HD7970 NDA lifted: Reviews go live

[flip-mode]

My understanding is that there will be 3 GCN chips - Tahiti, Pitcairn, Cape Verde - 79xx, 78xx, 77xx - and the chips below those will be VLIW5 rebrands.
http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1805/1/

And as much as has been said about VLIW4 being more efficient than VLIW5, I don't completely believe it. I looked into it a little but not conclusively, but at 1900x1200 the 6970 is often only 1.25 to 1.35 times the performance of the 6870, but that's despite having 1.37x more shader processors and a lot more memory bandwidth. It's also got a reworked tessellator that the 6970 is benefiting from. At resolutions higher than 1900x1200 the 6970 pulls way ahead, but it's hard to say if that's not other issues like bandwidth and total RAM. So having looked at a couple of numbers, VLIW4 as implemented in 6970 is most certainly not always more efficient than VLIW5 in 6870 - maybe it is sometimes, or maybe those times that it looks more efficient it's really just the higher bandwidth or the better tessellator that's making the difference. The 6870 is really a marvel of pixel shader efficiency. I'd love to grab a 6870 for $125 or something like that in a couple of months.

Off topic: geeks.com is selling the 5870 for $149 right now. I spent some time today looking over a bunch of reviews - the 5870 is about 97% of the performance of the 6950 - basically a wash - that's $225 level performance for $150. The only reason I don't pull the trigger on that immediately is because I'm inclined to believe that my gaming days are behind me, and even so I'm tempted to grab that deal just because it's so good.

[Forge]

the mess that is their drivers makes this consumer card useless for moderation workstation use.

I wish people would stop harping on the Nvidia has superior driver quality and AMD is inferior.

Nvidia and AMD are both equal in the driver department. They each have their own set of issues in which the fanboy turn into mountains of FUD. The issues typically affect bleeding edge platforms.

It is nothing like the old days where you have software that was broken in the fullest sense of the world. (random BSODs, games would outright CTD, OS will refuse to boot-up etc). Fortunately, we have long past those days unless you like to play with fire a.k.a beta drivers.

While I would love to publicly agree with Krogoth and disturb the space-time continuum, I must point out the oversight.

Nvidia and AMD's drivers are both of similar quality and stability for OS/gaming purposes.

Nvidia has a massive edge in workstation apps. Also, this is workstation PERFORMANCE I'm talking about, not stability. They're both fine for stability.

However, the days of using gaming cards for workstation workloads is past. Nvidia is crippling their consumer cards for pro apps harder and harder each generation. Just look at the massive differences in DP math rates between proper workstation Fermi and gaming Fermi. Nvidia does NOT want you doing that, and will be making things far less attractive until you get the memo and buy Quadro.

So... Buying Nvidia consumer for workstation performance is the trailing end of a coincidental boost at best, and backing a losing hand at worst. Also, totally irrelevant for the great majority of people shopping consumer graphics cards.

[flip-mode]

So I was doing some speculating of what the follow-up cards will be:

7970 @ 2048sp @ $550
7950 @ 1792sp @ rumored $450
7870 @ 1536sp @ rumored $300
7850 @ 1280sp @ rumored $220

Some more pieces of the puzzle fall into place
$150 7770: 900MHz 896sp, 5500MHz 1GB 128bit 88GB/s
$250 7850 (booo!)
$300 7870

Does anyone else get the impression that the 7770 is going to be equivalent to the
6850: 775MHz 960sp, 4000MHz 1GB 256bit 128GB/s

If the 7770 is really going to launch at $150 then AMD truly is abandoning any attempt to bring higher performance to lower prices.

Now I'm all the more tempted to go buy that $150 5870 right now.

Probably best to wait and see, but the rumors paint a fairly unimpressive picture.

As far as GPU efficiency goes, the 7870 will be the card to watch as it may end up having the same pixel shader count and RAM characteristics as the 6970.

[flip-mode]

Aren't all the 7000 series using VLIW4 cores at least? They won't be GCN cores, sure, but the 7800 series should be better performance than the 6800 series using VLIW5 cores.

Here's the info I have seen on the rebrand products:
http://semiaccurate.com/2011/12/16/low- ... -rebrands/

That could even be taken as another bit of bad news. Why? "Turks" is the Radeon 6670. That means there isn't going to be any shifting of the price/performance curve at all and we lose "Juniper" 6770/5770 level performance completely. It would have been great to see Juniper get a shrink to 28nm and offered at $80. Instead, we'll get "Turks" with no shrink, rebranded, and probably little or no change in price.

