So who's getting a 7950 today?

Martini1991 · 31 Jan 2012 at 05:48

Cupra said:
this is why gtx480's are still so popular, theres nothing worth paying the extra for even at 2560x1600

Which makes it even worse, that's two gens ago.

slade · 31 Jan 2012 at 05:55

Crysis 2 (1920 x 1080 Ultra 2xAA)

Powercolor 7950 OC = 76.4fps
AMD 6690 = 75.23fps
AMD 7970 OC = 72.2fps

Thats not bad id say!!

w3bbo · 31 Jan 2012 at 06:01

It runs cooler, clocks higher and has better all round performance. Cards with 1.25gb are a false investment, especially for hi res gaming these days imo. If people are moaning about the price then they need to look at the current exchange rates UK vs US - we never get a great deal, even less so when the £ is taking a battering!

Martini1991 · 31 Jan 2012 at 06:03

w3bbo said:
It runs cooler, clocks higher and has better all round performance. Cards with 1.25gb are a false investment, especially for hi res gaming these days imo. If people are moaning about the price then they need to look at the current exchange rates UK vs US - we never get a great deal, even less so when the £ is taking a battering!

I can live with a card being 370 quid, but I can't live with a card being 370 quid and only just besting a card that's also 370, and was over a year ago.
Also, 580's have 1.5GB VRAM, which you know :confused:

Aruffell · 31 Jan 2012 at 06:04

For those who want close to 7970 performance but want the better and improved cooler in terms of acoustics and thermal dynamics, XFX have a few models in their range which im sure ocuk will be stocking.

The top one will be the Black Edition Overclocked with Double Dissipation cooler which is honestly a great card - http://www.eteknix.com/reviews/grap...edition-overclocked-3gb-graphics-card-review/

Can be had for around £420, so a bit on the expensive side, but when comparing to the 7970, the performance isn't to far away and we're still looking now at the headroom for overclocking.

Martini1991 · 31 Jan 2012 at 06:06

Aruffell said:
For those who want close to 7970 performance but want the better and improved cooler in terms of acoustics and thermal dynamics, XFX have a few models in their range which im sure ocuk will be stocking.

The top one will be the Black Edition Overclocked with Double Dissipation cooler which is honestly a great card - http://www.eteknix.com/reviews/grap...edition-overclocked-3gb-graphics-card-review/

Can be had for around £420, so a bit on the expensive side, but when comparing to the 7970, the performance isn't to far away and we're still looking now at the headroom for overclocking.

Which is 7970 pricing (Pre-order) Except, I already know (Unless things have changed in the last 16 hours) that some models will be 350-360. As we can see, there's some ones at 370-380+ etc.

In 2010 you could get a 6950 unlocked to 6970 Crossfire for 360 quid, smashing the 7950 to bits.

Aruffell · 31 Jan 2012 at 06:09

Martini1991 said:
Which is 7970 pricing (Pre-order)

In 2010 you could get a 6950 unlocked to 6970 Crossfire for 360 quid, smashing the 7950 to bits.

True but you are comparing a top-end 7950 against reference 7970 pricing and the fact that XFX are generally on the higher end of the scale in terms of pricing.

The DD cooler does what its set out to do in terms of style, noise and temperatures, whereas a reference 7970 still sounds like jet plane as with all reference AMD cards.

Once the launch has died down, you can expect the prices to fall anyhow, especially with black edition cards like the one I mentioned, but you do get other extra things by buying a black edition card.

w3bbo · 31 Jan 2012 at 06:12

The prices are being kept high due to being first to the market. I would expect them to drop when NVIDIA pull their finger out as is usually the case.

Martini1991 · 31 Jan 2012 at 06:15

w3bbo said:
The prices are being kept high due to being first to the market. I would expect them to drop when NVIDIA pull their finger out as is usually the case.

I don't remember a case of that though,
5XXX, priced at 300 and 200 quid, was an absolutely amazing generation.
6XXX, Nvidia had beaten them already with their cards out first.

Unless you mean prices changing when a card is released?
Which again, recently I don't recall any, the 4XX never dropped the 5XXX, and the 6XXX never dropped the 5XX

Although, it's obviously the case that when Kepler launches, the 7XXX will drop, as they're priced high (The slots Nvidia usually accompanies)

Aruffell · 31 Jan 2012 at 06:15

w3bbo said:
The prices are being kept high due to being first to the market. I would expect them to drop when NVIDIA pull their finger out as is usually the case.

Exactly, as with any AMD launch, they screwed up. I know some e-tailers that have SKU's for over 4 or so brands with 3-5 models each yet only have small amount of stocks on 1 or 2 brands.

