# AMD Readies Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition



## btarunr (May 7, 2012)

AMD's Radeon HD 7970 could not hold on to the single-GPU performance crown for too long. It lost it to NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680, and the upcoming GeForce GTX 670 threatens to damage its competitiveness even further. Reports suggest that AMD is working on a new Tahiti-based graphics card SKU, the Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition. AMD unveiled the "GHz Edition" moniker to denote SKUs that come with engine clock speed ≥1 GHz. The new HD 7970 GHz Edition will come with reference core clock speed of 1050 MHz. 

AMD needn't tinker with memory clock speed, as it already has a 384-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface compared to the GeForce GTX 680 and its 256-bit memory bus width. Sources told Atomic PC that improved yields and manufacturing processes have benefitted Tahiti just as well as GK104, and ES Tahiti chips from the latest batches "easily" hit 1250 MHz core. These batches could make custom-design graphics cards with extremely high core clock speeds possible. 





*View at TechPowerUp Main Site*


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## BarbaricSoul (May 7, 2012)

AMD needs to do something, GK110 is coming


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## dieterd (May 7, 2012)

and now we (well not me, but...) are gona pay for MHz increase? if so - then they could sell underclocked versions too with "undercloked" price - then I will buy


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## mrthanhnguyen (May 7, 2012)

*price*

$699 for 7990 is FTW. 690 EAT SH** with $1200 price tag.


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## Fluffmeister (May 7, 2012)

BarbaricSoul said:


> AMD needs to do something, GK110 is coming



I think the GTX 670 is gonna be enough to ruin their party even more.


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## Over_Lord (May 7, 2012)

They would need 1.1GHz core to match GTX680.


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## ZoneDymo (May 7, 2012)

Fluffmeister said:


> I think the GTX 670 is gonna be enough to ruin their party even more.



Nope, the GTX670 is going to ruin OUR (the enthusiast consumer) party.
It will now only take long for the real next gens from Nvidia to come out and for what?
Oh yeah, lame as price fixing.


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## sc (May 7, 2012)

BarbaricSoul said:


> AMD needs to do something, GK110 is coming



Uhm... and when is that exactly? In one year time? 
If they release GK110 now, they will ruin the profit they're making with 670/680/690.


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## NinkobEi (May 7, 2012)

Looks like there are already cards that ship @ 1100 mhz and clock to 1250. I'm not sure if this is a big deal or not.


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## BarbaricSoul (May 7, 2012)

sc said:


> Uhm... and when is that exactly? In one year time?
> If they release GK110 now, they will ruin the profit they're making with 670/680/690.



All I know is last I heard, GK110 is suppose to be released in Aug. Granted, it would make sence for Nvidia to hold back on launching it considering AMD has absolutely nothing that'll even come close ot it performance wise, but then again, if Nvidia did release it in Aug, they would basically bury AMD gfx card wise and it would take a looooonnnngg time for AMD to dig themselves out of that hole.

I don't know. I'm hoping for a Aug release as GK110 is what I plan on replacing my 5870 crossfire with.


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## TheMailMan78 (May 7, 2012)

BarbaricSoul said:


> All I know is last I heard, GK110 is suppose to be released in Aug. Granted, it would make sence for Nvidia to hold back on launching it considering AMD has absolutely nothing that'll even come close ot it performance wise, but then again, if Nvidia did release it in Aug, they would basically bury AMD gfx card wise and it would take a looooonnnngg time for AMD to dig themselves out of that hole.
> 
> I don't know. I'm hoping for a Aug release as GK110 is what I plan on replacing my 5870 crossfire with.



NVIDIA can hardly get enough time at the fab now for the 600 series. Also the 600 series doesn't in any way "bury" AMD. In a lot of benches AMD ties and even beats NVIDIA with a lesser price point now since the reduction. ALSO AMD is in a MUCH larger quantity in the market.


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## BarbaricSoul (May 7, 2012)

TheMailMan78 said:


> Also the 600 series doesn't in any way "bury" AMD. .



I wasn't referring to GK104 burying AMD. What I was thinking was that if AMD can only basically match what was originally slated to be a mid-grade gpu with thier top-end gpu, what's going to happen when Nvidia actually launches what was actually suppose to be the GTX680, which is the GK110 schedualed for release in August(so far, I havent seen or heard anything about the GK110 launch date being changed, although it very well may happen, especailly with the limited time Nvidia is getting at the fab).

I don't claim to be a expert, just going by what I've read and heard about GK110.


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## Filiprino (May 7, 2012)

NVIDIA does not have performance crown this round. The problem is that AMD is having some weird stuff going on in its drivers.


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## jman20nnsss (May 7, 2012)

Filiprino said:


> NVIDIA does not have performance crown this round. The problem is that AMD is having some weird stuff going on in its drivers.



erm,does'n that mean AMD still loses the performance crown?its AMD's fault for not making good drivers plus the 680 wins the 7970 is almost all games and benchmarks except AvP which is sided towards AMD


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## Am* (May 7, 2012)

BarbaricSoul said:


> AMD needs to do something, GK110 is coming



Not going to happen in the next 6 months at least, which makes it irrelevant. By then AMD will have their next gen GPUs ready. Nvidia will be spending those 6 months working on getting CUDA and GPGPU performance up to scratch on their CURRENT cards and getting Quadros out the door.


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## entropy13 (May 7, 2012)

Filiprino said:


> NVIDIA does not have performance crown this round. The problem is that AMD is having some weird stuff going on in its drivers.





I thought AMD having bad drivers is a myth only propagated by Nvidia fanboys?


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## BarbaricSoul (May 7, 2012)

Am* said:


> Not going to happen in the next 6 months at least, which makes it irrelevant. By then AMD will have their next gen GPUs ready. Nvidia will be spending those 6 months working on getting CUDA and GPGPU performance up to scratch on their CURRENT cards and getting Quadros out the door.



Mind giving some source for the information your giving about a later release date, because all I can find point to Q3 2012, which equals August this year, or there about.

http://www.overclock.net/t/1234921/zol-gk110-and-possible-gk110-2-information

http://semiaccurate.com/2012/02/07/gk110-tapes-out-at-last/

http://wccftech.com/nvidia-kepler-gk110-diesize-specs-detailed-launch-expected-q3-2012/

http://wccftech.com/nvidia-flagship-gk110-midrange-gk107-detailed-dual-gk104-chip-gpu-slated-2012/

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2224710

http://videocardz.com/31650/geforce-gtx-685-gk110-features-4gb-512bit-memory

I'm seeing plenty of information about GK110 being released in Q3 2012


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## cadaveca (May 7, 2012)

entropy13 said:


> I thought AMD having bad drivers is a myth only propagated by Nvidia fanboys?



Nope, AMD user here with driver issues, just on desktop with multimonitor.


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## Steevo (May 7, 2012)

BarbaricSoul said:


> I wasn't referring to GK104 burying AMD. What I was thinking was that if AMD can only basically match what was originally slated to be a mid-grade gpu with thier top-end gpu, what's going to happen when Nvidia actually launches what was actually suppose to be the GTX680, which is the GK110 schedualed for release in August(so far, I havent seen or heard anything about the GK110 launch date being changed, although it very well may happen, especailly with the limited time Nvidia is getting at the fab).
> 
> I don't claim to be a expert, just going by what I've read and heard about GK110.



I love that everyone thinks the king of rename company wouldn't pull shit like a GPU rename to generate talk amongst fanbois. 

Where is this magical "110" chip that is so amazing it will make your girlfriend cum at the mere mention of it? Right, no where.....

What was supposed to be the 680 when they admit they had issues getting the actual 680 done and out, may in fact be, the 680 you may or may not be able to buy today. And why exactly are you thread crapping about green vaporware in this thread? 

Saying it will happen in the future is like saying we will have interplanetary travel in the future as a daily occurrence, or that someone will win the lotto, of course it will happen, but between now and then.......


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## 20mmrain (May 7, 2012)

The GTX 670 won't ruin AMD's party even more. The people who talk this way I guarantee have never played with the GTX 680 or the HD 7970. I can tell you from owning both cards that the HD 7970 is a lot closer and even trades blows with the GTX 680 even at 925Mhz let alone 1000Mhz. 
Remember AMD brought the HD 7970 really immaturely..... and once a driver update came out for the HD 7970 the performance went up quit a bit. 
The benchmarks used to show how powerful the HD 7970 is compared to the GTX 680 is from a very immature launch driver. If these benchmarks were changed to use the 12.2 WHQL or 12.3 WHQL the story is very different. 
Not to mention there are a few short comings that the GTX 680 has that I never hear anyone talking about. For example the Overlocking on the cards is capped for all intents and purposes in terms of voltages. 
This is one of the reasons you don't see people blowing the HD 7970 out of the water when benchmarking with the GTX 680. 
I have owned both cards and they are both really great! Just don't give in accurate information to people unless you know what you are talking about. I also don't care how many reviews you fire back at me either.... or say something like "Well the GTX 680 drivers are from launch too" yes this is true.... but Nvidia also released the card 3 months later.... I would hope they had time to better the drivers for the GTX 600 series. If they didn't they would be dumb not too.


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## sanadanosa (May 7, 2012)

entropy13 said:


> I thought AMD having bad drivers is a myth only propagated by Nvidia fanboys?



Most review site talk about bad 7970 crossfire performance on several game due to AMD bad driver and I`m sure they are not fanboys


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## TheoneandonlyMrK (May 7, 2012)

cant really hurt ,they have had chips capable of it for a while with the right cooling so std cards at this speed neither surprise me nor confound me , if sold at a similar pricepoint then present 7970's i cant see them failing to sell, A gtx680 might well be capable of a bit more in some games but this should play pretty much anything v well to your average joe, and both available and the right price.


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## TheMailMan78 (May 7, 2012)

Personally none of this matters to me. Most games now don't even come close to warranting the power of the 7970 or the 680. My little 570 or a 6950 pretty much all thats needed for one of the most demanding games BF3. Sure more horse power is always welcome but really.....its not NEEDED anymore.


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## phanbuey (May 7, 2012)

Drivers or not - if it performs worse then who cares.

Their biggest issue is really not performance but pricing.  The pricing for the entire 7 series was way too high.  

The 5 series was when AMD really pulled off a huge victory, mostly due to pricing.

Right now they are trying to pursue the Nvidia model of "offer the best performance and overcharge for it", and it seems that it is not working out for them.


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## TheMailMan78 (May 7, 2012)

phanbuey said:


> Drivers or not - if it performs worse then who cares.
> 
> Their biggest issue is really not performance but pricing.  The pricing for the entire 7 series was way too high.
> 
> ...



What are you talking about? They dropped the price and had it hiked before NVIDIA dropped the 680. Now AMD is a far better deal. Next we will go into "NVIDIA makes way more profit" BS.


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## entropy13 (May 7, 2012)

TheMailMan78 said:


> What are you talking about? They dropped the price and had it hiked before NVIDIA dropped the 680. Now AMD is a far better deal. Next we will go into "NVIDIA makes way more profit" BS.



What are you talking about? The HD 7970 never dropped its price, and the GTX 680 was introduced here at the exact same price.


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## TheMailMan78 (May 7, 2012)

entropy13 said:


> What are you talking about? The HD 7970 never dropped its price, and the GTX 680 was introduced here at the exact same price.



http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showthread.php?t=164131&highlight=7970+price

Plus.....you can FIND a 7970. 680's are like catching leprechauns in the US.


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## symmetrical (May 7, 2012)

entropy13 said:


> What are you talking about? The HD 7970 never dropped its price, and the GTX 680 was introduced here at the exact same price.



People are referring to U.S. pricing.

An AMD 7970 was $549 at launch, but is now at $479 after the GTX 680 launched at $499. 

Despite the fanboy bickering, the 680 vs 7970 had the 680 with 5-10% better and the 7970 5-10% better at other games, essentially going back and forth but with the 680 still doing it with lower power consumption. Fact is at the time, the 680 seem like a real value due to being $50 cheaper.

Today it is much different considering that people can hardly find a 680 for $499, even at $529 and up. Retailers are price gouging everywhere for a 680 up to $600 which isn't worth it.

I built a computer for a friend and was lucky to snag an HIS 7970 for $449. I myself was lucky to snag a Zotac GTX 680 for $400 off craigslist.

Either way, the consumers are getting the shaft in this whole ordeal.

AMD releasing a "GHz" edition is a bit pointless since pretty much every single 7970 can clock to 1ghz easy.


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## Crap Daddy (May 7, 2012)

Useless. Partners already have higher clocked 7970. 1GHz will not surpass the 680 while consuming more W than the reference 7970. All the reviews declared the 680 a winner, the game is over at the top so this will not change anything from a marketing and reputation point of view.
I'm not trying to say that the 680 is (much) better than the 7970 but that is the verdict.

What might be with this GHz edition is that they know the 670 will compete directly with the 925 Mhz 7970 and they have to break clear. This is just a supposition because I really don't see a point of a higher clocked 7970 by AMD.

GK104 in any shape and form is better than Tahiti and Pitcairn but AMD has the 7850 and if they price it competitively the 7870 in a space were NV has nothing. Of course availability for NV products is a big question right now.


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## Am* (May 7, 2012)

BarbaricSoul said:


> Mind giving some source for the information your giving about a later release date, because all I can find point to Q3 2012, which equals August this year, or there about.
> 
> http://www.overclock.net/t/1234921/zol-gk110-and-possible-gk110-2-information
> 
> ...




Most of the sources you quoted mention the same source, and none of them are credible. I made my own prediction (and I'm NOT calling it credible, my prediction is my personal opinion), which you can call me out on later, but I use logical reasons: 

1. At the moment, their "mid-range" GTX 680 is way cheaper to produce than the proposed GK110, and no doubt has much better yields.
2. They have yet to launch the rest of the lineup. Drivers are also yet to mature.
3. Why EOL your own products with a more expensive one when you can keep making the same one and gain much bigger profit margins?
4. There is very little demand for the current top of the line cards for REAL world usage. There is next to no demand for anything faster, since we have yet to find a game to push the capability of the current cards, let alone future GPUs.



sanadanosa said:


> Most review site talk about bad 7970 crossfire performance on several game due to AMD bad driver and I`m sure they are not fanboys



That's called microstuttering, and it happens as much on Nvidia cards as it does on AMD GPUs.

And what do you want to say to the people with SINGLE GTX 680s crashing/having poor performance in games? Both companies have crap drivers to begin with, and early adopters will always get shafted with driver problems, no matter what camp you're siding with, so your point is invalid.


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## entropy13 (May 7, 2012)

TheMailMan78 said:


> http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showthread.php?t=164131&highlight=7970+price
> 
> Plus.....you can FIND a 7970. 680's are like catching leprechauns in the US.



There are price cuts indeed...in the US. 

Over here you can find 680s just as easily as 7970s. It's like they know that Asia is now the better market than the US.


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## TheoneandonlyMrK (May 7, 2012)

competition is largely irellivant in the market since hardly anyone is going to buy a 5xx nvidia card , no one can find a 6xx nvidia card and no real supply exists therof, so Amd has the right card at all pricepoints in that what choice do you have if your a system builder.

Off topic i just put a A8 3870K +HD6670 system together and despite manys claims , stock it plays anything reasonably on med to low settings and still looked good, a 7970 at any speed(stck or 1Ghz) will spank any game at 1080p the average gamers res and even a 7850 will do a good job and i CAN buy one now ,i know who i thinks winning this gpu round.

the gk110 imho will be Nv's compute card, no great gfx leap but cuda fixed and i doubt well see it this year and it wont be a 6xx but the next alleged gen 7xx,  Amd have got to have their 8xxx cooked or cooking by now


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## TheMailMan78 (May 7, 2012)

entropy13 said:


> There are price cuts indeed...in the US.
> 
> Over here you can find 680s just as easily as 7970s. It's like they know that Asia is now the better market than the US.



