# Sapphire Readies Radeon HD 7970 Cards with 1335 MHz Core Clock, 6 GB Memory



## btarunr (Dec 31, 2011)

It looks like AMD's claims of HD 7970's extreme overclocking capabilities weren't the usual PR hoopla. A confidential company document revealing the non-reference models Sapphire has in the works, got leaked to the web, and it is a bundle of surprises. To begin with, Sapphire plans no less than six non-reference Radeon HD 7970 models apart from the vanilla AMD reference design card. Among these, the top-of-the-line cards are codenamed "Atomic RX" and "Atomic WC". One can guess that the "RX" is an air-cooled card, and the "WC" a water-cooled one. It packs blistering clock speeds of 1335 MHz core, with 5735 MHz (1433 MHz actual) memory. 

The other card that caught our eyes is codenamed "FLEX 6G". The Flex variant typically features a flexible display output configuration. This card is said to have six mini-DP connectors. While this card sticks to AMD reference clock speeds, it packs a whopping 6144 MB of video memory, all wired to a single GPU. While 4 Gbit GDDR5 chips don't exist, we expect Sapphire to be using 24 * 2 Gbit chips on this card, with twelve sets of two chips sharing 32 bit paths. Then there are other milder factory overclocked cards apart from the Atomic; there's Toxic 3G, and VaporX 3G, both packing impressive out of the box clock speeds.





*View at TechPowerUp Main Site*


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## jalex3 (Dec 31, 2011)

Two of these in crossfire... Over kill for my needs?  Yes, but very much do want.


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## pantherx12 (Dec 31, 2011)

That's a phenomenal over clock for a retail card!


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## uuuaaaaaa (Dec 31, 2011)

im wondering how these will perform


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## Pandora's Box (Dec 31, 2011)

6GB of memory on one card, wow...


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## pantherx12 (Dec 31, 2011)

I wonder how far these things can be pushed by advance over clockers ....


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## bear jesus (Dec 31, 2011)

Holy crap that's fast, the 1335 MHZ core speed should put it well past the 6990 and 590 at least at high res going by the overclock results i have seen.

Only moments ago i was mentioning wanting 1.1 GHZ core on a 7970 but i will happily pay for a guaranteed 1335 MHz core.



pantherx12 said:


> I wonder how far these things can be pushed by advance over clockers ....



i expect to see 2 GHz+ otherwise i shall be unimpressed by them and their boiling gasses


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## dj-electric (Dec 31, 2011)

1335Mhz core clock?
how... what? wh... wh... how?! jesus fu**ing christ, seriously?


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## pantherx12 (Dec 31, 2011)

I think those of us with crazy high end air cooling or decent air cooling could for for a full 50% over clock lol


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## the54thvoid (Dec 31, 2011)

Hmm, water cooled they say.... Tell me more....


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## pantherx12 (Dec 31, 2011)

the54thvoid said:


> Hmm, water cooled they say.... Tell me more....



Meh just comes with a block, cheaper to buy a regular one and buy the block yourself 


The air cooled one does 1335 mhz as well apparently


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## LAN_deRf_HA (Dec 31, 2011)

That would blow past just pretty much everything by a good margin.


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## Zubasa (Dec 31, 2011)

2Mhz more on the core and it will make a leet card.


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## pantherx12 (Dec 31, 2011)

Zubasa said:


> 2Mhz more on the core and it will make a leet card.



You know someone will do it.

7970 l33t edition! for all your H4X0R needs!


