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Comment by mhh__ | Hacker News Reader

Needs a price drop of a hundred quid or so.

Performance is pretty good, raytracing not good at all, and no extra features like DLSS and RTX voice etc.

Edit: A friend of mine who streams informs me that AMD's encoder/s are apparently still pretty bad

I hate to say this: It's not that AMD needs a price drop, it's that nvidia needs a price hike. Clearly nvidia is not able to meet demand for their cards and so AMD is filling that gap at the same price point.

My point was long-term rather than short, I don't think they'll be having supply problems in a year's time

They can always drop prices later. Its not like any of these prices are set in stone.

No one will be buying these new in a year's time, because better/cheaper cards will have been released by then. The eternal turn of the wheel.

My perspective is that Nvidia released the 3080 at "$700" for marketing purposes and is selling most of their stock above $750.

Damn, stop giving them ideas.

The top end cards already cost about 5x what they used to cost some years ago.

What do you want? GPUs at 5000 USD each?

I'm not sure I agree with the price, but I agree with the sentiment.

Nvidia spent their years refining their drivers and building out a legitimately useful platform of tools that utilize their GPUs. At times AMDs base functionality in their drivers can be buggy and unreliable. Even if they can compute similarly AMD has so much ecosystem ground to try and make up.

> AMD's encoder/s are apparently still pretty bad

This affects everyone who uses Steam Streaming (or Parsec) too, I don't know why reviewers don't test it regularly. Its a no-go for me then, the current H.264 encoder on AMD hardware is beyond terrible.

I was interested in Linus' take on the various software echo system Nvidia is building around GeForce that AMD doesn't have. In their video review today they specifically call out the quality (in a non-scientific way) of the hardware encoder. https://youtu.be/oUzCn-ITJ_o?t=561

A lot of interest in hardware encoders collapsed with Ryzen's release in 2017. Software encoding is superior quality and latency to NVENC, and I've been using 8-thread encoding for Steam streaming since then (April '17) never to look back.

If you don't have or want to use the CPU grunt for that, Intel Quick Sync isn't bad and a good pair with a Radeon like the 6000 series. If you want hardware encoding, Intel CPU + AMD GPU is a great pair, as is AMD CPU + Nvidia GPU. Otherwise anything works well with sufficient core count, can go AMD/Intel CPU + AMD GPU.

I only have a quad-core rn, and found that NVENC has lower latency than Intel QuickSync.

But yeah, my next PC will prob. have the power to software-encode. Are you sure about the lower latency though?

NVENC does have lower latency than Intel Quick Sync, NVENC > Quick Sync in all regards. I'd be ok with using Intel Quick Sync though, the only one I would avoid entirely is AMD VCN. I haven't looked into or compared encoders since 2017 but the takeaway was that software offered the best in latency and IQ. Dependent of course on what software is doing the encoding. I focused on Steam.

I just dug up one of my sources for you, you'll enjoy this.[0] It may no longer be accurate but it's at least suggestive. They all have similar latency, but you'll see the in the longest delay results (my eyeballs always focus on worst-case), has the software encoder on top. I'm currently considering a 5800X (higher sustained boost clocks due to heat/VRMs) or 5900X (lower sustained boost but more cores for potentially better streaming) to upgrade my system.

Given an 8+ core system can encode so well, I'm fine with either a 6800XT or 6080. I really don't have enough information yet. For years I used to buy based on NV's OpenGL support (and after NV's Vista driver blunders, AMD), but since the Oculus Quest was released, my primary deciding factor is VR performance. NV has held the edge there historically, but 16GB VRAM for the same price is not to be dismissed outright. If NV will match AMD's 16GB at a similar MSRP I'd go that route, the GDDR6X would cut into their margins pretty good though so I'm not holding my breath. I find AMD's Infinity Cache approach so interesting that I'm leaning towards rewarding their innovation. It works so well while cutting costs means that their approach is probably the future for all GPUs.

