980Ti performance

[Timmaigh]

Hi there,

i just found out about existence of the OctaneBench, was not really paying attention to Octane since i upgraded to the v2 version...
Anyway i have been thinking a bit about getting the 980Ti, so i wonder how does it perform - i saw on the OctaneBench result page it got score 126....like really? Is this right?
Cause i just tested my GTX590 OCed to 658MHz and it got 112,8 points/whatever you call it... now its a dual card for sure, but i find it hard to believe the difference in performance between it and 980Ti to be so small - it actually does not make sense for me to invest 700 EUROs into 980Ti, if my current card is just 10-15 percent slower.... well, the incentive would be the 6GB VRAM, if i needed those, but still...

anyway, i am totally surprised, i honestly expected these big Maxwell cards to be at least 2x faster, if not more, given all the fancy new tech and whatnot. I bought the 590 more than 4 years ago and it was actually about 120-150 EUROs cheaper than what 980Ti (single GPU) is nowadays.... out of blue all that fabled technological and performance progress Nvidia (and AMD) have been doing does not really look so great...

[Lewis]

But techically it is 2.x faster since you are comparign 2 GPU verison with sigle GPU card . So if you get 2*980Ti it's score would be around 250 or oyu shoudl compare GTX 580 vs GTX 980Ti. Also dont' forget that 980Ti also can be "overclocked" and probably lot more than your 590 so differenc emight be even bigger in those conditions.

Price performance I'm not sure how much 590 costed back then but except much more memory on 980Ti you should consider that 980Ti is probably aslo using less power than your old 590.

As for the price , well yes it's expensive and that's only downside. Maybe when AMD releases FuryX in next days if is any good Nvidia might need to "adjust" their price for gamer GPUs .

[smicha]

Lewis is right.

Shortly speaking:
1. 590 has 1.5 GB of vram, while 980Ti 6GB - 4x more,
2. 980 Ti overclocked scores 140-150 (comparing 2 gpus, i.e., 2x980Ti are almost 3x faster than 590),
3. 980Ti draws less than 200W not OC, much less than 580/590; it is much cooler and quieter,
4. Fair comparison shall be Titan Z - a dual gpu card that scores 220 OC with 6GB of vram.
5. Wait for Pascal...

[Timmaigh]

Thanks for your responses.

I disagree with the notion i should compare with either 2 980Ti cards or another dual card for this to be a fair comparison. I may do it - when TItan Z drops to 600 EUROs, the same price the 590 was back then... or some gtx990 at that price will be released....which is very unlikely to happen, i guess we can agree on that. Thus, matter of fact, if i want to double my performance (after 4 years of rolling with 590), i need to pay 2x to 3x more than i did 4 years ago... and frankly, this is what matters the most to me.... perf per price ratio...cant care less about the number of chips or some designation.... i give you the RAM increase, which is pretty indeed important and the lesser power consumption is nice as well...but honestly its not good enough to justify that price increase.... Especially since its obvious, the main reason for such big VRAM capacities these days is the fact, they are dirty cheap to produce for them....

So, yeah, i guess i have to wait for Pascal with its HBM memories, hopefully it will be faster without another price increase.

EDIT: BTW i can further overclock the 590 up to about 730 MHz as well, and while within games its not really stable, for Octane it seemed to work just fine at those clocks.... so i guess if you can get 980Ti up to 150, i can get the 590 maybe up to cca 130 too....

[glimpse]

well, in terms of Octane Bench:

580 -> 50 (dual hi-end Fermi)
780Ti (OCed 780) ~>100 (single hi-end Kepler)

Isn't performance 2x? (all three having the same amount ov VRAM)

590 ~> 100 (dual Fermi)
TitanZ ~>180 (dual Kepler) - 220 under water..

.., but then Z has 12 GB (4 times more than 590) - price do reflect that =DDD
(actually vRam costs a lot..- otherwise why system RAM is so costly?)

980Ti ~ the same (actually a bit more performance) than 590.. + it has less power draw & only one GPU.
on the vRAM side it has 4x effective space for programs like Octane (that makes a lot of difference)..

Titan X offers 8x of vRAM that single GPU from 590 could offer.. costs 1000$ (when 590 was how much..699$???)


so.. where does that leave us? it's much more than performance..-there are code optimisations, suppport for new technologies, efficiency, noise, looks etc.


Yeah, nVidia really raised the price with hi-end GTX's (I believe that was main reason why we saw separate line a.k.a. Titans - so with gaming cards they cuold also target developers & through advertising increase price target quite a bit =)

but then again.. You can buy 980Ti for ~ the same amount that 590 cost when released. Both perform simillar in Octane, but new card is single GPU, eats less power & has 4x vRAM - that alone is a lot for majority to upgrade..


