Do you plan to upgrade to a new generation GPU?

[Brian]

NVIDIA's Pascal is on it's way and should be available sometime in June based on current leaks. One of the first GPUs may be a full GDDR5x GP104 based GeForce 1080 GPU and we will almost assuredly have mobile variants shortly thereafter. AMD hasn't given us nearly as much information on Polaris except their performance/watt demo a few months ago but we're fairly certain it is priming for release as well. 

 

 

With the new generation of GPUs quickly approaching, do you plan to upgrade to either of them upon release? Why or why not? 

 

 

[Brian]

While I picked I will be upgrading ASAP, the truth is I may hold off for the full die Pascal in 2017. My guess is the 1080 will initially be anywhere from 20-30% faster than the current 980 Ti and and the 1080 Ti will take it even further than that. 

[sirana]

I'd time the purchase with the release of a new game. If your current GPU runs your games just fine, it's always best to wait and upgrade when a new AAA game is released (e.g. as many did when Witcher 3 was released). I myself still enjoy the 680M as long as possible but I'm thinking about getting a Pascal-based notebook when my good old x7200 can't keep up with games (at medium settings) anymore.

[arbitrarygrill]

In all honesty I'm upgrading my Dell Precision M6600 from a fermi Quadro 3000m with a 60% overclock to a Quadro K4000m, which I hope overclocks well with slv7's modded vBIOS.

I don't really see a reason to upgrade beyond that given the 3000m already runs most things at decent settings, 1080p fairly well, excluding stuff like DS3 and Witcher 3, so I'll be more than happy with the cheap, pre-owned K4000m.

[nice]

I have a nivida 780 in my desktop pc atm. and it still runs most games with decent Graphics. Right now most of my gaming is spend playing LoL, Guild Wars 2 and CS:GO so its not like I need a big upgrade. But I might consider an upgrade to Nvidia 980 if they fall enough price with the release of the pascal so I can be a little more future proof with release of new games.

[mrburns05]

Yea. I'll just buy one down the road sometime when games get to the point that I can't run graphics on medium-high with my 970.

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[Guest]

My confidence in AMD and NVIDIA has never been so low. I most likely won't upgrade GPUs from where I am for a good while. I am getting tired of spending huge sums of money on poor quality samples of NVIDIA MXM cards. I voted the last option because most reviews are worthless. I'm not nearly as interested in how GPUs or CPUs perform stock as I am how far they can be pushed with overclocking and what those results look like. For example, 7970M was a real pisser because it had decent stock performance (at the time) and failed miserably at overclocking. The frequency of premature failures was simply the poop-flavored icing on the cake. Excluding that lousy example from AMD, I cannot remember the last time I purchased a CPU or GPU based on stock results because that simply doesn't interest me. Had there been an option " I'm going to take a wait and see approach based on the extreme overclocked benchmark results of enthusiast that I am familiar with and trust." (e.g. @johnksss) I would have selected that option.

Edited May 29, 2016 by Guest

[Brian]

40 minutes ago, Mr. Fox said:

Had there been an option " I'm going to take a wait and see approach based on the extreme overclocked benchmark results of enthusiast that I am familiar with and trust." (e.g. @johnksss) I would have selected that option.

 

I don't think that would've quite fit in the question box  But yeah the marketing is doing the driving for both companies and the NVIDIA Founder's Sucker's Edition charging an extra $100 for a reference card is all too funny yet appalling. Fortunately NVIDIA likely won't need to carry over this new "branding" to the mobile version since they already price gouge for those. AMD meanwhile is busy falling apart internally with RTG led by Raja Koduri leading an internal rebellion and forming possible IP licensing deals with Intel and trying to get Polaris out the door. 

 

From the looks of it, both Pascal and Polaris will be disappointing overclockers with AMD rumored to have troubles clocking up Polaris anywhere near where Pascal starts and it seems Pascal is hard limited to around 1.25v (gets unstable beyond 1.25v) even with a custom vbios and on LN2 the 1080 barely breaks 2400 MHz and ends up slower than LN2 cooled 980 Ti cards. So basically, even under the best circumstances with a modded vbios, we won't likely see 1080s breaking >2.2 GHz stable despite AIB's adding in all those new power phases and 6 pin connectors. 

 

In fact, there's a 1070 review floating around that shows even at 2 GHz, the 1070 doesn't gain much performance and a lower power version will most likely hit notebooks and have similar poor uptake in performance while overclocked. Overall, I'm pretty disappointed by Pascal and I think Polaris will be an even bigger disappointment as it seems AMD has been left miles behind by NVIDIA. AMD aren't even confident enough to invite Hard|OCP to their Macau conference in fear of Kyle calling out their card as weak. 

 

Firestrike

 

The Division

 

Ashes of Singularity

 

If the desktop 1070 is bandwidth limited as it seems in the above graphs, then it is almost a sure bet any mobile variant will face the same limitations with GDDR5. 

[Guest]

@Brian - this is exactly the kind of information people DESERVE to know, because all of the marketing hype is going to mislead them... by design and intent, the marketing information is misleading. The fanboys will piss and moan and call it being picked on for their misinformed buying decisions, but those that actually care about quality and performance will approach the situation in a guarded and cautious manner. Intel and NVIDIA hope that people dive in and start drinking the Kool-Aid for no reason other than it is new and claimed to be good by those selling it. Because AMD has been historically lame, Intel and NVIDIA are trusted far more than they should be. They are not our friends, but they want us to think they are. Those that know better understand that they are viewed as a potential revenue stream, not a customer they need to fight to retain. Monopolies are bad for everyone except those that stand to profit from the absence of competition and accountability.

[Max2016]

When I read all the details for the 1070 and 1080 I thought they were doing really well. I wasn't planning on upgrading for a while anyway due to my 970 still playing most games without any problems, but reading this thread totally cements the decision in my mind.

[viktoris]

not impressed with nVidia atm