AMD Titan equivalent?

flopper · 18 Feb 2013 at 15:12

Rroff said:
Supposedly in the region of 35-40% faster than the 7970. Unless anything changes dramatically I can't see it being a challenger to titan.

Not likely.
Its different design goals.
I dont expect much maybe a 20% or so increase maybe a tad more but also a overall tweaked design allows a little bit more but same node I dont expect more.
I take it though, 20+ and single card and watercooled, allows a bit more fps at my set up so I go for it.

Titan, nah way to expensive.

ATIorNvidia · 18 Feb 2013 at 15:33

Rroff said:
Supposedly in the region of 35-40% faster than the 7970. Unless anything changes dramatically I can't see it being a challenger to titan.

The Titan is most likely going to be around 30-40% faster than a 7970GHZ or GTX680 at 1080p/1200p (a little more at higher resolutions) so if the 8970 is going to be a huge improvement like some people are saying then it should easily match or beat the Titan.

ALXAndy · 18 Feb 2013 at 15:39

I find the Ares II much more of a valid proposition than ever tbh.

So I will stick my neck out and say that not only is it an option but will also destroy the Titan in performance.

tommybhoy · 18 Feb 2013 at 16:03

Well it's new on the market and it doesn't seem that Asus were in any kind of rush to get it out, while all the time having the Titan kicking about the shelves with known specs.

We'll soon find out, hope it's not a letdown and a complete peperami!

ALXAndy · 18 Feb 2013 at 16:11

tommybhoy said:
Well it's new on the market and it doesn't seem that Asus were in any kind of rush to get it out, while all the time having the Titan kicking about the shelves with known specs.

We'll soon find out, hope it's not a letdown and a complete peperami!

I would have more trouble in believing those game benchmarks if it wasn't for Nvidia's OWN slides showing a 10FPS improvement over a 680.

As it stands it's literally a titanic of a card. Promises everything then sank on its first sailing

Does make you wonder how much of Tahiti AMD have kept locked down for an occasion like this though doesn't it old bean ?

tommybhoy · 18 Feb 2013 at 16:19

ALXAndy said:
Does make you wonder how much of Tahiti AMD have kept locked down for an occasion like this though doesn't it old bean ?

LtMatt · 18 Feb 2013 at 16:22

ALXAndy said:
I would have more trouble in believing those game benchmarks if it wasn't for Nvidia's OWN slides showing a 10FPS improvement over a 680.

As it stands it's literally a titanic of a card. Promises everything then sank on its first sailing

Does make you wonder how much of Tahiti AMD have kept locked down for an occasion like this though doesn't it old bean ?

tommybhoy said:

Wishful thinking on my part but it would be interesting if these new memory management drivers of AMD aka 13.3 suddenly brought the 7970 level with the titan. Well, we can dream.

tommybhoy · 18 Feb 2013 at 16:39

Oh what a funny dream it would be, though, if two 7950's can cream Titan and it's as speculated ludicrously, then that's a huge red iceberg I think.

andybird123 · 18 Feb 2013 at 16:42

tommybhoy said:
Oh what a funny dream it would be, though, if two 7950's can cream Titan and it's as speculated ludicrously, then that's a huge red iceberg I think.

except that you can Tri-SLI a titan, but you can't hexa-fire a 7950

Orangey · 18 Feb 2013 at 17:35

Tri? I want to see QuadSLI. 8)

Somewhere between £2500-£4000+ of GPUs.

wolvers · 18 Feb 2013 at 20:22

LtMatt said:
Wishful thinking on my part but it would be interesting if these new memory management drivers of AMD aka 13.3 suddenly brought the 7970 level with the titan. Well, we can dream.

How do we know that AMD haven't gimped the 7970 with the lower clocks and the drivers from the start intentionally? Extends the life of the product AND lull your competitor into a false sense of security. Nothing would surprise me with these tech companies.

spoffle · 18 Feb 2013 at 20:27

wolvers said:
How do we know that AMD haven't gimped the 7970 with the lower clocks and the drivers from the start intentionally? Extends the life of the product AND lull your competitor into a false sense of security. Nothing would surprise me with these tech companies.

Well I certainly agree there, I always can't help but feel that behind the scenes, AMD and nVidia collude with each other to always make sure their performance is roughly similar.

