AMD cards always seem to be memory limited. Some of their older cards had 512-bit buses I think and it was just ridiculous how much overclocking memory helped then. And the irony is historically, AMD cards have shipped with more memory. Most of their mid range were hovering around 4GB when nvidia was still at 1.5GB.
NVIDIA can probably increase their clock speeds from what they launched at, as well. Their board partners will probably launch cards with more aggressive clocks to go along with the faster memory. So there will probably be a small but significant increase in performance, perhaps something coming close to what AMD achieves with their 500 series Polaris rebrands.
10% more bandwidth can result in 10% more performance, at best. that by itself is not noticeable, but if the price premium is at most 10%, it's a perfectly valid alternative to the current cards.
For the Pascal line-up, a 10% increase in memory speed resulted in about a 1% increase in performance. A 10% reduction in memory speed resulted in about a 1% reduction in performance.
I actually underclock my memory because a 10% reduction in frequency = 10% reduction in power and heat.
On the other hand, a 10% increase in GPU frequency results in about an 8% increase in performance. Totally worth it.
In 3 of 5 games benchmarked in 4k resolution the memory OC yielded about half as much performance as a comparable GPU OC. Sure, that's less, but far from the 1:8 ratio you suggest.
From what I see on the internet, the better quality 1060 cards (ASUS, MSI, maybe others) seem to be able to reach 9+ GHz with ease - or at least very many of them do. My 1060 Gaming X does 9.4 (a +700 offset to memory - can go as high as +780 before ECC errors, but prefer the slightly lower OC to be more certain about stability) - lucky I suppose, but it seems like it's not rare at all for these types of cards. I wondered why they don't all come with 9 GHz from the factory since it seems it's quite easy to achieve.
With a maximum OC there is no safety margin left. The manufacturer needs to provide more margin than a home user typically needs: they need to work at guaranteed extremly low error rates, at elevated temperatures for several years. So if they choose 9 Gbps at the factory, overclockers should reach anywhere between 9.5 and 10 Gbps.
Makes sense. But I think I rembember reading that these overbuilt 1060s had the same RAM chips as the 1070, just clocked lower (which probably explains the large OCs). So they probably more or less had it in them all along.
Are we going to see GTX 1070's with the faster RAM?
It will be interesting to see how these card perform especially considering the large performance gains that were seen from the modest overclocking of the previous RAM.
When is this new gtx 1080 launching? It said 20th-25th april everywhere i read but i don't see it for sale yet.. I only saw the MSI model but in europe :/ Anyone knows? I'm waiting for it to launch so i can buy it!
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Flunk - Tuesday, April 11, 2017 - link
I predict this will make no noticeable difference at all.lazarpandar - Tuesday, April 11, 2017 - link
For machine learning it should make a small difference.extide - Tuesday, April 11, 2017 - link
It would be nice to see an RX480 with 9Gbps ram as it seems to be pretty memory bottlenecked.ImSpartacus - Tuesday, April 11, 2017 - link
Yeah, and yet, all rumors point to the same old 8Gbps stuff in the 580...Samus - Wednesday, April 12, 2017 - link
AMD cards always seem to be memory limited. Some of their older cards had 512-bit buses I think and it was just ridiculous how much overclocking memory helped then. And the irony is historically, AMD cards have shipped with more memory. Most of their mid range were hovering around 4GB when nvidia was still at 1.5GB.Yojimbo - Tuesday, April 11, 2017 - link
NVIDIA can probably increase their clock speeds from what they launched at, as well. Their board partners will probably launch cards with more aggressive clocks to go along with the faster memory. So there will probably be a small but significant increase in performance, perhaps something coming close to what AMD achieves with their 500 series Polaris rebrands.MrSpadge - Tuesday, April 11, 2017 - link
10% more bandwidth can result in 10% more performance, at best. that by itself is not noticeable, but if the price premium is at most 10%, it's a perfectly valid alternative to the current cards.Diji1 - Wednesday, April 12, 2017 - link
Ten percent performance is noticeable in some situations.Meteor2 - Wednesday, April 12, 2017 - link
I would say most.bcronce - Wednesday, April 12, 2017 - link
For the Pascal line-up, a 10% increase in memory speed resulted in about a 1% increase in performance. A 10% reduction in memory speed resulted in about a 1% reduction in performance.I actually underclock my memory because a 10% reduction in frequency = 10% reduction in power and heat.
On the other hand, a 10% increase in GPU frequency results in about an 8% increase in performance. Totally worth it.
MrSpadge - Wednesday, April 12, 2017 - link
http://www.anandtech.com/show/10325/the-nvidia-gef...In 3 of 5 games benchmarked in 4k resolution the memory OC yielded about half as much performance as a comparable GPU OC. Sure, that's less, but far from the 1:8 ratio you suggest.
bcronce - Wednesday, April 12, 2017 - link
For the CPU bound games, yes. 3% gain on the high end, 1% typical.Yojimbo - Tuesday, April 11, 2017 - link
You have the 1070 launch price listed under the 1060 launch price field. The 1060 Founder's Edition launched for $299.AlMt - Tuesday, April 11, 2017 - link
From what I see on the internet, the better quality 1060 cards (ASUS, MSI, maybe others) seem to be able to reach 9+ GHz with ease - or at least very many of them do. My 1060 Gaming X does 9.4 (a +700 offset to memory - can go as high as +780 before ECC errors, but prefer the slightly lower OC to be more certain about stability) - lucky I suppose, but it seems like it's not rare at all for these types of cards. I wondered why they don't all come with 9 GHz from the factory since it seems it's quite easy to achieve.MrSpadge - Tuesday, April 11, 2017 - link
With a maximum OC there is no safety margin left. The manufacturer needs to provide more margin than a home user typically needs: they need to work at guaranteed extremly low error rates, at elevated temperatures for several years. So if they choose 9 Gbps at the factory, overclockers should reach anywhere between 9.5 and 10 Gbps.AlMt - Tuesday, April 11, 2017 - link
Makes sense. But I think I rembember reading that these overbuilt 1060s had the same RAM chips as the 1070, just clocked lower (which probably explains the large OCs). So they probably more or less had it in them all along.MrSpadge - Wednesday, April 12, 2017 - link
Yes, they have the same chips. But not clocked lower: 1070 and 1060 both have 8 Gbps GDDR5 stock. And both OC well.Diji1 - Wednesday, April 12, 2017 - link
Are we going to see GTX 1070's with the faster RAM?It will be interesting to see how these card perform especially considering the large performance gains that were seen from the modest overclocking of the previous RAM.
Wulfrig - Thursday, April 27, 2017 - link
When is this new gtx 1080 launching? It said 20th-25th april everywhere i read but i don't see it for sale yet.. I only saw the MSI model but in europe :/ Anyone knows? I'm waiting for it to launch so i can buy it!