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We interview Darren McPhee, director of worldwide graphics product marketing.
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Read more.Quote:
We interview Darren McPhee, director of worldwide graphics product marketing.
So i guess there is no point in waiting for hd8000 series with useless HD2600 pro ;/
Drivers drivers drivers.
I have a 7970M in Enduro configuration in my laptop and have had endless problems with driver support. Just finding and downloading a working driver from AMD's website is nearly impossible, and half of them fail to install. There are ongoing well-documented utilisation issues with mobile GPUs and the configuration screens for switching are poor at best.
The 7970M is nearly a year old and support is still rubbish. The latest beta is slightly better, but we shouldn't still be relying on betas a year after launch to get a card working. Give me one, obvious, download link with working drivers which fully use the hardware. Then maybe I'll consider buying another AMD card.
That's why I always buy NVIDIAQuote:
Originally Posted by Woodchuck2000
That was *by far* one of the worst interviews I've ever read.
Loads of marketing guff, interspersed with annoying editors notes. It didn't flow like a conversation should, and I didn't learn a single thing I didn't already know.
Funny, I recently upgrade my AMD drivers, stuck an additional card in my machine, rebooted, and presto, working and automatically configured crossfire setup.
Laptop drivers are often modified by the laptop manufacturer, so can be out of AMDs hands. And you're just as likely to find nvidia products with driver issues. I think the whole "Buy nvidia because they have better drivers" line is old, tired, and simply not true.
IMNSHO, the biggest move forward AMD have made in the last couple of years is developer relations. I'm struggling to remember any past reviews where AMD/ATI were getting a significant bump in several titles due to developer relations: it always used to be nvidia who were top dogs. Look at the Titan review and there are several AMD Gaming Evolved titles, with AMD getting genuine performance benefit through their developer relations program. That's a massive improvement, and one that doesn't get highlighted often enough.
My AMD drivers work fine, most of the time. They do have a tendency to restart when my computer comes out of hibernation, but everything works fine after they restart, and I've never had a game crash or suffer visual glitches.
I've had Nvidia drivers do worse things than that in the past.
Laptops are the biggest culprits here, both AMD and NV drivers are often hamstrung by ODM's and OEM's when they are designing them. On the desktop both sides drivers are really good now, even Win8 is solid from both. I agree, developers relations is where it's at these days
Its good that AMD are focusing on last years products, however, Titan is a marketing machine- as can be seen in all the recent interviews/conferences. Titan may be a drop in the ocean of the graphics market, but it is a very powerful way for NV to push their brand, after all they have the fastest single gpu, and for many that translates into them having the best line up across the board.
I'm always saddened when technological advancement is stone walled by profiteering. Both AMD and Nvidia are guilty of this, the Titan should have been out last year for at least half the price and the Sea Island refresh for AMD is waiting to go. Yet here we are, reading how everything is excellent with the current line and we should all buy some more.
Add to this that depending on what website test you read alters which card is the greater, the marketing fud grows ever deeper.
I can only hope that March sees the release of the refreshed 78xx cards, but I won't hold my breath.
I hope AMD address micro-stutter (esp. in Xfire) more seriously than they have up to now. I'd like to add another 7950 to my (ugh) XFX card, but all the evidence suggests that though the nominal framerate increases, frame perception is markedly worse overall. Some websites are beginning to take notice of this in reviews and Nvidia is picking up kudos for their better performance in this area.
Would also like to hear more about future cooperation with monitor manufacturer's a la Nvidia's Lightboost. A strobing backlight can make a TFT more CRT-like but only Nv supports that option atm (though not officially).
More support for higher pixel clocks to enable 120/144hz (or higher) refresh rates @ 2560x1600 or more would be nice too.
Not much real info on future plans & tech in that interview unfortunately...
I wonder what effect all of this has on the lifespan and reliability of the monitor?? Some of us actual but more emphasis on how colour accurate our monitors are over gaming features,and TBH I am not interested in pushing monitors past what the companies want them to operate at.Quote:
Originally Posted by Pleiades
There's nothing like real-life testing to find that out :mrgreen:Quote:
Originally Posted by CAT-THE-FIFTH
But Nvidia already note over-clocking refresh rates on the Titan as a feature & of course Lightboost strobing is Nv 3D only atm, but I'm hoping the monitor makers start pulling their finger out and bringing us the higher res, refresh rates & interesting features that companies like Intel promised years ago (and they were predicting 4k as mainstream by now). Philips used to be innovative in displays (with 21:9 and Ambilight) but I don't expect much from them any more :(
'We're performance leaders at every price point'
So not much else to come this year then or what?