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Radeon HD 7900 Launch set for December 22nd, 2011 - R1000 | Tahiti | GCN

S

Sutton Dagger

Member
So the 6970m is based on the 6850 desktop card (just underclocked), would that mean the upcoming 7970m would essentially be a 7850 desktop GPU? If so, what sort of performance could we expect compared to the 6970m? Any ideas/speculation would be great.
 
P

pestul

Member
AB12 said:
Diamond AMD Radeon HD 7970's are going for $479.99, with a 20$ rebate you can get them for $459.99.
Click to expand...
I'd consider that if I hadn't just popped in another 5850 for crossfire for $99. Overclocked to 875/1200 on both and I'm scoring better than a stock 7970 in just about everything.

EDIT: I should mention that I'm also going to post a mini-review soon on the state of crossfire today with this series of cards. I can tell you right now from preliminary estimates, that scaling has come a long way since these cards were first reviewed. Just about every scenario I've tested is very close to 2x now with new drivers and the latest application profiles. AMD would probably rather hide this little known fact.

Only two major problems I've run into thus far have been Crysis 2 not working with MSAA and crossfire, and the Sapphire Extreme card I added can't be voltage adjusted without flashing the BIOS. Otherwise, it has been a real pleasure to double performance on the cheap.
 
S

specialguy

Banned
Looks like Radeon 7970 ghz edition is on the way. Seem to be clocked at 1075.

http://videocardz.com/33302/radeon-hd-7970-ghz-edition-detailed-and-tested

AMD needed this, they were playing at a heavy clock deficit, 925 mhz vs 1058 stock+additional boost on 680. This will even things out a bit. 1075 is also a bit tasty, I had heard a ghz edition was possible but expected more like 1ghz even.

Link says may come out at computex in late June.

Also the 7750 is getting a boost to 900 mhz (which will actually coexist with the old 800 mhz model, since it will have a 6 pin connector), and 7770 an unofficial one (meaning, it's just factory overclocks not standard) to 1.1 ghz.

7770 would almost be a nifty little card for the price at 1.1, but i still wouldn't buy anything with only 1gb ram.
 
H

Hazaro

relies on auto-aim
I care more about bumping up their $100-$150 cards.

7970 is just competing vs the 670 and it does so poorly for the cost.
Doesn't unlocking the OC limit on a 7950 provide a really good value?
 
S

specialguy

Banned
I disagree, everybody likes to compare 7970 to 670, but 7970 when fully overclocked battles well with a 680 and is cheaper (there is currently a 7970 on newegg for $435 after rebate), plus comes with an extra 1GB of RAM.

Basically people point at the 7970 but neglect that 670 also makes 680 a bad deal by the same token. Or put another way, people dont compare 7970 to 680.

In the link I posted, the 1075 7970 beats the 670 in 14 out of 20 tests, (whereas it only won 9/20 at 925), so at least this should make it more clear to people 7970's strengths. Too many people just look at stock benchmarks and who has the longer bars, that's why boost was such a devilish idea for nvidia since stock now=auto overclocked for them, and it also allows the usual review site cherry picking chips to have a bigger effect on reviews (EG, picking chips that boost higher=better stock benches, whereas before cherry picking only effected overclocking).

As for 7950, yes when overclocked it supposedly makes a monster chip, near 7970 levels. With 7970 prices falling though it's less compelling.

My dream was AMD to officially drop the 7950 to 350 or so because of 670, then we might see some near 300 AR in time, and that would have been tremendous value. It hasnt happened as much as I expected though (though to be fair checking just now I see one for $340 after rebate, most of them still hang near $390)
 
H

Hazaro

relies on auto-aim
specialguy said:
I disagree, everybody likes to compare 7970 to 670, but 7970 when fully overclocked battles well with a 680 and is cheaper (there is currently a 7970 on newegg for $435 after rebate), plus comes with an extra 1GB of RAM.

Basically people point at the 7970 but neglect that 670 also makes 680 a bad deal by the same token. Or put another way, people dont compare 7970 to 680.

