Tom's Hardware Ask Me Anything – AMD - November 6

[eklipz330]

Are you considering bringing get wider hd3d support to monitors? I'm tired of looking for work arounds of 3d vision monitors. A high resolution high refresh rate monitor with 3d option is highly desirable, especially with higher end cards

 

[Mousemonkey]

Are you considering bringing get wider hd3d support to monitors? I'm tired of looking for work arounds of 3d vision monitors. A high resolution high refresh rate monitor with 3d option is highly desirable, especially with higher end cards

Why are you asking that or any other questions in this thread?

 

[SPLWF]

I'd ask them:

Why aren't you pushing M-ITX or better designed mATX with your partners for the 8 core FX chips?

Can I have an 8 core APU?

That would be a question for a later AMA with the CPU dept, this AMA is with the GPU dept.

Oh I see, thanks man

 

[cmi86]

I am just curious as to the pricing decisions you (AMD) chose for your new 290 class GPU's. They are both excellent cards but I am baffled as to why the 290 which is barely slower than a 290X is priced $150 lower, does this not somewhat cripple your sales of the 290X ?? Was this decision influenced by nvidia revoking their price gouging and putting out a $500 GTX 780 ? Also when could we expect to see a WHQL certified driver that includes frame pacing ?

 

[Mousemonkey]

I am just curious as to the pricing decisions you (AMD) chose for your new 290 class GPU's. They are both excellent cards but I am baffled as to why the 290 which is barely slower than a 290X is priced $150 lower, does this not somewhat cripple your sales of the 290X ?? Was this decision influenced by nvidia revoking their price gouging and putting out a $500 GTX 780 ? Also when could we expect to see a WHQL certified driver that includes frame pacing ?

Again, why are you asking in this thread?

 

[cmi86]

I am just curious as to the pricing decisions you (AMD) chose for your new 290 class GPU's. They are both excellent cards but I am baffled as to why the 290 which is barely slower than a 290X is priced $150 lower, does this not somewhat cripple your sales of the 290X ?? Was this decision influenced by nvidia revoking their price gouging and putting out a $500 GTX 780 ? Also when could we expect to see a WHQL certified driver that includes frame pacing ?

Again, why are you asking in this thread?

Is this not an AMA ??? Is my question not in regards to GPU's ???

 

[cmi86]

Nevermind. This isn't the actual AMA. It just looks exactly like an AMA and is titled like an AMA, gotcha, silly me.

 

[Mousemonkey]

The AMA is now closed.

 

[somebodyspecial]

First off Nvidia doesn't need to license Mantle, it is open source.

As mousemonkey noted...This is incorrect. Even if they did allow it, not sure NV could implement it without making GCN chips or at least slapping some of GCN on.

The bigger question is whether or not it is worth the premium for monitor manufacturers to adopt G-Sync, it is: proprietary to Nvdida (trust me they are probably not interested in licensing it for anything short of the keys to the gates of heaven) and also it adds to the cost of the monitor to the end user and unlike what some of the Tom's readers and forum members think the world is not filled with high end enthusiasts who will go out of their way to get supported hardware, the OEMs will put a graphics card in there and the consumer will take it and not care.

It only requires a 650TIboost or higher. That's just about the lowest end you can get, and as it gets integrated instead of a card replacing chips inside that are already there, cost will be lowered substantially (you don't have to pay for the chips the current retro-fit kit will be replacing). The scaler etc inside won't be needed, you'll just use NV chip instead with extra features.

I am not saying that G-Sync is useless but what I am saying is that Asus is the only manufacturer that has plans for integrating it into their monitors that I have heard of so far.

Incorrect, Viewsonic, Philips and BenQ are already on board with Asus (only a few left, samsung, lg, acer maybe a few others, they'll all join).

Also with DICE and AMD's partnership with Mantle it has huge marketing bump because they have a target market and by having a AAA game the size of BF4 launching with Mantle support people learn about Mantle and again think that if BF4 has it there just be something good otherwise such a big publisher and game wouldn't use it.

Dice got paid to use it. Physx is in all consoles, 65% of pc cards etc, many engines (unreal, unity etc)...But only 60 or so games have chosen to use it in what, 6-7 years?. Most of those do it on cpu also with help from gpu if any (Borderlands 2 is an exception, not the rule). Just because it's in an engine, it doesn't mean they have to do anything with it. Carmack, Sweeney, and Andersson were all pretty clear. They are not happy about more API's and you can easily get that they won't be using it without compensation. Carmack said right on stage they already have pretty close to metal with gpu extensions etc, he all but called it pointless. They all said you don't want to be writing for a bunch of different API's. Even Andersson said at most he hopes it inspires features globally not proprietary. It almost seemed he was trying to defend it a little due to AMD paying them, but it looked painful while he tried...ROFL. Pressed further he hoped it inspires other stuff, not he hoped to be using it daily. He didn't praise it and they make BF4 Gsync on the other hand, was praised by all 3 and many more, and all websites

 

[Mousemonkey]

And BF4 hasn't had what I would call a trouble free birth! :lol:

 

[somebodyspecial]

And BF4 hasn't had what I would call a trouble free birth! :lol:

Which is even more funny knowing it's had direct AMD involvement and is the 1st mantle title. Of course most of this is surely the dev's fault, Win8's fault, etc but good grief
http://battlelog.battlefield.com/bf4/forum/threadview/2955065217944685108/
How many things can you have wrong with a game? Apparently 340 pages of complaining with this game?

I take that back, this is not funny it's sad I really don't want to see AMD go broke. All the crap they've been having lately isn't good for xmas sales. Mantle BF4 better be the most freaky huge supercalifragilisticexpialidocious news to hit the headlines in the next two months if they are to recover from all the bad PR IMHO. It's not just this launch, just BF4, etc...It's the last year of Fcat, driver fixes that don't fix it all, etc..It's becoming a never ending stream of bad news. They release mantle one day, MS jumps on it the very next day, then AMD goes into defense PC mode having to comment about the consoles not using it. It all just looks bad no matter what is reality. IE: If you get accused of say, rape and get vindicated a year or two later winning the case, not everyone believes you REALLY didn't do it #1, and #2 they may never hear you got off...You end up guilty forever for some at worst, or at least for a long time for some at best.

Every tech site has reported on the "retail 290x may not perform like press release" problems. It's hard to escape that crap 3 weeks before black friday and is anything else going to go wrong by xmas? What was your QA group doing with their time before releasing these cards? The mantle BF4 patch better go VERY smooth. They really need some good headlines right now (er, uh, yesterday)