Official 7950 Benchmarks Thread

[ALXAndy]

What was the 6970 fiasco?

My card was buggered remember?

Now obviously I'm not stupid enough to completely blame that on AMD, but when you have something that works so well without any hassles it does kind of leave a sour taste in your mouth.

It's highly irritating to have something that works for a while and then doesn't. I just wanted back to Nvidia truth be told.

But even with all that bitterness in my cake hole I had to accept that the 580 would devalue faster than my head could spin, and was still after all is said and done slower.

 

[ALXAndy]

What nVidia should 100% agree, if I was them, I'd dump on ATi's parade, reduce the 580GTX to £240 notes tops when they release the 600 series, why not, anything they sell there is a bonus!

As wonderfully spiteful and satisfying as that sounds that would hurt Nvidia just as much.

"Hey, let's make less money just so that our competitor makes less money !"

 

[MichaelM]

Well that's the 3GB 580 rendered obsolete for gaming.
I think AMD has bad intentions the whole of Nvidia's lineup and "revisions" when Kepler comes out could push them into some very difficult decisions.

 

[KelDG]

Defend it all you want, it is a boring line up. Talk about over clocking all you want, for the price it should be running at those speeds from the start.

28nm was sold as the next big thing, especially since 32nm was skipped, and we are given a medicore line-up at best. These things should be bloody rocket ships, not trading blows with year old cards. I could not even justify upgrading my 5850 for a 7950 cost vs performance.

 

[ALXAndy]

Defend it all you want, it is a boring line up. Talk about over clocking all you want, for the price it should be running at those speeds from the start.

I guess it's just how you look at it. If it ran those speeds from the start and had no overclocking headroom it would pretty much be a 69 series AMD card. And they didn't exactly go down very well at launch did they? People were underwhelmed then.

28nm was sold as the next big thing, especially since 32nm was skipped, and we are given a medicore line-up at best. These things should be bloody rocket ships, not trading blows with year old cards. I could not even justify upgrading my 5850 for a 7950 cost vs performance.

Look at Fermi at launch. I rest my case.

 

[pugheaven]

As wonderfully spiteful and satisfying as that sounds that would hurt Nvidia just as much.

"Hey, let's make less money just so that our competitor makes less money !"

Not when you sell twice as many 580's it doesn't lol. know what you mean though, still loses on what they "would" make BUT you get a bigger user base and ATi slowly die is what I'd want from my company and if that meant a bit of a hit and loses per card... for me I'd want domination lol wonder how much it costs nVidia to make a 580 now?

 

[Jakus]

Little disappointing you just drop the card down on the table and handle the card by the components etc.

Get Yourself a rubber work mat and try to hold things by the edge of the boards etc.

You do nothing different to all the other reviewers out there and it makes Electronically savvy people cringe !

It's entirely up to you whether you want to take it on board

 

[ALXAndy]

Not when you sell twice as many 580's it doesn't lol. know what you mean though, still loses on what they "would" make BUT you get a bigger user base and ATi slowly die is what I'd want from my company and if that meant a bit of a hit and loses per card... for me I'd want domination lol wonder how much it costs nVidia to make a 580 now?

Forgetting of course that Nvidia are still trying to make up for Fermi fail. Which every one seems to have forgotten.

And as much as you'd like to envision it AMD will go nowhere.

Quite simply because they are a choice. It's well known fact that buying a 6950 or 6970 over a 570 or 580 was silly, but it worked. Because of that choice. Some people won't buy an Nvidia card no matter what, and some won't buy an AMD card no matter what.

And that's why Apple are still in business. Sure, they sell a drop in the ocean of computers to how many Windows computers sell, but they still make a tidy coin offering an alternative to Windows.

 

[pugheaven]

Defend it all you want, it is a boring line up. Talk about over clocking all you want, for the price it should be running at those speeds from the start.

