Amd Price cuts

easyrider · 22 Mar 2012 at 14:49

"We’re expecting imminent price cuts to both the HD 7950 3GB and HD 7970 3GB which at time of writing are on sale for around £350 and £415 respectively. At these prices, the GTX 680 2GB immediately makes both a poor choice. It’s more than fast enough to warrant the extra £50 over an HD 7950 3GB (by an amazing 42 per in BF3 at 1920 x 1,080 with 4xAA), and considerably faster, cheaper, smaller and more efficient than the HD 7970 3GB too."

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2012/03/22/nvidia-geforce-gtx-680-2gb-review/15

Was only a few weeks out...Poor banana :eek:

straxusii · 22 Mar 2012 at 14:50

ROFL

What's the source Easy?

ALXAndy · 22 Mar 2012 at 14:51

easyrider said:
"We’re expecting imminent price cuts to both the HD 7950 3GB and HD 7970 3GB which at time of writing are on sale for around £350 and £415 respectively. At these prices, the GTX 680 2GB immediately makes both a poor choice. It’s more than fast enough to warrant the extra £50 over an HD 7950 3GB (by an amazing 42 per in BF3 at 1920 x 1,080 with 4xAA), and considerably faster, cheaper, smaller and more efficient than the HD 7970 3GB too."

Was only a few weeks out...Poor banana

Another reviewer who didn't figure out that the 680 is dynamically overclocking itself to win. But when the 7970 is overclocked and it becomes fair. Well, it wins.

I'm sure they will drop in price. But, I'm also sure AMD will have Tenerife out soon and it'll be overclocked to hell.

WingZero30 · 22 Mar 2012 at 14:51

Welcome back 'banana-ass' man!!

easyrider · 22 Mar 2012 at 14:59

straxusii said:
ROFL

What's the source Easy?

Updated OP

dave_beast · 22 Mar 2012 at 15:01

Lol, when overclocked they're the same, with the 680 winning some, and the 7970 winning some, prices will remain the same as they're effectively the same.

Oh, and the 680 is clocked mega high at stock as opposed to the 7970 being clocked low at stock.

ALXAndy · 22 Mar 2012 at 15:03

dave_beast said:
Lol, when overclocked they're the same, with the 680 winning some, and the 7970 winning some, prices will remain the same as they're effectively the same.

Seems that way yes. So that guy from Georgia who said they were basically dead level was bang on the money.

Sadly though a lot of review sites have not taken the time to realise that the 104 is dynamic and so I find their reviews a bit off.

Ah well. At the end of the day you can't change some one's mind. If people out there wanted Kepler they have gotten a decent card for their wait

Surveyor · 22 Mar 2012 at 15:03

easyrider said:
"Was only a few weeks out...Poor banana

You'd better keep it in for now.

Even if there are price drops it may still not drop the price of the HD 7950 below £300 at OcUK.

easyrider · 22 Mar 2012 at 15:03

dave_beast said:
Lol, when overclocked they're the same, with the 680 winning some, and the 7970 winning some, prices will remain the same as they're effectively the same.

Oh, and the 680 is clocked mega high at stock as opposed to the 7970 being clocked low at stock.

FUD

dave_beast · 22 Mar 2012 at 15:04

ALXAndy said:
Seems that way yes. So that guy from Georgia who said they were basically dead level was bang on the money.

Sadly though a lot of review sites have not taken the time to realise that the 104 is dynamic and so I find their reviews a bit off.

Ah well. At the end of the day you can't change some one's mind. If people out there wanted Kepler they have gotten a decent card for their wait

Yep, Nvidia could have released a potato and called it a 680, fans would still buy it and derp about it's amazingness

drunkenmaster · 22 Mar 2012 at 15:10

WE really need one review(well really multiple but one would be a start) that shows the dynamic clocks used through all the benchmarks.

Plenty of very reputable sites are showing, saying Anandtech, the 680gtx 30% ahead of the 7970 in BF3, while a bunch of other sites are showing barely 10%. Drivers, weird setup, different patch(and does the latest one decrease AMD performance(or only give an increase on the 680gtx?), or simply one running 15-20% higher clocks than the other, 1006Mhz vs 1200Mhz.

Reviews are all over the place, loads of games are showing 20% difference across various sites.

555BUK · 22 Mar 2012 at 15:20

So, you need to overclock the fastest AMD card to match the fastest NV card. What's new (apart from TXAA, lower power consumption, 4x screen support, turbo boost, cheaper RRP, and the fact that this is not even NV's planned Top End Kepler)? Every review out there says GK104 is better overall than Tahiti (stock & overclocked), so why are people still arguing?

7900 prices will be cut to more realistic levels, and hopefully GK104 chops will follow.

ALXAndy · 22 Mar 2012 at 15:22

drunkenmaster said:
WE really need one review(well really multiple but one would be a start) that shows the dynamic clocks used through all the benchmarks.

Plenty of very reputable sites are showing, saying Anandtech, the 680gtx 30% ahead of the 7970 in BF3, while a bunch of other sites are showing barely 10%. Drivers, weird setup, different patch(and does the latest one decrease AMD performance(or only give an increase on the 680gtx?), or simply one running 15-20% higher clocks than the other, 1006Mhz vs 1200Mhz.

Reviews are all over the place, loads of games are showing 20% difference across various sites.