In the link I posted, the 1075 7970 beats the 670 in 14 out of 20 tests, (whereas it only won 9/20 at 925), so at least this should make it more clear to people 7970's strengths. Too many people just look at stock benchmarks and who has the longer bars, that's why boost was such a devilish idea for nvidia since stock now=auto overclocked for them, and it also allows the usual review site cherry picking chips to have a bigger effect on reviews (EG, picking chips that boost higher=better stock benches, whereas before cherry picking only effected overclocking).

As for 7950, yes when overclocked it supposedly makes a monster chip, near 7970 levels. With 7970 prices falling though it's less compelling.

My dream was AMD to officially drop the 7950 to 350 or so because of 670, then we might see some near 300 AR in time, and that would have been tremendous value. It hasnt happened as much as I expected though (though to be fair checking just now I see one for $340 after rebate, most of them still hang near $390)
Click to expand...
You are right, I should have rephrased that.

I don't like the value proposition of anything over $400 now that the 670 is out and the 7950 occupies a nice bracket below that and is very overclockable. But, it's always been that way for me. Flagship cards are always a bad value compared to the tier right under them.

I'd like to see drops on the 77xx/78xx as they are giving about the same FPS/$ as the previous 6xxx cards, but the speed bump makes more sense for them and offers an actual incentive to upgrade to a newer card and not an older used one.
 
A

artist

Banned
slide-w9000zg8ik.jpg

papermaster-dualgpu3cmm4.jpg


Apparently Tahiti v2 is coming with really low voltage and stock clocks of 1.1GHz. Also powering the 7990.
 
A

artist

Banned
disap.ed said:
IIRC Dave Baumann said on B3D that these optimizations already found their way into the first Pitcairn and Cape Verde chips, it was only too late for Tahiti.
Click to expand...
Yes. If anything I expect to see downward price adjustments on the 7800 series once Tahiti v1 (7970 @ 925MHz & 7950 @ 800MHz) get price cuts/rebrands.

The GTX 660 from Nvidia is also pretty close to release.
 
Z

Zombie James

Banned
7970 GHz Edition launched:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-hd-7970-ghz-edition-review-benchmark,3232.html

Rather than simply replacing the original Radeon HD 7970, AMD sees its 1000+ MHz model coexisting. Prices are going to start at $500, the company says, and we’re assuming that covers the reference-class board. Cards with aftermarket cooling will almost certainly cost more. Expect to start seeing availability next week, with broader supply rolling in the week after.

Again, AMD’s factory cooler is disturbingly loud, so avoid that. But if board partners can tack on more interesting solutions, like the ones we saw in our Radeon HD 7950 round-up, and still manage to keep prices close to $500, the Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition will take its place in front of the GeForce GTX 680.

Here's the rub, though. In a world without GeForce GTX 670, Nvidia’s 680 might still be on our radar, and we’d have a proper grudge match on our hands in the high-end space. That’s simply not the case anymore, though. Today, there are other high-end GPUs that offer nearly as much performance at much more attractive prices, dissuading us from either company’s single-GPU flagship.

We already know that GeForce GTX 670 performs within a few percentage points of 680, and for $100 less. Moreover, once Catalyst 12.7 goes public and puts the older 7970 in the same league as GeForce GTX 680, it’d simply make more sense to save the $50 and do a little overclocking of your own. Shoot, I have two retail 7970s here that both hit the core frequency limiter in Overdrive at 1125 MHz, and have no troubling achieving the same 1500 MHz memory settings as the GHz Edition card.

There’s no guarantee that 7970s will continue overclocking as well as they have been, particularly now that AMD is saving the top-binned ASICs for this new model. However, we’d rather save some money and come close. For that reason, the original Radeon HD 7970 and GeForce GTX 670 remain our favorite gaming graphics cards.
Click to expand...

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6025/radeon-hd-7970-ghz-edition-review-catching-up-to-gtx-680

6 years is a long time to wait, but patience, perseverance, and more than a few snub moves against NVIDIA have paid off for AMD. For the first time in 6 years we can say that AMD is truly competitive for the single-GPU performance crown. The Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition isn’t quite fast enough to outright win, but it is unquestionably fast enough to tie the GeForce GTX 680 as the fastest single-GPU video card in the world today.
Click to expand...

