News AMD: David Kirk is full of it

[CardJoe]

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2008/08...s-full-of-it/1

AMD is none too happy with the comments made by Nvidia's Chief Scientist, and it has some cutting words of its own..

[bowman]

R700? Just put two 4870s in CF to see how well that performs. Nothing new under the sun, just more microstuttering badly scaling multi GPU.

I'm not a big fan of either company but at least Nvidia still makes high end GPUs rather than smacking together two GPUs, wastefully mirroring two pools of GDDR5 RAM and calling it a day. If you're going to rely on multi GPU for the high end at least put some effort into it.

[Mentai]

I assume this is talking about the 4870 X2. I'm quite looking forward to it, in my mind it should be about as good as the GTX 280, but with the aggresive price cuts that nvidia's been doing, I wonder what pricepoint it will be released at. Here's hoping for another stunner from AMD

@bowman I realise that making an X2 product is kind of a cheap way of doing the high end, but I would rather buy one card than two with a decent mobo with crossfire support. If you end up with good performance for cheaper what does it matter the technique used?

[BlackMage23]

Things are not looking good for Nvidia at the moment. Its great how things can look so bad for AMD for a while and then sudenlly their position is almost reversed (though they are still not out of the woods yet as they need to make a CPU that can beat Intel).

I'm a bit fed up with Nvidia, I have an nvida mobo and graphics card, but I can tell you that when I come to upgrading I will be going for an Intel board and ATI graphics card.

[bowman]

'If you end up with good performance for cheaper what does it matter the technique used?'

The point is that in FPS-counting tests and benchmarks multi-GPU might look enticing, but in the real world it's far from that nice. Driver support is critical (and we all know how good both our major GPU players are at their drivers), syncing between the cards is still far from optimal.. I haven't tried a multi-GPU setup in a while but the stuttering caused by syncing problems are, apparently, still around. I'm definitely not going to go near multi-GPU until they actually come up with something clever to avoid all these issues.

It's not that it's 'cheap', I don't care, Intel did a dual-die quad and it obliterates AMD's 'native' solution, the problem is that the same can't be said for graphics. The GPUs are not integrated on the same level at all.

[Xir]

I'm kinda hoping for a single core GPU above the 4870 as well...as competition for the Nvidia 280...

Anyway AMD/ATI speaks of the 4870 as mid-range*... a dual-midrange is not top-range for me.

Xir

*pretty powerfull for a mid range if you ask me though ;-)

[Sark.inc]

if you want to talk about bad products, lets talk about nvidias GX2 huh? 7950GX2 9800GX2, both utterly crap products.

i have actually used crossfireX and found it to be fair superior to SLI, as for support i never have a problem with it, don't know where you live.

[bowman]

It's funny, you say that as if I'm an Nvidia fan. You say that as if I argued that SLI is any better than CF. They're both essentially the same, bad scaling, bad syncing, mirrored frame buffers.

[LeMaltor]

Richard why are you not allowed to specifically mention the thing your 'not allowed to specifically mention'?

[desertstalker]

With RAM prices being what they are and all what exactly is the problem with mirroring the frame buffer, if it improves performance? This is not the budget end of the market

[Bindibadgi]

Originally Posted by LeMaltor

Richard why are you not allowed to specifically mention the thing your 'not allowed to specifically mention'?

We have to respect NDA's

You know what it is anyway.

Also - It seems some people are taking this news far too seriously, please read it as tongue in cheek. It seems I made the lines too close to read between in places or people will only read what they want to see.

[Cobalt]

Originally Posted by bowman

It's funny, you say that as if I'm an Nvidia fan. You say that as if I argued that SLI is any better than CF. They're both essentially the same, bad scaling, bad syncing, mirrored frame buffers.

Where did he say you were an nvidia fan?

Now I'm not a fan of multiGPU setups but the problems you describe are limited and if you want maximum performance where cost is no object then SLI/xfire are king. I wouldn't buy into them because I'm not running at resolutions that warrant it, but some people are and they like these products. I can't fault AMD or nvidia for making a product for which there is demand.

[kylew]

Originally Posted by bowman

It's funny, you say that as if I'm an Nvidia fan. You say that as if I argued that SLI is any better than CF. They're both essentially the same, bad scaling, bad syncing, mirrored frame buffers.

I know what you mean, 100% scaling in some games is disgraceful...

They're far from perfect, but come on, don't make out that they basically barely work and scale badly across the board.

Even if the 4870X2 scales 'badly', 40-50%, it would still make it quite a faster than a GTX280, plus the 1GB RAM, and the supposed new method of dealing with the RAM and load between the cores, don't write them off until they're out and we see what they can really do.

[TreeDude]

Originally Posted by bowman

It's funny, you say that as if I'm an Nvidia fan. You say that as if I argued that SLI is any better than CF. They're both essentially the same, bad scaling, bad syncing, mirrored frame buffers.

That is funny. I have been reading benchmarks on the latest cards for years. I have never heard of this stuttering occurring in any of the latest multiGPU tests. I know some games do not scale. That does suck. But the games which do generally scale pretty well. And the majority of games scale

[LeMaltor]

Originally Posted by Bindibadgi

We have to respect NDA's

You know what it is anyway.

Also - It seems some people are taking this news far too seriously, please read it as tongue in cheek. It seems I made the lines too close to read between in places or people will only read what they want to see.

Hurm not sure if I do, everyone in this thread seems to be leaning towards the 4870 X2, there is also a 4850 X2 and the RV870 DX11 Card coming out Q2/3 2009

[Hamish]

Originally Posted by bowman

R700? Just put two 4870s in CF to see how well that performs. Nothing new under the sun, just more microstuttering badly scaling multi GPU.

I'm not a big fan of either company but at least Nvidia still makes high end GPUs rather than smacking together two GPUs, wastefully mirroring two pools of GDDR5 RAM and calling it a day. If you're going to rely on multi GPU for the high end at least put some effort into it.

i agree on SLI/CF, not a big fan of either solution

however i don't see any problem with how AMD are going about their GPUs, it works out quite well for me
the high-end is pretty much pointless, its for dick waving and fps = life in that area, so microstuttering isnt that big a deal
and why waste more time and money than you need to for such a small market such as the £400 graphics card market

i'd rather have awesome price/performance cards like the 4850 and 4870 than overpriced benchmark topping junk like the 280, 9800gx2 or 4870 X2

[Bindibadgi]

The title has been changed because some people do not like bit-tech alluding to swearing - we don't tolerate it on the forums after all.

Also an official AMD comment has been inserted too.

[HourBeforeDawn]

Why do you guys keep saying San Fran? its not in San Fran, its in San Jose which is like 45min to an hour away from San Fran lol.

[Bindibadgi]

Pff same area

/fix

[B3CK]

I actually have just gave amd a little more respect after a comment like that. I think it's time that someone stood up and started calling others out about the "white lies" people say to get that little extra marketing out there.
As to winning me back to the big Double A, well, when budget comes up again to replace my gamers video, it will depend on Bit-tech reviews, and current pricing.