Nvidia are being bad again

[Deleted]

Just as an addition to prove you how wrong you are.

I don't see how this proves me wrong. On the contrary - the fact that a group of semi-professional Linux geeks was able to craft a driver that outperforms what AMD was working on for years proves that they were doing something awfully bad. It's a massive GZ for the community for making this come true, but it's definitely not the AMD's achievement.

[Evildeffy]

I've been an electrical engineering student for 4 years now, I know what an electrical engineering degree is.

Still, I don't remember Buildzoid having an EE degree. And a quick google search about it didn't exactly give me anything that would make me believe he does have one.
I did however, find people saying that he is just an enthusiast overclocker without any formal education. Which isn't exactly convincing either, they could just be misinformed.

It's not exactly like it matters, but if you do have anything that would be able to back up your statement please link it.

Ugh reddit... I believe he stated it in one of his videos but I cannot be arsed finding that one.
For his knowledge the guy rambles on way too long in his videos and is annoying as hell.

Regardless for this point ignore him and look at other reviewers that go into the PCB board analysis, they'll answer the same thing.

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I don't see how this proves me wrong. On the contrary - the fact that a group of semi-professional Linux geeks was able to craft a driver that outperforms what AMD was working on for years proves that they were doing something awfully bad. It's a massive GZ for the community for making this come true, but it's definitely not the AMD's achievement.

Except that it's not just some random Linux guy doing it, but a team of them as well as AMD engineers themselves.
Good try though.

[Deleted]

I don't see how this proves me wrong. On the contrary - the fact that a group of semi-professional Linux geeks was able to craft a driver that outperforms what AMD was working on for years proves that they were doing something awfully bad. It's a massive GZ for the community for making this come true, but it's definitely not the AMD's achievement.

It's been done by professional developers hired by mostly AMD and Valve as well as skilled enthusiasts that contributed to this driver, opengl implementation(mesa) and vulkan driver.
It does proves your statement wrong. The one where you claimed that AMD is no competition to nvidia on linux when in fact they are. Their gpus are very competitive(sometimes outright smashing nvidia) to their respective counterpart of competitor. It is also worth mentioning that amd drivers do often work better with non native games on linux - for example running gallium nine state tracker is not doable on nvidia propriety driver (or intel for that matter).

[Vash The Stampede]

I don't see how this proves me wrong. On the contrary - the fact that a group of semi-professional Linux geeks was able to craft a driver that outperforms what AMD was working on for years proves that they were doing something awfully bad. It's a massive GZ for the community for making this come true, but it's definitely not the AMD's achievement.

The RadeonSI driver is developed by mostly AMD. You have some from Valve, and some from RedHat, and etc. But Nvidia doesn't have this. Mind you it took a few years for the drivers to get like this, but in that time AMD had thrown more developers at it. Intel is no different, and in fact Intel's Sandy Bridge GPU's have Vulkan support and OpenGL 4.2 support on Linux, while on Windows there's no Vulkan and only OpenGL 4.0. Only Skylake or higher gets all the bells and whistles in Windows. AMD also has two vulkan drivers, RADV and AMDVLK. RADV is a derivative of the Vulkan driver on Intel, while AMDVLK is built by AMD themselves.

It's just that open source is far better than closed. As mentioned by @larix, AMD drivers use Gallium and therefore can enjoy such features like Gallium-Nine. Meanwhile Nouveau has like no support from Nvidia. They still can't get the clock speeds correct on Maxwell cards, let alone worry about driver performance.

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You understand that if AMD dies, NVIDIA has nothing to prevent them from releasing products with cheap technological improvement and increase the price as they want since they have no competitor?

A lot of people are overlooking how Ryzen has magically made 4 cores the lowest common denominator. Before, Intel's dual core chips were half of what was sold in PCs. Literally half of gaming PCs on Steam use dual core. Suddenly an i5 is no longer restricted to 4 core 4 threads. Still no hyperthreading.

