[PCWORLD] AMD provides a sneak peek at its Radeon HD 7990

Suarez7 · 27 Mar 2013 at 13:48

Sin_Chase said:
Negative.

SLI/CF will always be plagued with compatibility, scaling and game release problems for the foreseeable future.

Multi GPU is and will always present some risk.

Until Multi-GPU is not plagued with any issues and is on par with Single GPU solutions I will likely NEVER touch Multi-GPu platforms. It's not worth the hassle.

Strange, the 690 only seems to have any issues when you use more than 1.

andybird123 · 27 Mar 2013 at 13:53

the 690 is certainly better than many other dual GPU options due to the builtin SLI bridge that it has... it still is SLI at the end of the day though, so if a particular game has issues with multi GPU setups then the 690 will still suffer

drunkenmaster · 27 Mar 2013 at 13:55

Suarez7 said:
I know it's multi-gpu solution but there will be a fix in the upcoming drivers for any kind of stuttering/latency issues. Also it may have a built in fix like the 690 that doesn't suffer from microstuttering.

Who says its a multi-gpu solution? More importantly what counts as a multigpu solution, if they managed to get 2 on the same package but its two dies, does it not count as multi anymore.

Reality is, it probably is, but we're getting VERY close to retail products being launched with interposers connecting dies on the same package with silly bandwidth(more in a to market situation, chips have been done and I'm sure some expensive industry stuff has been done, more for a product like a gpu, or a console, Intel CPU i'm thinking of here, mass production/scale/consumer stuff).

its odd they would make a 7990, when its kinda already out, and make such a big deal of it, and take SO long over it, and for it to be so long after the existing 7990's which were already SO long after the 7970 was available in the first place.

Something like a dual die, one package, insane bandwidth connecting the two to reduce stutter/other issues/share memory, would be a great place to introduce this kind of tech, and on cards with higher costs.

Realistically its probably not, but I wouldn't be surprised if we started seeing it at 20nm for dual gpu cards.

I don't mind if its just an exceptionally well designed, non blower, dual slot, quiet dual gpu card, but there was exactly nothing stopping them producing this product 2 months after the 7970 launched... making it boring and stupid.

Dual gpu cards got boring when prices got out of control. I managed to get a £330 inc vat 4870x2 a couple weeks after launch, which had 1gb per gpu before the 1gb 4870 card had launched, for less than the price of 2x 512mb 4870's, that was awesome value, and an awesome card.

Since then its all been downhill, crap blower fans(with less options to strap on a 120mm fan for silence), overblown costs and available so long after the single cards, it wasn't worth it.

Suarez7 · 27 Mar 2013 at 13:55

andybird123 said:
the 690 is certainly better than many other dual GPU options due to the builtin SLI bridge that it has... it still is SLI at the end of the day though, so if a particular game has issues with multi GPU setups then the 690 will still suffer

Very few new games have scaling issues, drivers are usually made to correct it quickly as well, also nvidia inspector/radeon pro fixes many issues.

Suarez7 · 27 Mar 2013 at 13:57

drunkenmaster said:
Who says its a multi-gpu solution? More importantly what counts as a multigpu solution, if they managed to get 2 on the same package but its two dies, does it not count as multi anymore.

It's classed as multi-gpu as soon as you have more than 1 graphics chip whether you like it or not.

andybird123 · 27 Mar 2013 at 13:59

Suarez7 said:
Very few new games have scaling issues, drivers are usually made to correct it quickly as well, also nvidia inspector/radeon pro fixes many issues.

I'm not disagreeing with you, I have 3 Titan's (and previously 2 670's) and haven't had any notable SLI problems that haven't been fixed within days or at most a couple of weeks of a new game being released

but some people find that unacceptable and aren't willing to put up with waiting a few days for a patch

Orangey · 27 Mar 2013 at 14:02

Until copper is removed from the equation you can't call a multi a single.

Sin_Chase · 27 Mar 2013 at 14:02

andybird123 said:
but some people find that unacceptable and aren't willing to put up with waiting a few days for a patch

'A few days' is an exception to the rule in more recent times.

Absolutely amazing if that's the sound of everything to come but I sincerely doubt it.

SLI/CF issues being fixed in a few days on every single gaming title, whether AAA or not is unlikely IMO.

LtMatt · 27 Mar 2013 at 15:35

Couple more pictures of the 7990. Bloke not included afaik.

AMD has finally unveiled its version of the HD 7990 some four months after board partners first released cards based on the design.

The new dual-GPU flagship graphics card was shown for the first time during the company's press conference at the Games Developer Conference (GDC) currently taking place in San Francisco.

No official details of the card's clock speeds or memory configuration were revealed but the company did confirm that it uses two HD 7970 GPUs mounted on a single board.

AMD also promised the card would be whisper quiet thanks to its triple fan configuration that sees the fans blow air straight down onto the card rather than directing the airflow through the heatsink and out the backplate. This is in contrast to the elaborate water cooled Asus Ares II version of this card, though it's likely the AMD version won't run at such high clock speeds. Also, unlike the chunky Club 3D Radeon HD 7990, this AMD-designed version only fills two expansion slots rather than three.

