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Rumours out that Kepler GK104 cards will be $299...
- Thread starter Havana_UK
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The 7970 is a disappointment due to it's low default clock. If it came in at 1225Mhz it would be a huge success, beating a GTX 580 by about 40-50% and pretty much matches a GTX 590.
So it is all false because a rough Chinese translation originating from a website called ChipHell says so? Surely this is how rumours begin.
edit: Or are you saying it is lol worthy because the article itself deserves a lol?
I've got visions of a dude sat at his desk, with his fingers in his ears and his eyes tightly closed making the noise, "LALALALALALALALALALALALALALALALA!"
Uhm, just clock it?
28NM Silicon is scarce, thanks to Apple. Everyone is in the same boat, so there's a big reason AMD left so much performance on the table and its because they didn't want to risk an extra % loss of yields by putting the default clocks up.
You ain't seen nothing yet, I don't consider the 7970 has a high end card, but it does overclock rather well.
Wouldn't surprise me if AMD didn't have something like a 8970 waiting to makes it's entrance.
Remember the missing shaders saga, true or a hoax I don't know, but until Kepler makes it's appearance, AMD is in no hurry to bring out something special to beat it.
Thats interesting, the 7970 is the fastest single GPU, yet you don't consider it high-end? It would be a surprise if AMD had such a card waiting to make an entrance, why would they even bother, even if keplar was 10-15% faster. Nvidia and AMD want to make money while not getting into any technological/price wars with each other.
3 posts up. Yields are high priority for 28nm.
AMD, will be binning their best chips for future models also.
exactly and NO Kepler in sight....
Yes you are right some people would buy them. The point I make -maybe badly- is that surly the idea is to milk the 7xxx series for all it's worth and when done move on to the 8xxx or whatever and so on. AMD's focus will be on cards like the 7950 and the lower GPU's which will sell in vastly greater numbers then the top GPU's. Nvidia would be happy with a small lead at the top end, and like AMD focus on making money on the lesser GPU's. With only two companies at this level, real competition is non-existent imho.
Well this Thread gives a good indication. After the 31st we will no for sure, once end users and independant review sites start giving feedback.
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Unfortunately not every card can reach 1225Mhz, and even the custom cards coming out, namely the Asus DirectCU II Top, the XFX "Black Edition" and the Gigabyte OC all only come with an overclock to 1Ghz.
If it were guaranteed that every 7970 could reach 1.2Ghz on air then it would be a different story, but the fact remains with relatively underwhelming stock performance, will the rest of the range (i.e. the 7800s) just be replacements for the 6900s and not improve performance:£s ratio at all? AMD hasn't really left enough headroom for a range that overall performs any better than its last generation, except when it comes to power consumption.
Soldato
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With 1.25v, (correct drivers/bios needed for voltage adjustment) all 7970's will reach a stable 1.2ghz - fact
Stock performance is ahead of the GTX580 and HD6970, on a smaller die, that uses less power. What more do you want? A wizards sleeve on the card?!
I can see this being an issue IF it turns out to be true, tough the way it is playing so far out I don't see a major problem. If we look at the fact that HD 7970 is ~25% faster than the GTX 580, the HD 7950 is ~10 faster than the GTX 580, then the 7890 should ~= GTX 580. The 7890 MSRP is $359, or UK £275 inc VAT. That price would similar to the current HD 6970 prices here in the UK. So ~15-20% extra performance for the same price, plus the ability to OC better. So potentially ~ GTX 580 performance for much less money. If there is any GTX 580 stock left at the time 7890 releases you could pick up an excellent bargain.
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Don't be so sure of that. I have a HD 7970 that refuses to go to 1200 at 1.25 without artifacting. HardOCP have had a couple of HD 7970s that refused to go anwhere near 1225 you impled. Most 7970s will do a very nice ~18-25% OC at stock voltage which is excellent in my experience.
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2012/01/25/asus_radeon_hd_7970_video_card_review/3
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2012/01/24/xfx_r7970_black_edition_video_card_review/7
If AMD were getting good enough yields to allow ALL 7970s to do 1.1GHz or even 1GHz at stock they would have done so IMHO (let alone the 1225 you implied). They just decided to play it safe to improve yields.
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O rly?
And precisely how many 7970s have you tested, in order to make this dramatic sweeping statement?
Does anybody else find it tiring to constantly read opinion and speculation presented as "hard fact"? Didn't people get taught the difference at school?
O rly?
And precisely how many 7970s have you tested, in order to make this dramatic sweeping statement?
Does anybody else find it tiring to constantly read opinion and speculation presented as "hard fact"? Didn't people get taught the difference at school?
Yeah. There's too much speculation and opinion masquerading as fact on these forums.
No, it is a dissapointment because it relies almost entirely upon it's clock potential to make it stand out. The massive overclocks come courtesy of the 28nm process itself, which all new cards for the foreseable future will also be able to take advantage of.
In architectural terms there are extremely small gains. It's 30% shader increase and 50% memory bandwidth bump over the 6970 only combine to allow a 30-40% clock for clock performance advantage over the 6970. Clock for clock performance (both cards clocked same for core and mem) would be almost idetical to the old gen GTX580, which containns 1bn less shaders.
The 28nm process is great, the 7970 architecture is rather ordinary.
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I have never ever said or held the slightest belief that the GTX580 3GB (even where available for <£400) is good value. It is shockingly poor value. I have however said that the 7970 is both substantially overpriced and disappointing in performance terms for a next gen graphics card. IMO the 28nm process may polish the turd red, but it is still brown underneath.
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