# AMD "Oland" Radeon HD 8800 Series SKUs Unveiled



## btarunr (Sep 17, 2012)

Apparently, launch of AMD's Radeon HD 8800 series is close enough for some sources to come up with specifications. The HD 8800 series, according to one source, is based on a new silicon codenamed "Oland," which is built on the 28 nm process, packing 3.4 billion transistors with around 270 mm² die-area. According to the source, the two HD 8800 series models, the HD 8870 "Oland XT" will up performance per Watt and cost-performance ratios over current HD 7800 series, while maintaining current process technologies. 

The Radeon HD 8870, according to numbers provided by the source, could offer performance comparable to today's high-end GPUs. The HD 8870 is clocked at 1050 MHz with 1100 MHz PowerTune Boost frequency; while the HD 8850 is clocked at 925 MHz with 975 MHz boost frequency. The memory of both SKUs is clocked at 6.00 GHz, yielding 192 GB/s memory bandwidth. The chips hence have 256-bit wide memory interfaces. 






Key details such as stream processor, TMU, and ROP counts are excluded, though the source mentions that the HD 8870 provides up to 75% higher single-precision floating point and up to 60% higher double-precision floating point performance over its prdecessor, the HD 7870. The texture fill-rate is up by 65%. The Radeon HD 8850 offers similar increases over its predecessor, the HD 7850. Find them tabled above.

*View at TechPowerUp Main Site*


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## RejZoR (Sep 17, 2012)

HD8950 or gtfo


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## TRWOV (Sep 17, 2012)

wow...look at that price


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## Alvy Ibn Feroz (Sep 17, 2012)

they increased the die size but cots lower than their current lineup. thats great but wonder why 7000 is so pricy


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## NC37 (Sep 17, 2012)

Alvy Ibn Feroz said:


> they increased the die size but cots lower than their current lineup. thats great but wonder why 7000 is so pricy



Likely because AMD had performance leads at times, well before nVidia got more of Kepler out. If you are a top dog you don't have much of a reason to lower prices. People will pay for it. If 8000 series is seeing a price drop that big then it makes me suspect performance won't beat nVidia in the end so AMD goes back to competing based on price. Which is good cause maybe it'll get nVidia to lower some as well.


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## MxPhenom 216 (Sep 17, 2012)

I don't see this pricing to be accurate. Unless they are going back to the AMD/ATI GPU pricing ways.


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## evulmunk33 (Sep 17, 2012)

hah, i bet somebodys gonna make a 8888 in asia...
for the ones who dont know, 8 means "rich" in chinese, so people here spend lots of money on car license plates with as many 8s in them as possible, and WD sold an 888GB HDD a while ago if i remember correctly


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## Frick (Sep 17, 2012)

Is it just me or are they releasing new gpus to soon these days?


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## erocker (Sep 17, 2012)

Frick said:


> Is it just me or are they releasing new gpus to soon these days?



Seems to be a yearly basis for quite some time now.


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## radrok (Sep 17, 2012)

I am still waiting for the 7990 

Jokes aside, I was pretty set on a couple 7970s toxic but if specs are already coming out I guess I'll wait


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## UbErN00b (Sep 17, 2012)

Just ordered a Sapphire Vapor x 7950, when are these likely to be out?


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## hardcore_gamer (Sep 17, 2012)

If 8870 can perform better than a 7970 at 279 bucks, it's a big fuckin win.


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## jigar2speed (Sep 17, 2012)

I hope they don't drop the balls (Support) on their HD 5*** series, My HD 5850 is still fast enough and serving in my secondary system.


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## HumanSmoke (Sep 17, 2012)

Seems weird that the transistor density is lower with the _supposed _new part (13.2million/mm^2 w/Pitcairn as opposed to 12.59million/mm^2 w/ Swedish island).

If the number are correct - and it looks like someones guesstimate rather than hard numbers- then it's a 112 TMU, 32 ROP part with 2000+ shaders.
Not sure how they arrive at their SP/DP flop numbers unless they are actuals by some measurement. I was under the impression that theoretical FLOP's were measured by- HD 7870 for example: 
Core speed * shader count * 2 primatives/clock...which would be 2.56TFLOPS SP, with double precision at 1/16 rate =160GFLOPS


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## D4S4 (Sep 17, 2012)

more redundant transistors to improve the yield?


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## Mathragh (Sep 17, 2012)

Wow, the increase in GFLOPS per watt is enormous for something on the same process:

2.25TFlops with 175Watt results in ~12.9GFlops/Watt for the 7870 while the 8870 has:
3.94TFlops with 160Watts powerdraw resulting in 24.6 GFlops/Watt.

