January 9 Launch Date for AMD Radeon HD 7900

Gibbo · 14 Dec 2011 at 18:02

DamoTourettes said:
Very interested in the 7990 or Crossfire 7970's - when you say Feb/March are you including this beast as well?

On the Dual GPU card, its in the pipeline, unknown on date though....

CaptainRAVE · 14 Dec 2011 at 18:22

7990

DamoTourettes · 14 Dec 2011 at 18:24

xsistor said:
Weren't they planning to release the refreshes before 79xx?

Neg - apparently the mobile GPU's were the only ones that were coming to market before the big bad 7970.

Karateyid · 14 Dec 2011 at 18:26

Looks like I'll b waiting til feb march time for a gpu upgrade... Or I'll pick up something when the eager beavers sell their existing cards

Surveyor · 14 Dec 2011 at 18:49

It's beginning to sound like the performance/£ isn't going to be a whole lot better than the current cards.

DamoTourettes · 14 Dec 2011 at 19:00

Surveyor said:
It's beginning to sound like the performance/£ isn't going to be a whole lot better than the current cards.

In all honesty, what do you expect? A GTX 580 slayer with 50% more performance at £300? Companies will exploit their performance advantage to their economic advantage whenever they have a superior technology (which in this industry is for a definitively finite period). This is what keeps them afloat, shareholders happy, and the all important R&D money going back into the next gen.

If GTX 580's are still selling at ~£400 and you release a card with even 20% more performance, wouldn't you sell it as a direct competitor to your rivals offering at *at least* the same price point or higher? Think about it. Nvidia isn't going to have anything else on the market for at least another 3-6 months, and I can't see them suddenly substantially dropping their pricing to compete with HD7970 - a price war is in no-ones interest across the industry.

Surveyor · 14 Dec 2011 at 19:04

DamoTourettes said:
In all honesty, what do you expect? A GTX 580 slayer with 50% more performance at £300? Companies will exploit their performance advantage to their economic advantage whenever they have a superior technology (which in this industry is for a definitively finite period). This is what keeps them afloat, shareholders happy, and the all important R&D money going back into the next gen.

If GTX 580's are still selling at ~£400 and you release a card with even 20% more performance, wouldn't you sell it as a direct competitor to your rivals offering at the same price point or slightly higher? Think about it.

I didn't expect anything.

I wasn't one of the people in this thread speculating that the performance increase would far outstrip the price increase.

It doesn't look like that's going to be the case.

RedMogg · 14 Dec 2011 at 19:27

Bugger - was looking at SLI 580 3Gb's - now I'm thinking a single budget card until an established solution (within a realistic budget) for playing BF3 on Ultra is found. Looks like I'll be holding onto my hard-earned a little longer...

Jibber55 · 14 Dec 2011 at 19:39

I can't wait for the smile face thread Gibbo! Are there going to be enough for another wall?

I've been waiting ages for an upgrade so will jump as soon as initial pricing comes down. I bet Nvidia will be ready by then and I end up waiting again.

drunkenmaster · 14 Dec 2011 at 19:41

Surveyor said:
It's beginning to sound like the performance/£ isn't going to be a whole lot better than the current cards.

From what exactly, 7970 £350, 6970 £270, one is 80% faster than the other one, lets add 80% to £270 and see what we get shall we........ oh, £486..... but the 7970 isn't going to offer a very good price performance increase?

6970's dropping to probably £150-180.....will their performance disappear as their price drops, no, so more performance for your £ there as well.

In what way exactly does it seem like price/performance isn't going to be a whole lot better?

Because one random site has said they will be 500 Euro's, well done, but that site is talking complete ass.

$500 is £389, more likely and more recent hints put it closer to $449, which would put it at £350 and, none of these prices are confirmed. While higher prices due to process problems is very possible, I still don't get where you can possibly insinuate not a good jump in price/£ from, at all.

If these were due to be £480, then you can expect identical price/performance as the current gen, the 7970 will not be anywhere near £480, it's really that simple.

These will likely be £350 max, potentially less, the 7950, we'll have to see where that comes in, hopefully £250 max, but we'll see.

drunkenmaster · 14 Dec 2011 at 19:47

DamoTourettes said:
In all honesty, what do you expect? A GTX 580 slayer with 50% more performance at £300? Companies will exploit their performance advantage to their economic advantage whenever they have a superior technology (which in this industry is for a definitively finite period). This is what keeps them afloat, shareholders happy, and the all important R&D money going back into the next gen.