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## crazyeyesreaper (Dec 31, 2011)

i was about to say 2mhz as well for 1337 awesome but ill just do it myself haha


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## crazyeyesreaper (Dec 31, 2011)

If we look at the data Available

at 1920x1200

with 1335mhz core that is a 31% overclock taking W1zzards overclock results and extrapolating the data that would be a 29% performance boost

essentially 15% oc w1zz saw a 14% performance bump double those numbers = 31%   925 / 1335 = .69 x 100 = 31%  so if 15% oc is 14% performance 30% would be 28 and 31 = 29% 

this should result in around a 5-6% performance boost OVER the HD 6990 / GTX 590

It also results in the HD 7970 being a comfortable 40% faster then a GTX 580

rough estimation


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## WhoDecidedThat (Dec 31, 2011)

This is what the 7970 was supposed to be
View attachment 44994


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## wolf (Dec 31, 2011)

holy schmidt 1335mhz is a whopping core clock and I like their particular choice too 

this is going to be, one hell of a card. I'll have two please tooth fairy.


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## bear jesus (Dec 31, 2011)

blanarahul said:


> I don't think the Atomic Ones are gonna be great overclockers as we saw with the 4890s which were factory clocked to 1 GHz. It was impossible to get their core to above 1050 MHz even with extra voltage.
> 
> http://www.guru3d.com/article/msi-radeon-4890-cyclone-soc-review-1ghz/19
> 
> Btw they overvolted their card.



When pantherx12 said "advance over clockers" my mind went straight to in general any 7970 hard volt modded and cooled by liquid nitrogen thus why i will not be impressed by anything but a crazy speed and the comment about the boiling gasses.


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## Zubasa (Dec 31, 2011)

At the very least someone finally put a real overclock on their "overclock edition" cards.
After all those whooping 10Mhz OC editions.


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## bear jesus (Dec 31, 2011)

Zubasa said:


> At the very least someone finally put a real overclock on their "overclock edition" cards.
> After all those whooping 10Mhz OC editions.



The really high clock speed totally distracted me from that fact, these are some impressive overclocks, has any product ever came with such an increase between reference and card vendor clocks? or does it just seam much higher due to starting near 1ghz?

Either way has any GPU ever came with a 1.3ghz core?


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## WhoDecidedThat (Dec 31, 2011)

bear jesus said:


> When pantherx12 said "advance over clockers" my mind went straight to in general any 7970 hard volt modded and cooled by liquid nitrogen thus why i will not be impressed by anything but a crazy speed and the comment about the boiling gasses.



Sorry mate! Didn't see that!


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## NC37 (Dec 31, 2011)

6GB...may take years for a game to finally be able to fill all that.


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## PremoGS (Dec 31, 2011)

NC37 said:


> 6GB...may take years for a game to finally be able to fill all that.



Maybe, maybe not. 6*27 2560x1440 monitors, BF3, everything maxed out and I think we're gonna go over 3GB easily.


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## Valdez (Dec 31, 2011)

pantherx12 said:


> I wonder how far these things can be pushed by advance over clockers ....



1700/8000 is good enough? 

http://news.mydrivers.com/1/213/213602.htm


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## ACEkombatkiwi (Dec 31, 2011)

Valdez said:


> 1700/8000 is good enough?
> 
> http://news.mydrivers.com/1/213/213602.htm



these scores are completely sick


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## TheoneandonlyMrK (Dec 31, 2011)

wow look genuine too though could  be otherwise , has anyone seen anything similar with waterblocks on not Ln2


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## ensabrenoir (Dec 31, 2011)

I .....may..... not be going nvdia on my new build.  Gonna go back to school to learn how to design something that will take advantage  of two of these in xfire...more likely.  When it comes to video cards amd rocks.  Its all that ati dna.


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## Psychoholic (Dec 31, 2011)

Impressive!

I think they should bump it up 2 more mhz, for 1337 mhz


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## alexsubri (Dec 31, 2011)

6GB is a little ahead of its time, however higher resolutions require higher vram


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## THANATOS (Dec 31, 2011)

*crazyeyesreaper* 


> with 1335mhz core that is a 31% overclock taking W1zzards overclock results and extrapolating the data that would be a 29% performance boost
> 
> essentially 15% oc w1zz saw a 14% performance bump double those numbers = 31% 925 / 1335 = .69 x 100 = 31% so if 15% oc is 14% performance 30% would be 28 and 31 = 29%
> 
> ...



