re: PC Discussion - Gaming, Performance and Enthusiasts

Oh wow, that is actually great news. I was looking at the 270s. I have until May for the release of the game so it is probably likely that a sale will come with the new cards fixing it to come out. Might be able to sneak that 280 in. I cannot remember my exact PS #s but I know it is over 200. So . Thanks for the info.

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AMD Freesync Hands-on with BenQ, Samsung & LG Monitors - CES 2015

Reddit thread on video

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top comment:

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The important takeaway with FreeSync is that it's actually going to be available and not necessarily unique to the most high-end gaming monitors. The problem with G-SYNC is that you only find it on prohibitively expensive displays, and the idea of retrofitting is not feasible.

I think Nvidia's insistence on only supporting their proprietary technology is going to bite them in the arse here.

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Truth to that, except that I would expect freesync monitors to still cost $300+ because panel quality is important for dynamic refresh. NVIDIA knew this was coming, and they were ahead of it by a year. If they'd flooded the market with affordable gsync monitors, the proprietary nature of gsync would've been an advantage to them instead of a hindrance.

That same poster said:

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When you strive for the best graphics experience, it's no longer a single purchase that defines your experience. Now, you're tied to a monitor -- a considerable expense. If you have to choose between the $400 390 (or $500 390X?) and the $550 980, but have some bias toward Nvidia you might still go with the 980. But if you now have to choose between an $800 ROG Swift and a comparable Samsung (or any other mfg) FreeSync for $400, you might be easily persuaded.

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Imagine you were an AMD user looking for an upgrade around the time the 970s/980s hit the market, and you could actually get gsync monitors in variety of flavors for a reasonable price, more people would have 970s and gsync monitors and would be far less inclined to switch brands for their next GPU upgrade. If the ROG swift were $500, even 600, I would've purchased one the minute I could find one in stock (but I know the gsync chip isn't only thing driving up costs on this panel). I'd say they should start giving away gsync chips to any brand that will take them, but NVIDIA is too arrogant to do that.


Another quote from that guy:

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I sincerely hope they do support it. The divide that Nvidia creates with gobbling up open technologies and making them proprietary (PhysX! It was better as an add-in card) is toxic to the PC gaming industry.
If their technology is better, it should stand on its own merit. The fact that they don't support open technologies makes it look like they don't even trust that their technology is better.

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His thoughts = mine

Does anyone use phsx anymore?

Yep, that should be fine for any GPU.

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Nvidia has a pretty loyal fanboy team so it will be interesting. Right now it is all out of my range so it doesn't matter to me.

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Yeah, anyone who's devoted to Nvidia will be in full denial about Freesync even if it offers 100% identical experience to gsync.

It's possible that because of the fact that none of NVIDIA's cards support DP 1.2a (and therefore could not use any form of adaptive sync), NVIDIA may be counting on the fact that flagship chasers (i.e., people who just bought the 970 or 980) are likely to buy a gsync monitor instead of all new cards AND a new monitor. And once they have the gsync monitor, it becomes even less financially logical to buy AMD for their next flagship.

Speaking of "identical experience," one thing in Linus's video stood out to me. He pointed out that in the particular demo panel in front of him, he sees tearing (adaptive sync disabling itself) when you get to lower framerates, and it was entirely due to the panel technology (worth noting that low-hz flickering probably looks worse, though). But it reminds me of another key difference between AMD and NVIDIA. Particularly with SLI vs Crossfire, you'll notice that you can run an AMD crossfire setup on even the crappiest of motherboards, as long as you have two slots with the same x16 form factor, and each are connected to at least 4 PCIe lanes. That means, given enough lanes, you can run crossfire in 16x/8x, 16/4, 8/4, 8/4/4, or 4/4 (and so on) configuration if that's all the board supports. A lot of Z-series intel chipset boards have both PCIe 3.0 and PCIe 2.0 slots (the chipset itself provides the 2.0 lanes), so you can in fact run one AMD card in your top x16 3.0 slot, and the second card in your bottom x4 PCIe 2.0 slot. Depending on the setup, Crossfire can yield very inconsistent results, especially in any form of alternate frame rendering.

On the other hand, Nvidia is x8 minimum, and allocates an equal number of lanes to each card (so if you have enough lanes for x16/x8, Nvidia will still run SLI in x8/x8). Being in control of the hardware and software environment ensures a more consistent experience across all users. Akin to Apple, which limits hardware configurations across the board, so the experience is consistent and idiot-proof.. vs. Windows or Android, which can be run on the shittiest or most powerful of devices, and the hardware can have a lot of control over your experience out of the box.

If monitor vendors start pushing out adaptive sync on cheap shitty panels, you're going to see a lot of inconsistent opinions on Freesync, which could damage its mass appeal (even if you and I know better). Plus, we still don't know how much individual games will depend on the driver implementation of Freesync, which is another potentially massive variable (that I hope turns out to be a non-issue).

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Does anyone use phsx anymore?

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I haven't played much of anything that uses it since getting the 980s. Prior to that, I used at least some level of PhysX in those games already. The work was just offloaded to my CPU, which does it inefficiently but was powerful enough to handle it nonetheless. PhysX is probably NVIDIA's biggest gimmick. I've seen very little innovation with it since its unveiling. Fog, paper, cloth, and particles.

That looks great

Thanks for the compliments guys. I am aware it's a bit overkill for a CPU loop, but honestly it's mostly for aesthetics at this point. I do plan to do a GPU upgrade this year though, this time I'll make sure there's a block for it. EK makes a block for the Vapor-X 290X, but not the 290, thought that was odd. As for the noise it's not that much of a concern, those JetFlos aren't silent by any means whether they are on a radiator or not. Just waiting on AMDs new line to drop to see what direction I want to go with GPUs.

Yea I thought that was just silly. I have no idea why the PCB would be different on those two cards, especially considering that some of the 290 owners have reported that their cards actually unlocked to a 290x. If they are being honest that just makes no sense at all to me. Maybe they are just that proud of their cooling system that they purposefully make it a PITA to develop a block for. But I will say the Vapor-X cooler works like a charm, and the cards OC like a beast.

There's a lot of sexiness in those photos. Shame the paint and cords are Scarlet and Gray.