Not if you are paying more money for the same product it aint.


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## the54thvoid (May 7, 2012)

BarbaricSoul said:


> I'm seeing plenty of information about GK110 being released in Q3 2012



wow - that's not 6 sources mate.

3 of your sources are quoting another of your sources and OBR is also one of the sources (and using same source from first reference).  Semi Accurate gave the tape out info first and anand and wccf use it.  Wccf is quite poor at info (i know I've often visited in the three months before kepler and all the stuff was way off base.)
OBR is a ludicrous site for info.

The fact is - there is no release date for a GK110 part.  As far as NV PR are concerned it doesn't yet exist.  What is apparent from the tech side is that GK104 is a gaming card with GPGPU very much depleted.
GK110 is an HPC (High Performance Computing) part.  It should have been GK100 but as CD alludes to, it wouldn't work - it was a power draw monster.  This is why GK 104 is so popular - it's efficient - but it's also generally shit at gpgpu.

The GTX 680 is an excellent card for gaming.  The 7970 is an excellent card for gaming and gpgpu (if that floats your boat).

I also did calculations in another thread that clearly show the GTX 680's 37% faster clocks (compared to GTX 580) result in a 29% fps improvement.  The 7970's 5.11% faster clocks (compared to 6970) result in a 41.56% fps improvement.  One of these cards is an excellent architectural design improvement and one of these cards is clocked ridiculously higher than last gen (and gpgpu crippled).
http://img.techpowerup.org/120426/Untitled.png

A GHz 7970 might be good for PR but they'll need some fanfare to detract from the strange attraction the 680 has gathered.  Yes the 680 is good but it's not THAT good.

And on the driver front - legendary crossfire problems but single card - pretty much none.  Do we want to drag up Nvidias fan stopping card frying driver fuck up from a year or so back?


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## TheMailMan78 (May 7, 2012)

the54thvoid said:


> wow - that's not 6 sources mate.
> 
> 3 of your sources are quoting another of your sources and OBR is also one of the sources (and using same source from first reference).  Semi Accurate gave the tape out info first and anand and wccf use it.  Wccf is quite poor at info (i know I've often visited in the three months before kepler and all the stuff was way off base.)
> OBR is a ludicrous site for info.
> ...



AMD has crappy support for OpenGL standards on consumer cards. I know this first hand and so does Crazyeyes.


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## cadaveca (May 7, 2012)

the54thvoid said:


> This is why GK 104 is so popular - it's efficient - but it's also generally shit at gpgpu.



I see lots of people say this, but noone quantifies WHY it's not good at GPGPU. Any ideas?


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## TheoneandonlyMrK (May 7, 2012)

I read somewhere its double precision performance in compute is a third that of a 7970 and even lower then what it replaced the 580

even its single precision performance is not much compared to the 7970

it folds bad


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## phanbuey (May 7, 2012)

TheMailMan78 said:


> What are you talking about? They dropped the price and had it hiked before NVIDIA dropped the 680. Now AMD is a far better deal. Next we will go into "NVIDIA makes way more profit" BS.



That is exactly what im talking about... they had it hiked before the 680.  So what did people not do? they didn't buy a ton of price hiked 7970's.  Instead they waited for nvidia to get their sh*t together.

Point is people who own a 7970 are not in the market for a 680.  That is where AMD f'ed it up - they sold fewer 7970's initially, and they let nvidia have a huge chunk of sales by keeping the 7970 so expensive, and not selling as many units as they could have (think back to the 5 series, where the market actually pushed the price UP from MSRP).

I am coming from the view of the consumer... just what I see.  Never have i speculated about who makes more profit than who, nor do I care.


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## BarbaricSoul (May 7, 2012)

Why does everyone think I want a GK110 for gaming purposes? Do you not see my WCG tag? For gaming, my 5870 crossfire set is real close to being equal to a single GTX680/7970/6990 system. I don't need anymore graphical power than what I have for gaming. But what I do have is a grandfather that died of Azlphimers, a father that has had a round with colon cancer, and a mother that has diabetus. Now you tell me why I want GK110.


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## the54thvoid (May 7, 2012)

cadaveca said:


> I see lots of people say this, but noone quantifies WHY it's not good at GPGPU. Any ideas?



Yeah, Anand did a good review.

Open CL and compute is bad for the 680 but in shader performance it does well.


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## TheMailMan78 (May 7, 2012)

BarbaricSoul said:


> Why does everyone think I want a GK110 for gaming purposes? Do you not see my WCG tag? For gaming, my 5870 crossfire set is real close to being equal to a single GTX680/7970/6990 system. I don't need anymore graphical power than what I have for gaming. But what I do have is a grandfather that died of Azlphimers, a father that has had a round with colon cancer, and a mother that has diabetus. Now you tell me why I want GK110.



You need a priest not a GPU.


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## TheoneandonlyMrK (May 7, 2012)

TheMailMan78 said:


> You need a priest not a GPU.



yeah but a gfx card chats less shit and Does play crisis


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## BarbaricSoul (May 7, 2012)

TheMailMan78 said:


> You need a priest not a GPU.



that's just mean dude, uncool:shadedshu


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## entropy13 (May 7, 2012)

TheMailMan78 said:


> Not if you are paying more money for the same product it aint.



Product A and B are both $300 in Country A. Product A and B are $250 in Country B. 

There is a $20 tax in Country A that isn't present in Country B. So to "equalize" the prices, it's $280 for Country A and $250 for Country B.

And Country B is a better market for Country A, looking from the supplier side???


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## cadaveca (May 7, 2012)

the54thvoid said:


> Yeah, Anand did a good review.
> 
> Open CL and compute is bad for the 680 but in shader performance it does well.
> 
> ...



Where's the explanation...I don't care about results..I know it's slower. I want to know WHY it's slower, yet faster in games.

I mean, after all, wouldn't that kind of be a selling feature for HD7970? IT does what GTX 680 cannot?

Personally, i think it's a lack or internal caches that are the issue ,and are also why it runs comparitively cool. Buty I do not hear suc hthings, I jsut hear peopel claiming it's slower.


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## TheMailMan78 (May 7, 2012)

BarbaricSoul said:


> that's just mean dude, uncool:shadedshu



I didn't mean it that way. Its just with that amount of bad luck you seemed cursed.


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## Crap Daddy (May 7, 2012)

cadaveca said:


> I see lots of people say this, but noone quantifies WHY it's not good at GPGPU. Any ideas?



Usually people who bought the 7970 or use AMD found 2 problems with the 680. One is overclockability and the second is GPGPU. Oh, and I forgot about the VRAM 3GB vs. 2GB.


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## lucas4 (May 7, 2012)

Am I the only person who thinks AMD's decision to change the naming structure on the 6K series and up was a bad idea?

Instead of confusing people with multiple variations of a GPU (standard edition and GHz edition) with the same name (HD 7970), with their old naming scheme they could have just bumped the speed and released the card with the 90 suffix as a 7x90 instead. Now they have to mess about because the dual GPU card will be the 7990.

Perhaps I'm being picky , but it seems they caused more hassle in the past and present with the changed naming scheme than they did good.


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## BarbaricSoul (May 7, 2012)

Eh, I don't look at it as bad luck, I just look at it as life. Bad luck would be if my parent had died also. Grandpa did live to 92 years old and was driving until he was 91. We could all only hope to be as lucky as he was in life.


BTW, I'm not a 20 year old kid with mid-40ties parents. I'll be 41 this summer. My parents are well into thier 60ties.


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## TheoneandonlyMrK (May 7, 2012)

cadaveca said:


> Where's the explanation...I don't care about results..I know it's slower. I want to know WHY it's slower, yet faster in games.



IMHO the 680 is so much better in games due to the doubling and more of its polymorph engines and the high amount of tessalators etc ,they have more(lower efficiency) fixed function units especially made for gameing , its that simple

I think AMd's shader at these speeds is more effiecient and their polymorph and tesselation engines are ahead of nvidias ,they use less of them though


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## HossHuge (May 7, 2012)

Ya the 680 is more efficent (3w) and it is more powerful (1%).  Hardly worth bragging about...:shadedshu


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## TheMailMan78 (May 7, 2012)

entropy13 said:


> Product A and B are both $300 in Country A. Product A and B are $250 in Country B.
> 
> There is a $20 tax in Country A that isn't present in Country B. So to "equalize" the prices, it's $280 for Country A and $250 for Country B.
> 
> And Country B is a better market for Country A, looking from the supplier side???



So the Philippines are a bigger market then the United States......interdasting.


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## the54thvoid (May 7, 2012)

HossHuge said:


> Ya the 680 is more efficent (3w) and it is more powerful (1%).  Hardly worth bragging about...:shadedshu
> 
> 
> http://img.techpowerup.org/120507/680.jpg



Hey dude someone will pull you up on those %'s.  They're equalised to a 690, so there will be slightly different results for relative performance.  The tables below are for the 680 review so equalised to that.  Still very telling.

http://tpucdn.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_680/images/power_average.gif
7970 draws less average gaming power, just.
http://tpucdn.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_680/images/perfwatt_2560.gif
7970 is within 2% perf/watt
http://tpucdn.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_680/images/perfrel_2560.gif
7970 is within 4% relative performance.  At same clocks... well, equal or better on average.


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## Fluffmeister (May 7, 2012)

Well if people want to spend extra on a mildy overclocked 7970, more power to them (literally ).


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## Steevo (May 7, 2012)

And the newer 7970s are overclocking to a few percent higher than 680s can in pure perfirmance plus driver improvements. And I stilk find it amazing the green team has turned around and made energy efficiency a selling point when uaers for years said they didnt care.


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## Fluffmeister (May 7, 2012)

Steevo said:


> And the newer 7970s are overclocking to a few percent higher than 680s can in pure perfirmance plus driver improvements. And I stilk find it amazing the green team has turned around and made energy efficiency a selling point when uaers for years said they didnt care.



Equally it's interesting how GPGPU has suddenly become important when users for years said they didn't care.


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## the54thvoid (May 7, 2012)

Fluffmeister said:


> Equally it's interesting how GPGPU has suddenly become important when users for years said they didn't care.



It's what Jen-Hsun Huang himself used to sell the Fermi brand.  Nvidia made gpgpu a selling point.


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## Crap Daddy (May 7, 2012)

the54thvoid said:


> It's what Jen-Hsun Huang himself used to sell the Fermi brand.  Nvidia made gpgpu a selling point.



And they sell it still. The cards are called Quadro and Tesla. GTX680 is a gaming card.


----------



## INSTG8R (May 7, 2012)

Well it was pretty obvious AMD was playing "safe" with the clocks on release when it was in the users hands and EASILY overclocked. Trying to now sell it with the clocks users were getting in the first place doesn't really make it better or more appealing. I wonder what price premium they are gonna slap on it making it do what any end user could already do...


----------



## the54thvoid (May 7, 2012)

Crap Daddy said:


> And they sell it still. The cards are called Quadro and Tesla. GTX680 is a gaming card.



Yup.  And that is the purpose of GK110.  And it will guzzle power.  But I'll probably buy one.


----------



## Over_Lord (May 7, 2012)

I remember when the HD5000 series received a HUGE performance with one particular driver set(I think at the GTX480 launch period).

It was an AMAZING boost, and I believe HD7000 series is also set to receive such a boost. Besides, it will take time for drivers to fully utilize the GCN architecture.

All in all, next 3 months looking great. The HD7950 will go down in price, HD7970 eating food with GTX670, and the HD7970 GHz eating the GTX680.

yay


----------



## Fluffmeister (May 7, 2012)

the54thvoid said:


> It's what Jen-Hsun Huang himself used to sell the Fermi brand.  Nvidia made gpgpu a selling point.



And it's those Fermi years I was referring too.


----------



## TheoneandonlyMrK (May 7, 2012)

Fluffmeister said:


> And it's those Fermi years I was referring too.



and thats relivant because??



Fluffmeister said:


> Equally it's interesting how GPGPU has suddenly become important when users for years said they didn't care.



also by you, stop trolling it starts trolling then the fanboi shit comes out, then thread closed, not good , a discusion dosnt have to go flamey and biased


OT ive had a 5xxx at a Ghz since 3 weeks after purchase, anyone paying extra for this on a 7970 might want to think about a waterblocked ref version if cheaper all in or not much dearer as waterblocked cards clock higher and last longer


----------



## Fluffmeister (May 7, 2012)

It's relevant because people moaned that they didn't want these large general purpose all singing and dancing GPU's nV kept making, they just wanted fast and efficient gaming cards.

nV listened and created a fast and efficient gaming card. Now people moan about it's cut down GPGPU functionality.


----------



## SIGSEGV (May 7, 2012)

Fluffmeister said:


> It's relevant because people moaned that they didn't want these large general purpose all singing and dancing GPU's nV kept making, they just wanted fast and efficient gaming cards.
> 
> nV listened and created a fast and efficient gaming card. Now people moan about it's cut down GPGPU functionality.



what's the point do you want talking about here? are you satisfy now? LMFAO~


----------



## Fluffmeister (May 7, 2012)

SIGSEGV said:


> what's the point do you want talking about here? are you satisfy now? LMFAO~



I'm trying to say buy the 7970, it's awesome.


----------



## TheoneandonlyMrK (May 7, 2012)

Fluffmeister said:


> nV listened and created a fast and efficient gaming card. Now people moan about it's cut down GPGPU functionality.



i suggest you read the OP then as this threads about AMD releasing 1Ghz eddition 7970s, a card that does everything as fast as it can, and un crippled,being made to officially run a bit faster



Fluffmeister said:


> I'm trying to say buy the 7970, it's awesome.



sorry i too am struggling to extract that meaning from what you have said


----------



## Fluffmeister (May 7, 2012)

theoneandonlymrk said:


> i suggest you read the OP then as this threads about AMD releasing 1Ghz eddition 7970s, a card that does everything as fast as it can, and un crippled,being made to officially run a bit faster



Hey I wasn't the first to bring up this lark up.

But yes, a thread about a mildly overclocked 7970, very exciting stuff sorry.


----------



## Zubasa (May 7, 2012)

All I care is if they will make a new reference board, if its the same thing just with higher clocks in the bios then no thanks.
Also they better not charge an arm and a leg for the extra few mhz.


----------



## TheoneandonlyMrK (May 7, 2012)

Fluffmeister said:


> But yes, a thread about a mildly overclocked 7970, very exciting stuff sorry.



at last we agree and at last your OT, and i do agree, a slightly overclocked 7970 dosnt warrant much enthusiasm as id expext to do those clocks if i bought one anyway, which im not, because 2x5xxx's still do fine @ 1080p though my eyes are starting to wander to newer sku's


----------



## Crap Daddy (May 7, 2012)

As I said before I can't see one sound reason for a GHz edition 7970.  If you want an OCed version buy one now. If you wanna overclock a reference 7970 buy one and do it yourself. The card itself is the same as that launched last year, IT WILL NOT BE BETTER.


----------



## TheMailMan78 (May 7, 2012)

Crap Daddy said:


> As I said before I can't see one sound reason for a GHz edition 7970.  If you want an OCed version buy one now. If you wanna overclock a reference 7970 buy one and do it yourself. The card itself is the same as that launched last year, IT WILL NOT BE BETTER.