P.S. try running 4x590s in a single box without watercooling or raisers =DDD I would like to see temperatures after 15min of load..(don't even dream about any overclocks, unless You are ok to baby-sit nearby with fire extiguisher =)

[Timmaigh]

so.. where does that leave us? it's much more than performance..-there are code optimisations, suppport for new technologies, efficiency, noise, looks etc

well, code optimisations and support for new technologies are irrelevant, as long as they dont reflect on performance (increase), which they dont clearly

improved efficiency is nice, but it comes into play when you use zillion of GPUs, not just one or 2.... not to mention, if it rendered 2x faster now than before, even at the cost of higher power consumption, the resulting images would be done in half the time, therefore the eletricity costs would stay about the same...

lower noise is fine, but not essential and certainly not good enough reason to spend another 700 EUROs to have about the same performance as i had for the past 4 years. If i really wanted/needed to do something about it, i am pretty sure water cooling solution for 590 would be surely cheaper than 980Ti

looks - seriously?

1 GPU now instead of 2 before - since those 2 were on a single PCB and the price was about the same as price for 1 GPU now, there is absolutely no advantage here whatsoever. Its only advantageous in case of gaming, cause of the inherent SLI issues, so its better have single more powerful GPU than 2 slower in SLI, but gaming/SLI does not bear any importance to Octane.... BTW, if anything, i would say its actually better to have more GPUs, since you can switch the one functioning as display adapter off during the design process to improve UI speed and only switch it back on when you are ready for doing final renders...

...so the only actual relevant reason to buy is the increased memory capacity, but i guarantee you that GDDR5s are fairly cheap to produce these days - its the new HBM chips used by AMD, which are not. Bottom line, you can be sure Titan X is not 1200 EUROs cause it has 2x higher VRAM amount than 980Ti - its all about marketing and wannabe luxury product thing... BTW system RAM and VRAM are totally different things not interchangeable and while i dont know the current prices of system RAM, if they are currently higher, i guess its cause DDR4 are still kinda new tech, while DDR3s are being phased out of production, thus their availability is decreasing and therefore price rising....

Anyway, i did not want to complain about Nvidia pricing and whatnot... just wanted to voice my disappointment in regard to the performance increase, or should i say lack of it... just think about it, 4 years passed and all i can get for more or less same money is more or less the same rendering speed as those 4 years ago. 4 damn years... lets that sink for a moment...

[glimpse]

First, let me say that I do agree with You here as gf110 was great chip.

Looks, noise, power usage etc..- look from the perspective of gamer =) nvidia has separate line of "pro" cards, that they don't refresh so often (don't have so much models) have even higher amount of vRAM, ECC, etc..

Now You seem to be arguing about the fact that You new Bentley can't be loaded with more europalets that previeous Ferrari =) Do You get the point? (both of those cars are not meant for that & You're comparing metrict that neither product cares about)..

same goes here: why You're comparing performance in Octane Render? Nvidia doesn't care too much about brute performance - game experience consist of other thigns - optimisations & compatability is something to mention.

Yes for Octane upgrade comes more to the amount of vram.. (though some do change their Titans for 980Ti - personally I don't understand them =)

[smicha]

I had 580 3GB versions and they were really great cards. And I get your point - after 4 years we shall have something faster, at least faster than 980Ti, which with its 120 score may be disappointing - as an owner of 780 6GB that cost 350EUR and scores above 100 on water I don't see any better card in terms of price to performance.

If Pascal scores on a single gpu card something around 300-500 this will be my upgrade.

[Timmaigh]

First, let me say that I do agree with You here as gf110 was great chip.

Looks, noise, power usage etc..- look from the perspective of gamer =) nvidia has separate line of "pro" cards, that they don't refresh so often (don't have so much models) have even higher amount of vRAM, ECC, etc..

Now You seem to be arguing about the fact that You new Bentley can't be loaded with more europalets that previeous Ferrari =) Do You get the point? (both of those cars are not meant for that & You're comparing metrict that neither product cares about)..

same goes here: why You're comparing performance in Octane Render? Nvidia doesn't care too much about brute performance - game experience consist of other thigns - optimisations & compatability is something to mention.

Yes for Octane upgrade comes more to the amount of vram.. (though some do change their Titans for 980Ti - personally I don't understand them =)

Well, i am comparing performance in Octane Render, cause its what concerns me, unlike performance in games, which i dont care that much about...
I understand what you mean by Nvidia concentrating on gaming with GTX cards, but then again its not like they offered something more powerful in their "Pro" line-up for Octane, Arion, iRay etc... customers. You can waste thousands to get Quadro and it still wont render faster.

I guess if someone replaces Titan with 980Ti, he does that cause he can have almost 2 of those for a price of single Titan. And 6GB of RAM is enough for him. I would probably do the same, if i was in the same situation. But clearly its matter of preference, if you simply need those 12GBs, then even potential of 2x higher speed is inconsequential to you.

Anyway, bring on the Pascal!

[Lewis]

Not sure about price yet but new 980Ti STRIX seems nice and factory overclocked pretty decent
http://www.reviewstudio.net/2288-asus-g ... for-gaming