1335/925=44%
what you got(31%) means how much slower would be default clocked 7970 compared to this superclocked one. 100/144=69% -> 100%-69%=31%
So Here is a new calculation.
44% lets say it will give 40% boost
so Relative performance (1920*1200)
GTX580 84%
7970 100%
HD6990 117%
GTX590 122%
OC 7970 140%
This card would be 140/122=15% faster than the second fastest card.
Comparing to GTX580: this card would be 67% faster.


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## the54thvoid (Dec 31, 2011)

KRONOSFX said:


> *crazyeyesreaper*
> 
> It seems someone doesn't know math.
> 1335/925=44%
> ...



lol, was doing a post to correct you then realised you are right.  The 410MHz diff between clocks should be divided by the stock clock of 925 to gauge the speed faster than the stock (which is 44%).


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## OneCool (Dec 31, 2011)

alexsubri said:


> 6GB is a little ahead of its time, however higher resolutions require higher vram



How about the 6gb version and one of these
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2011/12/lg-84-inch-4k-display/


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## Trigger911 (Dec 31, 2011)

Isnt it rule of thumb to have sys ram to cache the video ram ... guess people will need to jump up to an 8gig setup if they buy one of these beast


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## Delta6326 (Dec 31, 2011)

I Want you!


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## KooKKiK (Dec 31, 2011)

From the slide, so Tahiti is partially disabled after all ???


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## EpicShweetness (Dec 31, 2011)

*reads post*
*opens side panel*
*Yells obscenities at old 5870*
*closes side panel*
*cries in a corner*


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## Millennium (Dec 31, 2011)

Trigger: For DX9 you need to cache the entire GPU memory, so yes! Madness, 6gb GPUs 4tw.

In general, I really like this new architecture and performance from AMD. And the amazing overclock for a retail card shows they really nailed this new process this time.

Now (JF-AMD if you are reading) please please make the 7950 unlockable, even partially unlockable, and AMD will have a huge hit on their hands. Please please make this happen! OMG!111


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## bear jesus (Dec 31, 2011)

OneCool said:


> How about the 6gb version and one of these
> http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2011/12/lg-84-inch-4k-display/



Just one? more like 3 in eyefinity, would never get playable frame rates with a single 7970 but it may eat in to that 6 GB.


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## crazyeyesreaper (Dec 31, 2011)

KRONOSFX said:


> *crazyeyesreaper*
> 
> It seems someone doesn't know math.
> 1335/925=44%
> ...





the54thvoid said:


> lol, was doing a post to correct you then realised you are right.  The 410MHz diff between clocks should be divided by the stock clock of 925 to gauge the speed faster than the stock (which is 44%).



yea hadnt slept yet so you can save the insult about math, i did it in google search lolz after not sleeping for 2 days. still 30% is a more realistic performance bump as i would expect at 1335 the ROPs will become a limiting factor  much like 5850 vs 5870 with intense overclocks


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## the54thvoid (Dec 31, 2011)

crazyeyesreaper said:


> yea hadnt slept yet so you can save the insult about math, i did it in google search lolz after not sleeping for 2 days. still 30% is a more realistic performance bump as i would expect at 1335 the ROPs will become a limiting factor  much like 5850 vs 5870 with intense overclocks



Yeah , was jumping in to defend your math and then realised myself.  Quickly deleted my post and then reposted.  But no need for the math insult, i agree.


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## badtaylorx (Dec 31, 2011)

does anyone else here get a chubby when thinking about the possibilities of an asus ARES II???


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## raptori (Dec 31, 2011)

Ok time to sell my 580.


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## Valdez (Dec 31, 2011)

Millennium said:


> In general, I really like this new architecture and performance from AMD. And the amazing overclock for a retail card shows they really nailed this new process this time.



And this is only the first generation of the 28nm process. The 55 and also the 40nm process saw a rebirth.

I also agree, this was a strong start, maybe we are going to see a full 2304 sp tahiti with higher clock speed than 925 mhz later.