[lummiuster]

The RadeonSI driver is developed by mostly AMD. You have some from Valve, and some from RedHat, and etc. But Nvidia doesn't have this. Mind you it took a few years for the drivers to get like this, but in that time AMD had thrown more developers at it. Intel is no different, and in fact Intel's Sandy Bridge GPU's have Vulkan support and OpenGL 4.2 support on Linux, while on Windows there's no Vulkan and only OpenGL 4.0. Only Skylake or higher gets all the bells and whistles in Windows. AMD also has two vulkan drivers, RADV and AMDVLK. RADV is a derivative of the Vulkan driver on Intel, while AMDVLK is built by AMD themselves.

It's just that open source is far better than closed. As mentioned by @larix, AMD drivers use Gallium and therefore can enjoy such features like Gallium-Nine. Meanwhile Nouveau has like no support from Nvidia. They still can't get the clock speeds correct on Maxwell cards, let alone worry about driver performance.

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A lot of people are overlooking how Ryzen has magically made 4 cores the lowest common denominator. Before, Intel's dual core chips were half of what was sold in PCs. Literally half of gaming PCs on Steam use dual core. Suddenly an i5 is no longer restricted to 4 core 4 threads. Still no hyperthreading.

Doesn't matter, with no competitor, they have no reason to focus on improvement and to not increase the prices.

[Denpepe]

Doesn't matter, with no competitor, they have no reason to focus on improvement and to not increase the prices.

People will stop buying when the prices get out of control, it's already happening, it may not show too well due to the miners buying most of the cards, but lot's of gamers are waiting on a price drop or moving on to consoles or a different hobby.

Which does not mean they wont make things more expensive but once you go over a certain treshold you wont sell much or anything at all anymore. Look at apple with their new iPhonex, sales of that are pretty terrible.

[lummiuster]

People will stop buying when the prices get out of control, it's already happening, it may not show too well due to the miners buying most of the cards, but lot's of gamers are waiting on a price drop or moving on to consoles or a different hobby.

Which does not mean they wont make things more expensive but once you go over a certain treshold you wont sell much or anything at all anymore. Look at apple with their new iPhonex, sales of that are pretty terrible.

Well they aint stupid. They will make a study to evalate the appropriate price increase so that they have best income and people keep buying. WoW addicts needs their drug, if one has a broken pc, he won't be waiting more than a year if he knows the price won't change.

[Vash The Stampede]

Well they aint stupid. They will make a study to evalate the appropriate price increase so that they have best income and people keep buying. WoW addicts needs their drug, if one has a broken pc, he won't be waiting more than a year if he knows the price won't change.

Fortunately, WoW isn't a very GPU intensive game. It's games like Fortnight and PUBG that are pushing people to buy GPU's now.

[Gaidax]

Cause people want to defend the Nvidia Master Race. Nvidia performs no sins in their eyes. Quick lets run into some glass houses and throw some stones. Let me tell you about a tale of how my 5th AMD card got burnt, but this one Nvidia card is amazing. Give it a lick, tastes just like mountain dew.

Meanwhile the last video card that I have ever seen go south was four years ago when my Radeon HD 6750 was taken out by my new Gigabyte motherboard. Driver problems was something I worried about back when Vista was new.

I think it's much simpler - like it or not Nvidia simply offers equal or better gaming experience at every price point. They have their market share because they actually do make great stuff, while Radeon Graphics makes hell knows what last several years.

This is especially true in high end more lucrative brands where AMD simply has no leg to stand on, but also in laptops where just about every laptop that has dedicated GPU - sources it from Nvidia.

MSI pretty much bluntly said just that - AMD has no place in their premium brand because Nvidia are just better. AMD needs some sort of breakthrough if they want it to change, but right now it makes little sense to slap their most premium brands on shitty midrange solution from some underdog.

And yes - Nvidia play dirty, but on the other hand - it's not like they tell OEMs not to sell Radeon based solutions - they just don't want to mix brands, which, IMO, is legitimate.

