From Fermi to Ampere – Ranking Nvidia’s GPU Generations

I think maxwell was a big step for NVidia due to efficiency. Pascal was a bigger delta in performance, but they preserved a lot of the efficiency changes they developed for the maxwell architecture.

SavageSMC

970 kid here, first built pc had strix model. Then pascal blew everything else away, i had to have 1070, since the upgrades seem like smaller jumps and as sff dood, these triple slot coolers blow....Im rocking 3080 fe and as well machine as it is and kool it stays, flow through is a btich to build around.

Mang0 Bandit0

Pacsal no doubt.

Roy Ackerman

Maybe it's just because my GTX 670 was the first GPU I bought with my own money, but as badly as Kepler has aged, the fact that they moved basically the whole scheduler to software in one generation impresses me a lot.

qhfreddy

@SuperCrepen the Ampere FE coolers looked uh cool, but are a PITA to take apart to replace a dead fan, repaste, or replace thermal pads. So Nvidia's coolers for me are a reason to buy an AIB card. AMD coolers - well if the keep the card cool and are easy to maintain, then they're fine by me.

PostRetroism

What do you guys think about Nvidia's coolers over the years? I have always wandered why Nvidia makes these fancy cooler designs with nuts and bolts and windows, while AMD seems to just make a cheap plastic shroud and call it a day. The difference between Ampere and RDNA2 in this regard is massive, with Ampere having a sexy, sleek and innovative cooler while AMD's frankly look like shit. I have a GTX 980 and have always admired the sleek blower design with a window and other nice details, but every time I see an AMD reference cooler, the look like a black rectangle with some red on it. What do you guys think is the reason for this?

From my perspective, Pascal was the best Nvidia generation. For me, going from a GTX 750 Ti to a GTX 1070 made a world of difference back in 2017. The post-mining crash price drops in 2018 also made it really affordable for most people. You can see it still dominating the Steam Hardware charts even 6 years after launch.

kjm015

My other post was a bit irrelevant to the discussion at hand, so here's another. I've noticed a preponderance of gamers in my social circle that bought into Pascal with the 1070 and 1070Ti, and most of them still aren't even interested in upgrading. Given how those cards perform, their 8GB VRAM allotments and the low prices they were often found for after the 2017-2018 crypto spike, do you think they represented a sweet spot in the market that's still relevant today?

Mozria

I think Fermi was the last time Nvidia truly tried (before Ampere). Granted the GTX 480 was cut down but these were purely for yield reasons. I felt after that Nvidia had a decent performance or efficiency advantage, oftentimes both so we never truly got their best foot forward after Fermi and gamers ate that all up which is where we're on a 83/17 split. It was truly a bad snowball effect for AMD post Fermi even despite some wins they had along the way. Despite this I often stuck with AMD because the value was insane. What do you guys think?

CompressedAIBlocks

How would you compare price per performance or even performance per watt with GPUs going as far back as Fermi? Looking back, trying to compare 70 tier GPUs from Fermi (215W) to Ampere (250W). Is it worth the higher power consumption for the amount of performance you do get?

Treble Sketch