HBM or +6GB GDDR5 ?

With HBM and graphics cards drawing near, i found myself comparing this option with the rumored GTX 980Ti and i always end up with confusion... Why?!

HBM is obviously the next big thing for ram technology and is obviously way better than GDDR5 but consoles have a spacious DDR memory and publishers have clearly shown how much they care about pc ports, let alone AMD only R300+ owners. So i'm thinking that we might not benefit from this technology until it becomes the norm.. at least on pc.

Where is your stand on this matter? Are you rushing into the future? Or will you take it easy until the future becomes present?

Not heard of HBM before what it is?

Yea never heard of it either, wiki link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Bandwidth_Memory

Don't wait for new tech in PC's or you will always be waiting. If you want a new computer, build it. Just accept the fact that it will be outdated.

I don't think there have been any official announcements of a release time frame so there is still probably at least 6-9 months out for an release date announcement.

I wouldn't bother waiting for that and like someone said you will always be waiting for better hardware. What you could do is get a 970 or some other mid-range card which you can then sell and swap out for a high end video card that comes out in the future

The benefits of Any new tech take years to be taken advantage of by software and by the time it is there are going to be better revisions of that hardware.

Wait. Just buy the normal stuff unless your doing insane shit you can build a fucking supercomputer for 1600-1700 that can literally do whatever you want as long as your not trying to run stuff at 775 million resolution with 19 screens while streaming to twitch.

i7 4770k w/ GTX980 and 32gbs of ram and a 512 SSD, 2TB Data HD, 700w PSU if that doesn't satisfy your needs than your into production or an enthusiast with more money than sense.

I laughed for a very, very long time at this for some reason.

I imagine this is the exact scenario someone gaming in 2055 will be looking at. 20 monitors. 1 Billion Resolution. Streaming.

ALL THE PIXELS! But seriously glad someone was entertained by it.

If HBM is cheaper for AMD to make, great. But it's not going to help games much due to engine tech not really taking advantage of it. Just look at the R9 290/290x vs. the GTX 970 - the 970 has half the memory bandwidth of those cards, yet in the two most common resolutions - 1920x1080 and 2560x1440, the 970 matches or even beats them in raw fps. That faster memory bandwidth is only useful at 4K, which is what AMD is selling their cards on at the moment. But very few people are actually using 4K resolution. Remember when they put out 8GB versions of their top two cards last year selling them as 4K cards? Only a handful of people bothered to pick those up.

Any video card you buy is really only going to be viable for 2-3 years at this point. People with GTX 570s are struggling to run games that came out in the last few months at anything above medium settings, and the 660/670 are now the bottom end of the minimum specs for a lot of new games. HBM won't be the "norm" in the next 2-3 years, so I say just look at the frame-rate-per-dollar breakdown of the 380 vs the 980Ti (rumored names) when they launch and pick the one with the better value. Personally, I decided to go with a pair of 970s in SLI. The performance increase going from a 770 2GB to a single 970 was more than I expected, but adding a second one has been really surprising. Games I was struggling to run at 1080 with a consistent 60fps I can now run at 1620 with more than enough headroom to maintain a smooth frame rate. But obviously I paid for that performance.

Thanks everyone for your input. I'm just a causal pc gamer (as i have always been) who want his games to look their best on 1080p @ 60fps.

But i don't want my graphics card to show its age too soon (i.e. in the same year it is released). That's why my interest grew towards HBM and how it may affect the pc industry.

@rm082e: If it weren't for the big publishers' scary game recommendations then gtx 970 would have mine by now.

I was literally freaked out by the increasing demands.

Dont buy the hype. Those specs developers are pushing are completely wrong. Either that or they assume you are playing at 4k resolution while streaming/recording :P.

So was I when I read that The Evil Within and AC: Unity were demanding 4GB cards and GTX 680s were like the bare minimum specs. Turns out those games were just rushed and buggy as all hell. No amount of horsepower can compensate for shitty work on the development side - broken is broken weather you have a $5000 PC, or an $800 PC. :(

I think the GTX970 is really the only card to consider at this exact moment. The only question is, do you buy one now, buy two now, or wait a few more months and see if they come out with a 980 Ti when AMD puts out the 380/x? I think all three choices are perfectly viable depending on your situation.I don't think the 980 is really worth the high price point right now given it will likely drop to a more reasonable $450 if a 980 Ti is announced in the next couple of months. I also can't see going with the 290 or 290x at this moment unless you're way into Battlefield.

For 1080/60fps, I think the 970 is a great value at $350, but know that you might have to knock a few settings down (shadows, AA, weird custom stuff like "God Rays" in Ubisoft games, etc.) if you want to keep your frame rate smooth. The more stuff you turn on, the wider the delta between the min and max frame rates. I like to find a happy medium with those settings mentioned, but push Texture Quality, Tessellation, and Object Quality as high as possible. Basically, just don't get hung up on the phrase "maxed out" - it's not really worth much. When you get a game in front of you and flip back and forth between different settings, you'll find there are some that offer very little in terms of visual improvement, but the wreck your performance.

According to some tests, Godrays don't affect fps by more than 1-2. I also don't remember them doing much to my FPS in Far Cry 4

I'm thinking of AC4 specifically. Was it the smoke effects that hit the frame rate and not the God Rays?

Of course id take hot booty meat everytime.

Yeah, not so much at its release but after they patched in all the PhysX affected new effects including better smoke it made the game even more unplayable.

I'm taking a wait and see attitude to the new AMD cards. Still rocking my GTX 470 aw yeah.

@rm082e: Yeah, i'm waiting for this quarter releases for the reasons you mentioned (either buy something better or the current at a discounted price) .

When i thought about it ,i think that HBM might be a safer bet for late comers (If they perform really well as leaked) since nvidia is already planning on joining in as of next year .

@rollingzeppelin: Mine is hd6870 and its beginning to cough blood whenever i play one of the new games .Yesterday, i was playing evolve on low at 720p and my fps were at fifties but man what a great card this was to me .

Waiting a bit when near the end of a cycle is never bad because you'll get better prices on older cards or buy the latest and greatest when the new ones are out. As for tech NEVER buy into it their promises, we're still on 28 nm for GPU even though we were supposed to have moved on from it anytime in 2013. Both AMD and NV have really sucked with progress the last couple of years considering their prices. How I miss the 5850/GTX 460/470 prices......

The 6870 is a nice cared, I still have my 5870 2GB Eyefinity 6 and even though I'm not using in anything the power on the card still isn't too bad.

Looks like late spring or summer for the new AMD card, according to their CEO:

So AMD will release new GPUs and APUs in or after Q2 2015 "Going into the second quarter and the second half of the year with our new product launches, I think we feel very good about where we are positioned there," said Lisa Su, chief executive officer.

New AMD GPUs and APUs after March

So between April and July, though if you read all of her comments at the link, it sounds like the card will come after they launch this new APU.

On a related note, pictures of the new 12GB GM200 board just popped up last week. This is the board people are thinking is going to power the new Titan, and will likely get cut down to 6GB for a 980 Ti, should Nvidia feel they need to one-up AMD.

I still rock a GTX 580 and it is totally fine.

@rm082e: Yeah i've read this article today.

I really hope that the 4096 card is on track for Q2 line-up... *imagines its performance*... *drooling*

Both companies are bringing their big guns this year, HYPE!

@junkboy0: My 6870 is 1gb. I think that's why it's struggling with the "new gen" games since most games in list the vram in the game's recommendations instead of the cards named as we've been used to.