Are you crazy?!?! Of course the new one will be better. Its got a sticker on it! Everyone knows 1337ness comes from stickers! Just look at ricers!


----------



## bongpack05 (May 7, 2012)

http://www.gpureview.com/show_cards.php?card1=663&card2=667#

a 7970 clocked at 1050 ghz core has a higher pixel fill rate than the 680 gtx.


----------



## Crap Daddy (May 7, 2012)

bongpack05 said:


> http://www.gpureview.com/show_cards.php?card1=663&card2=667#
> 
> a 7970 clocked at 1050 ghz core has a higher pixel fill rate than the 680 gtx.



Quick! More pixels! Refill!


----------



## Xzibit (May 7, 2012)

TheMailMan78 said:


> Are you crazy?!?! Of course the new one will be better. Its got a sticker on it! Everyone knows 1337ness comes from stickers! Just look at ricers!



And all this time I thought I had to upgrade 

I'm gonna go get out the 9600 GT from the attic and go buy me a sheet of stickers at Toys"R"Us. Will post blazingly super duper fast benchmarks results in a few hours.

P.S.
I live a benchmark at a time 
It doesnt matter if you finish a benchmark 1fps faster or 100fps faster, Winning winning


----------



## dj-electric (May 7, 2012)

Man.. i kinda feel sorry for them, but at the same time happy that NVIDIA started kicking so much ass


----------



## the54thvoid (May 7, 2012)

TheMailMan78 said:


> Are you crazy?!?! Of course the new one will be better. Its got a sticker on it! Everyone knows 1337ness comes from stickers! Just look at ricers!



Stickers are for yesterday you hippy - paint it yourself....

(Yes colorful have an igame kudan 680 in the works, get your l33t graffiti skillz out.)


----------



## T4C Fantasy (May 7, 2012)

the original price for the hd7970 was $549 it is now $479 so yes it had a HUGE price drop, unfortunately for me i bought it while it was 550, but i dont care xD, drivers are definetly the cultprit because the HD7970 is definetly superior hardware, 4.3 billion transisitors versus 3.5 billion in the 680 more gddr5 memory allowication and 384bit which i dont know why nvidia went back down to 256bit they even had 512bit at one point like the 295 i believe it was, if amd had the same team  nvidia does for drivers you can bet your ass the HD7970 would crush the 680 in every benchmark possible

my HD7970 stats
GPU Clock: 1125MHz
Memory: 1575MHz
Pixel Fillrate: 36.0Gpixel/s
Texture Fillrate: 144.0GTexel/s
Bandwidth: 302.4GB/s


----------



## washd123 (May 7, 2012)

TheMailMan78 said:


> Now AMD is a far better deal.




...what?

how is paying the same price for a card that performs worse, runs hotter, and uses more power a better deal?


----------



## TheMailMan78 (May 7, 2012)

washd123 said:


> ...what?
> 
> how is paying the same price for a card that performs worse, runs hotter, and uses more power a better deal?



1. Its doesn't "perform worse"
2. Runs hotter yet OC WAY BETTER.
3. Less then 1 watt at idle and now NVIDIA users care about power consumption?
4. 7970 is cheaper AND in abundance.

There is NOTHING wrong with the 7970. It was just over priced in the first month or so.


----------



## Xzibit (May 7, 2012)

TheMailMan78 said:


> 1. Its doesn't "perform worse"
> 2. Runs hotter yet OC WAY BETTER.
> 3. Less then 1 watt at idle and now NVIDIA users care about power consumption?
> 4. 7970 is cheaper AND in abundance.
> ...



^To add to this...

From a price and performance stand-point the AMDs are better.  As many have pointed out going from a 580 to 680 your getting less for your money at a higher price point as they are currently sold.

The 580s where not crippled as the 680 or for that matter the GK104 chip .  Ofcouse this wont matter if playing games is your only concern but even then your still paying more for less of a product and features.

I sugguest you go read the Official Nvidia web-site forums and you'll find out a lot of 680 users are wanting features currently only found on the AMD 7000 series.  The IQ debate over there is interesting.  Oh wait what about the cry'n about the driver issues and all that jazz.  Unless you have fanboy glasses on, reading Nvidias forums will take care of that.  Heck they still have a thread going from 2009 on BSOD.

So unless your extremely partasin to one brand i dont see how 20-50 dollar differance is cause for such an uproar.  Especially when you get pass the ?% overall benchmark disparity and you start comparing core features and abilities.

What am i saying. Keep posting i enjoy reading


----------



## phanbuey (May 7, 2012)

These cards both need to be about $100 cheaper.


----------



## Casecutter (May 7, 2012)

Well my take on this is TSMC finally got the 28Nm production figured out back say mid-March and by April AMD started seeing more chips like they had originally considered and developed as "Tahiti".  (and why Nvidia was all "disappointed" dis’ing AMD, like they didn’t have problems of their own) .  

The question not being answered here is... could these process improved chips now providing a 1Ghz, but offering the same power efficiency and TDP?   It kind of reminds me of what was a original Fermi, and then what Nvidia got from their re-spin (GF100 Vs GF110).  I don't think it's just marketing saying we’ll offer reference clocks at 1Ghz... but a re-release of what Tahiti was to offer originally.  I mean what's the difference between this and what the GTX260 had when they release it as a "Core 216"? 

That said those who went for 7970’s at $550 are a little upset though AMD never actually knew at that point TSMC could fix their issues or if Nvidia would fair any better, so you've got to go with what you've got.  If AMD bring these 1Ghz I figure they’ll be a $480-500 price while they get the other moved out.  If they hold or better the current power consumption, and can C-F with existing 7970 that might take a Bios flash to the 1Ghz.   It's an equitable response to counter Nvidia, and not upset folk who purchased 3-4 months back.


----------



## T4C Fantasy (May 7, 2012)

and yes there was those comparisons  last gen, there is ALWAYS the same arguments year after year, it doesn't matter, the fact is the HD7970 is superior hardware, the drivers are to blame,slow development, rushing to be the first always has its downfalls, the proof is the benchmark comparisons with  the preview hd7970 driver to the current driver, screw clock for clock the hd7970 can beat the 680 with base clocks if it had great drivers


----------



## Lionheart (May 7, 2012)

Aaah love reading these comment's lol they always turn into debates


----------



## DarkOCean (May 7, 2012)

this mean "normal'' (non oc) 7970 would get cheaper or that the oc one would be more expensive? (gues the second option)


----------



## pioneer (May 7, 2012)

T4C Fantasy said:


> broken english... and yes there was those comparisons  last gen, there is ALWAYS the same arguments year after year, it doesn't matter, the fact is the HD7970 is superior hardware, the drivers are to blame,slow development, rushing to be the first always has its downfalls, the proof is the benchmark comparisons with  the preview hd7970 driver to the current driver, screw clock for clock the hd7970 can beat the 680 with base clocks if it had great drivers



if u just talk about driver issue - GK104 is far newer card - and even gk104 using sw scheduling system for gpu - but hd7970 using hw scheduling system for gpu

with this conversation gk104 is far more driver intensive compare to hd7970 

here with hardware canuck domain test - gtx680 about 15% faster than hd7970 

for better comparison in future game 3dmark11 told us gtx680 about 20% faster than hd7970-new games better run on gforce cards - and we bought card for new games - not for 2006 crysis


----------



## Frick (May 7, 2012)

Dj-ElectriC said:


> http://i.imgur.com/VXFP1.png
> 
> Man.. i kinda feel sorry for them, but at the same time happy that NVIDIA started kicking so much ass



I just .. so much to be angry about, so little time.


----------



## T4C Fantasy (May 7, 2012)

pioneer said:


> if u just talk about driver issue - GK104 is far newer card - and even gk104 using sw scheduling system for gpu - but hd7970 using hw scheduling system for gpu
> 
> with this conversation gk104 is far more driver intensive compare to hd7970
> 
> ...



show link showing hd7970 losing to gtx680 with no driver influence on both cards?

Edit, i dont see how its even possible to show a cards true performance since the drivers is what makes them efficient, ... fold with both gpus which ever one can fold with the highest points average  i guess would show which one is truely the most powerful


----------



## Casecutter (May 7, 2012)

DarkOCean said:


> this mean "normal'' (non oc) 7970 would get cheaper or that the oc one would be more expensive? (gues the second option)


I say just going with the assertion that they'll be "just OC'd" is not entirely astute.  They could be "Tahiti" the way AMD engineering anticipated would arrive from TSMC back last Oct/Nov; at 1Ghz while all within the 250 TDP.  When they found the only way to maintain with the 250 TDP of the board design was to drop it to 925Mhz, it was the only choice without moving the launch back for who knows how long.  And yes since that time AMD/AIB’s have been able to get improving binning of nice chips that OC, they still had exponentially higher power in achieving that.  Now, the latest chip could provide 1Ghz, while offering the efficiency so many thought 7970's where lacking especially when OC'd.


----------



## Vulpesveritas (May 7, 2012)

cadaveca said:


> Where's the explanation...I don't care about results..I know it's slower. I want to know WHY it's slower, yet faster in games.
> 
> I mean, after all, wouldn't that kind of be a selling feature for HD7970? IT does what GTX 680 cannot?
> 
> Personally, i think it's a lack or internal caches that are the issue ,and are also why it runs comparitively cool. Buty I do not hear suc hthings, I jsut hear peopel claiming it's slower.



It's architectural.  Nvidia simplified the CUDA architecture so it resembles more like the old Radeon VLIW architecture so they can get better pixel pushing, and lower power consumption, however this is at a sacrifice of computing power.


----------



## cadaveca (May 7, 2012)

Vulpesveritas said:


> It's architectural.  Nvidia simplified the CUDA architecture so it resembles more like the old Radeon VLIW architecture so they can get better pixel pushing, and lower power consumption, however this is at a sacrifice of computing power.







That tells me what, exactly? It's very obvious it's different already, and you've said nothing other than that it is...

I WANT SPECIFICS!!!


----------



## Patriot (May 7, 2012)

The change in architecture is only part of it...

The 680 is a mid end card cranked high on clocks and turboed to fill the missing high end spot.
Like other mid series cards it has its dp gpgpu capability cut out... that is also why it uses less power.

Great on games sucky on gpgpu...less value for more.
If you only play games... its a great card.   Unfortunately I use both so I spend less and get more...


----------



## Random Murderer (May 7, 2012)

NinkobEi said:


> Looks like there are already cards that ship @ 1100 mhz and clock to 1250. I'm not sure if this is a big deal or not.



it's not a big deal at all, as even the cards that ship at stock speeds can max out AMD Overdrive at 1125 core, 1575 mem without overvolting.
i wouldn't be surprised if these GHz Edition cards are simply a reference card with a BIOS flash.


----------



## T4C Fantasy (May 7, 2012)

Random Murderer said:


> it's not a big deal at all, as even the cards that ship at stock speeds can max out AMD Overdrive at 1125 core, 1575 mem without overvolting.
> i wouldn't be surprised if these GHz Edition cards are simply a reference card with a BIOS flash.



i see u  got the 3820, dude i couldnt wait for ivy bridge-e lol the 3770k is better technology and new shrink so i went with that instead


----------



## Vulpesveritas (May 7, 2012)

cadaveca said:


> That tells me what, exactly? It's very obvious it's different already, and you've said nothing other than that it is...
> 
> I WANT SPECIFICS!!!


How specific do you want it? 
Well, I'm no microarchitecture designer yet, so I can't tell you specifics beyond what I've read.  
As you know, the original CUDA architecture used in Fermi was complicated, and used a lot of power to work with it. 
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	



 AMD was at the same time using VLIW, an architecture great for pushing pixels due to the large number of shader units, however while it is good for simple parallel processing tasks, due to it's simplicity it isn't very suitable for computing. 




With GCN, AMD decided to adopt a more complex shader architecture, closer to the CUDA cores present in Fermi, and made an architecture that was good for mostly any purpose, partially due to their future focus on APUs, and floating point math is a priority for the architecture.  (HSA allows for floating point calculations to be done on GPU cores rather than FPU calcs on a separate CPU, and a GPU is better for floating point anyhow.)




Then with the GTX 680, Nvidia decided to focus on a gaming architecture, simplifing CUDA in order to fit more cores in a smaller number of space, and therefore improve rendering, however due to the simplification of the core design, computing is hampered, and may point to a complete split between workstation and gaming architectures for Nvidia.  (this last statement is a personal assessment, due to the lack of a GK110 chip being present or confirmed for a gaming GPU at this time.)





That's how I understand it all.


----------



## TheMailMan78 (May 7, 2012)

Vulpesveritas said:


> How specific do you want it?
> Well, I'm no microarchitecture designer yet, so I can't tell you specifics beyond what I've read.
> As you know, the original CUDA architecture used in Fermi was complicated, and used a lot of power to work with it. http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_580/images/arch.jpg
> AMD was at the same time using VLIW, an architecture great for pushing pixels due to the large number of shader units, however while it is good for simple parallel processing tasks, due to it's simplicity it isn't very suitable for computing.
> ...


You just opened Pandora's box.


----------



## Crap Daddy (May 7, 2012)

TheMailMan78 said:


> 1. Its doesn't "perform worse"
> 2. Runs hotter yet OC WAY BETTER.
> 3. Less then 1 watt at idle and now NVIDIA users care about power consumption?
> 4. 7970 is cheaper AND in abundance.
> ...



1. All the reviews agreed that the 680 "performs better" so it means that the 7970 "performs worse""
2. You're right from the point of view of percentage over stock but not many 7970 can do 1300MHz on air (maybe I'm wrong?)
3. 7970 at 1200MHz uses little under 100W more watts than a 680 at the same clocks.
4. Right

There's nothing wrong with the 7970 but it is still overpriced. Wait and see what the 670 will bring. (Unfortunately availability will be the main question)


----------



## N3M3515 (May 7, 2012)

Crap Daddy said:


> 1. All the reviews agreed that the 680 "performs better" so it means that the 7970 "performs worse""
> 2. You're right from the point of view of percentage over stock but not many 7970 can do 1300MHz on air (maybe I'm wrong?)
> 3. 7970 at 1200MHz uses little under 100W more watts than a 680 at the same clocks.
> 4. Right
> ...



At this point in time, the 7970 $479 vs gtx 680 vaporware or $600 - $690 where available, which one do you think is overpriced, which one is a better buy?

It doesn't matter what the gtx 670 brings to the table if it's going to be the same story as gtx 680, unavailable and where it is, it costs $100 more.


----------



## TheMailMan78 (May 7, 2012)

Crap Daddy said:


> 1. All the reviews agreed that the 680 "performs better" so it means that the 7970 "performs worse""
> 2. You're right from the point of view of percentage over stock but not many 7970 can do 1300MHz on air (maybe I'm wrong?)
> 3. 7970 at 1200MHz uses little under 100W more watts than a 680 at the same clocks.
> 4. Right
> ...



1. Depends on what you are looking for. Once you OC the 7970 is smokes the 680 and you gotta admit most people who drop this kinda coin on a GPU tend to OC. I mean if you want "plug and play" sure the 680 is better. If you are an enthusiast the 7970 is a better choice.
2. See W1zz's review.
3. Hows that 680 look at idle compared to the 7970?


----------



## Crap Daddy (May 7, 2012)

Where are all the Nvidia users when you need them? They left me here alone to defend the 680 against the mighty 7970 GHz edition... They are all probably searching for the leaks regarding the 670. By the way, it's gonna be launched on the 10th of May.