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## v12dock (Dec 31, 2011)

KRONOSFX said:


> *crazyeyesreaper*
> 
> It seems someone doesn't know math.
> 1335/925=44%
> ...



PLUS driver optimizations >70%


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## dj-electric (Dec 31, 2011)

My reaction when i woke up and saw the article title:







This picture sais everything, i dont need to add a single word


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## v12dock (Dec 31, 2011)




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## alwayssts (Dec 31, 2011)

I love the guys explanation, as its totally plausible.

Essentially, Release 7870 as the fastest single card, even if conservative and only by 10% at stock. Exploit for high dollars (and overclock versions) while building yields.  As the price drops down to $300 over time, release the stock full tahiti at a price right above the overclocked versions of 7870.  Call it the 8000 series.  Make more money than releasing the full version right away.    

They must figure thats essentially what nvidia did last gen, and it worked out well.  Without figuring in the fact gf100 and 104 were essentially broken, gf110 and 114 were just fully-enabled designs released at a later time to maximize yields and revenue.

When nvidia released 460, it had no direct native competition.  When Barts came along and 460 prices were in the toilet, so did the 560ti.  480...cayman...580.

I wonder if 8970 will use that shiny new .28ns gddr5 samsung is sampling to...somebody


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## Hayder_Master (Dec 31, 2011)

So 6Gb, for eyefinity setup.


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## mediasorcerer (Dec 31, 2011)

I was reading that oc,d they can get up to almost 6990  perf in some games.

Pretty nice unit.


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## lastcalaveras (Jan 1, 2012)

knowing asus they'll have a matrix edition that will be able to overclock to about 1500Mhz+


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## Delta6326 (Jan 1, 2012)

7970 on LN2 hits 1700MHz!!! 


From Legit Reviews


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## v12dock (Jan 1, 2012)

Faster than 6990 and 590 SLI/Xfired... 

1 beats 4


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## n0tiert (Jan 1, 2012)

i already feel sad on my 6990..... that stuff geting to fast ,
my 4870x2 done good jobs for over 3 years (still rocks on BF3 for that age) ,
i have my 6990 now almost 6 month and i already see it´s getting old after that period  

me wonders why they don´t release it 

spider, dragon , scorpion, .... platform related

instead of coding the stuff right on current cpu´s / gpu´s they just making things faster for merchandise hypes


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## THANATOS (Jan 1, 2012)

*crazyeyesreaper* It wasn't planned as an insult, I don't even consider It as an insult but If you don't like it I will just edit it.


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## dj-electric (Jan 1, 2012)

v12dock said:


> http://www.guru3d.com/imageview.php?image=35194
> 
> Faster than 6990 and 590 SLI/Xfired...
> 
> 1 beats 4


idk how did u got to that conclusion, moreover how did you got to it based on a stupid synthetic benchmark. the sapphire 1335Mhz gpu will be as fast as a single HD6990\GTX590


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## WhoDecidedThat (Jan 1, 2012)

What gets me giddy is that Voltage Control is not allowed on these cards yet. So after Voltage Control is unlocked just imagine the "Potential" of these cards. Reference designs should be able to fly to 1.2 GHz on the core!


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## v12dock (Jan 1, 2012)

blanarahul said:


> 1 beats 2 you moron! 6990 cfx and 590 sli are way up in the charts!
> Btw the overclocks of the 7970 in this chart are 1.125 GHz on the core and 6.6 GHz on the memory which is about the same as the Toxic 3G card.
> This also shows the performance of the ATOMIC cards will score ~ 10,000 marks in 3D mark 11 Performance Preset.



Sorry for not clarifying my post I was talking about the 1700mhz score. Thanks for the insult and please have a wonderful new year. Btw double posts are frowned apon 

Cheers


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## WhoDecidedThat (Jan 1, 2012)

v12dock said:


> Sorry for not clarifying my post I was talking about the 1700mhz score. Thanks for the insult and please have a wonderful new year. Btw double posts are frowned apon
> 
> Cheers



Don't mind the insult i was a little angry. Same to you too. But seriously mate you are right it does beat Quad Sli/Cfx!


