HD 7950 Specs Leaked

[rolypolyman]

Well no 7***series card for me now, was saving up but just bought a Blackberry Playbook at 'Computer Planet' for a price I couldn't resist. The way things were going I wouldn't have been able to afford one anyway. This way my next graphics card update could be around August, is that when Kepler is due? By the way that Blackberry Playbook is amazing!!

 

[SFFNoob]

I'm playing the waiting game, hurry up Nvidia!

 

[Freddie1980]

I have my eye on that 7770 to replace my 5770, AMD always seem to able to produce a card that's a consumer champion and my moneys on that.

 

[BS Dave]

7770's a rebrand

 

[SFFNoob]

I have my eye on that 7770 to replace my 5770, AMD always seem to able to produce a card that's a consumer champion and my moneys on that.

7770's a rebrand

No, don't say that, I was thinking of getting one for my HTPC too, was hoping to see more improvements on the AV side of things by both parties for their new generations, will have to wait and see I guess.

 

[Jokester]

If those prices in $ are true we're looking at as a bare minimum:-
7990 - £650-680
7980 - £420-450
7950 - £350-360

7870 - £230-240
7850 - £190-200

Can only assume the 7870/50 are quicker than the 6970/50 as price wise they've barely changed.

 

[drunkenmaster]

yes if the 7950 1.5GB has a sensible price ill go for that

Do'h, very very good point that I forgot about, there should be 1.5gb cheaper 7950 versions which will be ample for 1920x1080 res.

It always depends, 6950 1gb to 2gb prices aren't particularly different, 580gb 1.5 to 3gb or 560ti 1 to 2gb difference is pretty big. Would be nice if there was a big drop in price between the 1.5/3gb versions as its money, and power, saved on something you simply won't use. If its a £5-15 difference I wouldn't bother, £50, I would.

I'm still not convinced this pricing will be here to stay though, though the question becomes how long does it stay high.

 

[Jokester]

Can't see the pricing changing that much until Kepler comes out, Nvidia aren't likely to slash they're prices significantly in the meanwhile. And yeah $50 (£40 give or take) is a lot just for some extra RAM, but that'll see the 7950 1.5GB model almost hit the £300 price point.

 

[psychas]

if 3 gig models unlock to 7970 would be nice

 

[pgi947]

If those prices in $ are true we're looking at as a bare minimum:-
7990 - £650-680
7980 - £420-450
7950 - £350-360

7870 - £230-240
7850 - £190-200

Can only assume the 7870/50 are quicker than the 6970/50 as price wise they've barely changed.

Thats a pretty good price guide IMO. The 7990 doesn't seem to be priced that much higher than the 6990 on release either, I'm sure it was around £600 on launch. Perhaps the 7990 is getting aimed at crossfire users, as its significantly cheaper than a pair of 7970's or even 7950's. Could turn out to be the sensible buy for high end multi-card users.

 

[Voodle]

A 30CU card with lower clocks would have been best for the end user, more potential speed at any given clock, you end up paying for an underclocked card you can then overclock, rather than paying for a card that has little headroom and won't increase its per clock performance.

Agreed, I always buy the **50 cards rather than the **70 because there's so much performance to be had normally from upping the clock speeds a bit and the shader count hit previously wasnt as big. This round though, that shader count does look a bit lower than normal and clock speeds nearly being on parity suggests that the **50 card this time is designed as such to up the yields rather than being the artificially limited card that previous ones were. :/

 

[Duff-Man]

The 7990 doesn't seem to be priced that much higher than the 6990 on release either, I'm sure it was around £600 on launch.

As Jokester said, those are "bare minimum" prices, taking into account (it seems) the dollar-price RRP, UK VAT, and a small shipping cost. They are a solid guide for "stabilised" early pricing, but it doesn't account for any price-gouging as might occur in the first few weeks.

The 6990 had a dollar-price retail of $699 and (as you say) appeared on UK shelves for ~£600. The 7990 is priced $150 higher, so if it follows a similar trend then I would expect them to appear somewhere north of £700.

Also, bear in mind that the exchange rate situation has worsened slightly since March 9th 2011 when the 6990 as released (one pound was worth $1.616 then, and is worth $1.566 now), so I wouldn't be expecting any further help on that front.

 

[Freddie1980]

7770's a rebrand

No, don't say that, I was thinking of getting one for my HTPC too, was hoping to see more improvements on the AV side of things by both parties for their new generations, will have to wait and see I guess.

