Nice review HH, like always. I was just expecting you do HW/off benchmark to compare. Its really taxing the AMD hardware. One of the articles said 290 is 77% faster with HW/off.

I'll have a look tomorrow, Hairworks is a NV feature and was disabled for fair comparison. This article is work in progress and I wanted the initials number out. Basically I was waiting (hoping) on AMD for a driver ... but well.

Nice review HH, like always. I was just expecting you do HW/off benchmark to compare. Its really taxing the AMD hardware. One of the articles said 290 is 77% faster with HW/off.

HW is off for the test.

Everything is set to Ultra, AA is enabled, Nvidia Hairworks is disabled and we use SSAO. The graphics cards used in this specific article are:

Oh, are you just asking for a comparison? 980 is 40% faster than a 780Ti in the QHD test compared to the 10-15% when the 980 launched. Nvidia posted on their forums that they are looking into it. I wonder if a 6GB 780Ti would perform better in the test? Also seems weird that the 780Ti only performs ~8% better than a 780. I wonder if it's a driver bug or something with the 780Ti

Aaaand yet another benchmark that shows what all other benchmarks has shown - kepler having been seriously downgraded (intentional or accidental - im leaning towards intentional). Some people claim its simply because Maxwell has been optimized, but if that was the case, then a gtx 980 should be MILES ahead of a 290x, and a 780 ti should still be on par with the 290x, but it isnt. The gtx 980 is a tad ahead of the 290x as usual, while the 780 ti is waaaaay behind the 290x - the same can be seen with all the other kepler Cards, with the 780 almost performing the same as a freaking 960...

Aaaand yet another benchmark that shows what all other benchmarks has shown - kepler having been seriously downgraded (intentional or accidental - im leaning towards intentional). Some people claim its simply because Maxwell has been optimized, but if that was the case, then a gtx 980 should be MILES ahead of a 290x, and a 780 ti should still be on par with the 290x, but it isnt. The gtx 980 is a tad ahead of the 290x as usual, while the 780 ti is waaaaay behind the 290x - the same can be seen with all the other kepler Cards, with the 780 almost performing the same as a freaking 960...

Idk, honestly I'd like to see a 980's 3DMark scores over the last several driver releases. I mean basically it seems like Maxwell on average is performing 20% faster than it was at launch. At launch a 980 was on average about 10-15% faster then a 780Ti. Now it seems like it's about 30-40% faster then a 780Ti in most recently released games. A 960 was also about 20% slower then a 780. Now it seems like a 960 is about 2-5% slower. The only real way to see if Nvidia is "downgrading" performance is to either A. Show me a driver where a Kepler series card performs 20% slower. Or B. Show me the 3DMark/Any Benchmark between release drivers of Maxwell and current drivers of Maxwell. I think more than likely Maxwell is just getting the better end of the deal with drivers. Driver improvements slowed with Kepler by the time it was finished anyway. The 680 showed a 25% increase in performance from drivers over it' lifetime. 780 only showed a ~8-10% increase during it's lifetime. It's pretty clear that Kepler performance was maxed. Regardless, ManuelG posted on the Nvidia forums that the driver teams are looking into it. So if there is an issue I'm sure it will be corrected.

Idk, honestly I'd like to see a 980's 3DMark scores over the last several driver releases. I mean basically it seems like Maxwell on average is performing 20% faster than it was at launch. At launch a 980 was on average about 10-15% faster then a 780Ti. Now it seems like it's about 30-40% faster then a 780Ti in most recently released games. A 960 was also about 20% slower then a 780. Now it seems like a 960 is about 2-5% slower. The only real way to see if Nvidia is "downgrading" performance is to either A. Show me a driver where a Kepler series card performs 20% slower. Or B. Show me the 3DMark/Any Benchmark between release drivers of Maxwell and current drivers of Maxwell.

You seem to miss my point though. I get that Maxwell will recieve more achitectural improvements, that is to be expected, but that would mean that Maxwell should increase in performance in comparison to amd, and that kepler should stay where it is, so to speak. But Maxwell performance in comparison to amd is the same as at launch, while kepler performance has taken a huge dive in comparison to amd. Seems "odd", no?

You seem to miss my point though. I get that Maxwell will recieve more achitectural improvements, that is to be expected, but that would mean that Maxwell should increase in performance in comparison to amd, and that kepler should stay where it is, so to speak. But Maxwell performance in comparison to amd is the same as at launch, while kepler performance has taken a huge dive in comparison to amd. Seems "odd", no?