On a more serious note, in my poor country the cheapest 7970 is the equivalent of 580$ and the only 680, an ASUS, which is available, one can actually buy, is at 740$. So you are right, probably it's the same all over the place. I personally will NEVER pay this amount of money to play console ports but that's another story. If one wants to get these cards then of course the 7970 is the option.


----------



## TheMailMan78 (May 7, 2012)

Crap Daddy said:


> Where are all the Nvidia users when you need them? They left me here alone to defend the 680 against the mighty 7970 GHz edition... They are all probably searching for the leaks regarding the 670. By the way, it's gonna be launched on the 10th of May.
> 
> On a more serious note, in my poor country the cheapest 7970 is the equivalent of 580$ and the only 680, an ASUS, which is available, one can actually buy, is at 740$. So you are right, probably it's the same all over the place. I personally will NEVER pay this amount of money to play console ports but that's another story. If one wants to get these cards then of course the 7970 is the option.



I can get a 7970 for $479 all day. 680 is at the cheapest $499 but none are in stock.


----------



## Hayder_Master (May 7, 2012)

even with 1Ghz still can't beat GTX680 !!! , better move to make it really active is lower the price.


----------



## Xzibit (May 7, 2012)

This is my simplistic way of putting it.

680 $499
7970 $499
(US MSRP Pricing)

Games 
-Nvidia 600 Series

Games + Folding
-AMD HD 7000 Series

The GTX 680 (GK104) folds like a GTX 560 Ti (GF114).  Nvidia stated that you would have buy there Quadro or Tesla series cards for folding this generation.  Who knows if this is there new direction from now on.

Now if your main concern is only benchmark gaming Nvidia did its job you'll be paying a nice premium the way things are looking. Although if your into getting your moneys worth and not getting screwed over from the norm thats been established by both companies over the years you might want to skip the GK104 series. 

Hopefully its simple enough to understand


----------



## HumanSmoke (May 7, 2012)

TheMailMan78 said:


> 1. Depends on what you are looking for. Once you OC the 7970 is smokes the 680 and you gotta admit most people who drop this kinda coin on a GPU tend to OC......Hows that 680 look at idle compared to the 7970?


Do the kind of people who OC really give a rats ass whether one GPU idles at a couple of watts less than another ? And if they do, why don't they care about the 7970's power usage delta with clock increase?
BTW: I though it was fairly well established that clock-for-clock the 7970 gulps wattage like Fermi's bastard kid. 






[Source: Sweclockers....both cards OC'ed to 1150M core]


TheMailMan78 said:


> I mean if you want "plug and play" sure the 680 is better. If you are an enthusiast the 7970 is a better choice


Not sure if a lack of TXAA, adaptive v-sync, no physx, no viable encoder and a lower instance of playability for games on launch day -and I include SLI/CFX here since I assume these people might be termed enthusiasts- is a better choice for enthusiasts...just sayin'


----------



## eddman (May 7, 2012)

TheMailMan78 said:


> 1. Its doesn't "perform worse"
> 2. Runs hotter yet OC WAY BETTER.
> 3. Less then 1 watt at idle and now NVIDIA users care about power consumption?
> 4. 7970 is cheaper AND in abundance.
> ...



1. If it scores lower in benchmarks then it performs worse. Very simple.

2. Exaggeration. Not each and every 7970 can reach a high OC. Same applies to 680. Even then 680 edges ahead a little bit in performance.
An OCed 7970 might be very close to an OCed 680, but there are many buyers, I dare say the majority, that don't OC at all (yes, even when it comes to high-end cards). Not everyone is a geek.

3. The important factor for a gaming card is load consumption, and 680 uses much less. I don't know about TPU, but guru3D, hardware canucks, techreport and anandtech show differences of 22w, 31w, 43w and 29w.

4. That's true.

Saying all that, 7970 is a good card and is priced accordingly. You won't go wrong buying one.


----------



## the54thvoid (May 7, 2012)

Here is a breakdown of W1zz's 7970 Lightning review.  It has clocks at 1070.  Look at red wins, look at green wins.  The Lightning consumes 35 watts more (gaming average).  These are taken as is from W1zz's review, no fiddling.

The resolution quoted in the table is at 1920x1200.  At 2560x1600 the 7970 fares even better.

W1zz's test suite is the most comprehensive out there, no other site bar another German (HT4U) tests as many varied games.  A final summary graph never plays out very well, one major win can skew an average.

*Please take a minute to look at the factually accurate chart below* (it took me half hour to compile) and understand the cards are absolutely equal .  But the 7970 has more oomph.

A minus score is a green win.  If it's not coloured it's under a 5% win (either way).  These are statistically accurate.


----------



## amdftw (May 7, 2012)

BarbaricSoul said:


> AMD needs to do something, GK110 is coming



Yes, Gk110 is coming, just the problem is it will not be game oriented Geforce product line.
NV ended the Keplers products with gtx680 and gtx690, won't come faster gamer card with kepler gpu. So the next step will be the Maxwell in next year.

NV redisegned the Kepler architecture for GPGPU aplications to professional users and workstations which named Gk110 gpu. 
NV Quadro and Tesla cards will builded this Gpu with 2-3-4000 Usd price tag.

So it is better if you do not wait for Gtx685 card.


----------



## vega22 (May 7, 2012)

i love readin the shite buttsore fanbois make up :lol:

this thread is 5* and i will read it again 

amdftw you are the best mate


----------



## deadmansclick (May 7, 2012)

in the uk the price diff is a fair amount. 7970 are around £370 & 680's are around £440.

so for us the 7970 is a far better deal atm.


----------



## HumanSmoke (May 7, 2012)

the54thvoid said:


> Here is a breakdown of W1zz's 7970 Lightning review...


Nice work, although I'd say a little incomplete. Here's a (not really) quick breakdown of 1920x1080/1200, 2560x1440/1600 and 5760x1080/1200 benches from 48 sites: (ABT, Anandtech, Benchmark Reviews, Bit-tech, Bjorn3D, BSN, ComputerBase, eTeknix, Guru3D, [H]OCP, Hardware Canucks, Hardware France, Hardware Heaven, Hardware info (nl), Hardwareluxx, Hardware-mag (de), Hartware.net, Hexus, Hi Tech Legion, Hot Hardware, HT4U, iXBT, KitGuru, Lab501 (ro), LanOC, Legit Reviews, Maximum PC, Motherboards.org, Neoseeker, OC3D, Overclockersclub, OCaholic, PC Perspective, PCGH, PCinlife, PClab (pol), PC Watch (jp), PureOC, Sweclockers, T-Break, TPU, Tech Report, Techspot, Tom's Hardware, Tweaktown, Vortez, VR Zone and Xbit)
(# No of site reviews. *One bench per site at each resolution-only the highest level of image quality bench used*). Numbers are overall percentage (red = 7970, green= Nvidia). Percentages arrived at by *totalling the single bench per site* game averages, then averaging those averages.





and just for shizz and giggles...SLI / CFX





(original excel spreadsheet available)


----------



## the54thvoid (May 7, 2012)

HumanSmoke said:


> Nice work, although I'd say a little incomplete. Here's a (not really) quick breakdown of 1920x1080/1200, 2560x1440/1600 and 5760x1080/1200 benches from 48 sites...



Dude, you're sadder than me 

But as you obviously visit many sites for reviews (as do I) you'll notice scary differences between review sites.  I tend to stick to the few i know from experience that are not biased one way or another or that use good test structures.

But I always come back to W1zzard.  He'll only ever be the real deal. 

Edit: so at 2560x1600 res, 24 wins for 7970, 28 wins for 680.  Considering a lot of those games are TWIMTBP (sponsored) it's not too bad a result.  And I'm guessing that's ref clocks?


----------



## v12dock (May 7, 2012)

Fantastic thread, they are both awesome cards.


----------



## HTC (May 8, 2012)

What i have yet to understand is how the 680 manages to use less then 2 GBs VRAM in some games when the 7970 uses quite a bit more then 2 GBs VRAM.

Does the use of less VRAM indicate the image quality suffers? Thus far it seems not to be the case. If this has been explained already, i missed it 


On topic:

This will make the 7970 a bit better @ stock: i just wonder how much the premium for this GHz version compared to the "regular" version.


----------



## iCookie (May 8, 2012)

In order for AMD to stay in the game they'll need another price drop to equalize that price performance, because as of this moment you still get more bang out of your buck with a 680 (regardless of how little that is).

While the 680 might not be a very large threat in terms of price performance, the 670 on the other hand is. AMD appears to have recognize that issue and as a result has planned to release a Ghz Ed 7970, and don't quote me but in my opinion i believe it's safe to say AMD will follow the launch with a price drop just to sweeten the deal a bit.


----------



## HumanSmoke (May 8, 2012)

the54thvoid said:


> Dude, you're sadder than me


Probably!
This does have a greater purpose though. I'm a system builder, and generally have to tailor my component fit-out advice based on specific need -for gamers usually a core of games/game engines, and I find that a lot of reviews tend to stick with a limited number of releases (BF3, Metro 2033, DiRT3, AvP for example), so going further afield nets a larger variety.
The information (in spreadsheet form) also highlights which benchmarks offer consistancy, and what kind of range is covered. Consistant outliers favouring one brand or another tend to be readily apparent


the54thvoid said:


> But as you obviously visit many sites for reviews (as do I) you'll notice scary differences between review sites


Partly due to bias (or non consistant benchmark settings), recycling old benchmarks and/or testing games that aren't to the same patched/revision status, misreporting the game i.q. used, forced CP/third-party utility settings which may, or may not be applied in game, and whether the bench is run with normal backround processes concurrently or not.


the54thvoid said:


> I tend to stick to the few i know from experience that are not biased one way or another or that use good test structures


Likewise. The ones I put the most faith in are those that quantify all settings used and the revision/patch status of the bench/game being used. I will include all benchmarks (within reason) for an overview.


the54thvoid said:


> so at 2560x1600 res, 24 wins for 7970, 28 wins for 680.  Considering a lot of those games are TWIMTBP (sponsored) it's not too bad a result.


Much like auto racing it's "run what you brung". You could argue that a lot of games featured are Nvidia friendly or TWIMTBP- that also says to me that Nvidia have an eye for sponsoring/supporting gaming titles that gamers want to play. It stands to reason that a benchmark suite should reflect current gaming trends and game popularity, so I certainly wouldn't begrudge the widespread use of BF3, DiRT3, TESV:Skyrim or Batman:AC...although, the continued use of Metro 2033 (ok from a torture test angle) and Far Cry 2 I find debateable...does anyone actually play these, and if so how many would replay them?


the54thvoid said:


> And I'm guessing that's ref clocks?


The GTX 680 is stock in every case. The HD 7970 is stock in most cases ( a minority of reviews used factory overclocked cards for comprison. Maximum PC for instance used the XFX Black Edition 7970).
As gaming f.p.s. was only a part of the info I was culling (along with power usage, heat, acoustics, overclocking headroom, overclock-to-power draw delta etc.) I figured that a handful of slight OC'ed 7970's wouldn't impact the overall dataset too highly.


iCookie said:


> In order for AMD to stay in the game they'll need another price drop to equalize that price performance, because as of this moment you still get more bang out of your buck with a 680 (regardless of how little that is).


That kind of depends what you have to pay for each respective card. Prices seem to fluctuate wildly depending upon the market.
As for AMD cutting prices...that is a double edged sword. Might gain some favourable comments at the conclusion of a few reviews, but I'm guessing if you're in the market for an enthusiast level card (or two), pricing isn't the be all and end all.
From a PR and public perception standpoint; AMD have just had a hefty price reduction...they are also giving away a three game pack...add another price cut and it starts looking like desperation...meanwhile, Nvidia's latest and greatest (GTX 690) is being compared to a work of art and/or supercar. Add in the fact that all this stems from ONE GPU (GK104) that traces it's origin to a general laughingstock (GF100) and you have a near complete swing in performance, die area, and most importantly, brand perception, and you can see that the momentum favours Nvidia regardless of AMD reaction -short of rolling out their own quantum leap in GPU tech. A much harder job when the baseline you are comparing with isn't a bad level of performance in its own right.
To a degree, pricing becomes secondary (esp if GK 104 is constrained) since the thing AMD are losing is not marketshare, it's mindshare. 
Buying a performance AMD card already has one caveat built in against it for a lot of people* -it sorely doesn't need two.

*Resale. If you're updating cards regularly, resale value tends to play a significant part in the upgrade cycle. AMD's cards have historically lost value faster than Nvidia's cards. You now have the situation where one of AMD's biggest virtues- Bitcoin- also becomes a force that drives down the resale market, since many are wary of picking up a card which may have spent it's life at near 24/7 100% GPU usage


----------



## MxPhenom 216 (May 8, 2012)

Am* said:


> Not going to happen in the next 6 months at least, which makes it irrelevant. By then AMD will have their next gen GPUs ready. Nvidia will be spending those 6 months working on getting CUDA and GPGPU performance up to scratch on their CURRENT cards and getting Quadros out the door.



to bad it is. GK110 is in the works and will be out Q4 this year.


----------



## erocker (May 8, 2012)

nvidiaintelftw said:


> to bad it is. GK110 is in the works and will be out Q4 this year.



Nvidia has never made a statment. Your post is just rumor. Granted, I would love to see this card. Too bad Nvidia can't make enough 680's.. I doubt they've sold a whole lot either.


----------



## MxPhenom 216 (May 8, 2012)

erocker said:


> Nvidia has never made a statment. Your post is just rumor. Granted, I would love to see this card. Too bad Nvidia can't make enough 680's.. I doubt they've sold a whole lot either.



true. GTX680s have been in stock on newegg a few times today for 20 minutes haha.


----------



## Fluffmeister (May 8, 2012)

nvidiaintelftw said:


> true. GTX680s have been in stock on newegg a few times today for 20 minutes haha.



Hehe exactly, they haven't sold a lot, they are selling all of them as soon as they come in.


----------



## SIGSEGV (May 8, 2012)

the correct header/title for this thread should be "Nvidia Readies For GTX680 GHz Edition : Availability and Markets Profit Gain "


----------



## swirl09 (May 8, 2012)

sanadanosa said:


> Most review site talk about bad 7970 crossfire performance on several game due to AMD bad driver and I`m sure they are not fanboys



Well, each site you visit you get a different story - this review on scaling shows it goes back and forth between the 2 and yet last week Anand said Xfire was too broken to recommend.

Tbh, neither company has a clean record and it really depends on your setup and what your doing with it. Ive personally had more trouble with nVidia as a company, with a G82 dying in my mac brook pro a few years ago, to which nVidia acknowledged there was a problem with the platform but largely shrugged when it came to helping their customers. And in a kind of funny twist, someone who I built a machine for 2 or so years ago specifically asked for an nVidia and one day he was quite unlucky and downloaded drivers which were pulled in less than 24 hours as they pushed the cards too hard, seemingly panic drivers.

Sure enough, reading around more people will tell you nVidia are stronger on the driver front, but my point is simply neither company is perfect.




phanbuey said:


> Drivers or not - if it performs worse then who cares.
> 
> Their biggest issue is really not performance but pricing.  The pricing for the entire 7 series was way too high.
> 
> ...



Could not agree with this less. While it would be nice if both sides were a bit cheaper this round, AMDs current reduced price is what sold me on getting a 7970 last week. Also, the 5 series wasnt just a nice victory thanks mostly to price, it was the small fact they were half a year ahead with DX11 ^.^

It was a very easy choice for me, 497EUR for a custom cooled 7970 vs 568EUR for a reference 680. Cheaper, cooler, quieter and faster out of the box = no brainer. I couldnt give a shit if it consumes more power. 680 is a nice card and had there been a custom cooled option available for a small premium over a similar 7970 I would have picked the 680, but that was far from the case.