Thats practically doubling the Flops/W rating on the same process O.O.

I wonder what breaktrough made that possible.


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## Nokiacrazi (Sep 17, 2012)

Well..this puts another spanner in my works. Now I may as well wait until these cards are released :|


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## Frick (Sep 17, 2012)

jigar2speed said:


> I hope they don't drop the balls (Support) on their HD 5*** series, My HD 5850 is still fast enough and serving in my secondary system.



I think the drivers for those cards are tweaked enough already.


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## jigar2speed (Sep 17, 2012)

Frick said:


> I think the drivers for those cards are tweaked enough already.



Correct, but i was talking about the new games, HD58** series has enough to play atleast 1 more year's future games (Exceptional are there but still)


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## seronx (Sep 17, 2012)

HumanSmoke said:


> If the number are correct - and it looks like someones guesstimate rather than hard numbers- then it's a 112 TMU, 32 ROP part with 2000+ shaders.


8870:
1792 * 2 * 1.1 GHz = 3,942.4 GFlops/3.9424 TFlops
You got the 112 TMUs and 32 ROPs right.

8850:
1536 * 2 * 0.975 GHz = 2,995.2 GFlops/2.9952 TFlops
96 TMUs and 32 ROPs

8870/8850 = Lower end Tahiti

8850 = 7930 "Tahiti LE" rebranded as Oland Pro
8870 = 7950 "Tahiti Pro" rebranded as Oland XT

Oland dies are probably just 64 GCN * 28 clusters rather than 32 clusters*.  With the Venus dies being 80 GCN v2 * 32 clusters for 2,560 GCN cores for Venus XT and 1920-2240 for Venus Pro.

*or similar 128 * 14 / 12


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## dj-electric (Sep 17, 2012)

Hoping to see 48ROPs on the flagship GPU tbh


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## seronx (Sep 17, 2012)

Dj-ElectriC said:


> Hoping to see 48ROPs on the flagship GPU tbh


AMD682B.1 = "VENUS LE"
AMD6823.4 = "VENUS PRO"
AMD6821.1 = "VENUS XT"
AMD6820.2 = "VENUS XTX"

Venus XTX = 2x * XT
Venus XT = 2560/160/48
Venus Pro = 2240/140/48
Venus LE(OEM?) = 1920/120/32or48

384 bit or 512 bit


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## FreedomEclipse (Sep 17, 2012)

I AM OVER THE MOON TO HEAR ABOUT THESE NEW 8xxx GPUs!!!! as i need to replace my 6970s

Sadly, Me no likey AMDs drivers so i wont be buying another AMD GPU till they sort that out.
Just waiting to see what Nvidia comes out otherwise 2 670s in SLi scale exceptionally well!


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## HumanSmoke (Sep 17, 2012)

seronx said:


> 8870:
> 1792 * 2 * 1.1 GHz = 3,942.4 GFlops/3.9424 TFlops
> You got the 112 TMUs and 32 ROPs right.



The head scratcher was the comparison between the 7870 and the 8870.

HD 7870 = 1280 * 2 * 1 GHz = 2560 GFlops/2.56 TFlops (as per my original post)- correct?
Yet the graph states 2.25 TFlops 

So I was wondering if the 2.25TF calc for the HD 7870 was also a factor in the 3.94 TF for the new card (i.e. 12%* lower than theoretical). If the Oland is a 1792 shader part, then whomever put the graph together has trouble multiplying three numbers together it would seem...since 3.94TF is a theoretical number, and therefore the theoretical number for the 7870 is 2.56TF - not 2.25

* 1792 shaders * 1.12 = ......... -Which was where the 2k number came in.


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## _Flare (Sep 17, 2012)

Hey look its AMD with the 28nm-HP process like NVidia does with the 600-series.
I think the actual 7000-Series is completely at the the performance-lowpower 28nm-HPL process.
That could be a reason why the OC on the 7000-series runs earlier to high leakage than NVidia does.


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## seronx (Sep 17, 2012)

HumanSmoke said:


> The head scratcher was the comparison between the 7870 and the 8870.
> 
> HD 7870 = 1280 * 2 * 1 GHz = 2560 GFlops/2.56 TFlops (as per my original post)- correct?
> Yet the graph states 2.25 TFlops
> ...


Probably a typo.
The DP number is correct.

