Graphics Pascal and Polaris Discussion Thread

If it throttles smoothly back from boost to base: normal operation. That's the whole idea
If it throttles back down below the base clock, and/or drops it's clock rapidly and precipitously: that's a problem.

The 1070, 1080 and 480 are in the former camp. The R9 290 and 290X at stock fell into the latter before the BIOS update that boosted fan speeds.

 

Because they dump the heat outside the case, single case fan running sub 1000rpm Cheesecake.

Of course if I really open up the taps in afterburner even the best stock cooler ever (980ti) goes absolutely berserk on noise, so there is that.
But given the premium the best aftermarket cards cost you might as well just go stock cooler and hand the difference over to EK if you want to chase max 24/7 oc.

 

This. Boost clock is called boost for a reason. You can create a cooler environment or crank up the fan and it will run faster, providing it doesn't hit the power limit.

Anfield: Any decent case counters the affect of throwing the heat back into the case. Unless you're building a sealed box that's fanless.

About Vulkan: Still wait and see. Devs have always focused on DX historically and MS is pushing DX stronger than ever, as have iD historically added OGL support. Civ 6 gets DX12 but also Async, which is what I'm looking at longer-term /eyes the few hundred hours played on Civ 5.

 

<Spelling Nazi> FYI: Vulkan (The API) is spelled with a K not a C! </Spelling Nazi>

 

So you don't understand why Vulkan seems to work so well on AMD? or do you think that AMD can gain 23%-32% out of Vulkan just because it likes their drivers?

It goes much, much deeper than that. AMD have been backing a tech called GCN for years (graphics core next) as well as putting a mountain of shaders on their cards that until now have pretty much sat dormant thanks to DX11. All Vulkan does is use all of this lovely technology that AMD have on their cards properly. This is technology that Nvidia have not bothered with and that's why they have not released a proper Async driver.

So basically Nvidia have been living in the past and present whilst AMD have kept GCN going (their Fermi) and finally now can actually make use of it.

Yes, Vulkan is the best case scenario for AMD and so is Async. It's the worst for Nvidia but they have concentrated more on smaller dies with higher clocks to throw mhz at the problem. And that works with DX11 really well but going into the future it won't.

 

It seems not that long ago folk were evangelising Mantle, which claimed to offer a huge boost to GPUs - AMD's cards in particular. Then they killed it off and it became another half-finished project before being reincarnated as Vulkan, which admittedly shows more promise.

However, you'll have to forgive me for not rushing out to buy AMD, until we see some assurances that they won't drop this like a smelly nappy a la Mantle.

 

Needs more than ID to consider it viable, I'd prefer it to dx12 as the preferred render path if it was a choice could go back to Windows 7 then.

Needs a game built from the ground up with Vulkan been the only API. Then we will see if it has a future. Not a mantle style add on for a game most have completed.

Microsoft would rather Vulkan fails, Games using Vulkan that are due for release is a tiny list compared to dx12 even.

Would prefer Vulkan wins be better for consumers but we shall see.

 

IMHO, the biggest selling point for Vulkan is that it's cross-platform, unlike DX12. Which would make porting AAA games to Linux/Apple MUCH simpler!

Actually, since I'm running Android N on phone & tablet, I already have 2 devices with Vulkan on board!

 

Don't get me wrong - I want it to succeed - I'm just not pinning my hopes on it, nor am I proclaiming it the second coming of Christ.

 

Is DX12 not also based on Mantle in parts?

 

Wheee!

 

Assuming their idea being the market leaders is if they don't support it will die.

 

Biggest concern for Vulkan is the dropped Apple support. That alone could of got it into many major titles. Instead Apple wants to develop Metal 2.0.

We effectively have 5 APIs

Dx 11 and dx12
Vulkan
Metal 2.0
OpenGL

If Apple cared for OSX it could surely buy support from every major AAA title. Vulkan currently lacks developers willing to use it. Which leaves dx11 and dx12 who have major support.

Sony API is custom for ps4 and is not anything like what's on PC. They have a 2-1 sales lead and it is the main development platform for all big games.

Xbox one much to my own suprise does not use dx12 just features from it and uses another custom API. Does help to explain why we saw some shocking ports on launch. Tomb raider, gears of war been the big 2 with big launch issues. Forza was perfect though.

We will just see where it goes long term, I would certainly not be buying a gpu on the assumption performance might improve if Vulkan support gets better. By the time it does the next gpu will be out offering more performance for the same money.

 

Suddenly it's 1997 again.

 

New Titan X, surprise!

3584 cores GP102
12GB GDDR5X
Only available from Nvidia.com in EU/US, not available in APAC yet.

 

also surprising, no pricing LOL.

 

$1200 USD