Power consumption also appears to have been reduced as only two 8-pin auxilliary power sockets are present on this new card, as opposed to the three employed on previous unofficial versions. This also opens the card's potential customer base to those that don't have a power supply with three PCI-E power connections.

As well as a DVI-D video output the card will feature two mini DisplayPort and two mini HDMI outputs, while the card appears to be the same length as previous iterations.

In our previous tests the Asus and Club 3D HD 7990 cards showed mixed performance with the dual-GPUs working together to good effect in some games but not others. Whether this new card will have more consistent performance is yet to be seen but given the four month wait to work on driver improvements we would certainly expect to see at least some progress.

There is currently no word on how much the AMD Radeon HD 7990 will cost or exactly when it will arrive.

Rusty0611 · 27 Mar 2013 at 15:42

It looks dead cheap compared to the 690.

medseven · 27 Mar 2013 at 15:43

Would look pretty sweet on a crosshair formula V board, shame there wouldn't really be a CPU that could utilize its power for that board!

andybird123 · 27 Mar 2013 at 15:44

Gregster said:
People have been suspended for saying less.

I reported it and it does appear to have been deleted, but that's it

LtMatt · 27 Mar 2013 at 15:44

I think it looks nice ive always been a fan of the black and red glossy theme on AMD cards.

drunkenmaster · 27 Mar 2013 at 15:50

Suarez7 said:
It's classed as multi-gpu as soon as you have more than 1 graphics chip whether you like it or not.

Well whats a gpu but these days, 1000+ cores in a high end chip.

Multigpu, or multi cpu, multi anything the reason we call them multi is there is a functional difference between one, and two of them. There WILL be a point where we get two die's on one package that works with none of the current disadvantages of existing multigpu's and is indistinguishable from a bigger single die....

Single core, multi core, aren't much of anything, we mostly use existing(and often inaccurate) names to describe a certain set of products that behave in a way we've decided suits a name. Think of the on package, stiched together quads, errm, 12 core(Intel have 2x6 core = 12 core chips don't they, I really can't remember), 16 core dual bulldozer chips that for all intents and purposes, are indistinguishable to the end user compared to a "single" cpu.

Personally I think we're interposer + a generation away from single package, multi die gpu's that work effectively as a current single gpu does. Because as with most things, they'll learn a lot from sticking stuff on the same package and the next gen, or the one after, will add more on die logic to make interconnected functions work more seamlessly. The main thing is shared memory and being able to communicate at on die frequencies and bandwidth, but then, utilising that effectively, both things they are moving towards.

With pretty much all foundries and most silicon companies working on stacking, interposers and various other techs all together, it should be the next couple years that sticking stuff on die with tiny latency and huge bandwidth should bring around a lot of changes in chip design, with the console(s) being potentially the first major consumer products to utilise it properly. Though I forget if Intel are doing the same thing with their on die memory for the gpu in their ludicrously expensive mobile Haswell's or if they are doing something else.

Either way it would be a big jump today, but considering what they are doing with some of the console parts, and that those are in production elsewhere... its not beyond the realm of possibility.

Orangey said:
Until copper is removed from the equation you can't call a multi a single.

This is funnier than you seemingly know.

andybird123 · 27 Mar 2013 at 16:05

drunkenmaster said:
Single core, multi core, aren't much of anything, we mostly use existing(and often inaccurate) names to describe a certain set of products that behave in a way we've decided suits a name. Think of the on package, stiched together quads, errm, 12 core(Intel have 2x6 core = 12 core chips don't they, I really can't remember), 16 core dual bulldozer chips that for all intents and purposes, are indistinguishable to the end user compared to a "single" cpu.

when the software is properly coded to take advantage of the multicore nature of the CPU or for that matter, GPU
which is part of the problem... this is where problems with performance and microstutter come in... it doesn't really matter if the GPU's are stitched together on a single package or not, if there's a problem with a particular game on mulit-core CPU's or GPU's then the offending game runs like it's being run on a much lower grade of chip

things have gotten a lot better in respect of mulit-core CPU's as they've become more widespread, lets hope the same happens with multi-GPU related technologies

Orangey · 27 Mar 2013 at 16:10

What is it with AMD people, Fraps shows AMD cards have worse stutter, can't fix it so let's just say Fraps isn't valid anymore. Don't have a Titan-beater so let's start calling a multi-GPU card a single.

LtMatt · 27 Mar 2013 at 16:15

Orangey said:
What is it with AMD people, Fraps shows AMD cards have worse stutter, can't fix it so let's just say Fraps isn't valid anymore. Don't have a Titan-beater so let's start calling a multi-GPU card a single.

What is this i don't even

Orangey · 27 Mar 2013 at 16:23

Is the whole world going crazy or is it just me.

Suarez7 · 27 Mar 2013 at 16:26

Orangey I think you'll find it's not just AMD "people" who said FRAPS is a bad way of measuring frame latency. Also no one has called the 7990 a single GPU card.

PorkPieCat · 27 Mar 2013 at 16:34

Orangey said:
What is it with AMD people, Fraps shows AMD cards have worse stutter, can't fix it so let's just say Fraps isn't valid anymore. Don't have a Titan-beater so let's start calling a multi-GPU card a single.

lol, it is just you