7870 -> 160 FMA GFlops
8870 -> (1792 / 16) * 2 * 1.1 = 246.4 FMA GFlops

http://www.techpowerup.com/img/12-09-17/78a.jpg


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## dieterd (Sep 17, 2012)

good news, but from otherside - is there anything new in gaming world that require/will require something more than one good old hd 5870 to run on ultra @1080? while there will be "newest" consoles with GPUs of XT1800 level... well you get my "optimistic" point of view


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## seronx (Sep 17, 2012)

dieterd said:


> good news, but from otherside - is there anything new in gaming world that require/will require something more than one good old hd 5870 to run on ultra @1080? while there will be "newest" consoles with GPUs of XT1800 level... well you get my "optimistic" point of view


Wii U => ~5670
PS4 & XB3 => ~7870/670


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## dj-electric (Sep 17, 2012)

xbox720 is rumored to have the GPU equivalent of the HD6670
PS4 about the same, also AMD based, maybe Fusion/
Both far from HD7870's level anyway.


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## hardcore_gamer (Sep 17, 2012)

Dj-ElectriC said:


> xbox720 is rumored to have the GPU equivalent of the HD6670
> PS4 about the same, also AMD based, maybe Fusion/
> Both far from HD7870's level anyway.



There is a chance that both M$ and Sony updated the spec when the 28nm GPUs came out.


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## seronx (Sep 17, 2012)

Dj-ElectriC said:


> xbox720 is rumored to have the GPU equivalent of the HD6670
> PS4 about the same, also AMD based, maybe Fusion/
> Both far from HD7870's level anyway.


Playstation 4 has 1120 GCN ALUs
Wii U has 400-480 ALUs

5670 -> 400 ALUs @ .775 MHz @ 40-nm
6670 -> 480 ALUs @ .8 MHz @ 40-nm
Wii U -> 400-480 @ 1.0+ GHz @ 32-nm <-- H2 2012
XBX/PS4 -> 1120-1344 GCN/Kepler @ 1.0+ GHz @ 28-nm <-- H2 2013 - H1 2014

Playstation 4 -> APU monolithic silicon (AMD²)
Xbox 3 -> APU interposer (AMD + Nvidia)


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## mtosev (Sep 17, 2012)

nice nice. good to see new gfx cards coming out soon


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## 3870x2 (Sep 17, 2012)

It kinda feels like they are competing with NV on how fast they can bring out a new series of cards.
I dont care how often they produce a new set of cards, I just want the new series to be more relevant, not just marketing.
A great example is the 5xxx to 6xxx series, where improvements were only efficiency.


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## Frick (Sep 17, 2012)

jigar2speed said:


> Correct, but i was talking about the new games, HD58** series has enough to play atleast 1 more year's future games (Exceptional are there but still)



I still don't get you. You mean it wouldn't work with new games if it's not "supported"? It will work perfectly.

Anyway, does this mean there will be no 76xx cards?


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## sic_doni (Sep 17, 2012)

the new graphic card will be cheaper...faster...and more power efficient


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## Completely Bonkers (Sep 17, 2012)

Just... as... I... was... about... to... put... money... down... for... 660Ti

but this is a Q1.13 launch ... so up to 6 month wait.


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## hardcore_gamer (Sep 17, 2012)

Completely Bonkers said:


> but this is a Q1.13 launch ... so up to 6 month wait.



We don't know yet. There is also a possibility for a holiday season launch.


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## 3870x2 (Sep 17, 2012)

Frick said:


> I still don't get you. You mean it wouldn't work with new games if it's not "supported"? It will work perfectly.
> 
> Anyway, does this mean there will be no 76xx cards?



It would be pointless now, they couldn't get them out in enough time before the marketing department said its time for a new series.


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## TRWOV (Sep 17, 2012)

Frick said:


> I still don't get you. You mean it wouldn't work with new games if it's not "supported"? It will work perfectly.
> 
> Anyway, does this mean there will be no 76xx cards?



There are OEM 7570 and 7670 cards but those are 6570 and 6670 rebags.


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## nt300 (Sep 17, 2012)

radrok said:


> I am still waiting for the 7990
> 
> Jokes aside, I was pretty set on a couple 7970s toxic but if specs are already coming out I guess I'll wait


Looking like the HD 8870 will be faster and cheaper than HD 7970. I wold wait if I were you.


