It's been mentioned there's like 300K rigs that have multi-GPU (from steam survey? I dont recall).. but still, some of them have 4 GPUs, so there's potential there for a lot of high end GPUs to sell.
It's a niche yes, but a pretty big one and big margins for GPU makers. Its obviously worth it why is why SLI & CF keep on being supported and improved upon.
And if the Nano offers you 90% of the performance, and expands your case options?
It yet again proves to be the better product, plus still having most likely better margins.
There are tons of SLI/CFX users that will continue to use air cooled cards, for reasons. And they (I'd argue) outnumber users that will go the extra mile to secure an CLC.
Then you got people who are going to use their own loops in this equation where the CLC just basically goes to waste.
If it could OC, it'd be great. But I think it's simple. They thought it would be a better clocked card well at the start. The team has a new CMO that started last year. They've laid the groundwork for their high end series. They had to work with what they had.
This is very reasonable, which just supports my thoughts that it seems Fury X is destined to be the red-headed step child.
It's a good start for AMD. They dispelled one MASSIVE issue they had, which was that all of their cards run hot.
Arctic Islands should just build on what they have.
Not really...Fury X got a black eye from the noise from multiple reviewers and users. If anything Fury with the Sapphire cooler dispelled the most complaints against AMD hardware. We had a user here go through I believe 3 Fury X's only to finally get a Fury.
So next time around, you'll see $650 WC high end card (That can actually OC as I doubt we'll see 2 dud OC chips in a row).
$650 Air cooled tiny chip that is completely silent, but still stupidly fast.
down the line etc.
I seriously doubt this, again because the Fury X's original price got impacted by GTX 980 Ti. (Which is what I was trying to argue with you in the other thread.) If 980 Ti didn't exist, there was nothing stopping Fury X from being $700-750 and with that Nano being the same price.
AMD can set a reputation now doing a complete 180 degrees and try to establish themselves as cool/quiet. And really, they are making it HARD to get a very very loud chip.
I doubt they will. Not if they're going to chase after Nvidia's price premium. At least not with what is left of this generation. You got a chip that is marginally smaller, using more transistors, AND STILL comes out being hotter and using more power to lose in most resolutions/tests. And if it is true that DX12 increases load usage due to the chips having less idle portions, that's just going to increase power consumption and heat.
If DX12 launches off well for AMD at the start, and AMD has Fury X in volume in December with a DX12 game bundle and DX12 performance lead?
AMD can establish themselves as the cool/quiet/performance king. Which is what I think they had wanted to do all along with Fury X, it just wasn't fast enough at launch and the OC dream was just a really really really dumb misstep.
Now we're back on the "what if's" and "wait and see" mentallity that got AMD in this hole to begin with. They need to act NOW. Nvidia already showed us multiple times when the new API is the standard they will act, and them acting has demolished AMD's fanfare almost every single time. They can launch with this DX12 advantage all they want, and if you have 290X == 980 Ti in some games, you'll probably see what has been happening for some time - AMD users sitting on their cards longer. If hwen the next set of cards from both come out and NV delivers their counter and it's better - what did the DX12 advantage serve? Just like the tessellation advantage? Or the GDDR5 advantage? Or the unified shader advantage?
It's painfully clear though, AMD wants to establish they are cool/quiet, because they are being very careful with who is making the cards and they themselves have now opted to make the Fury X, and R9 Nano, to be wildly different/premium coolers from what we've seen previously on high end reference cards.
This part of AMDs strategy at least seems clear to me.
It just tells me AMD's chips are still hotter and they are at least addressing that issue. Without Nano temp info, I don't know how good that cooler will be but I'm going on their slide of "library quiet" which I assume it means it is adequate and quiet - just another black eye to Fury X.
If arctic islands continues a $650 high end card with CLC, that's where my money will go.
And I honestly think you're going to be disappointed because it seems you continue to acknowledge what Nvidia did with their 980 Ti.
If I had to guess, we won't see CLC on any card from the vendor - only the AIB custom options and at that with a nice premium over the air versions. There is no reason for AMD nor Nvidia to lose margins on this.