GeForce + Radeon: Previewing DirectX 12 Multi-Adapter with Ashes of the Singularity
by Ryan Smith on October 26, 2015 10:00 AM ESTAshes GPU Performance: Single & Mixed 2012 GPUs
While Ashes’ mutli-GPU support sees solid performance gains with current-generation high-end GPUs, we wanted to see if those gains would extend to older DirectX 12 GPUs. To that end we’ve put the GeForce GTX 680 and the Radeon HD 7970 through a similar test, running the Ashes’ benchmark at 2560x1440 with Medium image quality and no MSAA.
First off, unlike our high-end GPUs there’s a distinct performance difference between our AMD and NVIDIA cards. The Radeon HD 7970 performs 22% better here, just averaging 30fps to the GTX 680’s 24.5fps. So right off the bat we’re entering an AFR setup with a moderately unbalanced set of cards.
Once we do turn on AFR, two very different things happen. The GTX 680 + HD 7970 setup is an outright performance regression, with performance 40% from the single GTX 680 Ti. On the other hand the HD 7970 + GTX 680 setup sees an unexpectedly good performance gain from AFR, picking up a further 55% to 46.4fps.
As this test is a smaller number of combinations it’s not clear where the bottlenecks are, but it’s none the less very interesting how we get such widely different results depending on which card is in the lead. In the GTX 680 + HD 7970 setup, either the GTX 680 is a bad leader or the HD 7970 is a bad follower, and this leads to this setup spinning its proverbial wheels. Otherwise letting the HD 7970 lead and GTX 680 follow sees a bigger performance gain than we would have expected for a moderately unbalanced setup with a pair of cards that were never known for their efficient PCIe data transfers. So long as you let the HD 7970 lead, at least in this case you could absolutely get away with a mixed GPU pairing of older GPUs.
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MobiusPizza - Monday, October 26, 2015 - link
It's the same shades that's why you can't distinguish between them. But you are not suppose to distinguish them by shades, but by the bar length! They correspond to different graphic quality profiles. The longest is obviously "Normal average", middle is "Medium average" and shortest the "Heavy average".jmke - Monday, October 26, 2015 - link
Ashes of the Singularity = Supreme Commander remake?wonder how it will compare, since SupCom is pretty much cream of the crop when it comes to large scale RTS
CaedenV - Monday, October 26, 2015 - link
This is rather impressive! Was thinking about updating my GPU this winter... but maybe my 'ol 570 can limp along a little longer to see how this technology shapes up. Perhaps getting 2 decent midrange cards from different vendors to get exclusive rendering tech would be a smarter move than getting a single high-end card.Manch - Monday, October 26, 2015 - link
or competing game bundles!Murloc - Monday, October 26, 2015 - link
it seems to me that it's a few years off...nos024 - Monday, October 26, 2015 - link
So...does that mean we can use Freesync or Gsync with this combo?extide - Monday, October 26, 2015 - link
It would probably depend on which card is the leader -- although there was a checkbox for FreeSync in the screenshot so, maybe the game has to support it? It's not entirely clear at the moment.Ryan Smith - Monday, October 26, 2015 - link
Yes, Ashes supports Freesync. It should probably support G-Sync as well, but only Freesync has been explicitly mentioned so far (and as you note, it's even a settings option).WaltC - Monday, October 26, 2015 - link
I should think this will soon filter-down into the engine-development area, where the engine that developers elect to use will support (or not) these nice capabilities. For the odd game that still requires a home-grown engine--yes, the impetus will be up to the developer.Refuge - Tuesday, October 27, 2015 - link
To be honest, this is exactly what I'm hoping happens.