If the leaked slides are all true then the 7770 isn't another rebrand but it will be the lowest card to use the new architecture, semi accurate has reported that the lower end 7000 series will be all rebrands.

 

[Doomedspeed]

If the leaked slides are all true then the 7770 isn't another rebrand but it will be the lowest card to use the new architecture, semi accurate has reported that the lower end 7000 series will be all rebrands.

The 7670 (6670) downwards are all re-branded, according to this.

Not suprised, it happens all the time.

 

[TheMorningStar]

Can't see the pricing changing that much until Kepler comes out, Nvidia aren't likely to slash they're prices significantly in the meanwhile. And yeah $50 (£40 give or take) is a lot just for some extra RAM, but that'll see the 7950 1.5GB model almost hit the £300 price point.

I really don't understand the price of GFX RAM, I can only assume that it is incredibly more expensive to make than DDR2/3 etc

It however seems to me that a 512 bus would have been a better move with just 2gb of VRAM (the sweet spot for the next few years I imagine), and increased the RAM bandwidth so much that they could have used slower and presumably cheaper GDDR5 and only 2/3 of it.

I'm guessing the bus isn't dynamic like it is with Nvidias 560/570/580 chips as dropping a 2gb model would in my mind have been a very good move. In fact it would have been interesting to see the 79x0 series as it is but the 78x0 series with the same chips but a 256 bus and just move the rest of the lines down a sequence.

I also find the likes of the 6790/7890/7790 confusing, why they don't just use the xx30 moniker is beyond me, there are plenty of skipped digits still to accommodate any possible product refreshes.

On a final note I can only say that the price of the 7800 series is a vast disappointment, I'm actually wondering if there has been some kind of price fixing going on, It would certainly benefit both AMD and Nvidea to stagger their next gen releases so both company could benefit from a long period of no direct competion, I do like my conspiracys though

 

[Nutella33]

It however seems to me that a 512 bus would have been a better move with just 2gb of VRAM (the sweet spot for the next few years I imagine), and increased the RAM bandwidth so much that they could have used slower and presumably cheaper GDDR5 and only 2/3 of it.

the way i understand it is that the costly bit of the memory on a gfx card is actually the bus. this is part of the reason ATI/AMD stuck with the 256bit bus in previous generations as they were aiming for price and multi card set up over single card dominance in the 4 and 5 series and so cut the cost of production (and to end user) by sticking with a 256bit bus with superior data compression instead of a wider bus like on the nvidia cards

 

[TheMorningStar]

the way i understand it is that the costly bit of the memory on a gfx card is actually the bus. this is part of the reason ATI/AMD stuck with the 256bit bus in previous generations as they were aiming for price and multi card set up over single card dominance in the 4 and 5 series and so cut the cost of production (and to end user) by sticking with a 256bit bus with superior data compression instead of a wider bus like on the nvidia cards

Interesting, something I had not considered, I do remember them doing the 512 bus on the 2900 series, always wondered why they never went back to that although I guess GDDR5 kind of negated it for a generation or two. I wonder what the price would be on a 256bit/2GB version then..

 

[SFFNoob]

If the leaked slides are all true then the 7770 isn't another rebrand but it will be the lowest card to use the new architecture, semi accurate has reported that the lower end 7000 series will be all rebrands.

I like the sound of that, thanks! So will my HTPC, almost set on this, perhaps a HD7850/70, will see!

 

[Mr Krugga]

Insane prices, even the cheapest Tahiti GPU works out at £279 with VAT. Similar specs to a 6970 with the exception of higher bandwidth due to 384 bit bus, higher core speed at stock and more tessellation power as seen from previous presentations.

Spec-wise a 7870 is what 6950 2GB is today and costs £229 according to that spreadsheet and current exchange rate (plus VAT). I don't see any bargains there.

Unless the performance per stream processors is vastly improved, it's gonna be hard to justify any upgrades whatsoever.

Am I missing something?

EDIT: 7970 at £429 inc, 7990 at £659 (this one doesn't look right, currently Radeon 6990 is around twice as expensive as 6970), etc. that just seems so over the top in the current economy.

 

[hash70]

wow those prices are way to high,much much higher than i thought they would be,i need dual gpu for my 30inch dell,im in trouble here,no way i can afford that