Anyway, with this evidence you hopefully now have more hardware to choose from for your upgrade. I had a great luck with Nvidia for a long time (currently using Pascal), but zero good reason to be entirely at Nvidia's mercy these days. Radeons got a big bump in quality since AMD bought ATI and it'll continue to get better.

[0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogNT6w4bzIs

Thanks for the thoughtful response. I'll get an 5900X, as soon as they can actually be bought. RT and DLSS still make me lean towards Nvidia, but yeah the limited RAM is a bummer.

One more thing worth noting, research the VRMs on whatever motherboard you get.[0] Getting the wrong motherboard will hold back your 5900X. I generally buy Asus's higher end boards which is a safe bet, but my current Asus X470-i pretty much presents me with the choice between clocking higher or more cores. I'd have to get a newer board and don't want to.

I'm probably sticking to the combo you're looking at, AMD+NV. I generally prefer Intel for overall QA reasons, and I can attest that Ryzen was buggy up until today, but I still can't imagine going with an Intel system right now. My Ryzen 1800X, 1700, and 2700X systems were stable but I wouldn't call them plug and play.

I'm making my changes in January so supply should no longer be a problem. You might find it's worth waiting it out till then too, Nvidia may have a response to the 6800 series by then too. Rumor was they were increasing VRAM but cancelled the cards.

[0]https://linustechtips.com/topic/1137619-motherboard-vrm-tier...

Hi. The results on that video do not reflect your comments; The software encoder is obviously inferior. Also those results are old.

I have also tried all the options and there is no comparison. It's a night and day difference between software encoding and nvenc. It was more than triple the latency last I tested.

I tested steam, parsec and also the best software available today for game streaming, Gamestream + Moonlight or Gamestream on the Shield TV.

Anybody would notice the difference in quality and input lag between QuickSync, libx264 and NVEnc. The difference really is very large in higher resolutions (talking about 1440p and 4k in 60/144fps).

> Hi. The results on that video do not reflect your comments; The software encoder is obviously inferior.

Well, you'd be wrong.[0] If you can provide timestamps or any sort of reference to backup your claim, as I have, that would help everyone. I'm not sure why you'd even respond if you're not going to bring any measurements or data.

>Also those results are old.

Yes, I was the first to point that out when I said they were from a few years ago, but still suggestive. The conclusion stands unless you have put together something as comprehensive for our review. I'd be happy to take a look at it since it sounds like you challenge the results. A comment on the internet is not good enough though to do that.

If you have all the hardware to test software vs QuickSync vs NVENC, put a video out there. Many would be very interested, but credibility matters and I fully trust Chris from Battle(non)sense on latency and IQ benchmarks as I've been watching his content and methods for years. Sweeping statements with no citations aren't enough to erase data. Not knowing the first thing about you, your competency or setup, my initial bet is that there's something wrong with your setup to possibly get worse results using software over NVENC. As I have also personally compared them, and my conclusions align with my Youtube source.

[0]https://youtu.be/ogNT6w4bzIs?t=694

If there are still selling out their supply then why should they lower their price?

Can't rely on nvidia not having supply forever

I mean, 6800 XT stock is sold out everywhere too. So if anything, AMD should have also raised prices.

I went to a local computer store (a big one) a few hours before they opened today. Was already a line waiting of around 150 people.

Did not get a gpu.

The rumor is that AMD shipped 200 GPUs for all of the UK

Source?

There were 150 people waiting in line before the store opened on a weekday? Do you think they were waiting for the latest AMD GPU or that they were trying to get a new console for the holidays?

There was 100+ people in line at my local micro center, for what couldn't have been more than 20 cards total across models. No was in line for anything but the chance to buy these cards.

These cards will be on top for at least a year.

Currently why would anyone buy AMD for $50 cheaper? You get nothing bundled with it and AMD's tricks are shit and their software is flaky.

+6 GBs of VRAM is a pretty solid spec.

There's some degree of worry that 10GB on the 3080 is not enough for the high-end games of the future. NVidia made a mistake leaving a huge gaping hole between the 10GB 3080 and the 24GB 3090.