LtMatt · 18 Feb 2013 at 20:28

wolvers said:
How do we know that AMD haven't gimped the 7970 with the lower clocks and the drivers from the start intentionally? Extends the life of the product AND lull your competitor into a false sense of security. Nothing would surprise me with these tech companies.

As much as I'd love that to be true i think that's a little bit too far fetched.

spoffle said:
Well I certainly agree there, I always can't help but feel that behind the scenes, AMD and nVidia collude with each other to always make sure their performance is roughly similar.

I've wondered that myself from time to time. They're always really close, apart from the abomination that was the 2900xt. Lol those cards. Had two in xfire. Dark days.

spoffle · 18 Feb 2013 at 20:32

LtMatt said:
As much as I'd love that to be true i think that's a little bit too far fetched.

I've wondered that myself from time to time. They're always really close, apart from the abomination that was the 2900xt. Lol those cards. Had two in xfire. Dark days.

I dunno, the 2900 thing was always exaggerated, people couldn't help but compare it to the 8800GTX. When compared to the 8800GTS640, they were very similar.

What proves it really is that AMD very quickly released the 3870, which was about the same speed as a 2900XT, but people raved about its performance due to its price.

wolvers · 18 Feb 2013 at 20:43

Why is that far fetched? The stock clocks were clearly lower than they could have been and the performance increase in the magic drivers is more than I can remember from a driver. Now AMD are saying they're extending the life of the 7xxx series.

LtMatt · 18 Feb 2013 at 20:47

wolvers said:
Why is that far fetched? The stock clocks were clearly lower than they could have been and the performance increase in the magic drivers is more than I can remember from a driver. Now AMD are saying they're extending the life of the 7xxx series.

That's probably because of their financial situation. Anyway i don't know enough about it to be making predictions, but i hope you're right.

spoffle · 18 Feb 2013 at 20:49

Well, it's not very often that you can get a 50% overclock on a GPU on air like a lot of people have been doing with the 7950s.

It really does seem like they did do it on purpose. We'll never know for sure, but I can see where and why people would think that.

wolvers · 18 Feb 2013 at 21:36

The clocks situation is possibly the coolers. It strikes me that the stock AMD coolers aren't as good as the Nvidia ones and hence cheaper to manufacturer and the price of the product reflects this. Because of this they have to keep the stock clocks and voltages lower to avoid them being criticised in reviews for being hot and noisy. That makes them perfect for people like me that will always remove the cooler anyway to replace it with a block. Plus you get a higher % OC too and you feel like the guy in one of those money supermarket adverts. Epic!

ALXAndy · 18 Feb 2013 at 21:41

spoffle said:
Well, it's not very often that you can get a 50% overclock on a GPU on air like a lot of people have been doing with the 7950s.

It really does seem like they did do it on purpose. We'll never know for sure, but I can see where and why people would think that.

I think at the time they simply made it do what it had to do (beat the 580, the 7950 this is) and then just released it.

When Kepler came along the first line of fire was to up the stock clocks to 1ghz, then of course the better drivers came and now they're back on top again

I just wonder though how much Tahiti has been given out and how much has been stowed away for an occasion like Titan.

I mean crikey, it would be a real slap in the gob if they released say a 7890 and it was up there with Titan for four hundred smackeroonies haha.

Would leave Nvidia with an awful lot of explaining to do.

*sigh* wishful thinking lol.

spoffle · 18 Feb 2013 at 21:49

wolvers said:
The clocks situation is possibly the coolers. It strikes me that the stock AMD coolers aren't as good as the Nvidia ones and hence cheaper to manufacturer and the price of the product reflects this. Because of this they have to keep the stock clocks and voltages lower to avoid them being criticised in reviews for being hot and noisy. That makes them perfect for people like me that will always remove the cooler anyway to replace it with a block. Plus you get a higher % OC too and you feel like the guy in one of those money supermarket adverts. Epic!

It won't really be this, there's reallistically very little difference in cost when it comes to heatsink manufacture.

Plus, if it were the case, the custom cooled ones would be quite a bit higher than the reference designs, which isn't the case either. It's common to see, for example, one of the custom cooled MSI, HIS or Gigabyte 7950s at the same price or slightly lower than a reference 7950, and they are even on the 7970 PCBs.

nVidia's cards this round will run slightly cooler (only slightly though) because they have a lower power rating than AMD's ones, I think it's about 10-12% difference in peak wattage.