It's going to far to say this is amd's fermi. Gtx680=295mm2 and 7970=365mm2. Gtx480=529mm2 and 5870=334mm2. Amd have the performance advantage while using a part thats a fully blown compute part with a bigger front side bus. They only used 70mm2 more to achieve this while nvidia needed 195mm2. I can't see where the 7970 under performs for the size of chip when you consider the bigger bus and it being a compute part. I don't even think its that hot comparing to the gtx680 and the power use does come with extra performance especially at higher resolution.
My stock 7970 was really loud. Especially when used in 3D. Far too loud to be considered quiet.
That was a stock cooler which should be good enough. It wasn't, I saw temps of over 80c with it at 80% and by then the noise drove me nuts.
You're right about the die size and the direct compute. All of which were laughed at when Nvidia released their mid ranged chips which at the time pretty much laughed at AMD's. Per die size Tahiti should be light years ahead of Kepler but it just isn't.
I'm not in any shape or form surprised that AMD got a driver out there that made Tahiti perform better than the Kepler equivalents. They should ! their technology cost far more than Kepler.
What I mean by it being AMD's Fermi is bang on. When released it was hot (for the technology) slow and uses a lot of power.Sure it's been revised and sure there are aftermarket coolers around but that's exactly what happened with Fermi. Look how much better the 580 was compared to the 480 in terms of temps and noise.
That was fixed by adding low leakage transistors and a much better cooler. AMD released the ghz editions and with drivers they have taken the podium places again.
But let's not forget for a minute what a laughing stock they became when Nvidia released Kepler. For a mid ranged part that beat all of AMD's offerings in terms of value AND performance that squarely makes Tahiti a Fermi in any one's books.
I mean damn, even though Fermi was faster than the 58xx cards it STILL got laughed at for being too hot, too loud and guzzling power down like no one's business.
By the EOL however the tables turned.
I highly doubt that Nvidia will be able to come back with a magic driver. It doesn't surprise me that AMD have the 7970 where it should have been at launch. But they didn't and a lot of grass grows when you sit back hoping.
As I say, have a think about what I have said. The 79xx launch was pretty disastrous in any one's books. Loads of people waited for Kepler, then they bought Kepler. They were right to do so IMO too.
So AMD may be making some sales back now but the important ones were missed.
Its in a Phantom 820 case, it does have a side panel 200mm fan near the GPU but im sure even if it didnt it wouldnt get much hotter.