[Life-Binder]

i dont have any problem with AMD and we need them around, even their GPU division

i do heavily favor Nvidias products however ever since Maxwell (and before that - the 8800GT days)



but most AMD "fans" are an absolute cancer and blight upon tech sites/forums, they make it their living to not only worship AMD (m-muh underdog), but also bash Intel/Nvidia 24/7

[Planetdune]

Good riddance... I am amazed AMD/ATI still exists after so many years of inferior products compared to Intel/Nvidia.. ok.. they are cheaper but even as a kid I always saved just a little longer so that I could afford a good Intel CPU over a AMD..

Also less diversion in the PC gaming market means more optimization and better performance.

[Evildeffy]

Good riddance... I am amazed AMD/ATI still exists after so many years of inferior products compared to Intel/Nvidia.. ok.. they are cheaper but even as a kid I always saved just a little longer so that I could afford a good Intel CPU over a AMD..

Also less diversion in the PC gaming market means more optimization and better performance.

Even though this topic was in general about GPUs and not CPUs (which would invalidate your points) your last statement is exactly the opposite of what would happen.
Do you like your 18 core Skylake-X CPUs and your 6 core Coffee Lake CPUs?

Do you think you'd have either of those TODAY and not in 4 more years if AMD wasn't here with Ryzen?

If you want them to die off it'll be the death of any affordable PCs, think about that properly for a minute.

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I think it's much simpler - like it or not Nvidia simply offers equal or better gaming experience at every price point. They have their market share because they actually do make great stuff, while Radeon Graphics makes hell knows what last several years.

TECHNICALLY this is incorrect, the RX 570 and RX 580 are better price/performance than their equivalent cards.... IF they were available for their MSRP. (remember... 50 USD cheaper, same performance)
But at this point nothing is available at MSRP ... and AMD even less because of their compute superiority in general, so you are correct at this time until prices return to normal.
Whether that'll anytime soon though... I doubt it.

This is especially true in high end more lucrative brands where AMD simply has no leg to stand on, but also in laptops where just about every laptop that has dedicated GPU - sources it from Nvidia.

True but until Ryzen shrinking they stopped for the most part because it'd be an exercise in futility... let's face it the Bulldozer uArch was garbage and they knew it and that's why there wasn't any FX series beyond the 2nd iteration.
GFX is even harder though ... I expect nVidia to have a lot of issues going forward if the Titan V is anything to go by.
AMD couldn't make less power hungry cards because of their uArch GPU designs with Hardware Schedulers ... nVidia has implemented the same on the Titan V.
If their consumer line upholds the same design in the future than chances are likely (unless they decide to refresh/evolve Pascal) they'll run into the same graphics thermal barriers as AMD has.
Quite curious to see this though.

MSI pretty much bluntly said just that - AMD has no place in their premium brand because Nvidia are just better. AMD needs some sort of breakthrough if they want it to change, but right now it makes little sense to slap their most premium brands on shitty midrange solution from some underdog.

Pulling the quote out of context a little bit here, they said it about RX Vega 56/64, which I could actually agree with, but the RX 500 range isn't bad at all.
The GTX 1050/1050Ti/1060 is also in that branding range, should they be removed as well?

And yes - Nvidia play dirty, but on the other hand - it's not like they tell OEMs not to sell Radeon based solutions - they just don't want to mix brands, which, IMO, is legitimate.

No they just tell them to remove their gaming brand from it so they can take it as their own pretty much and not advertise the other cards as gaming cards.
That's not a problem I have with to AMD but from nVidia itself as it's honestly theft of the branding name from a manufacturer (be they ASUS, MSI or GigaByte f.ex.) under duress of not getting the "incentives/benefits" of the GPP.
If they are/were allowed a separate gaming branding such as MSI Gaming X Serpent Series (nVidia) and MSI Gaming X Dragon Series (AMD) ... honestly that wouldn't be bad.
But right now it's a dick move from nVidia to their AIBs more than anything else.

I've been contemplating of getting an MSI GTX 1080 Ti Gaming X Trio card and selling off my last remaining AMD card (MSI Radeon R9 390X Gaming 8G) but when one has no job and with the stupid prices of today's market... the struggle is real

[unbound]

Not good behavior, but also not particularly uncommon either.

iPhones were only on AT&T initially is the easiest consumer version of this approach. Strategic partnerships are pretty common...there is a reason you only see Coke or only see Pepsi products at certain chain restaurants, and why certain brands of computers always come with the same garbage software installed by default.

[Gaidax]

Even though this topic was in general about GPUs and not CPUs (which would invalidate your points) your last statement is exactly the opposite of what would happen.
Do you like your 18 core Skylake-X CPUs and your 6 core Coffee Lake CPUs?

Do you think you'd have either of those TODAY and not in 4 more years if AMD wasn't here with Ryzen?

If you want them to die off it'll be the death of any affordable PCs, think about that properly for a minute.

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TECHNICALLY this is incorrect, the RX 570 and RX 580 are better price/performance than their equivalent cards.... IF they were available for their MSRP. (remember... 50 USD cheaper, same performance)
But at this point nothing is available at MSRP ... and AMD even less because of their compute superiority in general, so you are correct at this time until prices return to normal.
Whether that'll anytime soon though... I doubt it.

True but until Ryzen shrinking they stopped for the most part because it'd be an exercise in futility... let's face it the Bulldozer uArch was garbage and they knew it and that's why there wasn't any FX series beyond the 2nd iteration.
GFX is even harder though ... I expect nVidia to have a lot of issues going forward if the Titan V is anything to go by.
AMD couldn't make less power hungry cards because of their uArch GPU designs with Hardware Schedulers ... nVidia has implemented the same on the Titan V.
If their consumer line upholds the same design in the future than chances are likely (unless they decide to refresh/evolve Pascal) they'll run into the same graphics thermal barriers as AMD has.
Quite curious to see this though.


Pulling the quote out of context a little bit here, they said it about RX Vega 56/64, which I could actually agree with, but the RX 500 range isn't bad at all.
The GTX 1050/1050Ti/1060 is also in that branding range, should they be removed as well?


No they just tell them to remove their gaming brand from it so they can take it as their own pretty much and not advertise the other cards as gaming cards.
That's not a problem I have with to AMD but from nVidia itself as it's honestly theft of the branding name from a manufacturer (be they ASUS, MSI or GigaByte f.ex.) under duress of not getting the "incentives/benefits" of the GPP.
If they are/were allowed a separate gaming branding such as MSI Gaming X Serpent Series (nVidia) and MSI Gaming X Dragon Series (AMD) ... honestly that wouldn't be bad.
But right now it's a dick move from nVidia to their AIBs more than anything else.

I've been contemplating of getting an MSI GTX 1080 Ti Gaming X Trio card and selling off my last remaining AMD card (MSI Radeon R9 390X Gaming 8G) but when one has no job and with the stupid prices of today's market... the struggle is real

Who cares what "technically" is correct? People deal with reality, not with some worthless price guidance nobody adheres to and the reality is that AMD simply has no tangible advantages whatsoever over Nvidia not in performance and not in price. The only unfair advantage (which is a positive thing they can capitalize on) they have is Freesync, but IMO it's a weak advantage. Nvidia on the other hand offers maximum compatibility with all newest titles by the grace of the fact that they both push GameWorks hard and developers test their shit on Nvidia first and foremost anyway because that's what most people use (and laptops play a huge role here, btw).

Nvidia simply has tangible technological and features lead over AMD and it can call the shots because it has a symbiotic relationship with OEMs - Nvidia does not do non-reference stuff and give OEMs freedom to wrap their stuff as they see fit, but flipside, I think it's only fair it demands OEMs to have their own brand of stuff, which is likely what this is all about - naturally OEMs took their best brands and used for that purpose as opposed to making some new unestablished brand.

So let's make this straight here - It's not like Nvidia came to Asus and told them ROG Strix from now on is Nvidia brand, they told them - we want separate brand for our products so our shit is not mixed with AMD - take your pick what it is. And of course it will be ROG Strix, because Asus is interested to use their premium brand for premium products which happen to be based on Nvidia because AMD blows balls last several years.


As a service for you - I came from Radeon 290X, which I switched to 1080Ti, so pretty much same boat as you (390X is Rebrandeon of 290X with small boost). 1080Ti is outright amazing and can handle everything you want - I use 1440p Gsync screen and you will have 90+ FPS in just about every modern title nowadays with maxed out settings, I use it for almost a year soon, got it as soon as it was out in proper ROG Strix OC package, so far 0 issues and it delivers.

That said - consider waiting couple of months because Volta (or whatever it will be named for consumer plebs) is imminent and their hardware ray tracing hype may end up being real and from my understanding 1080Ti won't do it. Since GPU is something you buy for 3 years plus - I'd suggest to wait for the new 2080 non-Ti and get it - I am pretty sure it will be at least 1080Ti level, but cheaper and with that ray tracing shizzle in it.

[Life-Binder]

no point geting Pascal now

next-gen GeForce should be out this year with at least the GTX 2080 .. 2080Ti will be next year


a new "gaming Titan" (like a more expensive, early access, 2080Ti @ ~$1200-1500 price) could also be out this year

[mrgreenthump]

but most AMD "fans" are an absolute cancer and blight upon tech sites/forums, they make it their living to not only worship AMD (m-muh underdog), but also bash Intel/Nvidia 24/7

So your choice is to combat them knowing their points are silly, rather than be better?

[Remilia]

Not good behavior, but also not particularly uncommon either.

iPhones were only on AT&T initially is the easiest consumer version of this approach. Strategic partnerships are pretty common...there is a reason you only see Coke or only see Pepsi products at certain chain restaurants, and why certain brands of computers always come with the same garbage software installed by default.

Exclusivity isn't the problem, it's how that exclusivity is attained. For iPhone in your example, Apple can ask if they wish to have partnership with AT&T may provide support and expertise for the product, that's normal. Now the problem would be if Apple told AT&T that they can't advertise Samsung phones as phones and have it in a corner that no one will see otherwise they'd pull their product. That's the problem because that's essentially what's going on.

The GPP program as reported would force the AIBs that don't sign by their terms not have access to early tech engagement, launch partner status, engineering help, marketing, game bundles and so on. The problem isn't really the marketing funds and game bundle. It's the first 3. An AIB being withheld chips cause they don't sign up is essentially extortion cause that significantly hurts their ability to bring a product to market. It takes a months just to get these things up for testing, and that'll take a bit more. So for example if Asus didn't sign up, they'd get no help and has to figure out everything on their own on an entirely new product. They wouldn't get launch access and early development for the new GPUs. Then once launch happens, Gigabyte, MSI, EVGA, Palit, whatever that does sign up would launch day 1. Asus would be behind 6 months just to get the product out to market.
As quoted https://www.hardocp.com/article/2018...onsumer_choice

NVIDIA will tell you that it is 100% up to its partner company to be part of GPP, and from the documents I have read, if it chooses not to be part of GPP, it will lose the benefits of GPP which include: high-effort engineering engagements -- early tech engagement -- launch partner status -- game bundling -- sales rebate programs -- social media and PR support -- marketing reports -- Marketing Development Funds (MDF).

As for anti trust laws are concerned.
This would be the more pertinent one since this subject is about branding and advertising.
https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/comp...reements-among

Agreements to restrict advertising

Truthful advertising is important in a free market system because it helps consumers compare the price and quality of products offered by competing suppliers. The FTC Act itself prohibits advertising that is false or deceptive, and the FTC vigorously enforces this standard to empower consumers to make choices in the marketplace. Competitor restrictions on the amount or content of advertising that is truthful and not deceptive may be illegal if evidence shows the restrictions have anticompetitive effects and lack reasonable business justifications.

There's also this
https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/comp...t/refusal-deal

In general, a firm has no duty to deal with its competitors. In fact, imposing obligations on a firm to do business with its rivals is at odds with other antitrust rules that discourage agreements among competitors that may unreasonably restrict competition. But courts have, in some circumstances, found antitrust liability when a firm with market power refused to do business with a competitor. For instance, if the monopolist refuses to sell a product or service to a competitor that it makes available to others, or if the monopolist has done business with the competitor and then stops, the monopolist needs a legitimate business reason for its policies.

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To add on, the terms and conditions of agreement is pretty shit also.
http://www.nvidia.com/object/partnerforce-terms.html

Basically plaster Nvidia shit where an Nvidia product is displayed, that's kind of whatever.

Any problems arise, it's yours to deal with Nvidia holds no liability.

You must be the one to provide support. Nvidia has no obligation to provide software support (like BIOS and drivers, also wat).

You must purchase at minimum a set amount on a regular basis as determined by their agreement. Basically you must buy x amount of chips.

Anything that happens it's not Nvidia's fault, even if the chip literally explodes. Admittedly this one is the most useless clause cause it's the easiest to overturn if found negligent or knowingly.

There's some other stuff that's just general boring ToS stuff.

[datbasedgrl]

Welcome to capitalism? You won't lose any profits being immoral.

[Planetdune]

no point geting Pascal now

next-gen GeForce should be out this year with at least the GTX 2080 .. 2080Ti will be next year


a new "gaming Titan" (like a more expensive, early access, 2080Ti @ ~$1200-1500 price) could also be out this year

There is ALWAYS something "coming out if you wait another x" ... if you wait until whatever that is, is finally out, the next thing is on the horizon..

[Evildeffy]

Who cares what "technically" is correct? People deal with reality, not with some worthless price guidance nobody adheres to and the reality is that AMD simply has no tangible advantages whatsoever over Nvidia not in performance and not in price. The only unfair advantage (which is a positive thing they can capitalize on) they have is Freesync, but IMO it's a weak advantage. Nvidia on the other hand offers maximum compatibility with all newest titles by the grace of the fact that they both push GameWorks hard and developers test their shit on Nvidia first and foremost anyway because that's what most people use (and laptops play a huge role here, btw).

Then facing reality is here:
Before going up in this Cryptocurrency mining craze the AMD X 500 cards were available and were cheaper than their nVidia counterparts.
This reality gives them a definite price/performance advantage because it was equal performance in general games for about 50 USD cheaper.
Then if you want to get really technical they have the technological advantage as well because any game properly built on DX12/Vulkan runs considerably better on that hardware and the fact that AMD has the more "advanced" uArch.
The difference here is that nVidia throws money at developers with GameWorks which is by all means a blight upon the gaming world as it brings nothing good to the scene other than issues for both nVidia (but to a lesser degree) and AMD.
Developers testing everything on nVidia first though is a complete myth and is only true if sponsored by them, same for AMD.
If you want to get REALLY technical it's mostly tested on AMD due to the nature of most games being ports from consoles to PC and guess what GPU is used in those, your compatibility statement is grossly inaccurate and using GameWorks as a graceful reason for it is honestly bad.

Nvidia simply has tangible technological and features lead over AMD and it can call the shots because it has a symbiotic relationship with OEMs - Nvidia does not do non-reference stuff and give OEMs freedom to wrap their stuff as they see fit, but flipside, I think it's only fair it demands OEMs to have their own brand of stuff, which is likely what this is all about - naturally OEMs took their best brands and used for that purpose as opposed to making some new unestablished brand.

Ok I'm going to have to split this one up here.

1. Technological lead? No, not really.. in pure technological terms AMD is actually ahead.. which is also it's problem, it brings something new to the table and developers tend to be lazy and not exploit it because of whatever reasons. A LOT of developers were screaming for low level access APIs for years and now that it's here they CBA dealing with it right now but "eventually".

2. Features lead? If you count GameWorks as a "feature" ... actually even then still not since the same technologies are open source and free to use from AMD's own developer site. The difference here is that nVidia PAYS developers to use them. This is not a features lead.

3. Wait... what? nVidia does not do non-reference stuff? Are you kidding me? nVidia is FAR more restrictive in what it allows AIBs to do with their GPUs than AMD.
They have to certify every model coming out, including actual design schematics, before the AIB partners are allowed to sell them.
MSI violated this agreement in the GTX 600 series by adding a Resistor to increase Voltage to the GPU, that's why they were considerably ahead of others back then... nVidia found this out and fined/punished them for this ... I honestly do not understand why you would say what you did.
And then the last part about it being about the AIBs choosing this out of their own volition? Wow...
It's not out of their own volition at all, it's forced upon them, if it were out of their own volition every single brand would talk to people asking about the GPP from the media outlets, the fact that none of them will in fear of retaliation/reprisal means it's not voluntary, it is forced.