It's the same every time with AMD, but i guess we come to expect it now.

w3bbo · 31 Jan 2012 at 06:26

Martini1991 said:
I don't remember a case of that though,
5XXX, priced at 300 and 200 quid, was an absolutely amazing generation.
6XXX, Nvidia had beaten them already with their cards out first.

Unless you mean prices changing when a card is released?
Which again, recently I don't recall any, the 4XX never dropped the 5XXX, and the 6XXX never dropped the 5XX

Although, it's obviously the case that when Kepler launches, the 7XXX will drop, as they're priced high (The slots Nvidia usually accompanies)

The 6XXX never dropped price because the NV range was already out and why the 6 series was priced so aggressively. Whoever holds the performance crown will have to pay a premium, currently that is AMD and why the price is high. When NV take back that crown, like I said, AMD prices will drop to make their 7 series cards competitive again. It really is simple economics buddy.

Martini1991 · 31 Jan 2012 at 06:29

w3bbo said:
The 6XXX never dropped price because the NV range was already out and why the 6 series was priced so aggressively. Whoever holds the performance crown will have to pay a premium, currently that is AMD and why the price is high. When NV take back that crown, like I said, AMD prices will drop to make their 7 series cards competitive again. It really is simple economics buddy.

I get the theory, but it hasn't worked out that way in the last two generations.
The 580 launched lower than the 480, yet had no competition.
So, it's not that simple. AMD have seemingly broken the mould with the 79XX for them.

The 5XXX wasn't overpriced, it underpriced the GTX285 at the time of launch did it not?

5850 was only 200 and smashed the GTX285.

Marine-RX179 · 31 Jan 2012 at 06:34

Pricing aside, I think one of the biggest problem with the 79xx card is that it has the same problem as the 69xx that it suffer quite heavy drop on frame rate when MSAA is applied on games that uses Frostbite2 engine (the 7950 is around 10% slower than the GTX580 at 1920 res 4xMSAA in BF3 according to AnandTech)...and EA is set to release most of their new games on the said engine...

Martini1991 · 31 Jan 2012 at 06:38

Begrudgingly going to order a 7950.
Meh.

Troezar · 31 Jan 2012 at 07:11

Martini1991 said:
Begrudgingly going to order a 7950.
Meh.

Odd comments on the XFX Anand said it was hotter and louder than the other two cards tested...
I'll wait for prices to settle and see what custom versions MSI bring out.

straxusii · 31 Jan 2012 at 07:31

w3bbo said:
It runs cooler, clocks higher and has better all round performance. Cards with 1.25gb are a false investment, especially for hi res gaming these days imo. If people are moaning about the price then they need to look at the current exchange rates UK vs US - we never get a great deal, even less so when the £ is taking a battering!

The exchange rate at the time of the 5870 launch was roughly the same as it is today, slightly higher

kitch9 · 31 Jan 2012 at 07:40

Martini1991 said:
I can live with a card being 370 quid, but I can't live with a card being 370 quid and only just besting a card that's also 370, and was over a year ago.
Also, 580's have 1.5GB VRAM, which you know

Uhm, the 3gb 580's are still £400.00 now?

Why do AMD have to provide much faster cards for less money than the competition again? Only the most retarded smacktard would consider that good business.

QwaF · 31 Jan 2012 at 08:00

Hopefully they'll be down to a good price by April (or nvidia have some good cards out by then). I paid £210 each for my 5850s on launch week, it'd be nice to get closer to that. Though it was 17.5% VAT then, so I'm not expecting much.

Martini1991 · 31 Jan 2012 at 08:04

kitch9 said:
Uhm, the 3gb 580's are still £400.00 now?

Why do AMD have to provide much faster cards for less money than the competition again? Only the most retarded smacktard would consider that good business.

Take your spin elsewhere.

Marine-RX179 · 31 Jan 2012 at 08:09

kitch9 said:
Uhm, the 3gb 580's are still £400.00 now?

Why do AMD have to provide much faster cards for less money than the competition again? Only the most retarded smacktard would consider that good business.

Except you are forgetting that you are comparing a new card that offer on simliar performance to a card that's gonna gracefully retire/EOL soon (reminds me of the Rocky Balboa movie

)? And majority of the people that game at 1920 res see that 1.5GB of VRAM being enough, so paying a premium on the extra 1.5GB VRAM is a bit pointless since it doesn't improve performance 98% of the time.

What's AMD is doing wrong is that they are releasing 1.5GB version of 79xx far too late, and the overall pricing of their cards IS too high. A card that comes a year later, cost the same as a card with simliar performance that was already available over a year ago is hardly impressive (another example is 6870 vs 5850...was 6870 good value IF it been priced the same as 5850 launch price of £200-£220 and with the price STAYED THERE?).