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## ucanmandaa (Jan 1, 2012)

This is the real bulldozer  definitely getting one or two when they come out


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## Assimilator (Jan 1, 2012)

millennium said:


> now (jf-amd if you are reading) please please make the 7950 unlockable, even partially unlockable, and amd will have a huge hit on their hands. Please please make this happen! Omg!111



this.


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## ensabrenoir (Jan 1, 2012)

ucanmandaa said:


> This is the real bulldozer  definitely getting one or two when they come out



That.....that....that word...that terrible word....how could you use in the same sentence in the one area where amd stomps  all competition for real.   Remember the hype the graphs and charts...dont jinx this man ....or I will and I mean I WILL unleash my army of digital  cybog ninja monkies  upon u....u have been warned....


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## wolf (Jan 1, 2012)

So damn tempting, this card is an overclockers dream...


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## micropage7 (Jan 1, 2012)

looks pretty promising
btw, its like spy shot paper


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## radrok (Jan 1, 2012)

It's awesome 





Kudos to Shamino, damn 15k P score 3Dmark2011


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## Initialised (Jan 1, 2012)

another 2MHz and I might buy one.


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## dj-electric (Jan 1, 2012)

Imagining Sapphire's ATOMIC HD7970 + LN2 = mind blown


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## NdMk2o1o (Jan 2, 2012)

See we either now need a new standard for game graphics that can take advantage of these beastly GPU's or monitor mfr's need to give us more than shitty 1080p on a single monitor that isn't going to cost $600+ otherwise us single monitor gamers will have no need to upgrade for at least 2 years (excludes upgrading because of e-peen envy)


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## ViperXTR (Jan 2, 2012)

not 1337 enough '__'


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## radrok (Jan 2, 2012)

NdMk2o1o said:


> See we either now need a new standard for game graphics that can take advantage of these beastly GPU's or monitor mfr's need to give us more than shitty 1080p on a single monitor that isn't going to cost $600+ otherwise us single monitor gamers will have no need to upgrade for at least 2 years (excludes upgrading because of e-peen envy)



You could always force more AA samples or use a more taxing method, still I fully agree that it's crazy I had to pay more than 1k for some 1600p monitors


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## OneCool (Jan 2, 2012)

radrok said:


> It's awesome
> 
> Kudos to Shamino



Legends dont get there by themselves


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## PremoGS (Jan 2, 2012)

Well for starters, fake news.






A professional overclocker (korrrhonen) couldnt reach more than 1285Mhz with watercooling and Sapphire's *aircooled* card does better? Also, even impossible for the Sapphire's watercooled version. 1125MHz maybe, but not 1325MHz.


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## de.das.dude (Jan 2, 2012)

Amd ftw


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## twicksisted (Jan 2, 2012)

PremoGS said:


> Well for starters, fake news.
> 
> http://sf3d.pp.fi/images/AMD HD7970/new driver/uusi ajuri 3dm11 p.png
> 
> A professional overclocker (korrrhonen) couldnt reach more than 1285Mhz with watercooling and Sapphire's *aircooled* card does better? Also, even impossible for the Sapphire's watercooled version. 1125MHz maybe, but not 1325MHz.



thats a different card... that screenie of yours is a 3gb card not the 6gb card they talking about in the thread...


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## PremoGS (Jan 2, 2012)

twicksisted said:


> thats a different card... that screenie of yours is a 3gb card not the 6gb card they talking about in the thread...



Doesnt matter whether it's the 3GB or 6GB model, nothing else is different than the vRam size.


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## twicksisted (Jan 2, 2012)

Thats not exactely true, this could be a better binned more expensive model... it could be anything, at this point we just dont know... what we do know is that its a different card as its got 6gb and not 3gb onboard.