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## renz496 (Sep 17, 2012)

^still we don't have any idea when this card will comes out. if you keep playing waiting game you'll never buy anything in the end lol. IMO the best way to get a card is to see the one that will fit your need the most not based on which is the latest one

btw if AMD really did comes out with 8800 series before 8900 series it could mean they get very nice competition from nvidia


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## Nordic (Sep 17, 2012)

I wonder if the 8800 series will have 3gb vram


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## renz496 (Sep 17, 2012)

james888 said:


> I wonder if the 8800 series will have 3gb vram



most likely the card will come with 2 GB as standard.


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## Delta6326 (Sep 17, 2012)

jigar2speed said:


> I hope they don't drop the balls (Support) on their HD 5*** series, My HD 5850 is still fast enough and serving in my secondary system.



Don't worry sense they dropped support for the 4*** series I get way better frames for new games.


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## Casecutter (Sep 17, 2012)

3870x2 said:


> It kinda feels like they are competing with NV on how fast they can bring out a new series of cards.


It kind'a appears AMD could care less about Nvidia being so tardy with their mainstream response, and are just sticking to their product development as normal.   Though it does seem AMD intends to strike at the Nvidia's soft spot 660/660Ti first and grab the lions share.  

I'd love to see it come before Christmas buying season and I believe they could... that would put Nvidia in the corner wearing the pointy hat!


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## _Flare (Sep 17, 2012)

8850 may have:
1536 Cores (@ 2prim per clock) x 975MHz = 2.995200 TFLOPS
-------------------------------x 925MHz = 2.841600 TFLOPS
96 TMU x 975 MHz = 93.6 GT/s
---------x 925MHz = 88.8 GT/s
32 ROP x 975 MHz = 31.2 GP/s
--------x 925 MHz = 21.3 GP/s

8870 may have:
1790-1792~Cores x 1050MHz = 3.759 - 3.763 TFLOPS  old 7950@800MHz is at 2.867
112 TMU = 117,6 GT/s
32 ROP = 33,6 GP/s


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## alexsubri (Sep 17, 2012)

seronx said:


> Wii U => ~5670
> PS4 & XB3 => ~7870/670



I'm pretty sure that the Wii U is running a 5770 , I may be wrong though. But that is a big step for Consoles, because XBOX was running the ATI XT series


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## alwayssts (Sep 17, 2012)

I'd just like to point out (not to gloat, but to be rumor-weary) I've been saying these EXACT part would occur (right down to the freaking clock speeds) for like...six months.

It may be true, and obviously I expect it more-or-less to will be, but yeah.

Things to consider:

*Should perform like 7950 and 7970 ghz ed at stock (if not memory constrained), 8850 10% better than 7870 overall.
 *Makes a lot more sense priced at 259-269/359-369 (660ti/670), because amd has been shown to really like those approx. prices at launch.
*1792sp would be bandwidth constrained with 6gbps/256-bit at around 900mhz (obviously one can overclock and the gtx600 series shows how far 6ghz ram can go)
*8850 should have one power connector and in theory could hit similar clocks to stock 8870 within 150w, perform similar to 660ti.
*die size sounds exactly what I figured it would be, as does TDP.

The two things that don't compute are the ram/shader setup and the price.  Either AMD expects people to understand they will need to overclock the ram, the specs are wrong, or amd is short-sighting themselves (which benefits us).


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## Hilux SSRG (Sep 17, 2012)

I know the pricing [and performance numbers] is not set in stone yet but the 8870 is still priced too high.  Don't know what the performance will be like but I wouldn't shell out more than $225-250 for those 8870 levels of performance.


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## Atom_Anti (Sep 17, 2012)

Nice! Hope to see soon in Kaveri APU too...?


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## HumanSmoke (Sep 17, 2012)

Casecutter said:


> I'd love to see it come before Christmas buying season


Why not? They did the same last year...it's just that you couldn't *actually* buy a card until January


Casecutter said:


> and I believe they could... that would put Nvidia in the corner wearing the pointy hat!*


...then Nvidia bring out the GTX 700's and the hat gets passed back...cue AMD-angst until Catalyst 13.8 comes out...Wash.Rinse.Repeat.

Since GK110 is already shipping for revenue, I'd suspect that the rumour mills will already be touting the GTX 780's (?) performance around the time that the Sea Islands starts making its own appearance. If -as suspected, the large die GK 110 takes the GPU crown, then it isn't beyond the realms of possibility that Nvidia still sell large numbers of _x_50/_x_60 parts based on the cachet of the top part...even if the top part is in very short supply and drip-fed into the channel. Not as if there isn't ample precedent

* At least the GPU pointy hat gets passed back and forth...pity AMD have the CPU version as a permanent addition to their wardrobe.


