Monday, January 16th 2012

Yeston AMD Branded Cost-Effective Tahiti PCB Pictured with Components Placed

by
btarunr
 Discuss (19 Comments)
Chinese AMD Radeon add-in board (AIB) partner and motherboard major Yeston, displayed a Radeon HD 7970 PCB, which bears the AMD branding, and is reportedly AMD's cost-effective "Tahiti" PCB. It is quite likely that this PCB will be used for Radeon HD 7950, apart from affordable HD 7970 cards. Radeon HD 7950, like its costlier sibling, will have a 384-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface.

Its designers seems to have done some clever cost-cutting which will make cards based on it more affordable (or at least more profitable), without sacrificing quality much. The PCB uses a 8+1+1 phase VRM, consisting of cost-effective ferrite core chokes, LFPAK MOSFETs, and probably a UPI-made VRM controller. Yeston will most likely use a top-flow cooler, and hence made room for two DVI connectors next to one each of HDMI 1.4a and standard DisplayPort 1.2. The dual-BIOS feature of AMD's high-end reference HD 7970 PCB is blanked out on this PCB.
Source: Expreview

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19 Comments on Yeston AMD Branded Cost-Effective Tahiti PCB Pictured with Components Placed

#1
Quantos
I wonder just how much of this "cost effectiveness" is passed onto the client, and how much is raw profit for the AIB. Also, how does the profit of a cheap, cost effective card compares to the profit of a well built, but more expensive card?
Posted on Reply
#2
btarunr
Editor & Senior Moderator
I've said this a few times before, AMD sets the component quality benchmark a little too high on its reference boards (the ones with which it launches new GPUs, the ones reviewers and a few early-adopters end up getting), so these "cost-cuttings" shouldn't scare anyone. They'll run the GPU just fine, it already has very good power-draw figures to go with. Historically, these cost-cut custom implementations were never disadvantaged to AMD reference boards at least as far as air and water cooled OC setups were concerned. I'm sure it will be the same case with HD 7970. It has to be.
Posted on Reply
#3
dj-electric
"cost effectiveness" Doesn't mean worse then the reference. Moreover, there's a good chance this thing will be able to produce a higher clock\watt.
TBH that thing looks like it can surly and easily surpass the reference PCB quality, no sweat.
Posted on Reply
#4
jpierce55
I know people always freak out about these, so take one analysis. Even if it does knock the oc capability down some of these "cost-effective" cards are cheaper than the next lower card.... so are you going to pay more for a slower card because you can oc it to the same speed as the next model up?
Posted on Reply
#5
DarkOCean
Looks ok to me it has more weaker phases ...so i want one, i'm more worried for those who would put the same number as the reference one of these weaker phases.
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#6
brandonwh64
Addicted to Bacon and StarCrunches!!!
Even thought these are "cost-effective", I doubt they will be sold in the US unless a company imports them for sale then the cost-effectiveness goes out the window :(
Posted on Reply
#7
overclocking101
it happens every card release, and people always complain. if you bought one 7970 now and plan on ging crossfire later chances are the pcb's will not match, and your lucky if you get the cool things like on standard boards, like dual bios, voltage control, quality mosfets etc etc
Posted on Reply
#8
jpierce55
brandonwh64Even thought these are "cost-effective", I doubt they will be sold in the US unless a company imports them for sale then the cost-effectiveness goes out the window :(
Do you think any of them are NOT imported to the US?
Posted on Reply
#9
brandonwh64
Addicted to Bacon and StarCrunches!!!
jpierce55Do you think any of them are NOT imported to the US?
I have never seen brands like club3d in the US but who knows, some retailer may sell them. I just wished there was a company like this in the US that would sell cards cheaper (even though the design is cheaper). Kinda like the harbor freight of PC parts LOLZ
Posted on Reply
#10
robal
This PCB looks like it has holes and traces for dual-bios switch...

Maybe it's only the switch itself that's absent.
That could be easily fixed at home :)
Posted on Reply
#11
btarunr
Editor & Senior Moderator
robalThis PCB looks like it has holes and traces for dual-bios switch...

Maybe it's only the switch itself that's absent.
That could be easily fixed at home :)
It's not just the switch, but a second EEPROM chip, and related components. The reference card has two EEPROM chips, one stores the AMD reference BIOS and is write-protected, the other also stores the reference BIOS (or a custom OC BIOS), but it can be flashed. On this particular card, I think that failsafe ROM is absent.
Posted on Reply
#12
RejZoR
The last time i had cost-effective Radeon HD4850 it was squealing so loud it was louder than the cooler fan. I can't tell you how unplayable everything was on that card. Not because of the low framerate but because you might think there is a slaughterhouse inside your case and pigs are getting mass slaughtered. And the worst of all, the pitch and volume of the squealing was constantly fluctuating depending on GPU load apparently. Horrid experience.
Posted on Reply
#14
R_1
Pointless VGA, since HD5770 was exactly half of HD5870, so that single GPU will perform equal or better than HD5770 X2. As for the previous generations, HD3850/3870, HD4850/4870/4890, HD they all were at $249/$349 price point. Afterwards HD5870 was $379. All these boards had Volterra VRM&PWM, also 12 layer, 4 ounce gold (not copper, but actual gold) PCB. Now we have cost effective HD7970, with all-sh*t components and price for Europe - maybe $770. Yippee! :toast:
Posted on Reply
#15
dj-electric
Companies like sapphire have proven exactly what "cost-effective" PCBs are capable of when they made a "Uni-PCB" for all their HD5800 products (HD5830 all the way to HD5870 Vapor-X). All these products enjoyed a good overclocking abilities (HD5850 an unbelievable compering to reference-PCB), a massive cooler and a reference price-tag. Same goes for their HD6900 series of GPUs and will go for the HD7900 family.
Posted on Reply
#16
erek
how can they still have the AMD branding with such a radical departure from the reference design unless AMD has really relaxed on the what i am going to call "first round" offerings... i just don't like how loose things are getting... it's already difficult enough to get a reference design card with AMD branding that you know is solidly built by the second round... now i am seeing non-reference designs right out of the door... disappointing...


so this is doubly weird to see a non-reference board with AMD branding for sure...
Posted on Reply
#17
cadaveca
My name is Dave
erekhow can they still have the AMD branding with such a radical departure from the reference design unless AMD has really relaxed on the what i am going to call "first round" offerings...
AMD designed the PCB. Now those rumours about cheaper prices from AMD make sense, huh?
Posted on Reply
#18
DOM
btarunrI've said this a few times before, AMD sets the component quality benchmark a little too high on its reference boards (the ones with which it launches new GPUs, the ones reviewers and a few early-adopters end up getting), so these "cost-cuttings" shouldn't scare anyone. They'll run the GPU just fine, it already has very good power-draw figures to go with. Historically, these cost-cut custom implementations were never disadvantaged to AMD reference boards at least as far as air and water cooled OC setups were concerned. I'm sure it will be the same case with HD 7970. It has to be.
are you saying AMD used to high of component on the ref cards ?? :wtf:

they have a big vdoop imo they seem cheap vs this one... :laugh:
Posted on Reply
#19
eidairaman1
The Exiled Airman
cadavecaAMD designed the PCB. Now those rumours about cheaper prices from AMD make sense, huh?
Different Regional Markets. Cost effective model verywell may be the OEM COmputer Company parts.
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