Historically, display technology is one of AMD’s strengths. Back in 2009, the company caught its competition flat-footed with Eyefinity, which supported three independent outputs from the Radeon HD 5870 and as many as six from a special Eyefinity 6 Edition of the card. This was a pivotal moment in my career as a writer who loved to play games. Previously, I used a Quadro NVS card in my personal workstation to drive a three-screen array, while a second system handled 3D. The Radeon HD 5870 let me combine those equally important functions in one machine.
More recently, AMD was on the receiving end of an offensive because its drivers do not yield a favorable experience at 3840x2160 (frame pacing isn't supported yet in Eyefinity). But although you probably wouldn’t want to game on one or more of the company’s graphics cards at 4K resolutions, configuring a tiled display was originally easier on AMD’s hardware than Nvidia’s. Of course, Nvidia has since incorporated DisplayID 1.3 support, which automatically creates a Surround array, making the setup process that much smoother. AMD's latest software likewise streamlines usage with existing tiled panels.
Projected adoption of Ultra HD
The point is that AMD does support 4K TVs (30 and 24 Hz) over HDMI and DisplayPoint, and tiled monitors (60 Hz) using DisplayPort with its existing GPUs. Tiled monitors are not supported through two HDMI ports, which is how we tested Nvidia’s cards in Gaming At 3840x2160: Is Your PC Ready For A 4K Display? Frankly, that’s fine. I'd much rather connect one DisplayPort cable in MST mode anyway. We only benchmarked through the HDMI interface to facilitate video capture for our FCAT analysis tools.
Additionally, the R9 and R7 boards are making it possible to connect matching monitors to any three outputs. Previously, the requirement was that one needed to hook up via DisplayPort. If you can get your hands on a MST hub, you can even enable five- and six-screen configurations using AMD’s reference cards. The issue remains availability; the only solution comes from Club3D, and you can’t buy it anywhere in the U.S.
Single-stream 4K at 60 Hz requires at least 600 MHz pixel rates
In the future, we have confirmation that forthcoming AMD cards will definitely support single-stream, non-tiled 4K displays as they become available and get validated. This will likely be early in 2014. It remains to be seen whether the R9- and R7-series cards getting tested today can claim the same thing. The display controller’s frequency, memory arbitration, and latency all play a role in driving that many pixels.
There’s actually quite a bit more to cover on the display technology side. But because AMD hasn’t pulled the veil off of its R9 290 and 290X cards yet, we have to hold off on that discussion. More soon, though.
- Tahiti, Pitcairn, And Bonaire Show Up For An Encore
- R9 280X: The Tahiti GPU’s Second (Or Third?) Lease On Life
- R9 270X: Pitcairn Gets A Little Boost
- R7 260X: TrueAudio’s First Outing On The Back Of Bonaire
- TrueAudio: Dedicated Resources For Sound Processing
- Display Technology
- Test Setup And Software
- Results: Arma III
- Results: Battlefield 3
- Results: BioShock Infinite
- Results: Crysis 3
- Results: Grid 2
- Results: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
- Results: Tomb Raider
- CAD: AutoCAD 2013 And Inventor 2013
- OpenGL: Maya 2013 And LightWave
- OpenCL: Bitmining, OpenCL, And RatGPU
- Power Consumption
- Clock Rate And Temperature
- Fan Speed And Noise
- Old GPUs Ride Again, But That’s Not A Bad Thing
I wrote one of the least flattering GTX 780 stories out there. I only identified a couple of situations where a Titan made any sense at all. And although the 760 *did* change the balance at $250, that card still didn't get an award. I liked the 770 for the simple fact that it delivered better-than-680 performance for close to $100 less.
The rest of AMD's new line-up is a lot like what exists already. Again, the 7870 is a better value than 270X. So what are you getting worked up over? The fact that I'm pointing out these aren't new GPUs? They're not.
Best to hold out till the reviews on the R9-290X I guess. But considering the specs I hope for at least 20% performance increases over a 7970.
The MSI R9 280X Gaming at $299 appears to outperform the GTX 770 at 1600P and is within margin of error at 1080P according to Techpowerup. Not a bad value at $100 less and still overclocks well:
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/R9_280X_Gaming/26.html
Best to hold out till the reviews on the R9-290X I guess. But considering the specs I hope for at least 20% performance increases over a 7970.
Are the days of (nearly) annual simultaneous full line GPU launches from $100-500 with a dual GPU chip to follow at $750-1000 really over?
I wrote one of the least flattering GTX 780 stories out there. I only identified a couple of situations where a Titan made any sense at all. And although the 760 *did* change the balance at $250, that card still didn't get an award. I liked the 770 for the simple fact that it delivered better-than-680 performance for close to $100 less.
The rest of AMD's new line-up is a lot like what exists already. Again, the 7870 is a better value than 270X. So what are you getting worked up over? The fact that I'm pointing out these aren't new GPUs? They're not.
That goes to you too Mr. NVIDIA
you won't want to. the 260 is more expensive, and you'll only get 1gb of it's memory in a xfire with a 7790. (in xfire/sli, the video memory is duplicated on both cards... not shared... so the total memory of the xfire/sli setup is equal to the smallest total mememory on each of the cards. so a 2gb + 1 gb gpu in xfire will have basically 1gb of vram for the xfire setup.
you won't want to. the 260 is more expensive, and you'll only get 1gb of it's memory in a xfire with a 7790. (in xfire/sli, the video memory is duplicated on both cards... not shared... so the total memory of the xfire/sli setup is equal to the smallest total mememory on each of the cards. so a 2gb + 1 gb gpu in xfire will have basically 1gb of vram for the xfire setup.
the true audio thing is still a mystery. We have to see if this thing really takes off or not. If this thing is at least has a just small success like physyx, I guess I wont mind shelling out just extra $10-20 for it.
the 7970/r9-280x is not competing in the 770's price bracket anymore. the 770 is 400 min... until that price comes down reviewing it against the 7970 would make as much sense as reviewing a 7950 against a gtx 650.
What retailer is doing this deal? I've been holding out to upgrade my 5850 for a while now and a pair of these would be a nice little (gigantic) upgrade
It feels like the price per pixel (in games at a given setting) has stayed the same for a while despite the increase in average display resolutions. Which would equate to gaming getting more and more expensive if you like to max the settings. I don't know if this is AMD/NVidia's fault or the game developers fault or both but it's kind of annoying.