28nm was sold as the next big thing, especially since 32nm was skipped, and we are given a medicore line-up at best. These things should be bloody rocket ships, not trading blows with year old cards. I could not even justify upgrading my 5850 for a 7950 cost vs performance.

Agreed 110% on this one, for "stock" performance, they're decent and nothing more for the cost, overclocked they're superb (or at least the 7970 is overclocked)... however when you've got a 7950 going in at 580 prices and similar performance stock then to me, it's kind of a wasted generation as if you wanted that performance, you'd just buy a 6970 for £240 quid, pocket the £110 notes and overclock that instead and it's not exactly disgraced by the nvidia 580? Not sure where the 7950 and THAT PRICE fit in with the real world...

If I was buying a new card right this minute, I'd not go for either the 7950/70 at all, the price doesn't justfiy it in my mind somehow... I'm actually just picking another 6990 soon I think as 2nd hand they're ace!

 

[ALXAndy]

Agreed 110% on this one, for "stock" performance, they're decent and nothing more for the cost, overclocked they're superb (or at least the 7970 is overclocked)... however when you've got a 7950 going in at 580 prices and similar performance stock then to me, it's kind of a wasted generation as if you wanted that performance, you'd just buy a 6970 for £240 quid, pocket the £110 notes and overclock that instead and it's not exactly disgraced by the nvidia 580? Not sure where the 7950 and THAT PRICE fit in with the real world...

If I was buying a new card right this minute, I'd not go for either the 7950/70 at all, the price doesn't justfiy it in my mind somehow... I'm actually just picking another 6990 soon I think as 2nd hand they're ace!

So Sandybridge success was based on stock performance?

Really, you're splitting my sides here with that kind of comedy

 

[pugheaven]

Forgetting of course that Nvidia are still trying to make up for Fermi fail. Which every one seems to have forgotten.

And as much as you'd like to envision it AMD will go nowhere.

Quite simply because they are a choice. It's well known fact that buying a 6950 or 6970 over a 570 or 580 was silly, but it worked. Because of that choice. Some people won't buy an Nvidia card no matter what, and some won't buy an AMD card no matter what.

And that's why Apple are still in business. Sure, they sell a drop in the ocean of computers to how many Windows computers sell, but they still make a tidy coin offering an alternative to Windows.

No, I went 6970's or 6990 because they were a lot cheaper and overall from benchies they weren't that far behind so for me, it's cost me £400 for the 6990 and £235 for the 6970... a total of £635... for that kind of power... the 580's were very very expensive at £370 ish for ages... so the market was for AMD to be budget options, never was the 6970 in my mind even fighting it out with the 580.

 

[rubin1961]

That chart showing bf3 gtx580@ them settings is different to what i get.
I get more

 

[ALXAndy]

No, I went 6970's or 6990 because they were a lot cheaper and overall from benchies they weren't that far behind so for me, it's cost me £400 for the 6990 and £235 for the 6970... a total of £635... for that kind of power... the 580's were very very expensive at £370 ish for ages... so the market was for AMD to be budget options, never was the 6970 in my mind even fighting it out with the 580.

AMD parts are usually always cheaper. That was how they made their way into the market, competing with Cyrix. And Cyrix chips were bloody awful.

Mind you, so were AMD's early parts. It wasn't until the Athlon that they really started to come through. Didn't matter though, the K62 3DNOW ! was a good selling CPU even though it was no match for the Pentiums.

See, AMD 7 series were probably far cheaper to design and have produced than Kepler. That's what AMD do, they offer a cheap alternative that usually isn't as good. Infact, before the Athlon XP and after it it seems that's all they have ever done.

Offer cheaper parts.

I've no doubt at all that their pricing is "because we can". And they can, because Nvidia have.

 

[555BUK]

Then I guess you'd better prepare to be dissapointed then, because from all of the rumblings it seems that is exactly what Nvidia have planned.

Link please? From what I have read the GTX560 replacement (GTX660) will be faster than the GTX580, and the GTX680 will be ~50% faster than that (when it eventually arrives).