A 6800 XT fills that hole with a nice little 16GB.

The VRAM is a plus but isn't AMDs compute performance and infrastructure pretty bad?

I want to like their cards but they just don't seem to be able to balance the seesaw across all fronts

Compute performance is fine. 20+ TFlops (or T-Integer ops) on 128MB L3 cache on 16GBs GDDR6. I don't think anyone can complain about the raw compute performance of these cards.

Infrastructure: yeah. Without ROCm support, its hard to recommend. You still get Windows DirectCompute, OpenCL, and Vulkan compute. But ROCm is much easier to use than those other frameworks.

---------

For compute: With 40 WGP x 4 SIMDs per WGP x 32 Threads per WGP x Occupany 4, you're probably aiming at 20,480 SIMD-threads if you're going to be using compute on this card.

Occupancy 20 is supported: 20-threads per VALU, kinda like hyperthreading although you split your registers between the threads. 20 is probably too much (too few VALUs per thread), but 1 is too few (you'll be waiting on VRAM latency). So 4 to 8 is an estimate for how much occupancy a typical program probably needs to hide memory latency.

Those 16GBs / 20kiloThreads == 780kB per thread. Sooooo... yeah. RAM goes quick... really quick... on compute applications. Compute programmers really want more VRAM.

I doubt it was a mistake. more likely an intentional 3080ti-sized hole in the lineup.

Open source drivers on Linux.

I was able to perform a minor tweak to the installer to make RTX voice install with my GTX 1080, so I'm a bit iffy on calling it a real "feature" of Nvidia's cards when they're clearly artificially restricting it in significant ways.

I mean, there's couple different things here. There's things where Nvidia has clearly provided emulation for certain features - I for instance play Watch Dogs Legion on my 1080Ti with Ray tracing enabled and it runs absolutely fine(because the ray tracing is being emulated in CUDA and the 1080Ti is enough of a beast to do it quickly enough), or there are things like DLSS which don't have emulation - and there is no known official or unofficial way to run them on non-RTX cards. So it's not just an artificial limitation made up by Nvidia.

DLSS it is absolutely just a lock-in technology that have nothing to do with hardware itself. It's just neural networks that are trained per-game and included with the driver.

Nvidia did almost the same thing for years by replacing game built-in shaders with their own optimized for their hardware. Whatever you feel it's good idea to support Nvidia for this or not it's up to you of course.

DLSS 2.0 is not trained per game. Won’t comment on the rest of what you said but we have been public about the fact that DLSS 2.0 is not trained per game.

If it wasn't trained per-game then Nvidia would just let you enable it for every game out there not just few new titles that still supported by developers.

Ugh......no, because it doesn't work without the data about temporal changes between frames being given to the driver, so no, it cannot be "just enabled for every game out there" - it does require specific support by the developer. I normally hate saying to people that they should just go and read more about it, but you should go and read more about it.

Okay I can be wrong. Do you have a good link that describe how it works? Otherwise I can't really guess what information driver could possibly need since it's already have all shaders and API calls.

Even if a bit of additional information is needed it'd be nice if this was made public and documented such that developers and modders could use it outside of those with tight nvidia deals.

Their website literally just says "contact your developer relations contact".

@SXX: They might want to QA the results on particular games even if not trained per game. And/or they may want the game publishers approval to meddle with how the game works/looks. And they possibly have royalty deals with the game publishers.

This is also possible, but problem with this QA and royalties is that it's the same PhysX situation all over again. Another lock-in tech that can only be used on Windows + Nvidia so it's barely going to be utilized.

And then can be broken with any patch, might not work with mods or modified shaders, etc.

They removed that check a few months ago themselves, it runs on all GTX GPUs now.

The point of that restriction was that RTX Voice would run on the tensor cores when gaming, not affecting gaming performance.

Try NoiseTorch. Don't run on GPU, but I not noticed any drop of gaming performance using it.

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