[kamikaziechameleon]

the mess that is their drivers makes this consumer card useless for moderation workstation use.

I wish people would stop harping on the Nvidia has superior driver quality and AMD is inferior.

Nvidia and AMD are both equal in the driver department. They each have their own set of issues in which the fanboy turn into mountains of FUD. The issues typically affect bleeding edge platforms.

It is nothing like the old days where you have software that was broken in the fullest sense of the world. (random BSODs, games would outright CTD, OS will refuse to boot-up etc). Fortunately, we have long past those days unless you like to play with fire a.k.a beta drivers.

While I would love to publicly agree with Krogoth and disturb the space-time continuum, I must point out the oversight.

Nvidia and AMD's drivers are both of similar quality and stability for OS/gaming purposes.

Nvidia has a massive edge in workstation apps. Also, this is workstation PERFORMANCE I'm talking about, not stability. They're both fine for stability.

However, the days of using gaming cards for workstation workloads is past. Nvidia is crippling their consumer cards for pro apps harder and harder each generation. Just look at the massive differences in DP math rates between proper workstation Fermi and gaming Fermi. Nvidia does NOT want you doing that, and will be making things far less attractive until you get the memo and buy Quadro.

So... Buying Nvidia consumer for workstation performance is the trailing end of a coincidental boost at best, and backing a losing hand at worst. Also, totally irrelevant for the great majority of people shopping consumer graphics cards.

Should nvidia truely embrace that they will loose MANY consumers favor. Just from looking on the solid works and A-CAD forums you can see that a large portion of their regular consumers are there for the joint functions. Unless they put gaming driver support on workstation cards this will cause them to loose a VITAL edge in that market. If only AMD could go back to the days of the 4870 they would have taken a much larger market share.

[kamikaziechameleon]

The strange thing here is that I'm usually the biggest cheapskate in the room and I feel like the 7970 price is not any kind of insult.

Anyway, I'm more concerned about performance. By my (probably misguided) calculations, the 7970 is delivering close to the same efficiency per sp as the 6870. So I was doing some speculating of what the follow-up cards will be:

7970 @ 2048sp @ $550
7950 @ 1792sp @ rumored $450
7870 @ 1536sp @ rumored $300
7850 @ 1280sp @ rumored $220

So we have the 7850 with just a few more shader processors than the 6870 at about the same efficiency per shader processor with a rumored msrp of $220. That's not very exciting progress on either performance or price/performance. I can understand the halo product shunning the price/performance attribute, but not the $200 card.

I'll have to wait and see - the above is highly speculative and probably not even close to how it will play out.

that was my fear for this gen with the announced pricing. I went from a prospective customer to not interested in this gen, just not trending in a way I like so I vote with my dollar. Last 3 years I've upgraded GPUs every year in the 200-350 dollar area and this gen I'm just not seeing it.

[kamikaziechameleon]

Maybe I've missed the train??? (correct me if I'm wrong)

So what they used to do... vs what they do now.

They used to: role out new GPU gens closer together (meaning all the chipsets at once almost the premium on down not this one now another in a couple months stuff they do now.) and in a more timely fashion with the aim of replacing the whole lineup and distributors would clear stock with sales prior to launch. Those old GPUs used to literally replace the old ones at their price points. Those prices didn't vary much over the lifespan of the product with occasional sales being the only exception after production had ceased.

What they do now(last 3 or so gens): A new GPU gen is launched one chip and sometimes one GPU at a time, there might be refreshes or redesigns of that chip inside the life span of the product replacing a product with a new one withouth changing the name.(8800 anyone?) The pricing is completely random, sometimes undershooting competition sometimes unbalancing the chipmakers own offerings(4870, 8800, 460, 6950, 6870). There are no pricing standards or structure for the products lifetime as the chip may debut at 500 dollars and be 350 in 6 months time. Product life spans are amorphous, often times one gen stacks ontop of another, look at the 460 it is still out there basically filling out the 5XX lineup, same will be true of the 6XXX cards going into AMDs 7XXX launch since they don't move a whole lineup at once. Drivers are anyones guess since chipsets tricle out with fab problems and supply constraints abounding. chips could live 6 or 18 months its anyones guess as to how long they will be produced.

There are obvious pros and cons to then and now scenarios but on the whole there is allot more consumer clarity and design purpose behind the old school business model. The staggard release schedule helps to spread out lauch sales and stay in the headlines as a company but it creates a branding problem, WHAT IS THIS GEN? as it feels that a company like Nvidia or AMD will only have their entire lineup out for 4-6 months before the next gen starts trickling. You don't know what they as a brand offer and what kinda support you'll be getting without extensive research. Pricing and by affiliation preformance is an abstract notion in the modern GPU landscape. You can't feasibly buy a decent Price preformance card without looking at reviews because the scalability of price and preformance, Nvidia spent most of this get with a 150 dollar whole in their price range offerings. This gen also has the most confusing naming practices, I'll level that blame 99 percent at Nvidia as the 8800 debacle was the begining of what would become a huge trend for them. marketing their cards between 150 and 300 as the same 560 and they aren't! lesser people see the recommendations for the 560 448 floating around and end up with a base 180dollar 560 thinking it was a bargain. AMD is guilty of producing a bottom tier GPU so irrelavent it seems the only reason it exists is to bolster the price of the next tier of GPU (6770 vs 6850)

I guess this ramble was not productive but my aim was this, why does it seem that both companies seem to be basing a large part of their marketing and pricing these days on practices that do not serve their customer and by association themselves. AMD gained so much good will with the 4870 but has slowly let that errode away. I guess as I shop around I'm not terribly happy with either company and not needing anything just wanting. With no enticing offerings I'm inclined to sit on my money or spend it on other products.

[Forge]

I went from a prospective customer to not interested in this gen, just not trending in a way I like so I vote with my dollar.

So you're going to make your purchasing decision before the product is officially announced, much less priced or in stock?? I know a guy who preordered Bulldozer months early. You'd get along great.

[kamikaziechameleon]

I went from a prospective customer to not interested in this gen, just not trending in a way I like so I vote with my dollar.

So you're going to make your purchasing decision before the product is officially announced, much less priced or in stock?? I know a guy who preordered Bulldozer months early. You'd get along great.

Yeah isn't that what you do on threads like these???

The prices are announced and are in the reviews for the 7970. It might all of vary by, 50 dollars, and 5 percent in performance from now to hard launch. While I made the 580 vs 6970 comments prior the end point is its about 200 dollars more than I'll ever spend on a single GPU again. And if the MSRP is floating at 550 you can bet that their won't be a card for sale under 600 for the first month.

I think there is plenty of info out there to base my decisions on. My 460 runs my games, I wanted a new GPU to fuel multiple monitors(4 eventually) but didn't want to buy outdated hardware from the 6XXX line the 11.1 support was quite enticing. The preliminary infor coming out on the pricing for the rest of the 7XXX gen is not good combined with leaked specs. hmmm...

[JustAnEngineer]

If you've got $558 burning a hole in your pocket, have at it:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductLi ... geSize=100

[no51]

If you've got $558 burning a hole in your pocket, have at it:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductLi ... geSize=100

Done.

[Forge]

If you've got $558 burning a hole in your pocket, have at it:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductLi ... geSize=100

Done.

While you're up, grab me two? One for me and one for a friend.

[flip-mode]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductLi ... 70&x=0&y=0

All models out of stock already! When I check last night there were only two models out of stock. Demand for $550 high end graphics cards appears to be alive and well.

In other news my 5870 arrived and it is a haus - obviously a big step up from the 5770. Crysis with anti-aliasing or "enthusiast" was not possible before but now I can do 4xAA and "enthusiast" settings and it is still much smoother playing that the 5770 with "gamer" and no AA. It is a mammoth card - comes withing 1/8" of the drive bays in the Antec Sonata III.

[Fragnificent]

ohmygod.....lol. I haven't really had a gaming rig for months, and now that I am getting the fever, this thing shows up. This should be fun...

[kamikaziechameleon]

Was playing deus ex on my 460 GTX last night, between all the screen tearing and what not I'm starting to really feel the need for a GPU update. Regarding horizontal tearing, would a newer GPU with a higher FPS resolve that?

I wonder how long till we see a completely updated product line for both companies. 2, 4 months???

[Forge]

Was playing deus ex on my 460 GTX last night, between all the screen tearing and what not I'm starting to really feel the need for a GPU update. Regarding horizontal tearing, would a newer GPU with a higher FPS resolve that?

I wonder how long till we see a completely updated product line for both companies. 2, 4 months???

