Thursday, July 5th 2012
AMD Readies Radeon HD 7950 GHz Edition
NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 670 presents a big problem to AMD's Radeon HD 7900 series lineup. It clearly outperforms Radeon HD 7950, outperforms Radeon HD 7970 in most cases, and maintains a healthy cost-performance lead over Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition, even if it lags behind in performance. To combat this, AMD is reportedly working on a new SKU, called Radeon HD 7950 GHz Edition.
The "new" Radeon HD 7950 GHz Edition will be priced competitively to the GeForce GTX 670 (around $350-400), will retain the core configuration of the original HD 7950, with 1,792 Graphics CoreNext stream processors, 112 TMUs, 32 ROPs, and 384-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface holding 3 GB of memory; but will feature higher clock speeds, with a core clock speed ≥1.00 GHz, and could feature AMD PowerTune with Boost feature. It is also reported that a majority of HD 7950 GHz Edition graphics cards launched to the market (later this quarter), will be cost-effective non-reference designs by AMD's add-in board (AIB) partners.
Sources:
Benchmark.pl, Expreview
The "new" Radeon HD 7950 GHz Edition will be priced competitively to the GeForce GTX 670 (around $350-400), will retain the core configuration of the original HD 7950, with 1,792 Graphics CoreNext stream processors, 112 TMUs, 32 ROPs, and 384-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface holding 3 GB of memory; but will feature higher clock speeds, with a core clock speed ≥1.00 GHz, and could feature AMD PowerTune with Boost feature. It is also reported that a majority of HD 7950 GHz Edition graphics cards launched to the market (later this quarter), will be cost-effective non-reference designs by AMD's add-in board (AIB) partners.
55 Comments on AMD Readies Radeon HD 7950 GHz Edition
There was never an inherent problem with this sku, only the stock clockspeed which created some marketing fallacy I will never completely understand.
Sure, it has more bw and isn't as tightly coordinated as the 670 so the tdp will be slightly higher for similar performance at 1080p, but it is and should be more versatile at higher-rez. That's the basic trade-off, and not really a huge one that should be an issue if one is cheaper than the other.
Hope they don't cripple voltage tweaking with powertune as they seemed to in the 7970 ghz ed. Still po'ed these 'new features' seem to be more-and-more excuses to take away value potential and create market separation.
That said, odds are the guy at ATi that gave us software voltage tweaking probably doesn't even work there anymore...
There are so many better non-reference designs out there, and the GTX 670 is such good price performance compare to the original 7970.
Optimized 28nm
That way you wont have to worry about the 670, because the majority people looking to buy a new Gfx card will always look at the price,before performance.
Reality.
Just small country's local store.
extrahardware.cnews.cz/amd-nechysta-radeon-hd-7950-ghz-edition-unikle-fotografie-jsou-fake
This card best sell for $329 or less. THat is the only way AMD can really compete. 7970 should be $379-$429(stock, oc, GHz, GHz OC @ $10 intervals), and 7950 should be $309-$349).
Just my opinion though, of course.