Idk, you would also need to examine AMD's performance increases as well. You have to remember that AMD is actually better suited at driver increases than Nvidia due to the nature of their architecture. Don't get me wrong, I definitely think that something could be going on. Could be a driver issue/bug, could be Nvidia is intentionally crippling performance, I'm not sure. It just bothers me that people are throwing out all notions of actual testing and just bandwagoning based on circumstantial evidence at best. No one is actually doing any tests or looking at all possible reasons as to why this could be happening. I guess when I get home I'll do some A/B tests between launch drivers and current drivers on various games to see the % impact in performance on the 980. Someone would probably also do the same with a 290x, between the AMD drivers that were used on the 980 launch day, compared to current. Edit: So launch 980 drivers were 14.3 for the 290x. Most of the comparisons used that. The Catalyst Omega Driver (14.12? I think) came out in Dec, after the launch of the 980 and increased 290x performance by up to 19% in some games. Again, this isn't anything definitive but it definitely goes to show you that just comparing things to the past isn't as simple as you would think. Both sides are making significant strides in performance via drivers.

Idk, you would also need to examine AMD's performance increases as well. You have to remember that AMD is actually better suited at driver increases than Nvidia due to the nature of their architecture. Don't get me wrong, I definitely think that something could be going on. Could be a driver issue/bug, could be Nvidia is intentionally crippling performance, I'm not sure. It just bothers me that people are throwing out all notions of actual testing and just bandwagoning based on circumstantial evidence at best. No one is actually doing any tests or looking at all possible reasons as to why this could be happening. I guess when I get home I'll do some A/B tests between launch drivers and current drivers on various games to see the % impact in performance on the 980. Someone would probably also do the same with a 290x, between the AMD drivers that were used on the 980 launch day, compared to current.

You are ofc right that AMD's performance needs to be taken into consideration. I am all for an indepth analys of the improvements in the various achitectures over time in both nvidia and amd - should cast some light on this. Hopefully someone will have the time and resources to do it properly 🙂

something is very wrong with the 7 series. the 780ti should be on par with the 290x

Added: GTX 770 image quality settings scaling on last page.

I went through configs, one can change hairworks AA level. Too bad it is not possible to change tessellation level of it too. Because limiting tessellation via CCC limits it everywhere and ocean water tessellation is 8x - low; 64x - ultra. I am working xml menu config (and settings below each settings) so low settings which not many will use will provide very reasonable performance and IQ.

All of these architectures suck to play latest console ports, must wait for that 8800gt moral sucessor that´s gonna demolish all these cheap ports with their xboxone graphics and unoptimized shaders, probably volta or next AMD. Btw this needs some serious frame pacing tests, it´s like they forgot to add frame smoothing or something, it´s breaking immersion for a lot of folks (even with maxwell cards).

Kepler not doing as well as it should be on Nvidia, an R9 285 getting better FPS over the 7970ghz edition/R9 280x on AMD - what the heck is going on?.

I went through configs, one can change hairworks AA level. Too bad it is not possible to change tessellation level of it too. Because limiting tessellation via CCC limits it everywhere and ocean water tessellation is 8x - low; 64x - ultra. I am working xml menu config (and settings below each settings) so low settings which not many will use will provide very reasonable performance and IQ.

I did fall over the same thing, that i wasnt able to alter tesselation settings. Nvidia claims in their witcher 3 guide, that Maxwell is 3 times faster at doing tesselation than kepler... so if all benchmarks are done at ultra (Thus 64x tesselation), that might contribute (if not all together explain) to why kepler is struggeling.

i have to say amd card do age better

Kepler beating Maxwell on Nvidia, R9 285 getting better FPS over the 7970ghz edition/R9 280x on AMD - what the heck is going on?.

Look again, Kepler isnt even close to Maxwell. When we talk AMD, GCN 1.2 cards are getting better driver support/optimizations. Tahiti cards still good but getting old...

i have to say amd card do age better

There can be no doubts about that. Ill likely go CF and freesync next time i upgrade... lower prices and apparently better longevity.

I mean basically it seems like Maxwell on average is performing 20% faster than it was at launch.

Drivers getting better? I gained 9 FPS on Metro LL and 28 on Thief, when i compare 344.11 and 352.86.

Drivers getting better? I gained 9 FPS on Metro LL and 28 on Thief, when i compare 344.11 and 352.86.

Largely explained by the lower cpu overhead in the newer drivers, and your very old cpu.

Kepler not doing as well as it should be on Nvidia, an R9 285 getting better FPS over the 7970ghz edition/R9 280x on AMD - what the heck is going on?.

Absolute joke. Those R295x2 results are disgraceful 😛uke2: