DX12 Is it all hype or is this the holy grail of DX!

[edsquare]

So I guess future iterations of graphic cards will be about performance enhancements through optimisations, better chipsets, better memory bandwidth, etc, basically we can't expect any major "feature"release per se, I mean that makes sense, probably with existing even last generation cards you have more than enough to render anything but it comes down to memory, GPU speed, etc.

To reiterate - the only thing people needed was the GPU to programmable. That is it. That is the only "feature" that is required. Like CPU's. They don't have any new "features", they just keep getting faster. Same with GPU's. Like if you gave a brush to an artist, would he be able to draw less than with photoshop? Probably not - he will just draw slower. So does it require DX12 to render a 100% realistic human head? No, even DX9 can do it. Software render's can do it, so even GM can do it.

What do you think about the fact one day air cooling might not be enough anymore...... Have we reached the limit ?  Now they are cramming jet engines into their cards, I guess that scenario is believable that one day high-end gaming card will come with liquid cooling support as a standard and requirement. or they will have to do some miracles and make those MFs significantly smaller and energy efficient.

Newer GPU's get more and more power efficient. So it's possible that the current cooling will hold for some time. It's possible that in the future you wouldn't even need a fan. The smaller the chip process gets, the smaller the power consumption. The smaller power consumption means smaller heating.

The smaller the chip becomes, the less amount of cooling surface there is, so even less heat can and will acummulate faster; making it neccessary to keep some cooling device, unless we make a breakthrough in room temperature superconductors which will prevent the electric resistance to heat the wiring. Just physics.

[Darkstar2]

Newer GPU's get more and more power efficient. So it's possible that the current cooling will hold for some time. It's possible that in the future you wouldn't even need a fan.

I'm not a fan (hah! ) of passive cooling.  A fanless GPU ? Maybe entry level, but high-end enthusiasts, you are out of your mind..I think they will still require air cooling. Proper air flow inside the case is essential, and passive cooling is not a good idea....But who knows maybe they will make rice sized super GPUs that will barely need power but following NVIDIA's trends, I don't see that happening anytime soon.....the newer higher-end cards look like cooling towers they are heavy - I could not believe how heavy my GTX660 Ti SC was, imagine when you have 3-SLI on those newer cards......

The smaller the chip process gets, the smaller the power consumption. The smaller power consumption means smaller heating.

Still there are some disadvantages to passive cooling.

[lonewolff]

Newer GPU's get more and more power efficient. So it's possible that the current cooling will hold for some time. It's possible that in the future you wouldn't even need a fan.

I'm not a fan (hah! ) of passive cooling.  A fanless GPU ? Maybe entry level, but high-end enthusiasts, you are out of your mind..I think they will still require air cooling. Proper air flow inside the case is essential, and passive cooling is not a good idea....But who knows maybe they will make rice sized super GPUs that will barely need power but following NVIDIA's trends, I don't see that happening anytime soon.....the newer higher-end cards look like cooling towers they are heavy - I could not believe how heavy my GTX660 Ti SC was, imagine when you have 3-SLI on those newer cards......

The smaller the chip process gets, the smaller the power consumption. The smaller power consumption means smaller heating.

Still there are some disadvantages to passive cooling.

Yeah, they certainly get better though as technology advances.

I remember my last video card, it was a Radeon HD5870 with one of the massive heatsinks and fan arrays.

I replaced it GTX750 after I sold my last one.

The GTX750 is twice as fast and is fanless.

Pentium 100Mhz CPU's? Fan cooled.
Raspberry PI SOC CPU running at 1Ghz? Passive.

[TheExDeus]

The smaller the chip becomes, the less amount of cooling surface there is, so even less heat can and will acummulate faster; making it neccessary to keep some cooling device, unless we make a breakthrough in room temperature superconductors which will prevent the electric resistance to heat the wiring. Just physics.

The chip itself doesn't get smaller. The process gets smaller, which means the distance between transistors (among other things) gets smaller. And the increase in complexity and transistor count makes up for it in size. So the cooling surface has barely changed, yet the heat dissipation got a lot smaller. Like GeForce 9800 GTX used 140W of power with 754M transistors, the GTX 750Ti uses only 60W of power with 1870M transistors (+many other things). So the power consumption greatly reduces, as well as greatly reduced heating.

Here is a cool comparison: http://www.realhardtechx.com/index_archivos/Page362.htm but it shows total system power, so it stays the same most of the time.