----------



## Nothgrin (May 8, 2012)

If Intel gets their way and 4K resolution becomes a standard then these cards will be completely useless in high res gaming. I can wait a few years for standardization. And a few more for prices to fall.


----------



## HumanSmoke (May 8, 2012)

Nothgrin said:


> If Intel gets their way and 4K resolution becomes a standard


1. Intel has nothing to do with display standards
2. 4K is already a standard- or a number of them to be exact;
4096 x 2160 (4K)
3840x2160 (QFHD)

UHDTV (7680x4320) is also working towards a standard afaiw

Now check the pricing, and work out if we're in any danger of 4K gaming overrunning us.


----------



## TRWOV (May 8, 2012)

Crap Daddy said:


> Where are all the Nvidia users when you need them?



TheMailMan78 is one of them.


----------



## sergionography (May 8, 2012)

i think many people here are missing the point, this is a new revision  not just an overclocked hd7970, meaning it will be doing 1ghz at the same voltage which usualy means at the same power consumption as the first batch of hd7970, in other words the 28nm process matured and can now achieve better efficiency, note that the hd7970 was released at the infancy stage of 28nm and it still pulled off something great but now it can do better, even nvidia claims the reason behind its efficiency this round is due to the tsmc 28nm process, and them starting production like 3-4 month later meant they were fine tuning their chips with a more refined 28nm

as for gk110 i heard it will be released around october, that is 2 month before its time for amd to release the hd 8970
so if you ask me i think amd is giving nvidia a run for their money


----------



## bongpack05 (May 8, 2012)

Fluffmeister said:


> Hehe exactly, they haven't sold a lot, they are selling all of them as soon as they come in.



Pretty bad they cant make enough to keep em in stock.


----------



## bongpack05 (May 8, 2012)

software rendering days>>lame video card days we had better games.

my old 466 mhz intel celeron p2 based bought in 1999  can run ut1999 in software mode easily.

proving video cards were never really needed it just made pc gaming less accessibile.


----------



## Jurassic1024 (May 8, 2012)

BarbaricSoul said:


> AMD needs to do something, GK110 is coming



There is nothing AMD can do with Tahiti that can challenge the GK104. It makes more sense to save the GK110 for Tesla cards.  

Let's assume nVIDIA were to release a full GK110 die for the GeForce 600 series, they would have to work extra hard on the performance of the 700 series just to make it a viable upgrade from a GK110.  Also assuming a GK110 gave us an additional 10-20% increase in performance over a GTX 680 now would be awesome, but not if the difference between a "GTX 685" and the GTX 780 was just 10% as a result. In fact, I could hear the whiners now.  You have to remember they are already working on the 700 series, and such a change now, would be difficult. I don't think a lot of people think about that.


----------



## bongpack05 (May 8, 2012)

I can post screenshots to prove it but hardware mode in ut1999 looks more blurry than software mode and the colors arent as good.

video cards=blurry shithole.


----------



## Jurassic1024 (May 8, 2012)

We're excited at the prospect of AMD taking back the performance crown, though still slighly confused as to why they stopped at 1Ghz. Sure, its a nice round number, but 1050MHz would  almost guaranteed victory.

LMAO.  This writer is a dreamer.


----------



## sergionography (May 8, 2012)

Jurassic1024 said:


> There is nothing AMD can do with Tahiti that can challenge the GK104. It makes more sense to save the GK110 for Tesla cards.
> 
> Let's assume nVIDIA were to release a full GK110 die for the GeForce 600 series, they would have to work extra hard on the performance of the 700 series just to make it a viable upgrade from a GK110.  Also assuming a GK110 gave us an additional 10-20% increase in performance over a GTX 680 now would be awesome, but not if the difference between a "GTX 685" and the GTX 780 was just 10% as a result. In fact, I could hear the whiners now.  You have to remember they are already working on the 700 series, and such a change now, would be difficult. I don't think a lot of people think about that.



you are aware that a gtx 680 is only 6% faster than a stock hd7970 on average? check the review done by wizz
amd will bump the clockspeed from 925-1000, thats like 7-8% that puts its on par knowing how these tahiti chips scale very well when overclocked, much better the the keplers since they aready max out close to their limit due to dynamic clocking
also these new ghz tahitis will overclock better (up to 1250mhz easily) due to a new revision or something, meaning the ghz edition is a good 8% more efficient

and with 25% headroom with near perfect scaling tahiti is unbeatable

also note that we already saw mention from amd about their upcoming enhanced GCN to be 20% faster than currenct gcn cards so that puts it on par with gk110 if its 20% faster than gk104
amd and nvidia have never been this close in terms of performance/efficiency. i think the only factor that remains for buyers to decide is features and price.


----------



## Totally (May 8, 2012)

sergionography said:


> i think many people here are missing the point, this is a new revision  not just an overclocked hd7970, meaning it will be doing 1ghz at the same voltage which usualy means at the same power consumption as the first batch of hd7970, in other words the 28nm process matured and can now achieve better efficiency, note that the hd7970 was released at the infancy stage of 28nm and it still pulled off something great but now it can do better, even nvidia claims the reason behind its efficiency this round is due to the tsmc 28nm process, and them starting production like 3-4 month later meant they were fine tuning their chips with a more refined 28nm



I was going to post what you said, but wanted to read the thread to make sure I wasn't gonna reiterate something that was repeated dozens of time, but instead was treated to the most ingnorant and humorous reading I've seen this week and it's only Tuesday and this thread at least claimed a top spot.

OT but this is akin to a stepping change we with CPUs, where it essentially comes with a free over clock, more Hz for the same voltages, temps, and power consumption. Heck, it may even run cooler. I hope that they don't charge more for it and just phase out the old 7970.


----------



## Crap Daddy (May 8, 2012)

erocker said:


> Nvidia has never made a statment. Your post is just rumor. Granted, I would love to see this card. Too bad Nvidia can't make enough 680's.. I doubt they've sold a whole lot either.



From VR zone today I quote:

GK110 will debut in just three days, but this is the part that targets the HPC i.e. GPGPU community. We were told that the number of pre-orders for Kepler-based Tesla cards (Tesla 3000 Series) should exceed the overall number of Teslas shipped so far (over 150,000 units sold).

Read more: http://vr-zone.com/articles/how-the...-of-nvidia-reshaped-/15786.html#ixzz1uGMCEQd3


----------



## hardcore_gamer (May 8, 2012)

Here is the story.

1.AMD released the 7970 cards first. They didn't clock it according to its potential. Most 7970s easily reach 1200Mhz which is a 30% boost from the stock clock.

2. Nvidia saw an opportunity to sandbag. They increased the clocks of GK104 more than they originally intended,and made some driver optimization for the current games so that it'll beat 7970 by a small margin. They slapped a gtx680 sticker on it to make it look like a high end card. The gk104 doesn't have enough fixed function compute-accelerator blocks since it was not meant to be a high end card.As a result, it takes less die area and consumes less power at the cost of GPGPU performance. 

3. AMD finally decided to clock 7970 according to it's potential. But it might be too little too late. Since they cant strip away the excess silicon that accelerates the compute tasks, it'll take more power than the 680.


----------



## HumanSmoke (May 8, 2012)

sergionography said:


> you are aware that a gtx 680 is only 6% faster than a stock hd7970 on average? check the review done by wizz
> amd will bump the clockspeed from 925-1000, thats like 7-8%


Hate to burst your bubble, but the "GHz Edition" is 1050M core not 1000M. Secondly, here's a selection of OC'ed 7970's against the stock clocked card. Now assuming that the slightly OC'ed memory adds exactly zero to the added performance, you'll note that the gain for 1050MHz is 6-6.8% over stock


sergionography said:


> that puts its on par knowing how these tahiti chips scale very well when overclocked, much better the the keplers since they aready max out close to their limit due to dynamic clocking


Cute story...pity it's a work of fiction


sergionography said:


> also these new ghz tahitis will overclock better (up to 1250mhz easily) due to a new revision or something, meaning the ghz edition is a good 8% more efficient


Note the first review. Four factory overclocked cards...three failed to break 1200M core. Or are you of the opinion that AIB's are happy to accept average bins five months after launch, while AMD stockpile the all-new all-dancing "SuperTahiti" for the next round of vanilla (reference) cards ?


sergionography said:


> and with 25% headroom with near perfect scaling tahiti is unbeatable


Gunning to be Rory Reads gopher ?


sergionography said:


> also note that we already saw mention from amd about their upcoming enhanced GCN to be 20% faster than currenct gcn cards so that puts it on par with gk110 if its 20% faster than gk104


Which is real cool for AMD assuming that Nvidia don't actually improve their arch. It's thinking like that that got AMD in the position where Kepler came as a complete surprise to them-not to mention a fully functional 512 shader GTX 580 before that. Do you think that if AMD had clue one about GK104's ability they would have released a 925M core part in the first place?
BTW: How do you know GK110 is going to be 20% faster than GK104?....or is this a story that starts out "_In a perfect AMD world..."_


----------



## hardcore_gamer (May 8, 2012)

HumanSmoke said:


> Quote:
> Originally Posted by sergionography
> that puts its on par knowing how these tahiti chips scale very well when overclocked, much better the the keplers since they aready max out close to their limit due to dynamic clocking
> Cute story...pity it's a work of fiction



The link you posted supports sergionography's post. From page 7 , 

"The Radeon HD 7970 has a wider overclockable range than the GeForce GTX 680.

Consider this, the default clock speed on the Radeon HD 7970 is 925MHz. We are easily getting overclocks to 1.2GHz out of the Radeon HD 7970, and even higher in some cases. That is between a 275MHz-300MHz overclock achievable from the Radeon HD 7970. With the GeForce GTX 680 however, we are seeing an overall smaller overclock because NVIDIA has already clocked the GTX 680 closer to its maximum potential by default"


----------



## HumanSmoke (May 8, 2012)

hardcore_gamer said:


> The link you posted supports sergionography's post. From page 7...



Kind of depends how much you look into it:
GTX 680: Max OC 22%... Scaling: BF3 14.9%, Batman:AC 14.1%, Deus Ex 16.6%, Skyrim 5%...average 12.7% ( 0.58% gain per 1% OC)
HD 7970: Max OC 36%...Scaling: BF3 13.7%, Batman:AC 30.4%, Deus Ex 28.6%, Skyrim 20.9%...average 23.4% ( 0.65% gain per 1% OC)
Slight win for the HD 7970 there...
Second half of the equation...
GTX 680 power usage : Average 358w (OC by 22%), 339.5w (stock) = 0.84w increase per 1% OC
HD 7970 power usage: Average 540w (OC by 38%), 464w (stock) = 2w increase per 1% OC (since [H] neglected to include the 7970's OC'ed power consumption in comparison to the 680  )

If you're talking performance only, then yes, the HD 7970 will certainly come out ahead since it's base core clock is effectively underclocked- basically the same scenario as measuring OC percentage for the GTX 560 Ti (and GTX 460 before it).
Since OC'ing tends to be limited by voltage and thus heat more often than not, I'd tend to take that into consideration. It's also not beyond the realms of possibility that GTX 600 BIOS will in future allow for a greater flexibility in OC potential- there's obviously some untapped potential...which I'm guessing would even things up- the rationale being that with cards closer in OC percentage, the disparity in results would likely contract judging by reviews based on like-for-like OC ( i.e this TT review. Both cards OC'ed by ~22-23%. The GTX 680 scales better in 6 of 8 games (admittedly a fair number are Nvidia-centric but that shouldn't work against the 7970 in scaling)


----------



## SIGSEGV (May 8, 2012)

HumanSmoke said:


> Kind of depends how much you look into it:
> GTX 680: Max OC 22%... Scaling: BF3 14.9%, Batman:AC 14.1%, Deus Ex 16.6%, Skyrim 5%...average 12.7% ( 0.58% gain per 1% OC)
> HD 7970: Max OC 36%...Scaling: BF3 13.7%, Batman:AC 30.4%, Deus Ex 28.6%, Skyrim 20.9%...average 23.4% ( 0.65% gain per 1% OC)
> Slight win for the HD 7970 there...
> ...



so, what's the point do you want to talk about here? so do you want to say that HD7970 is really crap stuff even it's clocked over nine thousaaandd gigaaaaaaahheeeeezzz ??


----------



## AsRock (May 8, 2012)

Hayder_Master said:


> even with 1Ghz still can't beat GTX680 !!! , better move to make it really active is lower the price.



That's just it though AMD don't need to as nvidia cannot supply what they offer.  I say good on AMD make some money while they can as we all don't want either of these company's go bust just to supply the moaners of the world.

Thinking about it's not all that price crazy as the ATI 9800 was in this kinda price range when that came out many moons ago.


----------



## HumanSmoke (May 8, 2012)

SIGSEGV said:


> so, what's the point do you want to talk about here? so do you want to say that HD7970 is really crap stuff even it's clocked over nine thousaaandd gigaaaaaaahheeeeezzz ??


Nope. The point is that you can't circumvent the laws of physics. Jacking the core clock by 13.5% and the memory clock by 0% isn't suddenly going to turn the 7970 into some "_unbeatable_" card as some seem to think:


			
				sergionography said:
			
		

> and with 25% headroom with near perfect scaling tahiti is unbeatable


So yeah, You might very well get 25% OC headroom- although thats assuming the average card can get to 1313MHz, but that is going to come at a cost. It's basically the same argument regarding GTX 480/580 performance vs power consumpion...except the group that were making the "Fermi grill" jokes have suddenly gone silent.
My personal viewpoint is that raising the clocks from 925 to 1050 is more of a stunt to get the 7970 into another round of reviews and back into the spotlight. As has been pointed out ad nauseum, many 7970's already clock to (and past) 1050...indeed, I've already posted a link to a review that has cards clocked at 1000, 1050, 1070 and 1120...and here's the kicker...they are near enough the same price as the reference 925M card


----------



## SIGSEGV (May 8, 2012)

HumanSmoke said:


> Nope. The point is that you can't circumvent the laws of physics. Jacking the core clock by 13.5% and the memory clock by 0% isn't suddenly going to turn the 7970 into some "_unbeatable_" card as some seem to think:



unbeatable? even without or with crazy overclocking their core clock, when did amd be unbeatable?  
*even their crown (amd) just only a small period of time not so long ago before nv took back *


----------



## Casecutter (May 8, 2012)

sergionography said:


> i think many people here are missing the point, this is a new revision  not just an overclocked hd7970, meaning it will be doing 1ghz at the same voltage which usualy means at the same power consumption as the first batch of hd7970, in other words the 28nm process matured and can now achieve better efficiency, note that the hd7970 was released at the infancy stage of 28nm and it still pulled off something great but now it can do better, even nvidia claims the reason behind its efficiency this round is due to the tsmc 28nm process, and them starting production like 3-4 month later meant they were fine tuning their chips with a more refined 28nm
> 
> as for gk110 i heard it will be released around october, that is 2 month before its time for amd to release the hd 8970
> so if you ask me i think amd is giving nvidia a run for their money





Totally said:


> I was going to post what you said, but wanted to read the thread to make sure I wasn't gonna reiterate something that was repeated dozens of time, but instead was treated to the most ingnorant and humorous reading I've seen this week and it's only Tuesday and this thread at least claimed a top spot.
> 
> OT but this is akin to a stepping change we with CPUs, where it essentially comes with a free over clock, more Hz for the same voltages, temps, and power consumption. Heck, it may even run cooler. I hope that they don't charge more for it and just phase out the old 7970.





hardcore_gamer said:


> Here is the story.
> 
> 1.AMD released the 7970 cards first. They didn't clock it according to its potential. Most 7970s easily reach 1200Mhz which is a 30% boost from the stock clock.
> 
> ...