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## Super XP (Sep 17, 2012)

Mark my words, we will be Christmas shopping for HD 8970's in Dec 2012. Seeing how the HD 6970 extended the 40nm Process from the HD 5870 and the HD 7970 went 32nm, I can see a massive performance hike with the HD 8970 by as much as 75%. Based on 28nm, Direct 12 (with/full 9, 10 & 11 DX support). 

This is the 1st time in 4 generations that AMD is coming out with a complete redesign built from the ground up. It all started with the HD 7900 series.


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## Casecutter (Sep 17, 2012)

HumanSmoke said:


> it's just that you couldn't actually buy a card until January


And you couldn't actully buy a GTX 680 if you wanted until mid-May!


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## TheoneandonlyMrK (Sep 18, 2012)

shutup and take my godam money allre, oh holdup this isnt the 8970< back in me box ,call me when there is news:shadedshu.

do you think AMD might go all Gk110 on us and not release its big bro for half a year


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## Kaleid (Sep 18, 2012)

If the prices and performance is correct then i will get a 8850...easily.


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## Lionheart (Sep 18, 2012)

Super XP said:


> Mark my words, we will be Christmas shopping for HD 8970's in Dec 2012. Seeing how the HD 6970 extended the 40nm Process from the HD 5870 and the HD 7970 went 32nm, I can see a massive performance hike with the HD 8970 by as much as 75%. Based on 28nm, Direct 12 (with/full 9, 10 & 11 DX support).
> 
> This is the 1st time in 4 generations that AMD is coming out with a complete redesign built from the ground up. It all started with the HD 7900 series.



Isn't the HD7970 built on the 28nm process?


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## HumanSmoke (Sep 18, 2012)

Casecutter said:


> And you couldn't actully buy a GTX 680 if you wanted until mid-May!


My bad. I thought this was a thread about an AMD card series...I should have checked the sign as I entered.

Oh well, look on the bright side....we achieved 44 posts before someone -inevitably it seems- managed to denigrate the graphics IHV that the article wasn't about.


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## radrok (Sep 18, 2012)

Lionheart said:


> Isn't the HD7970 built on the 28nm process?



Yes, he has probably mistaken the GPU half node with CPUs full node.

The HD 7970 is based on TSMC's 28nm fabrication process


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## Nihilus (Sep 18, 2012)

Hilux SSRG said:


> I know the pricing [and performance numbers] is not set in stone yet but the 8870 is still priced too high.  Don't know what the performance will be like but I wouldn't shell out more than $225-250 for those 8870 levels of performance.



WHAT?!  This is the upper-mid range card in the line-up.  It is expected to be closer in power to current top-tier 79xx cards with a $280 LAUNCH price.  Keep in mind that the 7870 launched at $350 which was also about the same performance as the 69xx series.  
AMD is not going to give away their cards.


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## Nihilus (Sep 18, 2012)

Looking closer at the specs, it seems that they match the performance of the the 79xx series in every way except one - Dual FP performance is on 1:16 in relationship to Single FP, much like the 78xx series.  The 79xx series has 1:4 Single to Dual performance.  Any thoughts on that?  More relative to GPGPU stuff vs. gaming?


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## Super XP (Sep 18, 2012)

radrok said:


> Yes, he has probably mistaken the GPU half node with CPUs full node.
> 
> The HD 7970 is based on TSMC's 28nm fabrication process


Yes got the nodes wrong, forgot about the 32nm issues via GPU.


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## sergionography (Sep 18, 2012)

Super XP said:


> Mark my words, we will be Christmas shopping for HD 8970's in Dec 2012. Seeing how the HD 6970 extended the 40nm Process from the HD 5870 and the HD 7970 went 32nm, I can see a massive performance hike with the HD 8970 by as much as 75%. Based on 28nm, Direct 12 (with/full 9, 10 & 11 DX support).
> 
> This is the 1st time in 4 generations that AMD is coming out with a complete redesign built from the ground up. It all started with the HD 7900 series.



lool were do you get your info from? lol
7900 series are 28nm, first to come out with 28nm
and dx12 isnt even out yet, and it wont be out until windows 9 or something, windows 8 is still dx11 and it wont be out till october
and 75% over last gen wasnt even achieved with 7900 vs 6900 series even with a new architecture AND a die shrink so calm down dude and lets all be realistic 
what is more likely to happen is that we will get 7970 levels of performance at lower power envelopes, but max performance for 8970 wont be more that 30-40% over 7970 thats if were optimistic because power/performance doesnt scale linear and the bigger die sizes you make the more conservative you would need to be with clockspeed
so its all a matter of finding the perfect blend of size/clocks for the architecture
think of it like the supply/demand curve for business, there is always a sweet spot
this explains why 7870 is on par or even more efficient than kepler cards, while tahiti is less efficient than kepler(even though it performs better)