If GTX 580's are still selling at ~£400 and you release a card with even 20% more performance, wouldn't you sell it as a direct competitor to your rivals offering at *at least* the same price point or higher? Think about it. Nvidia isn't going to have anything else on the market for at least another 3-6 months, and I can't see them suddenly substantially dropping their pricing to compete with HD7970 - a price war is in no-ones interest across the industry.

Again, for the 5 billionth time, explain why the 5870, which was more than 50% faster than the 285gtx, came in at a lower price?

Why did the 4870 come in VASTLY below the 260gtx price? We keep seeing what you are saying on these forums, and the exact logic you are using would have suggested the 4870 would have launch 15% cheaper than the 260gtx, it didn't, it was closer to 40% cheaper. Again by your logic of competing only with the competitions top available card, the 5870 would have cost near enough £500, did it?

Find one case in which AMD pricing has followed your logic, and see if you can find any cases where Nvidia or AMD have followed normal pricing patterns by replacing their old line up with a card at the same price, regardless of if their competition has their old gen, or their new gen out already.

StonedPenguin · 14 Dec 2011 at 19:51

7970 inc

I wonder if 2 7970's will be fine on a Corsair TX750, With them being 28nm does that mean theyll use less power?
I put off sli'ing 580's because hesitant of buying a new PSU for the sake of 100w odd watts.

Surveyor · 14 Dec 2011 at 19:57

drunkenmaster said:
From what exactly, 7970 £350, 6970 £270, one is 80% faster than the other one, lets add 80% to £270 and see what we get shall we........ oh, £486..... but the 7970 isn't going to offer a very good price performance increase?

6970's dropping to probably £150-180.....will their performance disappear as their price drops, no, so more performance for your £ there as well.

In what way exactly does it seem like price/performance isn't going to be a whole lot better?

Because one random site has said they will be 500 Euro's, well done, but that site is talking complete ass.

$500 is £389, more likely and more recent hints put it closer to $449, which would put it at £350 and, none of these prices are confirmed. While higher prices due to process problems is very possible, I still don't get where you can possibly insinuate not a good jump in price/£ from, at all.

If these were due to be £480, then you can expect identical price/performance as the current gen, the 7970 will not be anywhere near £480, it's really that simple.

These will likely be £350 max, potentially less, the 7950, we'll have to see where that comes in, hopefully £250 max, but we'll see.

You're just speculating on the performance increase and as for the price:

Gibbo said:
All I can say is the new fastest thing is on its way and it shall be expensive.

Broken Hope · 14 Dec 2011 at 20:14

Karateyid · 14 Dec 2011 at 20:26

Sooo when do we think the preorder bumps will hit the site???

DX24 · 14 Dec 2011 at 22:30

Hi can someone tell if these new cards are 80% better etc does this mean stand out graphics or just better FPS.

People keep saying faster where I'm looking for visual too?

Cheers

Surveyor · 14 Dec 2011 at 23:21

DX24 said:
Hi can someone tell if these new cards are 80% better etc does this mean stand out graphics or just better FPS.

People keep saying faster where I'm looking for visual too?

Cheers

It's all relative.

If these cards offer fantastic performance then, for example, they may do 60fps in a particular game with everything cranked up to max where an older card would only do 60fps on lower settings.

flopper · 14 Dec 2011 at 23:22

DX24 said:
Hi can someone tell if these new cards are 80% better etc does this mean stand out graphics or just better FPS.

People keep saying faster where I'm looking for visual too?

Cheers

newer cards tends to be able to increase the visual quality while keeping a higher fps rate.
its a trade off obviously.
estimates currently is unknown of performance. 20-40% more than 580gtx is rumor for the 7970

madtoady · 15 Dec 2011 at 00:28

I really want to buy a 7950 when it's released and I'm worried that my system will bottleneck it and not let the card reach it's full potential.

I plan to upgrade my system big time when Ivy Bridge is released but my ATI 4890 is starting to hold me back and the 7xxx series looks a great option.

Current system:
AMD Phenom II X4 Quad Core 955 Black Edition 3.20GHz @ 3.80GHz
Gigabyte GA-MA790XT-UD4P Motherboard
Corsair XMS3 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Bundle

Cheers

albert · 15 Dec 2011 at 00:44

Lets be honest , these cards are overkill. I normally uprgrade my card every year but at the moment there is nothing my system cannot play at 1080p HD. Think i might wait a while and see what happens.