Thank you all, that was my thinking back several pages ago...
http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showthread.php?p=2622936#post2622936
http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showthread.php?p=2622978#post2622978

TSMC is now giving AMD chips the way thier engineers designed and where told TSMC would deliver from day one (back OCt/Nov) for the orginal release (Remember TMSC was all 28Nm is fully ready for prime time, _not_).  The 7970 was always a 1Ghz 250W TDP design, but TSMC was choking the monkey, finally they shut-down and fixed the process. Figure since say mid-Feb providing full fledged "Tahitis", while then AMD working on this, then started dropping the price to move that old product out. 

I'd like to see the current 7950 spec cards renamed as 7930; the 7970 (@925Mhz) become a 7950, and the real 1Ghz be the only 7970 from here on out!  Then as the market evolves use the bins of geldings that TMSC messed-up on that early Tahiti production as 7890's and those show for say $280 by end of summer.

Now we what for what a GTX670 or whatever is to show has in store.


----------



## Morgoth (May 8, 2012)

just lower the prices amd and make a quad gpu card


----------



## N3M3515 (May 8, 2012)

HumanSmoke said:


> Probably!
> This does have a greater purpose though. I'm a system builder, and generally have to tailor my component fit-out advice based on specific need -for gamers usually a core of games/game engines, and I find that a lot of reviews tend to stick with a limited number of releases (BF3, Metro 2033, DiRT3, AvP for example), so going further afield nets a larger variety.
> The information (in spreadsheet form) also highlights which benchmarks offer consistancy, and what kind of range is covered. Consistant outliers favouring one brand or another tend to be readily apparent
> 
> ...



Why would amd cut the price of 7970 if gtx 680 isn't available?, and, where it is, it costs at least $100 more, so $480 vs $600 that's 22% more price for 7% more performance that i won't even see..


----------



## Prima.Vera (May 8, 2012)

If they cut at least 40% of this card's price, probably I (we) will be interested of this card. Until then...bye bye AMD. You lost this round. You lost hard.


----------



## T4C Fantasy (May 8, 2012)

Prima.Vera said:


> If they cut at least 40% of this card's price, probably I (we) will be interested of this card. Until then...bye bye AMD. You lost this round. You lost hard.



wtf is up with this comment lol, they didnt lose, amd is obviously doing something right, you can actually buy them, btw AMD didnt have yield issues nvidia needs to learn to pick better tsmc  partners becauset he ones they have suck. kepler delayed a whole year because of that crap


----------



## TheMailMan78 (May 8, 2012)

I find the back peddling and fanboy rants fun in this thread.


----------



## johnnyfiive (May 8, 2012)

So, back to the topic. 

"* Do you think HD 7970 GHz Edition can make HD 7970 attractive again? *"

The 7970 was never unattractive in my opinion, it was just priced wrong from the get go.
I think the GHz edition will be a nice welcome if its $449. I still think $469 is too much for a plain 7970. Fact is, the 680 does beat the 7970 in the majority of the games that actually matter (BF3, ding ding ding), so asking $30 less isn't enough. I think $50 less would make the 7970 the perfectly priced card. When the 670's launch, I have a feeling they will perform RIGHT under the 7970 but cost a good $50-60 less than the cheapest 7970. It would be in AMD's best interest to not bother releasing a "GHz" SKU and focus on strategic pricing, like they do with their processors.

I had/have both a 7970 and a GTX 680. Both are fantastic cards. However, I do like the 680 better. On the contrary, I like AMD's driver interface MUCH more than Nvidia's. They each have their pros and cons, but this time around, the 680 is the superior card. This is FACT, not fascinated fiction. It does indeed beat a reference 7970 in almost all benchmarks. It may not be a huge amount, but its enough to matter. Factor in the $549 MSRP vs 680 $499 MSRP, and its pretty obvious what the better card is. 7970 GHz and 7970 need to be $449 and $429 to make most people give a turd.


----------



## Vulpesveritas (May 8, 2012)

johnnyfiive said:


> So, back to the topic.
> 
> "* Do you think HD 7970 GHz Edition can make HD 7970 attractive again? *"
> 
> ...


It's only a fact if all you do is gaming.  Once you toss anything GPGPU in the mix, whether it be hardware acceleration, folding, etc, then the 7970 is a better card.   5-10% slower in games but 200-300% faster in GPGPU.  yeahhh...... 
But if you don't do anything GPGPU then yeah the 680 probably calls to you more.


----------



## D007 (May 8, 2012)

I thought we like banned the words "fan boy".. Well.. we should..lol.. 

I just want accurate numbers. Nvidia and Ati, don't pay me to advertise. I just had a 5850 but I want to try the 680.. green or red? idc.. honestly.. 

This "out of stock" issue, with the 6 series, is f'n dumb though..
To me, it simply makes sense, to want Ati, to have a card, as good or better, than Nvidias line.
Consumer wins.. That's all I care about.. 
Amazes me, how worked up, people get over this stuff.

I hope the new line, kicks ass and everyone who has a card, they pay top dollar for, enjoys it. Preferrably, without coming back, the the forums, to say "ahahaha your drivers are messed up", or something equally rude..
7970 is still, a great card, at an attrative price.


----------



## Casecutter (May 8, 2012)

N3M3515 said:


> Why would amd cut the price of 7970 if gtx 680 isn't available?


I'm thinking the price cut had less to do with what the GTX680 did, while yes AMD knew by the first days of April Nvidia would have issues keeping the pipe at anything more than a trickle, why sweat it.

I see AMD as more anxious with their problems with TSMC, quality production from TSMC and yields/volumes was their reason for trepidation. I mean TMSC started delivering first rate production probably the end of Feb, but I'm sure AMD wait to see if they were out of the woods.  Consider if TSMC couldn't repeat on the improved process, that original price was could maintain strong margins.  Once that was sorted out and AMD found 1GHz where as designed and strong numbers, they’d wanted to cut inventory of the original 925Mhz parts so they don't peeve-off those who bought back Feb-March time frame.  I see them setting 1Ghz version at a $480-500 MSRP and see what the market reacts like; GTX680 inventories and what the outcome of other GK104 parts might produce.


----------



## johnnyfiive (May 8, 2012)

Vulpesveritas said:


> It's only a fact if all you do is gaming.  Once you toss anything GPGPU in the mix, whether it be hardware acceleration, folding, etc, then the 7970 is a better card.   5-10% slower in games but 200-300% faster in GPGPU.  yeahhh......
> But if you don't do anything GPGPU then yeah the 680 probably calls to you more.



I bet about 1-2% of buyers actually buy a mainstream GPU for GPGPU processing. The other 98-99% buy GPU's for gaming. So that argument is pretty much invalid. If the majority of people actually gave a crap about GPGPU processing, the 7970's should be the ones selling out and not the 680's.

Are there any 680's in stock anywhere? 
No. 
You know why? 
Because gamers are buying them to play games, not to fold all day.


----------



## TheMailMan78 (May 8, 2012)

johnnyfiive said:


> I bet about 1-2% of buyers actually buy a mainstream GPU for GPGPU processing. The other 98-99% buy GPU's for gaming. So that argument is pretty much invalid. If the majority of people actually gave a crap about GPGPU processing, the 7970's should be the ones selling out and not the 680's.
> 
> Are there any 680's in stock anywhere?
> No.
> ...



No because production was prioritized for AMD to begin with. They are selling out is because the quantity is so low. Very little supply.


----------



## Vulpesveritas (May 8, 2012)

johnnyfiive said:


> I bet about 1-2% of buyers actually buy a mainstream GPU for GPGPU processing. The other 98-99% buy GPU's for gaming. So that argument is pretty much invalid. If the majority of people actually gave a crap about GPGPU processing, the 7970's should be the ones selling out and not the 680's.
> 
> Are there any 680's in stock anywhere?
> No.
> ...


Said 1-2% of buyers are going to make up 75%+ of the users who are likely to run their PC folding in their spare time, or bitcoin mine, as the other 98-99% don't build their own PC and get whatever is the best prebuilt they can find in town, or order off of the internet.  Not many prebuilts will come with the top-end-of-top-end cards.  
And the reason their not in stock is that Nvidia didn't get TSMC priority.  People want to buy them when their in supply.  Those that are in supply for the most part are overstocked and make the 7970 an even better deal than it is, as price / performance it is even with the 680 where it's sitting right now.  
Plus, if more games utilize GPU computing in the future, then the Civilization V results will make the 7970 a better option, although I have a feeling it won't be common until after this batch is obsolete.  Still a move in the right direction though.


----------



## Casecutter (May 8, 2012)

TheMailMan78 said:


> because production was prioritized for AMD to begin with


In what world would AMD have priority over Nvidia?  Plain and simple Nvidia had more issue then just the normal TSMC 28Nm process those where bad, but might also be complicated by the HG HkMG process they choose to design with, along with other architectural faux-pas.  Somehow it’s AMD fault...


----------



## Vulpesveritas (May 8, 2012)

Casecutter said:


> In what world would AMD have priority over Nvidia?  Plain and simple Nvidia had more issue then just the normal TSMC 28Nm process those where bad, but might also be complicated by the HG HkMG process they choose to design with, along with other architectural faux-pas.  Somehow it’s AMD fault...



Because AMD placed orders first and got dies before nvidia perhaps?  
Though the process may also be a contributing agent.


----------



## cadaveca (May 8, 2012)

Casecutter said:


> In what world would AMD have priority over Nvidia?  Plain and simple Nvidia had more issue then just the normal TSMC 28Nm process those where bad, but might also be complicated by the HG HkMG process they choose to design with, along with other architectural faux-pas.  Somehow it’s AMD fault...



If nVidia could get enough wafers in the first place, they wouldn't be shopping around for 28nm from places other than TSMC. That's what he is refering too...AMD and others have already bought all of TSMC's 28nm capacity, so AMD is seen as the priority. AMD had their chips done and ready first, and without much issue, so yields, on TSMC's part, are perfectly fine. If it was a matter of needing to change design, Nvidia would have done so, so the idea that there are problems with NV's GK104 chip design seems incorrect.


If nVidia wasn't looking elsewhere for wafers, and if TSMC's partner's weren't all gushing about how good 28nm @ TSMC is, then you'd have a possible valid point, but with those facts in hand, it does not seem that you do.

It's not that AMD is at fault..Nvidia simply failed to realize and purchase needed supplies in time. Now they have a launched product they cannot keep on shelves, and no way to get more chips...pretty basic stuff here.




> Qualcomm CEO Paul Jacobs did not blame yields but cited lack of capacity for constrained supplies which impacted Q1 revenues.





> Altera  has made no criticism of yields but said it could not get enough supply to meet an up-tick in demand late in Q1.





> Jen-Hsun Huang of Nvidia is the only CEO to publicly accuse TSMC of having poor yields on 28nm and also announce that he's off to Samsung to get 28nm fab. However some people have pointed out that Nvidia's yield problem could be down to design flaws



http://www.electronicsweekly.com/bl...r-blog/2012/04/28nm-continues-to-perplex.html


----------



## Casecutter (May 8, 2012)

Vulpesveritas said:


> Because AMD placed orders first and got dies before nvidia perhaps?
> Though the process may also be a contributing agent.


First in line first to get severed... Whiner's got to Whine.



cadaveca said:


> Nvidia simply failed to realize and purchase needed supplies


They're not newcomers they knew if they got the GTX680 the way the wanted to turn out it would fly off shelves.  Yes back end of Nov-Dec when Nvidia figured out they could move on the GTX680, they where late getting in line.  AMD had orders in the hoper and then mid-late Jan TSMC had the shut-down, which best guess was they didn't really start-up until after the Chinese New Year.
As I said if Nvidia is having problems they're not because of AMD, while Nvidia's problem are way more than a couple of weeks old... it start when the GK100 went south in October.


----------



## cadaveca (May 8, 2012)

Sure, AMD has nothing to do with this, other than this revision of the HD7970 proving that any issues that nVidia has is their own.

Design problems, failing to secure enough wafers, or TMSC problems don't really matter. All I can say is that in my post above, we have Jen Hsun Huang claiming yield issues, yet on Nvidia's website, the exact opposite is claimed. Since Nvidia can't get their story straight, of course it's all their fault.



TMSC 28nm is doing very well for AMD. They actaully seem to be doing pretty good all around, actually. FX CPUs may not be at hte perforamcne levels most expected, but they still sell, even with Intel offering more CPU performance in the same price range. GTX doesn't out-strip HD7970 like iNtel Beat AMD's CPUs, so clearly AMD's on the right track, and nVidia is not.


Anyway, I do not believe that GK100 exists, so anything pertaining to it I do not even pay a bit of attention to.

Time wil lshow if these GHz edition GPUs are the same votlage as first cards, or if they get a voltage boost...until I fidn that out, none of this is very important, IMHO. Interesting, but not important.


----------



## Crap Daddy (May 8, 2012)

cadaveca said:


> Anyway, I do not believe that GK100 exists, so anything pertaining to it I do not even pay a bit of attention to.



At least one might be in this man's hands.

"Opening Keynote - May 15 @ 10:30am PT

NVIDIA CEO and co-founder Jen-Hsun Huang will kick off the conference with the opening address. He'll review the dramatic and growing impact of GPU technology in science, industry, design and many other fields.

And, he'll announce some big GPU news that you'll not want to miss.

For those of you who can't make it in person, we will provide a video livestream from the keynote."

This will be at GTC. I'm afraid it has nothing to do with gaming.


----------



## Casecutter (May 8, 2012)

cadaveca said:


> Sure, AMD has nothing to do with this, other than this revision of the HD7970 proving that any issues that nVidia has is their own...


On what you said I'm coalescing, no argument here.  

Now Charley isn't any guru for me, but some from this article today, itcoincides with what being discussed... just to warn it's a long read.
http://semiaccurate.com/2012/05/08/nvidias-five-new-keplers-raise-a-red-flag/


----------



## cadaveca (May 8, 2012)

OK, but so now Mailman is saying that becuase of nVidia's issues, AMD has been given priority @ TSMC. AMD were ready with a working design to place their order first, and now many months later nVidia has GK104 ready, and Nvidia cannot get enough wafers to meet demand, and must look elsewhere.


Meanwhile, AMD is seeing a benefit from yield increase, and is launching this faster edition, it is surmised here. But nVidia has not launched GTX670, GTX 660, only older cards, like mentioned @ your link.


Of course, we can only guess that AMD's early success with their current-gen chip design affected nVidia's ability to buy more wafers, but it does seem to make sense.

Anyway, going form 925 MHz to 100 MHz on the same votlage technically represents a 7.75% increase in chip quality and efficiency. If we take Nvidia at face value, and yield issue are true for them, the best they can see right now is a 7.75% increase is chip quality, but NOT 7.75% MORE working chips. IF anything, if it truly is better GPUs out fo TSMC without AMD binning for this from earlier wafers, then nvidia realyl si in trouble like Charlie says. 


It's just obvious. And that's why Charlie is uninspiring. Most people can take 1 + 1 + 1 and get to 3. Sometimes he gets 4, sometimes, 3.


