feel free to tell me to mind my buisness lol

No, I just have a truck with payments that cost just as much. The woes of being young and needing a diesel for work.

[Stefan Payne]

5 hours ago, Herberti said:

I wonder why nowadays AMD is struggling with their graphic cards,

Because nobody buys AMD; even if the nVidia Card is worse in all aspects, people are salty that Reviewers say that a certain nVidia Card is shit, makes no sense and the RX570 is the better card.

 

Just take the 7970 for example. Right now the 680 has no hope in competing with the 7970 but guess what people bought at the time, although the 7970 had +50% VRAM...

5 hours ago, Herberti said:

does Nvidia have a secret formula?

Allegedly, according to a developer, yes.

 

5 hours ago, Herberti said:

How come AMD can't equal the performance of a GTX1080ti for example? 

Lets assume AMD did have a Card equal to the 1080ti, would you buy it?
Do you know people around you that would buy it?

[Stefan Payne]

5 hours ago, Drak3 said:

AMD can't keep up because they haven't been able to move away from GCN, which is a huge issue as scaling GCN up takes alot of work for very little payoff.

Yeah, that's why nVidia is adopting GCN more and more with each generation. Because GCN is so awful...

[ki8aras]

5 hours ago, RejZoR said:

Marketing bullshit. You can also look at it from different perspective and wonder why NVIDIA needs a driver update for every game where they just work with Radeon drivers without any update... Also I very much doubt NVIDIA makes some specific magical enhancements or fixes knowing among normies, basically no one updates drivers on every actual driver release (they usually only get driver updates through Windows Update) like we geeks do.

just because the game runs on the gpu it doesnt mean that it runs well,you could download drivers from 2 years ago and rage 2 would run(granted not as well but it will)

[Mira Yurizaki]

12 hours ago, RejZoR said:

 You can also look at it from different perspective and wonder why NVIDIA needs a driver update for every game where they just work with Radeon drivers without any update...

This statement implies you need an updated driver on NVIDIA's hardware to even play a game when it lists one.When a game is listed on a driver update, it's because they made optimizations for the specific use cases the game does with the graphics hardware, not because they added "compatibility" or whatever.

 

EDIT: On the off chance you mean something like games don't just work on NVIDIA GPUs as intended and thus needs driver updates to get those improvements, AMD does the same thing too:

[Mira Yurizaki]

13 hours ago, Herberti said:

I wonder why nowadays AMD is struggling with their graphic cards, does Nvidia have a secret formula? How come AMD can't equal the performance of a GTX1080ti for example? Vega 64 has a TDP of 295W while the GTX1080ti its more powerful and consumes less, 250W

 

I'd wager the higher power envelope is due to the following:

• AMD uses more shaders than NVIDIA. Though they're not directly comparable, I'm willing to believe powering 4096 shader cores on a Vega 64 takes more power than 3584 on the 1080 Ti.
• AMD also uses a hardware scheduler for tasks. NVIDIA switched to a simple scheduler and let the drivers handle the rest. The hardware scheduler uses a non-trivial amount of power.
• The way AMD organizes the parts of the GPU may affect how much control it has when it comes to dynamic power management.

The performance may be because it's harder to keep an AMD GPU saturated with work. From what little I can gather about programming for NVIDIA or AMD GPUs is that NVIDIA GPUs favor workloads in multiples of 32, whereas AMD GPUs favor workloads in multiples of 64.

 

The overall picture I believe is AMD designed their GPUs to be compute powerhouses, whereas NVIDIA designed the consumer GPUs for mostly graphics and leave other GPU tiers for more compute workloads.

[wasab]

13 hours ago, ki8aras said:

plus nvidia is quick to release optimized drivers the day a new game comes out while amd usually releases drivers about 2 every 2 months

Not so much on Linux. Nvidia driver currently has a bad rep on Unix/Unix like systems while AMD open source drivers are doing quite well.

 

Interestingly, this was excat opposite a few years ago.  

[wasab]

The reason is that AMD GPU division is currently focusing on the data centers. Consumer gaming cards will need to wait until AMD has enough budget to match that of Nvidia. 

[Gmoneyinthebank]

Nvidia is becoming an AI research company that also makes graphics cards for gaming.  As long as they can sell DGX-02's for $400,000 they'll keep trickling the developments down to gamers.

[NineEyeRon]

AMD cant keep up with Nvidia...

 

Intel cant keep up with AMD...

 

therefore Nvidia > Intel?

[YoBoiAang]

On 5/30/2019 at 8:13 AM, Herberti said:

I wonder why nowadays AMD is struggling with their graphic cards, does Nvidia have a secret formula? How come AMD can't equal the performance of a GTX1080ti for example? Vega 64 has a TDP of 295W while the GTX1080ti its more powerful and consumes less, 250W

 

Another perspective, most people buy low amd mid end gaming gpus, why would AMD use their limited resources to sell a card that just a few enthusiasts will buy?

Having the most powerful gaming card is just a show-off, and AMD can't afford that right now.