Indeed. Gibbo said yesterday that the 680 was clocking itself to 1200mhz in Heaven. So I guess at least we know that much.

Maybe he can run a few games and tell us what the drivers are clocking the core to so we can do a bit of figuring out ourselves

555BUK said:
So, you need to overclock the fastest AMD card to match the fastest NV card. What's new (apart from TXAA, lower power consumption, 4x screen support, turbo boost, cheaper RRP, and the fact that this is not even NV's planned Top End Kepler)? Every review out there says GK104 is better overall than Tahiti (stock & overclocked), so why are people still arguing?

IMO it's all about relevance. When AMD released the 7970 they did what they had to to make it faster than the 580. When Nvidia worked with Kepler they did what they had to (made it overclock itself and so on) to beat the 7970.

It's all about finding out what clocks the 104 is using to win, and then clocking up the Radeon to see what happens.

Well, and of course waiting to see what AMD are going to do about it, if anything.

555BUK · 22 Mar 2012 at 15:27

The people who were arguing that Kepler would not overclock anywhere near as well as Tahti are now complaining because Kepler does so straight out of the box, fully sanctioned by NVidia.

Hold on to them straws, the're slipping..

edit: The boot is now on the other foot for AMD. It is they who now produce bigger, more power hungry, feature lacking GPU's which cost more to produce and have poorer performance per watt and performance per transistor. Unfortunately for them, NVidia is also still faster. Architectually, NVidia have jumped far ahead, even if they did arrive two months late to the 28nm party.

Stanners · 22 Mar 2012 at 15:30

555BUK said:
The people who were arguing that Kepler would not overclock anywhere near as well as Tahti are now complaining because Kepler does so straight out of the box, fully sanctioned by NVidia.

Hold on to them straws, the're slipping..

Go Go AMD defence team

Meaker · 22 Mar 2012 at 15:31

555BUK said:
The people who were arguing that Kepler would not overclock anywhere near as well as Tahti are now complaining because Kepler does so straight out of the box, fully sanctioned by NVidia.

Hold on to them straws, the're slipping..

The tricky thing about doing it dynamically is lack of control. Nvidia are going to help lower prices, this can only be good for us, but I know I would rather have a 4ghz Core i7 rather than a Core i7 thats 4ghz when it wants to be.

I'll be very interested in the results with it turned off, with the lower power consumption it seems to have we could have even better results. Nom, tasty

A review of both around their max will also be good, should get those in a day or two and if supply is good on the Nvidia side we may see factory overclocked 7970 cards match the 680 price. This should push the rest down and make the 7850 and 7870 sit where they should.

Krono5 · 22 Mar 2012 at 15:31

555BUK said:
So, you need to overclock the fastest AMD card to match the fastest NV card. What's new (apart from TXAA, lower power consumption, 4x screen support, turbo boost, cheaper RRP, and the fact that this is not even NV's planned Top End Kepler)? Every review out there says GK104 is better overall than Tahiti (stock & overclocked), so why are people still arguing?

7900 prices will be cut to more realistic levels, and hopefully GK104 chops will follow.

NV card overclocks itself so when both are overclocked the difference is <5% depending on individual games sdo the cards themselves are pretty much the same, however the 7970 can be had for close to £370 whereas the GTX 680 I haven't seen for under £400.

ALXAndy · 22 Mar 2012 at 15:32

Meaker said:
The tricky thing about doing it dynamically is lack of control. Nvidia are going to help lower prices, this can only be good for us, but I know I would rather have a 4ghz Core i7 rather than a Core i7 thats 4ghz when it wants to be.

Hexus says that you can not manually control the overclocking.

Serious alarm bells are ringing.

It would seem that initial reviews are going to be it, that's it, no more, no "free performance".

drunkenmaster · 22 Mar 2012 at 15:34

555BUK said:
The people who were arguing that Kepler would not overclock anywhere near as well as Tahti are now complaining because Kepler does so straight out of the box, fully sanctioned by NVidia.

Hold on to them straws, the're slipping..

No they aren't, you're simply making things up to ignore a valid argument.

EVERYONE said on launch that from reviews it was clear it was clocked WAY under what it was capable of, most people with a basic grasp of logic could understand that if the 7970 was dramatically underclocked at stock, Nvidia's card positioned 15-20% below it would become very competitive.

I, and most people said, GK104 is going to look great in review, even better if its highly clocked, but the real question of which card is better is max overclock 7970 vs max overclock on a 680gtx.

What you're missing is a lot of reviews have 680gtx's already at or very close to their max overclock because its doing it on the fly basically. THere's nothing wrong with that.

But for me and most people on here fully willing to overclock, how fast can you make the piece of silicon you buy go, you pay money get a card and I want the best speed that card can give. A stock 7970 gives an overclocked on the fly 680gtx a run for its money at higher res in many/most situations, it doesn't do badly in a LOT of games at 1080p, again the simple question is, which card is faster once in your hands and with the best overclock you can get out of it.

THere is NO question stock 7970 has WAY more overclocking headroom than a 680gtx.

Meaker · 22 Mar 2012 at 15:35

ALXAndy said:
Hexus says that you can not manually control the overclocking.

Serious alarm bells are ringing.

It would seem that initial reviews are going to be it, that's it, no more, no "free performance".

May have to wait for 3rd party cards letting you switch it off then, because you don't want the card spiking :/

I doubt the situation will stay like this for long though.