Editorial AMD Didn't Get the R9 Fury X Wrong, but NVIDIA Got its GTX 980 Ti Right

[the54thvoid]

Then again, how hard is it to call 2 engineers for a cup of tea and a chat regarding the product you're about to market to the masses? All you have to do is to ask them for an explanation like you're a 12 years old kid.

It's the same crap I (we) are facing in company where I work. The workforce and the leadership seems to be entirely disconnected from one another. When you give them feedback based on experience you have with customers, they don't do shit and 10 minutes later, they again demand you improve things because results aren't good enough. I don't understand this world...

I bet it was the same at AMD...

To be fair, my brother designs PCB's and works on board designs for scientific implementations (not for gaming cards, far smaller tech firm) and he was asking me a while back about cooling solutions for a specific thermal TDP. It was quite funny speaking to him because the board engineers didn't really have a great idea about cooling the card (as it was a general requirement for the spec to be single slot for the design brief. It was a dual chip design but I was showing him pics and sending reviews of gfx cards to give him an idea of what is used.
If the board designers aren't fully aware of certain parameters, it's quite conceivable PR haven't got a clue. PR isn't technical - it's pure smoke and mirrors.

 

[RejZoR]

The thing is, once you're so deep into the existing stuff, it's VERY hard to think outside the box. When you're so into specific things, you tend to just evolve them, base everything you already know about it and make it better. But if you're thwon into it with just the very basics, you tend to think of things that wouldn't cross your mind otherwise.

 

[hertz9753]

No...

I do own hardware but it is not listed in my sig.

 

[HumanSmoke]

Then again, how hard is it to call 2 engineers for a cup of tea and a chat regarding the product you're about to market to the masses? All you have to do is to ask them for an explanation like you're a 12 years old kid.

IDK about comparing PR flacks to a 12 year-old. Seems like you're overestimating their technical ability.
Most people I've met who admit to being in the PR/marketing business don't seem overly interested in anything except their own great ideas - any conversation that veers towards the technical, and their eyes glaze over. It's like trying to explain football tactics to your non-sports minded girlfriend.

I'm not even sure that those (I'm taking PR people not GF's, though YMMV) who shut up long enough to allow information to be imparted, actually take in anything that can't be expressed in buzzwords and slogans.

 

[RejZoR]

It wouldn't hurt if companies would include anything factual within their typical PR bullshit...

 

[Folterknecht]

What JaysTwoCents had to say about AMDs PR team(s) in one of his latest "techtalks" fits right in here - basicly every time he deals with AMD he s talking to a different person/team, that doesnt seem to know what their colleagues are up to.

 

[FreedomEclipse]

What JaysTwoCents had to say about AMDs PR team(s) in one of his latest "techtalks" fits right in here - basicly every time he deals with AMD he s talking to a different person/team, that doesnt seem to know what their colleagues are up to.

Sounds a bit like a clusterfuck. Either people keep leaving, keep getting rid of people or finding some next poor soul to throw under the bus to take all the hate from the community when the numbers he or she spouts dont add up and completely not give a fuck because their going to be leaving the company anyway soon after.

Kinda like what Microsoft does when they get one of their people out to bang the drum for their 'love of PC gaming' and how they have 'lost their way' and 'faltered in the past' but are will to try to make things right again. About 6 months down the road - that particular guy who was the face of microsoft's PC gaming PR campaign has left the company and absolutely fuck all progress has been made on the promises that were made in the interview. In fact M$ would probably disavow any knowledge of that guy being employed by them and the message that he was sent to deliver to the PC gaming community.

-----

IMO Unless AMD get their shit together there is no point calling them up for interviews and shit about their new products. Its just wasting everyones time.

 

[RejZoR]

What I was also very disapointed over AMD is they didn't talk about technology behind Fiji at all. They just said, we have these and these cards and here we have this awesome kick ass tiny card here, then tehy brought up Quantum and also didn't talk much about it and goodbye, it was over. I know not everyone is interested in the techno talk, but I am. And I was sitting there watching the release conference that essentially left me unsatisfied with a hardon still in effect...

When NVIDIA launched GTX 980 and GTX 970, they talked about the tech behind it, the new features, their future plans. None of it on AMD 300 series release. And I think I'm not the only one sharing such opinion...

 

[RejZoR]

I've just noticed something absolutely ridiculous. GTX 980Ti and Fury X both selling for around 800€. I could grab an R9-295X2 for 750€. Guess where R9-295X2 lands in pretty much all benchmarks? Above EVERYTHING, it even beats Titan X by like 20% lol. Only thing that I don't like about it is that It's a dual GPU solution, meaning you're entirely dependant on the CrossfireX profiles to do their magic.