----------



## Nothgrin (May 8, 2012)

HumanSmoke said:


> 1. Intel has nothing to do with display standards



You obviously don't read TPU enough: http://www.techpowerup.com/164133/Intel-to-Push-for-Higher-Resolution-PC-Displays-Arrive-in-2013.html



HumanSmoke said:


> 2. 4K is already a standard- or a number of them to be exact;
> 4096 x 2160 (4K)
> 3840x2160 (QFHD)


Yes 4K is a standard but its not used as "THE" standard as 1080P is. You walk into an electronics store and all you see is 1920x1080 now. 1920x1200 used to be widely available at electronics superstores online or not. Plus technology has been around for TV's at 1920x1080 resolution since the late 90's you would think computer resolutions would have improved by much much more since then.



HumanSmoke said:


> Now check the pricing, and work out if we're in any danger of 4K gaming overrunning us.


Once upon a time everyone thought a Riva TNT2 card was the best graphics card you could ever get... I'm sure many cell phones out there have more processing power at cheaper costs. In due time anything can happen.


----------



## TheoneandonlyMrK (May 9, 2012)

Nothgrin said:


> Yes 4K is a standard but its not used as "THE" standard as 1080P is. You walk into an electronics store and all you see is 1920x1080 now. 1920x1200 used to be widely available at electronics superstores online or not. Plus technology has been around for TV's at 1920x1080 resolution since the late 90's you would think computer resolutions would have improved by much much more since then.



because what you want, matters less then what they want to make and sell you and you can get an 8K screen if you have the money, a lot 

roll on new 7970 bench time ,  ah sod it any 8xxx news on the wire


----------



## MxPhenom 216 (May 9, 2012)

cadaveca said:


> OK, but so now Mailman is saying that becuase of nVidia's issues, AMD has been given priority @ TSMC. AMD were ready with a working design to place their order first, and now many months later nVidia has GK104 ready, and Nvidia cannot get enough wafers to meet demand, and must look elsewhere.
> 
> 
> Meanwhile, AMD is seeing a benefit from yield increase, and is launching this faster edition, it is surmised here. But nVidia has not launched GTX670, GTX 660, only older cards, like mentioned @ your link.
> ...



I dont think its anything wrong with yield/design issues for Nvidia. It sounds more logical that they just cannot get enough chips since AMD and some others have already bought out their entire 28nm stock. I mean you can assume that TSMC is working at and pretty good speed to fullfil orders, but at this point its not enough. I just hope Nvidia can get a healthy stock of GK104s so i can get my Evga SC+ Signature GTX680 in a month )))))))))))


----------



## erocker (May 9, 2012)

nvidiaintelftw said:


> since AMD and some others have already bought out their entire 28nm stock.



Did they? If so, who's fault is that?


----------



## MxPhenom 216 (May 9, 2012)

erocker said:


> Did they? If so, who's fault is that?



what do you mean whose fault is that? AMD and so on jumped on it got their shit done and bought all the wafers they could. Which turns out to be everything and then some. Now Nvidia is screwed.


----------



## erocker (May 9, 2012)

nvidiaintelftw said:


> what do you mean whose fault is that? AMD and so on jumped on it got their shit done and bought all the wafers they could. Which turns out to be everything and then some. Now Nvidia is screwed.



You have a TMSC insider informant?


----------



## MxPhenom 216 (May 9, 2012)

erocker said:


> You have a TMSC insider informant?



go read what Dave has been saying. Ive basically restated what he has said.


----------



## SIGSEGV (May 9, 2012)

nvidiaintelftw said:


> what do you mean whose fault is that? AMD and so on jumped on it got their shit done and bought all the wafers they could. Which turns out to be everything and then some. Now Nvidia is screwed.



screwed? oh really?


----------



## m1dg3t (May 9, 2012)

Don't most of the 7970's achieve these clock rates already?



BarbaricSoul said:


> AMD needs to do something, GK110 is coming



So's the gtx680! Still waiting 

It's an AMD conspiracy! They bought every single wafer they could just to screw Nvidia  

I want some of that kool - aid hahaha


----------



## MxPhenom 216 (May 9, 2012)

SIGSEGV said:


> screwed? oh really?



Why else would they be going to other corporations for 28nm fabrication? They have this card launched yet they can't fullfil the demand and keep them in stock at retailers. Its been what almost a month since it has launched and still barely any signs of resupply at retailers. Only place ive seen so far that has maybe a few is TigerDirect, and even then you never know if you go to put one in your cart and it says its out of stock. And i know there are 0 at my local Frys.


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## SIGSEGV (May 9, 2012)

nvidiaintelftw said:


> Why else would they be going to other corporations for 28nm fabrication? They have this card launched yet they can't fullfil the demand and keep them in stock at retailers.



who's fault then? 
still do you want to blame AMD for this? 



m1dg3t said:


> Don't most of the 7970's achieve these clock rates already?
> 
> 
> 
> ...



i want to ask you something, why nvidia didnt put their order first at TSMC ? (although they've already had design problems ) 
and now, their fans begin to blame amd for this~ 
this is so funny.. LMFAO


----------



## T4C Fantasy (May 9, 2012)

johnnyfiive said:


> So, back to the topic.
> 
> "* Do you think HD 7970 GHz Edition can make HD 7970 attractive again? *"
> 
> ...



the hd7970 is $479 not 549 get it straight, it WAS 549 on releas


----------



## MxPhenom 216 (May 9, 2012)

SIGSEGV said:


> who's fault then?
> still do you want to blame AMD for this?
> 
> 
> ...



When did I blame AMD? I just said AMD and others got their designs done before nvidia and got on the ball and ordered their wafers before nvidias designs were done. Sure its nvidias fault, but they were late. Theres no surprise there its been like this for the last few generations, just now its even more severe.


----------



## cadaveca (May 9, 2012)

erocker said:


> You have a TMSC insider informant?



Every one of TSMC's customers(ALtera, Quallcomm, AMD, and Nvidia) using the 28nm process that the GPUs are on wants MORE wafers. Stated above in my post with source.


You can also hear the same form any of TSMC's customers in thier quarterly financial reports. AMD stated that they managed to have "just enough" wafers, but they could have used more as well.

Both Qualcomm and Altera have stated that there are no yield issues, and they want more wafers.


Nvidia claims yield issues, but also wants more wafers.

ERgo, nVidia was unable to secure the supply they needed. 


No "insider" needed; this is all public information.


----------



## TRWOV (May 9, 2012)

Until the GTX680 has wide availability, it doesn't matter if it beats the 7970 or not (and there really isn't a clear winner, both side trade punches although nVidia has the upper hand on efficiency). 

Right now, if you want a high end GPU there's the 7970 or waiting for another batch of GTX680s.

Not that I mind, I'm still chugging along with my HD3850 AGP


----------



## HumanSmoke (May 9, 2012)

N3M3515 said:


> Why would amd cut the price of 7970 if gtx 680 isn't available?


I don't think AMD would cut the price. If you *read* my post that you quoted, you'd see that I was in fact putting forward an *counter-argument* against iCookie's (post #115) assertion that AMD needed to cut prices.


----------



## N3M3515 (May 9, 2012)

johnnyfiive said:


> So, back to the topic.
> 
> "* Do you think HD 7970 GHz Edition can make HD 7970 attractive again? *"
> 
> ...



In the world i live in the 7970 costs $479 and sells in abundance, and GTX 680 is almost unexistent and where it is it costs $600 - $680

So, right now it really is $479 vs $600, amd does not need to lower the price if the situation continues this way.

Right now which is the better card? HD 7970 hands down. When GTX 680 is available and at the MSRP, then we'll talk. But for now it isn't.


----------



## T4C Fantasy (May 9, 2012)

what the companies need to do is make hybrid crossfire sli like they tried to do awhile back, i wouldnt mind a gtx680 sli-fired with hd7970 the hd7970 for folding and 680 for gaming and since sli-fired both for gaming ^^


----------



## sergionography (May 9, 2012)

HumanSmoke said:


> Hate to burst your bubble, but the "GHz Edition" is 1050M core not 1000M. Secondly, here's a selection of OC'ed 7970's against the stock clocked card. Now assuming that the slightly OC'ed memory adds exactly zero to the added performance, you'll note that the gain for 1050MHz is 6-6.8% over stock
> 
> Cute story...pity it's a work of fiction
> 
> ...



 what part of a new revision can you not understand? factory overclocked cards are regular tahitis with higher frequency, a bit higher voltage, and higher power consumption, those cards barely max out at 1180mhz

amd is now talking about a new revision, able to clock 1ghz or more at the same voltage as the first tahiti(925) and at the same consumption and these chips are said to be easily getting 1250mhz overclocks, meaning pro overclockers might even get more out of it
that being said, kepler is nomore efficient than GCN, it never was, efficiency is performance per watt, and an hd7750,7770, and 7850,7870 all do better in performance per watt and tahiti now will follow with this new revision, now lets see if the rest of the kepler line up will beat that.

also one note about the power consumption figures you mentioned in ur other post, i hope u are well aware than tahiti destroys gk104 in computer right? meaning a gk104 tesla or quadro or what not is hopeless against a firepro tahiti.

as for fermi yes they were hot, but they beat amd hands down in compute and gpgpu, so while they werent as efficient as amd in gaming, they were beasts in gpgpu and compute, amd did the best of both worlds
as for gk110 being 20% thats what i heard from the rumors online, the chip will be 40% bigger, but because of that it will have lower clocks,  and a bigger memory controller so the performance will not perfectly scale with the size of the chip, look at tahiti vs pitcairn, tahiti has 40% more cores but is only 25-30% or so faster clock-clock

http://videocardz.com/31650/geforce-gtx-685-gk110-features-4gb-512bit-memory


----------



## the54thvoid (May 9, 2012)

I think Charlies maths is more correct this time (without his overly dramatic rendition of it).

NV were 'rumoured' to release the smaller parts first (to test the process)
AMD released Tahiti in Dec, realistically in Jan.
NV were not ready yet for whatever reason.
A full quarter later, NV paper launched GK104.
So they didn't release their small models first as rumoured (no big deal - was just rumour).
But they didn't release GK100 first either.  GK100 rumoured to be broken.
So GK104 released a month and a half ago is still scarce in the US and on limited supply in UK (and no matter what websites people link to to say, hey here it is - it's still limited supply from a marketing perspective - and also pushing up prices).
GK110 is rumoured to be out soon but as Crap Daddy is linking to, is a pure gpgpu part - not for gaming.
Why GK110? Because the initial Kepler design wouldn't work on TSMC, ironically probably from a power consumption point.  HPC parts need to be 'reasonably' power efficient.  When you have thousands in a super computer they tend to gobble up Watts.

So i think 680 is in respin mode and will probably improve but until then, the stocks will suck.

The 7970 GHz edition might also be a respin (maybe even a tweak a la the GTX 580 from GTX 480).

Either way people are losing track of the qualities of the cards.  It looks like Nvidia is splitting the Kepler line in to gaming OR HPC.  So maybe GK104 is as good as it gets - which makes it their least 'winning' winning card for ages.
This would also explain why they spent so much attention to detail on the super star 690, using GK104 parts.  This will be the single 'card' ruler for this round.

And if AMD hobbled the compute performance of the 7970, it's power use would be a lot less.  Remember this is why Fermi drew so many Watts, it was a gpgpu card.  This is also why GK104 draws relatively few Watts it's - not a gpgpu card.


----------



## TheoneandonlyMrK (May 9, 2012)

+1 to 54ths


----------



## techtard (May 9, 2012)

So the 7970 1ghz edition is basically going to be like the 4870 tweaked and re-released as 4890?
That was pretty epic back in the day, huge performance for value.
But the 7970 prices are just plain silly, even if they manage to squeeze some more performance out of it.


----------



## Frick (May 9, 2012)

techtard said:


> But the 7970 prices are just plain silly, even if they manage to squeeze some more performance out of it.



I'm not so sure. On a popular swedish site (Komplett.se) they can be had for €390 and there are loads and loads of them in stock. The 680 is about €440 and are pretty much non existent in the market with a preliminary delivery day of May 31. Some of them will not come until july.


----------



## DarkOCean (May 9, 2012)

techtard said:


> So the 7970 1ghz edition is basically going to be like the 4870 tweaked and re-released as 4890?
> That was pretty epic back in the day, huge performance for value.
> But the 7970 prices are just plain silly, even if they manage to squeeze some more performance out of it.



i doubt that 4890 had a new gpu in it, this 7970 its just cherry picked 7970 at best at least that's my guess.


----------



## techtard (May 9, 2012)

Frick said:


> I'm not so sure. On a popular swedish site (Komplett.se) they can be had for €390 and there are loads and loads of them in stock. The 680 is about €440 and are pretty much non existent in the market with a preliminary delivery day of May 31. Some of them will not come until july.



I just miss being able to get the second fastest AMD single gpu card for about $275. My 5850 was a bargain compared to what both camps are offering these days.

It wouldn't surprise me if there's some good old fashioned price fixing going on. LCD producers were semi-busted recently, Ati and nVidia were also caught before.

Maybe I'm just turning into an old, cheap asshole.


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## T4C Fantasy (May 9, 2012)

they should just name it HD7980, its good for sales.. nvidia has done this with success


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## Frick (May 9, 2012)

techtard said:


> I just miss being able to get the second fastest AMD single gpu card for about $275. My 5850 was a bargain compared to what both camps are offering these days.
> 
> It wouldn't surprise me if there's some good old fashioned price fixing going on. LCD producers were semi-busted recently, Ati and nVidia were also caught before.
> 
> Maybe I'm just turning into an old, cheap asshole.



I rather think it was extremely cheap. Go back more and the prices were what they are now, if not higher. And I still think we get a lot for our money. A 7950 is about €350.


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## N3M3515 (May 9, 2012)

Frick said:


> I rather think it was extremely cheap. Go back more and the prices were what they are now, if not higher. And I still think we get a lot for our money. A 7950 is about €350.



mmm. . . .  . . going back....
hd4850 $180 - hd4870 $299
hd3850 $180 - hd3870 $230

Hey, actually we're experiencing the highest prices ever 

I don't recall the second fastest card from amd ever being at $450 at launch, not even $380.


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## D007 (May 9, 2012)

N3M3515 said:


> In the world i live in the 7970 costs $479 and sells in abundance, and GTX 680 is almost unexistent and where it is it costs $600 - $680
> 
> So, right now it really is $479 vs $600, amd does not need to lower the price if the situation continues this way.
> 
> Right now which is the better card? HD 7970 hands down. When GTX 680 is available and at the MSRP, then we'll talk. But for now it isn't.



The better card in performance is the gtx680.. Price means nothing, to people with money. It's not the chepest card, for sure. but it beats the competition in gaming, hands down. Idk how people, can even say things like this.

They don't need to lower the price I agree. But for people who solely choose, based on performance, in games.. Answer is pretty obvious to me.. Made me go from ATI to Nvidia, "no fan boy needed"..
I'll pay 100 extra, for a better card, anyday. This thread is just a flame war apparently. Most of the statements here, are pure, opinionated, dribble..

If cost is your issue, go AMD this time. If performance is your issue, go Nvidia this time. That's how I see it.. You're going to end up, with a BA card, either way..


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## m1dg3t (May 9, 2012)

TRWOV said:


> (and there really isn't a clear winner, both side trade punches *although nVidia has the upper hand on efficiency*).



Performance wise yes, they trade blow's, with more going to Nv side. It bother's me that people have this impression of efficiency when in reality it isn't as good as it look's because everyone seem's to keep forgetting that gk104 is supposed to be MID RANGE chip so when you look at it in that light your perspective change's.