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## nt300 (Sep 18, 2012)

sergionography said:


> lool were do you get your info from? lol
> 7900 series are 28nm, first to come out with 28nm
> and dx12 isnt even out yet, and it wont be out until windows 9 or something, windows 8 is still dx11 and it wont be out till october
> and 75% over last gen wasnt even achieved with 7900 vs 6900 series even with a new architecture AND a die shrink so calm down dude and lets all be realistic
> ...


You missed his point I think. The 7970 was the beginning of a new architecture that will be extended to the 8970. Like a HD 7970 2nd generation. The 1st generation HD 7970 did not gain as much performance versus the 6970 because it's built from the ground up new. Now that AMD is in the 2nd gen faze I can easy see the HD 8970 topping the charts with about 70% performance over the 7900s.


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## PopcornMachine (Sep 18, 2012)

I hope this is close to accurate.  The 8870 under $300 would be very tempting.

They quote the original price for the 7870 at $350, which is now available under $300.

So will the 8870 be even cheaper since it costs 20% less than 7870? 

I guy can dream can't he.


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## AphexDreamer (Sep 18, 2012)

Man my 5870 is still doing me great and here we are already on the 8 series? I'm tempted to perhaps wait just one more year to see what the 9 series bring (wait... 9 series? ).


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## Morgoth (Sep 18, 2012)

RejZoR said:


> HD8950 or gtfo



HD8970x2 or gtfo


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## Frick (Sep 18, 2012)

AphexDreamer said:


> Man my 5870 is still doing me great and here we are already on the 8 series? I'm tempted to perhaps wait just one more year to see what the 9 series bring (wait... 9 series? ).



As long as they're as good as the 9500Pro was I'm happy.


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## TheoneandonlyMrK (Sep 18, 2012)

AphexDreamer said:


> Man my 5870 is still doing me great and here we are already on the 8 series? I'm tempted to perhaps wait just one more year to see what the 9 series bring



ill be moveing on for power effieciency if nothing else, really poor excuse even to me 

If i see the slightest 9xxx Pr blurb id be easy swayed


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## Super XP (Sep 18, 2012)

PopcornMachine said:


> I hope this is close to accurate.  The 8870 under $300 would be very tempting.
> 
> They quote the original price for the 7870 at $350, which is now available under $300.
> 
> ...


Despite the great sales of the HD 7900 series, the high prices did sort of backfire on AMD. Many 5800 and 6900 owners did not upgrade because the price was just not right. 

If AMD plays there cards right and prices the HD 8900's respectfully, they will make killer sales from existing customer along with new. I can see the 8900's prices very well IMO due to being 2nd Generation 28nm.

I always skip a generation, and now I am ready to buy a HD 8970, if the price is right, that is.


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## AphexDreamer (Sep 18, 2012)

Games are not keeping up with the graphical power we have and are expecting.


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## Super XP (Sep 18, 2012)

AphexDreamer said:


> Games are not keeping up with the graphical power we have and are expecting.


So true, but also blame the game dev's for complete laziness.


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## Morgoth (Sep 19, 2012)

no its the publishers and investors 
also if you want top of the state grapics, we could give you that but your hardware wil criple from it


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## happita (Sep 19, 2012)

Super XP said:


> Despite the great sales of the HD 7900 series, the high prices did sort of backfire on AMD. Many 5800 and 6900 owners did not upgrade because the price was just not right.



This is so true, at least in my situation. I've been eyeing some cards as of late, but I just can't justify spending $250 on a 7850/7870 for ~15%-20% increase in performance, seeing as I spent $250 on my 5850 to begin with. 

When the 8k series hit, I'll be looking to spend ~$300-$350, and if I can't get a 50% increase in performance versus my 5850, then I will hold onto it for another generation, screw it 



AphexDreamer said:


> Games are not keeping up with the graphical power we have and are expecting.



Well, I can see me benefitting from a card upgrade as I play BF3 and will be getting Metro:Last Light, which is going to put every system down on their knees. And also, it can't hurt seeing as you have a lot more possibility to max out the AA/AF with SuperSampling which is extremely taxing on just about ALL new games out today.