 

[chinmi]

IMHO, people that buy the fury x need to have their brain checked out. It's same priced as the 980ti, it's hotter, slower, weaker, less powerful, consume more electricity, lack of driver support/update, takes more space on your system cause of the watercooler unit, and louder.
Why on earth people want to buy a fury x ? Other then they're dumb or a blind amd fanboy.

It's just an opinion, lets keep it civil

 

[arbiter]

I've just noticed something absolutely ridiculous. GTX 980Ti and Fury X both selling for around 800€. I could grab an R9-295X2 for 750€. Guess where R9-295X2 lands in pretty much all benchmarks? Above EVERYTHING, it even beats Titan X by like 20% lol. Only thing that I don't like about it is that It's a dual GPU solution, meaning you're entirely dependant on the CrossfireX profiles to do their magic.

yea 295x2 does look like a great buy but lookin at recent issues of amd drivers lacking coming out with new CF profiles for games kinda puts a stinker on it. if it was dual nvidia based gpu would be ok but AMD wonder if new AAA title that comes out if you can use the card complete or do you gotta wait a weeks or months for it. Would be an idea to add in to drivers a CF or SLI profile down loader so when new game comes out they can just release the profile don't need to update drivers less there is a technical issue. So got the profile easy.

IMHO, people that buy the fury x need to have their brain checked out. It's same priced as the 980ti, it's hotter, slower, weaker, less powerful, consume more electricity, lack of driver support/update, takes more space on your system cause of the watercooler unit, and louder.
Why on earth people want to buy a fury x ? Other then they're dumb or a blind amd fanboy.

It's just an opinion, lets keep it civil

Hotter is TBD at this point til air cooled version though looks like that might be a little cut down comes out to see how well air coolers work on it.

 

[RejZoR]

IMHO, people that buy the fury x need to have their brain checked out. It's same priced as the 980ti, it's hotter, slower, weaker, less powerful, consume more electricity, lack of driver support/update, takes more space on your system cause of the watercooler unit, and louder.
Why on earth people want to buy a fury x ? Other then they're dumb or a blind amd fanboy.

It's just an opinion, lets keep it civil

C'mon, give it some slack. NVIDIA also didn't have brilliant drivers at launch and from what I'm hearing it stil doesn't have. Fury was launched a week ago and it's a brand new GPU for which AMD never had any drivers and can indeed be broken. Especially in combination with HBM which works nothing like GDDR5...

 

[ZoneDymo]

IMHO, people that buy the fury x need to have their brain checked out. It's same priced as the 980ti, it's hotter, slower, weaker, less powerful, consume more electricity, lack of driver support/update, takes more space on your system cause of the watercooler unit, and louder.
Why on earth people want to buy a fury x ? Other then they're dumb or a blind amd fanboy.

It's just an opinion, lets keep it civil

What is the difference between "slower" and "Weaker" and "less powerful" when talking about a gpu?
Also its kinda odd to ask for people to call it civil because you basically said everyone who does not agree with you is either dumb or a blind amd fanboy.

 

[HumanSmoke]

What I was also very disapointed over AMD is they didn't talk about technology behind Fiji at all.

You'll likely have to wait until the Hot Chips Symposium in August (Day 2). AMD's lack of forthcoming over the architecture and chip layout make Fiji a "black box" at the moment as far as how much performance is architecture based, and how much is a lack of driver optimization. I suspect it is the former, but without a definitive architectural analysis it remains guesswork for everyone.

IMO Unless AMD get their shit together there is no point calling them up for interviews and shit about their new products. Its just wasting everyones time.

Unfortunately for AMD it isn't just the tech community sharing this sentiment, it also the financial/investment world. The quote at the end of this Seeking Alpha piece sums up the same attitude: Whatever faith I had in the veracity of AMD's new management has been greatly diminished. As Nietzsche once said "I'm not upset that you lied to me, I'm upset that from now on I can't believe you."

 

[the54thvoid]

....
Also its kinda odd to ask for people to call it civil because you basically said everyone who does not agree with you is either dumb or a blind amd fanboy.

I don't often agree with you but you are 100% correct with that analysis.

EDIT: If AMD could have shown how great an overclocker it is - I'd be buying one. That for me was the only real weakness of it. It trades blows with 980ti at my current gaming resolution but the overclock killed it for me.

 

[xorbe]

AMD Didn't Get the R9 Fury X Wrong

So, AMD trusts its Radeon cards after all?

 

[arbiter]

IMO Unless AMD get their shit together there is no point calling them up for interviews and shit about their new products. Its just wasting everyones time.

Talking to AMD PR marketing is a waste of time, in past they have proven to not know much of anything about the tech they are sent to talk about. Most of it is a PR sheet they read and all claims are wrote up but who knows. They have made claims that end up being not completely true. Only reason I listen to a AMD PR rep is cause i want a good laugh at how much of an idiot they are. If they want people to take them seriously, sent one the Tech guys like Nvidia usually does.