So let's make this straight here - It's not like Nvidia came to Asus and told them ROG Strix from now on is Nvidia brand, they told them - we want separate brand for our products so our shit is not mixed with AMD - take your pick what it is. And of course it will be ROG Strix, because Asus is interested to use their premium brand for premium products which happen to be based on Nvidia because AMD blows balls last several years.

Actually no... that's EXACTLY what they did as the rule is "Must exclusively align their gaming brand with GeForce" .. so yes it IS stealing the AIBs branding, you can clearly see this happening (and from the previous point of CHOICE on branding name) overnight where all vendors stopped them in their line.
There's a reason why the only GPP answers given were "This is likely illegal and will heavily restrict consumer choice" from the AIBs themselves.

If they DON'T agree to this then they don't get game bundles, early samples and help with engineering, marketing development funds, amount of GPUs allotted ... etc.
This is extortion, not choice and a simple "Give me your branding or suffer the consequences" tactics of play.
It is foul and a massive dick move to AIBs and they aren't happy about it and the whole "You don't HAVE to go along with it" is a farce as it simply means not getting anything at all ... the AIBs have no choice in this matter which is why it's so bad.

I'm sure someone can link you to the ludicrous statement of GigaByte saying that the RX 580 is not a gaming card...
AMD has been absent in the high-end arena for a while and I do agree with the last part of the quote there with you but anything mid-range from AMD certainly does not blow balls/suck and nor did they with the R9 200/300 series in general.
The R9 Fury (X) and RX Vega I agree were massive disappointments but I'm not going to demerit an entire company for their lack of high-end when their mid-range are ACTUALLY good.
My R9 390X in the far to scarcely existing Vulkan/DX12 (PROPER Vulkan/DX12, not afterthought Vulkan/DX12) games performs above the GTX 980 Ti and close to the GTX 1070 ... how can you call that a disappointment seeing as that IS the way we're going.

As a service for you - I came from Radeon 290X, which I switched to 1080Ti, so pretty much same boat as you (390X is Rebrandeon of 290X with small boost). 1080Ti is outright amazing and can handle everything you want - I use 1440p Gsync screen and you will have 90+ FPS in just about every modern title nowadays with maxed out settings, I use it for almost a year soon, got it as soon as it was out in proper ROG Strix OC package, so far 0 issues and it delivers.

That said - consider waiting couple of months because Volta (or whatever it will be named for consumer plebs) is imminent and their hardware ray tracing hype may end up being real and from my understanding 1080Ti won't do it. Since GPU is something you buy for 3 years plus - I'd suggest to wait for the new 2080 non-Ti and get it - I am pretty sure it will be at least 1080Ti level, but cheaper and with that ray tracing shizzle in it.

I know the difference between an R9 390X and GTX 1080Ti .. I've built, worked and tested them for a lot of builds.
I know their horse power and potential hence why I was considering it.

But like I said when not having a job and no money getting any graphics card right now is a struggle.
Regarding Ray Tracing from the details I've read so far it will live off of low level access on a GPU meaning that VERY LIKELY the current and prior gen AMD cards will have this feature enabled with Vulkan and DXR where nVidia will restrict it to Volta as noted prior ... nVidia simply cannot do low level as well as AMD.
And since Volta is actually (guessing based off what we've seen with the Titan V!) more like an AMD designed card in terms of uArch ... it's likely why they restrict it.

I have no rush right now in any case till I job anyway and I kinda want to replace a few things:
https://www.msi.com/Monitor/Optix-MPG27CQ * 2 f.ex. along with the graphics card.
I need a new phone as well, I like my OnePlus One but it's getting old, even though it's still seriously snappy comparatively.
I need to buy my own apartment and GTFO of the house I live in now, being forced to live with your parents again at my age due to financial issues really fking sucks.
I could go on with this but you get the gist... I need a proper fking job and the market is a bitch for it.