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## eidairaman1 (Sep 19, 2012)

die shrinks are cool, just that i think companies should stick to a single node for a few product series that way they can refine them to max potential. It would reduce the overhead of retooling everytime


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## Mathragh (Sep 19, 2012)

eidairaman1 said:


> die shrinks are cool, just that i think companies should stick to a single node for a few product series that way they can refine them to max potential. It would reduce the overhead of retooling everytime



Well its just a tradeoff, either improve on the current process, or gain improvement from a new one and focus less on arch and more on the new process. 

Apparently untill now the tradeoff was almost always clear: migrating to a new process means more of a performance increase then improving on the arch on the current process.


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## eidairaman1 (Sep 19, 2012)

Mathragh said:


> Well its just a tradeoff, either improve on the current process, or gain improvement from a new one and focus less on arch and more on the new process.
> 
> Apparently untill now the tradeoff was almost always clear: migrating to a new process means more of a performance increase then improving on the arch on the current process.



i think they could improve GCN on the current process node without a shrink and release models with 1, 2, 4 GB Cards.


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## NeoXF (Sep 19, 2012)

happita said:


> Well, I can see me benefitting from a card upgrade as I play BF3 and will be getting Metro:Last Light, which is going to put every system down on their knees. And also, it can't hurt seeing as you have a lot more possibility to max out the AA/AF with SuperSampling which is extremely taxing on just about ALL new games out today.



He's talking about games not really taking advantage of the great hardware both AMD and nVidia have to offer and how developers are incredibly lazy, especially when it comes to porting. I don't know about other people, but sure Metro "2" might look nice, but if it will require another 3 generations of GPUs to be played properly, then I'm seriously not gonna be impressed... or may I remind you that Metro 2033, originally launched durring the 5870 era, still can't be played at over 40fps on a single GPU at 1920x1080? Same can be said about The Witcher 2 and some other games. Also, consider that by the time hardware that will run these games properly comes out, most of the graphical interest will be gone, not to mention the story, the game itself.


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## nt300 (Sep 19, 2012)

I think this may be what they want to push gamers away from how good the game looks and to hae us see how fun it is to play instead. 
Todays hardware is more than capable of playing games like Metro 2033, Crysis and Witcher 2, the problem is bad coding IMO.


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## erocker (Sep 19, 2012)

nt300 said:


> the problem is bad coding IMO



Even when a GPU maker has its hands directly in the game's making? Bad coding is not of my opinion.


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## NeoXF (Sep 19, 2012)

Bad coding might be wrong wording... less then optimum sounds about right.

And what do GPU makers have to do with the development of the game, they just pay them to implement their SDKs (3D stereoscopy stuff, nVidia's PhysX, AMD's Global Illumination enhancements and so on...) or render stuff in a certain way as to take advantage of their architecture better, and last, but certainly not least, (which makes up the bulk of it, especially in older TWIMTBP games) pay to have first-hand access to the game's inside, as to optimize their drivers as much as possible for the incoming title. With the shovelware of console ports coming this way, PC has little say in improving how the game looks or runs, GPU makers even less, as they're only a part of PC as a gaming platform.


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## nt300 (Sep 19, 2012)

erocker said:


> Even when a GPU maker has its hands directly in the game's making? Bad coding is not of my opinion.


Yes wrong choice of words.


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## jihadjoe (Sep 30, 2012)

nt300 said:


> You missed his point I think. The 7970 was the beginning of a new architecture that will be extended to the 8970. Like a HD 7970 2nd generation. The 1st generation HD 7970 did not gain as much performance versus the 6970 because it's built from the ground up new. Now that AMD is in the 2nd gen faze I can easy see the HD 8970 topping the charts with about 70% performance over the 7900s.



6970 was basically a 2nd generation of the 5870, but performance increase was nowhere near 70%. Unless AMD did something seriously wrong with the 7000 series (and I don't think they did), the 8000 series will be an incremental, rather than revolutionary upgrade.

OTOH, the 7000 series was a complete redesign compared to the 5000/6000 series, and yes there were HUGE gains, but because those gains happened on the compute side, most people don't notice it.


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## NeoXF (Oct 1, 2012)

jihadjoe said:


> OTOH, the 7000 series was a complete redesign compared to the 5000/6000 series, and yes there were HUGE gains, but because those gains happened on the compute side, most people don't notice it.



The graphics drivers definitely weren't there at launch, Catalyst 12.7b/12.8WHQL fixed most of that, but still. Not sure how compute stacks up, then and now, tho.


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## Widjaja (Oct 1, 2012)

jigar2speed said:


> I hope they don't drop the balls (Support) on their HD 5*** series, My HD 5850 is still fast enough and serving in my secondary system.



5*** series are in the DX11 bracket so highly unlikely AMD will drop support for the series and make it legacy.


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## NeoXF (Oct 1, 2012)

Widjaja said:


> 5*** series are in the DX11 bracket so highly unlikely AMD will drop support for the series and make it legacy.



I don't think AMD have dropped support for older generations either anyway (DX10 part at least)... they just release actual updates for them on a much slower (but probably consistent) basis.


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## revin (Oct 9, 2012)

Not sure I understand why they went back to  smaller 256 mem buss?


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## mediasorcerer (Oct 9, 2012)

NC37 said:


> Likely because AMD had performance leads at times, well before nVidia got more of Kepler out. If you are a top dog you don't have much of a reason to lower prices. People will pay for it. If 8000 series is seeing a price drop that big then it makes me suspect performance won't beat nVidia in the end so AMD goes back to competing based on price. Which is good cause maybe it'll get nVidia to lower some as well.




I agree with that, amd did a smart move getting the 7 series out some mnths back, when my card came out, i think it was around 500$-600$ if i remember, 3 weeks ago i paid 320$ 7 odd mnths later etc, nearly half price. I was thinking of nvidia for a change, but the equivelant card[660ti?650ti?], because its just released, was more pricey than the 7950.

Perhaps the memory bus doesnt make a significant enough difference in performance? , i noticed in max payne3, when i pushed the af [or was it aa] up high, it used much more memory, but not the full 3 gb, maybe around half if i remember, yet the game still jagged out on that setting?


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## Prima.Vera (Oct 10, 2012)

NeoXF said:


> I don't think AMD have dropped support for older generations either anyway (DX10 part at least)... they just release actual updates for them on a much slower (but probably consistent) basis.



Already the CrossfireX support for 5xxx is complete crap for newer games, and no signs that they will improve it soon...


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## eidairaman1 (Oct 10, 2012)

Prima.Vera said:


> Already the CrossfireX support for 5xxx is complete crap for newer games, and no signs that they will improve it soon...



your comment is making me fall asleep, Im going to bed good night


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## Widjaja (Oct 10, 2012)

We can only hope AMDs drivers a worked on more due to the extended time gap before each release and not because they have secretly laid off driver developers.

There is always going to be someone worrying about performance loss with older generation cards as AMD releases a new generation on GPUs.


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## eidairaman1 (Oct 10, 2012)

Widjaja said:


> We can only hope AMDs drivers a worked on more due to the extended time gap before each release and not because they have secretly laid off driver developers.
> 
> There is always going to be someone worrying about performance loss with older generation cards as AMD releases a new generation on GPUs.



 users of 12.9 betas are not complaining about crossfire issues at all so...


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## TRWOV (Oct 10, 2012)

jihadjoe said:


> 6970 was basically a 2nd generation of the 5870, but performance increase was nowhere near 70%. Unless AMD did something seriously wrong with the 7000 series (and I don't think they did), the 8000 series will be an incremental, rather than revolutionary upgrade.
> 
> OTOH, the 7000 series was a complete redesign compared to the 5000/6000 series, and yes there were HUGE gains, but because those gains happened on the compute side, most people don't notice it.



HD6950/70 were a new architecture (VLIW4) it wasn't a refined VLIW5. All ATi cards from 9800 to HD6800 were VLIW5.


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## xorbe (Oct 10, 2012)

TRWOV said:


> HD6950/70 were a new architecture (VLIW4) it wasn't a refined VLIW5. All ATi cards from 9800 to HD6800 were VLIW5.



I looked this up the other day.  I was left with the impression that vliw4 was basically vliw5 with the 5th pipe cut out, because it was rarely used after they did some game profilings.  Most peak usage was 3-4 pipes at a time.  Cut 20% per unit, and stamp 20% more units out.


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## eidairaman1 (Oct 10, 2012)

xorbe said:


> I looked this up the other day.  I was left with the impression that vliw4 was basically vliw5 with the 5th pipe cut out, because it was rarely used after they did some game profilings.  Most peak usage was 3-4 pipes at a time.  Cut 20% per unit, and stamp 20% more units out.



yup exactly why they did it, increases profits. when the 4th pipe is loaded 100% of time they will have a VLIW 5/6 design.


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