 

[newtekie1]

NVIDIA also didn't have brilliant drivers at launch and from what I'm hearing it stil doesn't have.

What exactly are you talking about here? Are you talking about the drivers for the 980Ti launch? Are you talking about the minor bug that cause Chrome to crash the driver once in a while? At least that doesn't break the performance of the cards at any resolution other than 4k. And nVidia fixed the problem already, they managed to do it in under a month too. How long does it usually take AMD to fix bugs? Usually a heck of a lot longer than a month.

 

[Basard]

There's still the Fury card to be released and this could offer pretty similar performance to the Fury X at a cheaper price.

I'm hoping so. maybe it will be like the Titan X vs 980ti.... Hopefully some non-reference boards and coolers will allow the new Furies to be clocked higher and perform a little better.

Having an AIO water cooler setup is a real burden. The least they could have done was make it single slot, put some holes on top, put the pump outside, and let you just hook up your own setup if you have one already. The least...

 

[john_]

What exactly are you talking about here? Are you talking about the drivers for the 980Ti launch? Are you talking about the minor bug that cause Chrome to crash the driver once in a while? At least that doesn't break the performance of the cards at any resolution other than 4k. And nVidia fixed the problem already, they managed to do it in under a month too. How long does it usually take AMD to fix bugs? Usually a heck of a lot longer than a month.

Minor bug having crushes with the most used browser in the market? LOL nice one. I am seeing nvidia fans in a Greek forum testing drivers and settings on Chrome for a month now. And it's not only on 4K. Half a dozen drivers where having that problem. Of course Nvidia gave priority to gaming optimizations but it was no minor.

 

[Basard]

Why cant the days of this card return: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150189

 

[FreedomEclipse]

Having an AIO water cooler setup is a real burden. The least they could have done was make it single slot, put some holes on top, put the pump outside, and let you just hook up your own setup if you have one already. The least...

In other words, Give you a card with a full waterblock pre-installed like the EVGA's 'Hydro Copper' series of cards.

They could have but then again it will cost more and AMDs only real advantage at the moment is its price compared to the 980Ti.

Cards with full waterblocks pre-installed will be available shortly with the Fury X. I heard AMD didnt allow the other vendors to make their own custom cooling solutions so thats why a lot of the cards are physically exactly the same.

 

[RealNeil]

Just picked up my Fury X yesterday. Had the 980Ti for about 2 weeks previously before that. Not much difference between the two. I just liked the looks and am really liking the audible noise of the Fury X. I could hear the 980Ti's fan spin up here and there under certain situations but it wasn't anything totally off putting.

Both cards good. They both play all my games just fine. I need to upgrade the monitor soon to justify the new GPU. I have had the itch for a long 8 months. Baby steps.... baby steps.

I have a mid tower, Arc Midi, with a high-end Zalman flower style cooler. To say installation was a breeze would be a bit far fetched. But once I took my time to get everything needed into the confined space, looks pretty sharp if you ask me.

Pics?

RE: AMD's PR dept. They shit the bed when Steamroller tiptoed into the limelight. They were promising the Moon leading up to that launch and we all know what they delivered. As I remember, most of them (PR Flacks) were canned soon afterwards.

Now, I hear that they were giving some review sites crap about past negative comments concerning AMD. They refused Fury samples after not so good reviews on their R9-390 cards.

AMD needs to understand that we need to be able to trust our favorite reviewers to tell the truth about these products. Especially when you consider the price that we're expected to pay for them.

If they continue down the path of information suppression, I'll never buy from them again.

Yeah, the Fury line looks good to me and I want one or two in the future, but I'll go with their competition if they're playing reindeer games.

 

[newtekie1]

Minor bug having crushes with the most used browser in the market? LOL nice one. I am seeing nvidia fans in a Greek forum testing drivers and settings on Chrome for a month now. And it's not only on 4K. Half a dozen drivers where having that problem. Of course Nvidia gave priority to gaming optimizations but it was no minor.

It was minor because the crashes were rare. It wasn't like it was a constant thing, making Chrome unusable, it happened maybe once an hour at the worst case. It affected SLI setups worst than single card setups(I don't even know if it actually even affected single GPU setups).

 

[cadaveca]

It was minor because the crashes were rare. It wasn't like it was a constant thing, making Chrome unusable, it happened maybe once an hour at the worst case. It affected SLI setups worst than single card setups(I don't even know if it actually even affected single GPU setups).

Yes, it affects single cards, and it happens more than once an hour. However, most systems that do have the problem frequently are OC'ed, and anyone doing testing on an OC'd system can go toss a bone, as that's stupid testing methods (control needs to eliminate OC as part cause).