Or you could, you know, enable Vsync and triple buffering, the features designed to address the issue you're describing.

Played DXHR smoothly on single GTX 260 (with not maxed settings), SLI GTX 260s (near maxed), and single GTX 460 1GB (maxed). When my second GTX 460 shows up today, I expect I'll be able to indulge in some DXHR, maxed, with AA and such as well.

On the other hand, you want to upgrade, go upgrade. Only you can know if that's what you really want.

[morphine]

Was playing deus ex on my 460 GTX last night, between all the screen tearing and what not I'm starting to really feel the need for a GPU update. Regarding horizontal tearing, would a newer GPU with a higher FPS resolve that?

.

Heh, your GPU is too fast as it is, and you're getting tearing because the screen is refreshing in the middle of frames being drawn. Just enable v-sync. There's a performance penalty but by the sound of it, that's not likely to be a problem. For what it's worth, I played DXHR all the way with my previous GTX 460 with everything maxed.

[kamikaziechameleon]

Or you could, you know, enable Vsync and triple buffering, the features designed to address the issue you're describing.

enabled, everything to the max. Seems to persist no matter what, I turned things down wondering if a higher frame rate would smooth it out.

[Forge]

Or you could, you know, enable Vsync and triple buffering, the features designed to address the issue you're describing.

enabled, everything to the max. Seems to persist no matter what, I turned things down wondering if a higher frame rate would smooth it out.

If you've enabled Vsync, and you're getting tearing, something's not right. Those two should not be able to cohabit.

[kamikaziechameleon]

Was playing deus ex on my 460 GTX last night, between all the screen tearing and what not I'm starting to really feel the need for a GPU update. Regarding horizontal tearing, would a newer GPU with a higher FPS resolve that?

.

Heh, your GPU is too fast as it is, and you're getting tearing because the screen is refreshing in the middle of frames being drawn. Just enable v-sync. There's a performance penalty but by the sound of it, that's not likely to be a problem. For what it's worth, I played DXHR all the way with my previous GTX 460 with everything maxed.

have em all turned on, might screen frequency being different from the output cause this? Its putting out on two mirrored monitors, one in my room and my 60 inch in my living room were I play. Its setup for 59 hz because of my small screen but the plasma is 600 hz or whatever, so basically 60 if I'm not mistaken. I'll have to goof around with this tonight.

[Forge]

With Vista/7, 59Hz and 60Hz are effectively the same thing. Vista/7 are using 59.94Hz and calling it 59, while XP called it 60. It's a side effect of TV modes on newer monitors and TVs, they advertise 59.94 instead of 60 to make HDMI inputs happy.

[JustAnEngineer]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductLi ... 70&x=0&y=0
All (7) models out of stock already! Demand for $550 high end graphics cards appears to be alive and well.

Think of how many years of pent-up demand there are for GPUs fabricated on a smaller/faster/more efficient process than 40 nm.

P.S.: The Diamond 7970PE53G card has just showed up as in-stock at Newegg for $568. I won't wager a guess as to how long it takes it to sell out compared to the first seven.

[flip-mode]

Think of how many years of pent-up demand there are for GPUs fabricated on a smaller/faster/more efficient process than 40 nm.

Hmm, I don't really care if it's 40 or 20 or whatever; I just care that it's a decent enough upgrade over what I currently have and that it meets my price/performance, noise, idle power consumption, and longevity targets, such as the 5770 to 5870 upgrade I just made. :shrug:

[michael_d]

This puppy was shipped to me express last night, can't wait

[flip-mode]

This puppy was shipped to me express last night, can't wait

Looks like you're due for a CPU upgrade, now, and maybe two more of those 30" monitors too, if you want to take full advantage.

[Krogoth]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductLi ... 70&x=0&y=0
All (7) models out of stock already! Demand for $550 high end graphics cards appears to be alive and well.

Think of how many years of pent-up demand there are for GPUs fabricated on a smaller/faster/more efficient process than 40 nm.

P.S.: The Diamond 7970PE53G card has just showed up as in-stock at Newegg for $568. I won't wager a guess as to how long it takes it to sell out compared to the first seven.

There are quite a number of buyers who are willing to pay top dollar to have the fastest GPU. They usually ebay off their older GPU/GPUs to offset some of the cost.

It will not surprise me if 7970s climb to $600 due to supply/demand. Remember how practical unobtainum like the 6800U and 8800U climb into $800 range?

[no51]

lookie what we have here: