Do you pay extra for ray tracing?

[The Torrent]

I thought I knew, but maybe not.

when they first came out they said it was solely dedicated ‘tensor cores’ leaving me to assume they made an entire section of a gpu dedicated to rtx and if not using ray tracing it would effectively be switched off or doing very little.

 

but with companies tryna phase out non ray tracing cards, they either are ignoring high fps low budget gamers such as wanna be competitive players or rtx is just a feature of more performance, not actually costing more.

 

Whats the answer?

[Fasauceome]

I don't see AMD introducing hardware based Ray tracing, the prevailing idea is that software Ray tracing (which, from what little we've seen, is quite competent) instead of jacking up card cost to match Nvidia feature for feature. Tensor cores are quite neat but the average gamer doesn't need them, and RTX cores are more or less just tensor cores for Ray tracing.

[Pikatchu]

2 minutes ago, The Torrent said:

I thought I knew, but maybe not.

when they first came out they said it was solely dedicated ‘tensor cores’ leaving me to assume they made an entire section of a gpu dedicated to rtx and if not using ray tracing it would effectively be switched off or doing very little.

 

but with companies tryna phase out non ray tracing cards, they either are ignoring high fps low budget gamers such as wanna be competitive players or rtx is just a feature of more performance, not actually costing more.

 

Whats the answer?

Tensor cores are designed to take majority of the load when RTX is turned on.

Without Tensor Cores, like GTX 1000 series, turning on RTX will absolutely hammer the card's performance.

(General speaking, RTX card will have FPS halfed, 1000 series will have it triple to quadruple dropped.)

 

Now, when RTX is not on, these cores will still be used.

Note that these cores are optimized for RTX and Deep learning.

These cores will provide gaming performance when RTX is not on, but will not be prioritized.

Normal CUDA Cores will take majority of the load when gaming, if RTX is not on.

 

Think of it as:

You and your friend are doing the same task (a), at the same speed and efficiency.

But you have a higher knowledge on a different task (b), you are trained better to complete a different task.

When that task (b) is handed to you two, you will be more efficient then your friend.

But when you guys are back to doing task (a), you will still be working and not idling. Just not as speedy as you would for task (b).

[Pikatchu]

1 minute ago, Pikatchu said:

Tensor cores are designed to take majority of the load when RTX is turned on.

Without Tensor Cores, like GTX 1000 series, turning on RTX will absolutely hammer the card's performance.

(General speaking, RTX card will have FPS halfed, 1000 series will have it triple to quadruple dropped.)

 

Now, when RTX is not on, these cores will still be used.

Note that these cores are optimized for RTX and Deep learning.

These cores will provide gaming performance when RTX is not on, but will not be prioritized.

Normal CUDA Cores will take majority of the load when gaming, if RTX is not on.

 

Think of it as:

You and your friend are doing the same task (a), at the same speed and efficiency.

But you have a higher knowledge on a different task (b), you are trained better to complete a different task.

When that task (b) is handed to you two, you will be more efficient than your friend.

But when you guys are back to doing task (a), you will still be working and not idling. Just not as speedy as you would for task (b).

This was meant to be an edit 

[KaitouX]

23 minutes ago, Fasauceome said:

I don't see AMD introducing hardware based Ray tracing, the prevailing idea is that software Ray tracing (which, from what little we've seen, is quite competent) instead of jacking up card cost to match Nvidia feature for feature. Tensor cores are quite neat but the average gamer doesn't need them, and RTX cores are more or less just tensor cores for Ray tracing.

RDNA2(Navi 2x) is going to have RT, it was confirmed on the Financial Analyst Day event.

 

Relevant slide from the event:

Spoiler

 

[xAcid9]

So many variables to consider but overall i'm willing to pay extra for hardware accelerated ray tracing but i must be able to use it on older games as well. 

[The Torrent]

1 hour ago, Fasauceome said:

I don't see AMD introducing hardware based Ray tracing, the prevailing idea is that software Ray tracing (which, from what little we've seen, is quite competent) instead of jacking up card cost to match Nvidia feature for feature. Tensor cores are quite neat but the average gamer doesn't need them, and RTX cores are more or less just tensor cores for Ray tracing.

what about nvidia 30 series? you think they will be continuing hardware rt? or will they be turning to software too?

[Fasauceome]

Just now, The Torrent said:

what about nvidia 30 series? you think they will be continuing hardware rt? or will they be turning to software too?

I doubt they'll drop hardware RT after only one generation, if ever

[The Torrent]

1 minute ago, Fasauceome said:

I doubt they'll drop hardware RT after only one generation, if ever

but you think amd will never do hardware?

 

that will create some very interesting comparisons.

[xAcid9]

5 minutes ago, The Torrent said:

but you think amd will never do hardware?

 

that will create some very interesting comparisons.

RDNA2 will have hardware ray tracing. Check the slide few post above. 

[SteveGrabowski0]

3 hours ago, Fasauceome said:

I don't see AMD introducing hardware based Ray tracing, the prevailing idea is that software Ray tracing (which, from what little we've seen, is quite competent) instead of jacking up card cost to match Nvidia feature for feature. Tensor cores are quite neat but the average gamer doesn't need them, and RTX cores are more or less just tensor cores for Ray tracing.

They have already confirmed it for their RDNA 2 chips in the consoles, so it's almost certainly coming to PC too.