Surely it should be the 7950's GPU that lets it pull ahead of the GTX580, rather than relying on VRAM at very high resolutions and settings? Let's face it, the GTX580 was just a slightly tweaked GTX480 with a few disabled shaders turned on and one or two optimisations. The tech behind that card is nearly 2 years old and and it is still competetive against AMD's top guns.

There is no chance in hell that NVidia's top part will not comfortably beat the 7970. Even NVidia's middle-high part should give it a good run for it's money.

7970/7950 = overpriced + underperforms for a next gen card. Sure, the GTX580 3GB card is and always has been VASTLY overpriced, but it was made at a time when 3GB was completely unnecessary and was never really a mainstream card. It was a niche product for people with more money than sense.

 

[inSilica]

7950 Crossfire

http://www.hardwareheaven.com/revie...ssfire-graphics-card-review-introduction.html

Is it me or the review at Annand shows OC of 7950 consumes more power than OC of 7970?

http://www.anandtech.com/show/5476/amd-radeon-7950-review/17

 

[MichaelM]

Forgetting of course that Nvidia are still trying to make up for Fermi fail. Which every one seems to have forgotten.

And as much as you'd like to envision it AMD will go nowhere.

Quite simply because they are a choice. It's well known fact that buying a 6950 or 6970 over a 570 or 580 was silly, but it worked. Because of that choice. Some people won't buy an Nvidia card no matter what, and some won't buy an AMD card no matter what.

And that's why Apple are still in business. Sure, they sell a drop in the ocean of computers to how many Windows computers sell, but they still make a tidy coin offering an alternative to Windows.

Pricing of the 580 vs the 6970 on its launch was silly. Tri-fire 6970 was very close to 580 SLI prices. With the 580 only ~10% faster in single card setups and less than that in SLI/crossfire with 6000's better scaling it made perfect sense for multi card setups. The 570 was more expensive as well, Nvidia dropped prices while the 6900's held their value consistently (allowing for VAT increases and resources fluctuations while 2nd hand prices where solid due to bitcoin) up until recently.

After prices dropped and the picture shifted we had the 6950's unlocking to 6970's and that was best place to be. Buying a 1.25GB 570 instead of a 2GB 6950 which could match it at a much cheaper price would have been the worst choice in my opinion.

 

[555BUK]

So Sandybridge success was based on stock performance?

For the >95% of people and businesses who never overclock it certainly was. Intel sell a hell of a lot more non-K processors than they do K Sandy Bridges. Intel's brand and value also have something to do with the sales success.

 

[ALXAndy]

For the >95% of people and businesses who never overclock it certainly was. Intel sell a hell of a lot more non-K processors than they do K Sandy Bridges. Intel's brand and value also have something to do with the sales success.

AMD are very successful in the business sector. They're also wildly popular at the low end, especially with Llano.

Had Intel released Sandy as a locked down chip with no way to overclock it it would have failed.

Surely the K chips explain that perfectly well? Intel leave in loads of headroom, charge for it and then it sells like hot cakes.

All you need to do is take a look at the sigs on this site. Most will say "Intel I5 2500k @ 4.7ghz "

It's no secret that overclocking products sell incredibly well. It's that old "something for nothing" mentality that will make a product successful every single time.

 

[tommybhoy]

@ALXAndy, I thought so, should have been 'my 6970 fiasco'.

It was silly buying a 6970/570 when the 6950's unlocked, an unlockable 2GB 6950 was the card to get last year.

AMD must have made a killing on that card.

2GB 6950>70 CrossFire was cheaper than a single 580 at the time.

At 1 point you could have got a 2GB 6950 for as little as £174.

 

[555BUK]

There is one very obvious measure to how well a new graphics is priced and performs, and that is:- Is stock flying off the shelves or not? Since launch, in-stock 7900's have been easy to find, much moreso than any past top-end new process card I can think of.