With that said, AMD has made a great sacrifice to get to this point, and it’s one that’s going to directly impact most users. AMD has had to push the 7970GE harder than ever to catch up to the GTX 680, and as a result the 7970GE’s power consumption and noise levels are significantly higher than the GTX 680’s. It’s unfortunate for AMD that NVIDIA managed to tie AMD’s best gaming performance with a 104-series part, allowing them to reap the benefits of lower power consumption and less noise in the process. Simply put, the 7970GE is unquestionably hotter and uncomfortably louder than the GTX 680 for what amounts to the same performance. If power and noise are not a concern then this is not a problem, but for many buyers they're going to be unhappy with the 7970GE. It’s just too loud.

Of course this isn’t the first time we’ve had a hot & loud card on our hands – historically it happens to NVIDIA a lot – but when NVIDIA gets hot & loud they bring the performance necessary to match it. Such was the case with the GTX 480, a notably loud card that also had a 15% performance advantage on AMD’s flagship. AMD has no such performance advantage here, and that makes the 7970GE’s power consumption and noise much harder to justify even with a “performance at any cost” philosophy.

The end result is that while AMD has tied NVIDIA for the single-GPU performance crown with the Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition, the GeForce GTX 680 is still the more desirable gaming card. There are a million exceptions to this statement of course (and it goes both ways), but as we said before, these cards may be tied but they're anything but equal.

Noise issues aside, we’re finally seeing something that we haven’t seen for a very long time: bona fide, cut throat, brutal competition in the high-end video card segment for the fastest single-GPU video card. To call it refreshing is an understatement; it’s nothing short of fantastic. For the first time in 6 years AMD is truly performance competitive with NVIDIA at the high-end and we couldn't be happier.

Welcome back to the fight AMD; we’ve missed your presence.
Click to expand...

Reactions seem kind of mixed. On one hand, it catches up to the GTX 680 but had to sacrifice heat and noise to do it. On the other hand, they're still going to sell the original 7970 and you could just buy that one and overclock it.
 
D

derFeef

Member
7970ghz sounds beast, but stock cards seem fucked as hell cooling wise. Going to wait for some custom ones. 6970 still serve me well though.
 
S

squicken

Member
derFeef said:
7970ghz sounds beast, but stock cards seem fucked as hell cooling wise. Going to wait for some custom ones. 6970 still serve me well though.
Click to expand...

I bought a 7970 before switching to 680. It was insane how loud the thing was just at idle. There's no reason to buy a stock card unless you are going to pursue alternative cooling
 
D

derFeef

Member
They really need to improve those stock layouts. Is nvidia as bad as amd this regard? I mean, that fan is TINY for that card, what the hell.
 
P

pestul

Member
I have a feeling the higher clocked/better scaling 7990 is going to eat the 690 for breakfast. For people that buy those crazy dual cards that is..
 
S

SapientWolf

Trucker Sexologist
pestul said:
I'd consider that if I hadn't just popped in another 5850 for crossfire for $99. Overclocked to 875/1200 on both and I'm scoring better than a stock 7970 in just about everything.

EDIT: I should mention that I'm also going to post a mini-review soon on the state of crossfire today with this series of cards. I can tell you right now from preliminary estimates, that scaling has come a long way since these cards were first reviewed. Just about every scenario I've tested is very close to 2x now with new drivers and the latest application profiles. AMD would probably rather hide this little known fact.

Only two major problems I've run into thus far have been Crysis 2 not working with MSAA and crossfire, and the Sapphire Extreme card I added can't be voltage adjusted without flashing the BIOS. Otherwise, it has been a real pleasure to double performance on the cheap.
Click to expand...
I have the same setup. In my experience CF either works perfectly (~2x scaling) or basically not at all (no scaling or negative scaling). Doubling framerates in BF3 for less than a c note was pretty nice.

AMD needs to step it up. I don't want to run CF forever. I'd rather upgrade to a single GPU with twice the performance as CF'd 5850s with the same power usage.
 
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