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## cadaveca (Jan 2, 2012)

2304 S-Pro?


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## dj-electric (Jan 2, 2012)

PremoGS said:


> Well for starters, fake news.
> A professional overclocker (korrrhonen) couldnt reach more than 1285Mhz with watercooling and Sapphire's *aircooled* card does better? Also, even impossible for the Sapphire's watercooled version. 1125MHz maybe, but not 1325MHz.



In november 2009 i got the XFX Radeon HD5850 1GB card
the card was the best overclocker i have ever seen, reaching 835MHZ core from 725 on stock voltage and reaching 1GHZ at 1.28V.

a few months after that i got the sapphire blue-PCB HD5850 1GB
this card could reach 925MHZ core on stock voltage and could reach 1GHZ on 1.18V only

I could not believe the differance in voltage needed for 1GHZ between PCBs. i have tested more reference cards and more sapphire cards but the results kept the same.

HD7970 came and again changed everything that we ever thought about flagship GPU overclocking. 
my 2 cents...


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## WhoDecidedThat (Jan 3, 2012)

twicksisted said:


> thats a different card... that screenie of yours is a 3gb card not the 6gb card they talking about in the thread...



You are wrong. The 1335 MHz card(ATOMIC WC/RX)they are talking about is a 3 GB card. The 6 GB card (flex 6g) isn't overclocked.


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## dj-electric (Jan 3, 2012)

But, it is based on the same PCB so good overclocking abilities are almost promised with this core


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## bear jesus (Jan 3, 2012)

i would agree that the chips seam to clock pretty well in general but i have to wonder if the 1335mhz cores have been specially binned for the purpose, either that or if the default voltage is much higher than the default voltage of the normal cards although saying that i expect the voltage to be at least a little higher on them anyway, if not then i would be extremely impressed by the cores used.

Either way this has been enough to make me not buy as soon as they are available, i want to see some reviews on the 1335mhz cards and even more so as with the first reference model reviews a bunch of sites did not manage to max out the overdrive limits so either it was something on their end (fan speed/powertune settings too low) or there will be quite a range of overclock results so i would very happily wait for the cards with a guaranteed 410mhz overclock and also to see how they compare to other available overclocked models before i decide for sure which company gets my money.


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## WhoDecidedThat (Jan 4, 2012)

_A leaked Sapphire document revealed a Tahiti GPU with 2304 cores.  AMD however confirms that there are no hidden cores. The chip has 2048 shaders, so the 2304 number from Sapphire is likely a mistake, or part of a test by AMD to find out which partners leak specifications to members of the press. 

This info has been confirmed by Mr. Hook, Senior PR exec from AMD.

- Guru3D_


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## Chappy (Jan 16, 2012)

This really is something that "Nvidia partners concerned about AMD's 28nm lead. Even if Kepler were a bit faster than 7970 (Stock Speeds) how about the 1335Mhz clock speeds? It's all going to be about the OC potential of kepler to beat AMD's Taihiti.


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## dj-electric (Jan 17, 2012)

This thing^ has already kinda proofed as wrong, it's all fud speculation all over again. They create buzz from dust they find. But, about the 1335Mhz clocked HD7970,
there's a good chance that this thing will be faster the Kepler's flagship but again, who knows


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## Chappy (Jan 17, 2012)

I like nvidia but I think this time they'll be 2nd in performance..., If 7970 can reach clock speeds up-to 1.1Ghz in stock voltages then they can really easily ramp up those clocks to 1335Mhz with a little or few voltage tweaking. Can't wait to see MSI's R7970 Lightning Extreme 6GB or ASUS Matrix in 2.0Ghz... 

GPU wars really excites me, specially when its a close fight. We also get the benefits of price drops in their last-gen cards...


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## radrok (Jan 17, 2012)

Chappy said:


> Can't wait to see MSI's R7970 Lightning Extreme 6GB or ASUS Matrix in 2.0Ghz...



Well, 2.0 GHz may be a little too much to ask for air/water cooling.


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