The big AMD GPU reveal.....BANG!

[Sagath]

So, can I expect a flood of GTX 1080's to come up for sale?

Yeah, right after the flood of new GPU's is released. Any day now.

 

[Lysrin]

Yeah, right after the flood of new GPU's is released. Any day now.

@Sagath is on fi-ya these days! lol

 

[Bartacus]

I have a pair of 1080TI's with HeatKiller blocks I would love to upgrade with maybe a single 6800XT / RTX3080. But those cards are fairly tales that only exist in our imaginations right now, at least as far as Canada goes.

 

[Dwayne]

Well, the competition has arrived. Choices get harder, and prices should get more interesting finally. I have looked at a few video and written reviews and the game choices make such a difference in the performance, and conclusions.

For example, Hardware Unboxed used a great number of "AMD favourable" titles in their review. I think a game is "AMD favourable" if I see a 5700XT performing near 2080 range. Nothing wrong with that, especially as many of the newer titles are console and PC games and seem well optimized for AMD architecture. But, it can really skew results. So game choices now have a huge factor in deciding which video card to buy.

As for launch availability, this should embarrass AMD. After watching NVidia's limited stock release I think that AMD's was much, much worse. I guess the hope is that follow on stock comes in faster, or AIB partners are cranking out something right now that makes up for the utter lack of product. As the HWC Twitter on the side bar shows, the stock levels were near zero everywhere.

Well, back to reading and watching. I am not sure which card to buy. I play slower paced aRPG games and simulators usually. I think I will be sticking with 1440p but I might do some investigating at the Ultra Wide screen, and it appears that higher pixel counts still favour the NVidia cards. I hope to see some ultra wide benchmarks, but I am using 4k as an indicator of performance as well. For you ultra wide guys, do you find performance is more in line with 4k than with 2560x1440p?

 

[Bartacus]

I'd compare more with 1440p. I have a few ultrawide screens, a pair of 35" 3440x1440 ones, and a freak 43" 3840x1200 one. Either of those is a LOT less pixels than 4k if you do the math:

3840 x 2160 = 8,294,400 pixels
3440 x 1440 = 4,953,600 pixels
2560 x 1440 = 3,686,400 pixels
Freak 3840 x 1200 = 4,608,000 pixels

So you can see how much of a jump up 4K is in terms of pixel count, so I treat 4K benchmarks on their own, and not as something that 'scales' normally with resolution increases. Just my opinion though.

 

[sswilson]

As for launch availability, this should embarrass AMD. After watching NVidia's limited stock release I think that AMD's was much, much worse. I guess the hope is that follow on stock comes in faster, or AIB partners are cranking out something right now that makes up for the utter lack of product. As the HWC Twitter on the side bar shows, the stock levels were near zero everywhere.

You won't hear any arguments from me on this point. I suppose this particular launch "type" would best be compared to Nvidia's FE BB exclusive in that it sounds like some folks were able to get cards directly through AMD's channels, and these cards are the AMD reference designs, but it certainly doesn't sound like there was any commercial availability at all in Canada, as well as very limited in the US.

The B&H tweet in particular doesn't give me a warm/fuzzy when it comes to hoping for increased stock once the custom cards hit the market. They're making it sound like all they're hearing is crickets chirping when it comes to any kind of expected stock.

 

[Dwayne]

I'd compare more with 1440p. I have a few ultrawide screens, a pair of 35" 3440x1440 ones, and a freak 43" 3840x1200 one. Either of those is a LOT less pixels than 4k if you do the math:

3840 x 2160 = 8,294,400 pixels
3440 x 1440 = 4,953,600 pixels
2560 x 1440 = 3,686,400 pixels
Freak 3840 x 1200 = 4,608,000 pixels

So you can see how much of a jump up 4K is in terms of pixel count, so I treat 4K benchmarks on their own, and not as something that 'scales' normally with resolution increases. Just my opinion though.

Thanks, your opinion is valued, and it adds perspective. I wasn't sure where the ultras fall with respect to how many more pixels a card has to push. Still, the jump in pixel count from 2560x1440 to 3440x1440 would likely be enough to notice a minor decrease in frame performance. Quite interesting!

 

[Sagath]

Thanks, your opinion is valued, and it adds perspective. I wasn't sure where the ultras fall with respect to how many more pixels a card has to push. Still, the jump in pixel count from 2560x1440 to 3440x1440 would likely be enough to notice a minor decrease in frame performance. Quite interesting!

Agree with you, its often overlooked. That resolution increase is a 34% increase in pixels pushed!

 

[JD]

I think it still depends how the game is using that extra real estate though, as some games just crop 16:9 to fit into 21:9. I don't recall any major performance loss with ultrawide personally, everything remained playable even going back to my first ultrawide (U3415W) with a 980 Ti (I think). I guess I've had "top tier" GPUs for the past while though so perhaps the extra VRAM headroom helps here?

It would be nice for review sites to test 21:9 though as I think it's becoming more popular. 16:9 @ 1440p seems to becoming less common now with 4K replacing it.

 

[Bartacus]

Games today have no trouble with ultrawide resolutions. Games like Horizon Zero Dawn, Witcher 3, Civ 5/6, etc, all have zero issues with 3440 x 1440 or the freakish 3840x1200, but once you step up past 1440p, the pixel jump is big, and a whole lot harder on the hardware. And it's noticeable too, depending on your GPU.