I mean seriously a gpgpu crippled "mid range" chip that consumes nearly as much as the competition's full fledged top tier chip is hardly what i'd call efficient. Apologies if i offended anyone 

Hopefully Nvidia get's their shit sorted so we can see some real progress


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## Frick (May 9, 2012)

N3M3515 said:


> mmm. . . .  . . going back....
> hd4850 $180 - hd4870 $299
> hd3850 $180 - hd3870 $230
> 
> ...



I meant further back. x1900xtx was about $600 iirc, x850xtpe about the same. 8800GTX was about $500 and so on. 2007 to last year was very cheap compared to what it was before that and now prices have gone normal. My x1950 PRO was about €190 and it was far from the performance king.

But then early 2000's it was a bit cheaper iirc.. So it does move up and down. Price/performance figures are way up though. Now it's most of the time pointless in buying anything over €300 if you're on a 1080 monitor. That will change the next couple of years though.


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## TheMailMan78 (May 9, 2012)

Frick said:


> I meant further back. x1900xtx was about $600 iirc, x850xtpe about the same. 8800GTX was about $500 and so on. 2007 to last year was very cheap compared to what it was before that and now prices have gone normal. My x1950 PRO was about €190 and it was far from the performance king.
> 
> But then early 2000's it was a bit cheaper iirc.. So it does move up and down. Price/performance figures are way up though. Now it's most of the time pointless in buying anything over €300 if you're on a 1080 monitor. That will change the next couple of years though.



This. I remember when some GPU's were 700 bones for the top tier cards. But I think that was more to do with the RAM costs then anything. I honestly dunno. I just remember the 4800 series being awesome from a price performance perspective and at the time it wasn't the norm.


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## N3M3515 (May 9, 2012)

D007 said:


> The better card in performance is the gtx680.. Price means nothing, to people with money. It's not the chepest card, for sure. but it beats the competition in gaming, hands down. Idk how people, can even say things like this.
> 
> They don't need to lower the price I agree. But for people who solely choose, based on performance, in games.. Answer is pretty obvious to me.. Made me go from ATI to Nvidia, "no fan boy needed"..
> I'll pay 100 extra, for a better card, anyday. This thread is just a flame war apparently. Most of the statements here, are pure, opinionated, dribble..
> ...



I have to disagree with you in something, performance means nothing for me if it is 7% for A HUNDRED bucks more.... 

And 7% is not hands down, it isn't a beating, etc. They are equals when you're playing with any of the two.

I would accept if you tell me you go for NV for TXAA, and stuff, but $100 more for 7% perf that you won't even realize?, are you for real? NO, you just love nvidia, just admit it. there's nothing wrong with it.

For me, i'm a bang-for-bucker, be nv or be dammit, whichever gives me the best bang for my buck. Hell, i still have my $150 HD 4870 and nothing can replace it at the moment at the same price.


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## sergionography (May 9, 2012)

N3M3515 said:


> mmm. . . .  . . going back....
> hd4850 $180 - hd4870 $299
> hd3850 $180 - hd3870 $230
> 
> ...



1. note that there is something called inflation

2. at the days of ati they never made bigger chips and would never compete with nvidia on the fastest gpu, but were all about efficiency, the hd3870 was a tiny chip with 320radeon cores that had a die size(192mm2) smaller of that of the hd7870 pitcairn(212mm2)

the hd5870 was the first time amd made the card bigger around 320mm2, but then for the 6000 series amd introduced the 6900 series line and started using a different methodology in building chips in each family , so instead of using 2 chip designs one for x700 and one for x800, now they use 3 chip designs, one for 7700(cape verde) one for 7800(pitcairn) and one for 7900(tahiti)
with tahiti being 360mm2
the 6000 series also had 3 chips one using the old hd5700 series die, one using the new improved vliw5 chip called barts (hd6800) and then the vliw4 cayman (hd6900) which measured 389mm2


that being said, you must stop comparing the 4800 series to the 7900 series in terms of price as the whole methodology has changed, as for hd5800 series it was a step in between so that is were it gets tricky with hd5800 being bigger than hd6800 but smaller than hd6900. but that is why the 5870 had a smaller price premium

so while the hd 4870 cost way less than amds high end today, its simply because ati never used to make high end chips to compete with nvidias bigger cards and would only counter with dual gpu cards
now in the 299$ bracket is the hd7870(i know its 350 but once competition shows up it will go down) and that is the gpu class that the 4870 filled in a few years ago which you
 should be looking at


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## HumanSmoke (May 10, 2012)

sergionography said:


> what part of a new revision can you not understand? factory overclocked cards are regular tahitis with higher frequency, a bit higher voltage, and higher power consumption, those cards barely max out at 1180mhz. amd is now talking about a new revision, able to clock 1ghz or more at the same voltage as the first tahiti(925) and at the same consumption


The article says no such thing about the GPU being a revision. All it is saying is that as the process is refined there is less voltage leakage and a bit more performance headroom (i.e. the standard deviation curve is moving to higher freqs. If you're expecting Tahiti XTX to be a foundry respin you're in a waking dream.


sergionography said:


> that being said, kepler is nomore efficient than GCN, it never was, efficiency is performance per watt, and an hd7750,7770, and 7850,7870 all do better in performance per watt


So your idea of comparison is to take the highest efficiency mainstream (and lower) card and measure it against a card a considerable step up in market segment. What next? comparing power consumption of the GTX 680 against that of the HD 6450 ?, acoustics of the GTX 680 against a passive cooled card ?


sergionography said:


> and tahiti now will follow with this new revision, now letsCsee if the rest of the kepler line up will beat that.


Sorry, not convinced that a binned Tahiti is the next messiah. Don't save me a pew at the Church of Redfanboyism


sergionography said:


> i hope u are well aware than tahiti destroys gk104 in computer right? meaning a gk104 tesla or quadro or what not is hopeless against a firepro tahiti.


Amazing how "computer" ( I presume you mean compute function/ GPGPU) has suddenly become of major importance with AMD followers -where was all this corncern when Fermi and Evergreen were having to go round. 
On your second point, you do realise 1. that Quadro/Tesla will be based on GK110 since GK104 has no ECC 72-bit memory and is constrained of double precision FP performance, and...2. AMD have had capable workstation cards for generations- they just heaven't put much effort into a software enviroment or drivers for the pro sector. Big engine great. Not being able to figure out how to shift out of neutral bad.
Since you're all for lopsided comparisons, are you willing to bet that Tahiti will be a GPGPU match for GK110...It sounds like Cray aren't


sergionography said:


> as for gk110 being 20% thats what i heard from the rumors online, the chip will be 40% bigger, but because of that it will have lower clocks,  and a bigger memory controller so the performance will not perfectly scale with the size of the chip...http://videocardz.com/31650/geforce-gtx-685-gk110-features-4gb-512bit-memory


The link you posted actually quotes 20-*25*%. Leaving aside your lowballing. The 20-25% is gaming performance not compute. Since you have trouble distinguishing the two:
GTX 680 FLOPS 1006M core x 1536 shader x 2 OPC = 3090.432 GFlop...Double precision artificially capped at 1:24 rate
GK110 would need only a 800M core clock to have a 20% FLOP advantage ( 800 x 2304 x 2 OPC = 3686 GFlops), but here's the kicker. Quadro DP is a full 1:2 rate. Now according to this 3DCentre article (probably a bit more credible than Videocardz and OBR) single precision is estimated at 4000+ GFlops (2000+ double precision) so;
GK110 4000+ FP32 and 2000+ FP64
Tahiti XT 3788 FP32 and 947 FP64...*and that making a huge assumption that an AMD pro card could be built around Tahiti XT. For AMD's last arch, they used Cayman LE...a HD 6950 with 128 shaders fused off (Firepro V7900)*


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## T4C Fantasy (May 10, 2012)

HumanSmoke said:


> The article says no such thing about the GPU being a revision. All it is saying is that as the process is refined there is less voltage leakage and a bit more performance headroom (i.e. the standard deviation curve is moving to higher freqs. If you're expecting Tahiti XTX to be a foundry respin you're in a waking dream.
> 
> So your idea of comparison is to take the highest efficiency mainstream (and lower) card and measure it against a card a considerable step up in market segment. What next? comparing power consumption of the GTX 680 against that of the HD 6450 ?, acoustics of the GTX 680 against a passive cooled card ?
> 
> ...



i like that super computer link, for an odd reason i was looking up all about super computers its intrigues me to no end... but after looking it up for so long...it just seems its not about the power of the chip... its the power of a nation... japan vs america and all that crap... it is definetly turning into national superiorism.... but what isn't these days.


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## N3M3515 (May 10, 2012)

sergionography said:


> 1. note that there is something called inflation
> 
> 2. at the days of ati they never made bigger chips and would never compete with nvidia on the fastest gpu, but were all about efficiency, the hd3870 was a tiny chip with 320radeon cores that had a die size(192mm2) smaller of that of the hd7870 pitcairn(212mm2)
> 
> ...



So......in two years what? X970 at $700 and X950 at $600?
The way i understand gpu pricing is this:
4 ranges
DualGPU >600
Highend 300 - 500 (4870, 5850, 5870, 6970, GTX570, GTX260, GTX280, GTX480, GTX470, X850, X1900XT, X1800XT, 7800GTX, 6800ultra, 9800XT, 8800GTX, 8800GTS)
Midrange 180 - 250 (3850, 3870, 4850, 5770, 6850, 6870, gtx 560ti, gtx 560, gtx 460, 6800GS, 5700ultra, X700, 9600XT, 7600GT, X1900GTO, 8800GT, 9500pro)
Lowend 80 - 150 (...)

Right now there is a gigantic hole in the 150 - 250 range, which for the most people is the sweet spot($200 to be exact). 7870 should have started at the most, at 300 and that is still expensive but understandable for a new product and all the inflation and stuff...
.....and 7950 at 350. I have no doubt they will go down in price once nvidia put its shit together and have a complete lineup and good supply of new generation chips, BUT, i pretty much doubt 7950 will ever go down to $260 like the 6950 2GB, because the starting price is so sky high. Just like the 7870 will never be as low as the $155 HD 6870.


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## T4C Fantasy (May 10, 2012)

N3M3515 said:


> So......in two years what? X970 at $700 and X950 at $600?
> The way i understand gpu pricing is this:
> 4 ranges
> DualGPU >600
> ...



intel cpus hardly ever deprieciate in price,  if newegg still had Pentium 4 EE's in stock from 2004 they would cost $999 easily


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## sergionography (May 10, 2012)

HumanSmoke said:


> The article says no such thing about the GPU being a revision. All it is saying is that as the process is refined there is less voltage leakage and a bit more performance headroom (i.e. the standard deviation curve is moving to higher freqs. If you're expecting Tahiti XTX to be a foundry respin you're in a waking dream.[/I][/B]


less voltage leakage meaning better consumption = higher clocks at the same voltage
whether it is a revised or not it will be a better and more efficient chip, and with 1250mhz capability that is a good 70-80mhz higher than the best overclocked tahitis now
gk104 is clocked at 1006mhz and dynamic clock takes it to 1110mhz or something http://www.anandtech.com/show/5699/nvidia-geforce-gtx-680-review/4, too close to its limit i shall say,  especialy noting that tahiti at 925mhz is only 6% slower on average(according to wizz review) than gk104 at 1006-1110



HumanSmoke said:


> So your idea of comparison is to take the highest efficiency mainstream (and lower) card and measure it against a card a considerable step up in market segment. What next? comparing power consumption of the GTX 680 against that of the HD 6450 ?, acoustics of the GTX 680 against a passive cooled card ?[/I][/B]



no my idea of efficiency comparison is to look at the capability of GCN architecture vs Kepler. pitcairn for example is 40% smaller than tahiti, and has 40% less cores, and has less bandwidth, yet performs only 20%-25% slower. that being said, it is clear that GCN architecture has much more potential than what tahiti is bringing out.
so im putting performance/core, performance/die area, performance/watt, all into perspective



HumanSmoke said:


> Sorry, not convinced that a binned Tahiti is the next messiah. Don't save me a pew at the Church of Redfanboyism
> 
> Amazing how "computer" ( I presume you mean compute function/ GPGPU) has suddenly become of major importance with AMD followers -where was all this corncern when Fermi and Evergreen were having to go round.
> On your second point, you do realise 1. that Quadro/Tesla will be based on GK110 since GK104 has no ECC 72-bit memory and is constrained of double precision FP performance, and...2. AMD have had capable workstation cards for generations- they just heaven't put much effort into a software enviroment or drivers for the pro sector. Big engine great. Not being able to figure out how to shift out of neutral bad.
> ...




it isnt the next messiah, it is just an improvement over something that was already great, no one can deny that, if you do then bring your evidence, telling me gk110 WILL be better is not a valid arguement, it is yet to be released and what you post is out of speculation in specs and even more speculation in release dates, as far as i remember i read rumors saying sep/oct but not sure, but either way even if its august then that will be around 3-4 month before amd releases the hd 8970(1 year from tahiti), exactly the same amount of time between tahiti and kepler, and who knows what will they bring by then with the enhanced GCN. but so far its said that its 20% better than tahiti in compute in the SAME power envelope
http://videocardz.com/30786/amd-radeon-hd-8970-speculation-radeon-hd-7990-delayed
this slide states tenerife in single precision did 4500tflops as in MARCH 2012, meaning it can even get better, so if we take ur speculations seriously then 4000tflops for gk110 is already something amd is achieving inhouse, but does it matter? no it doesnt because untill its released there is no point of arguing

as for now, does kepler beat amd in compute? no it doesnt even come close. does it beat it in gaming? barely and amd seems to be closing the gap with the new binned tahiti not to mention they already trade blows depending on the titles.
so its smart to stop bashing amd and be fair and give each camp their credit
oh and for your info i run a gtx460. no1 denied that fermi wasnt a badass architecture except for gtx480 and 470 which pretty much weren't ready and had a bad start, but when fermi was properly refined it was way better than vliw5 in gaming and compute, and while vliw4 was more effiecient if you only look at gaming and performance/watt/die size, it was light years behind in compute, not to mention with nvidia releasing 500mm2+ chips they sure held the performance crown

and nvidia will do the same approach next time around as well, knowing that gk110 is speculated to be 550mm2, that is a good 200mm2 bigger than tahiti, so will it be faster than tahiti and gk104? hell yes it will be, but will also cost more to manufacture and ofcourse consume more power. and i sure can tell you amd cant beat it with a 360mm2 die size, that would require an architecture that is like 40% more efficient than nvidias kepler which i dont think will happen since both amd and nvidia are on par in terms of architectures. but if amd would release a big chip like that they could beat whatever nvidia bringsd but I doubt that will ever happen, its just not amd's methodology to do so


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## HumanSmoke (May 10, 2012)

sergionography said:


> it isnt the next messiah, it is just an improvement over something that was already great, no one can deny that, if you do then bring your evidence, telling me gk110 WILL be better is not a valid arguement


I'm telling no such thing. What I'm putting forward is the speculation of others, much the same as...


sergionography said:


> it is yet to be released and what you post is out of speculation in specs and even more speculation in release dates, as far as i remember i read rumors saying sep/oct but not sure, but either way even if its august then *that will be around 3-4 month before amd releases the hd 8970*(1 year from tahiti), exactly the same amount of time between tahiti and kepler, and who knows what will they bring by then with the enhanced GCN. *but so far its said that its 20% better than tahiti *in compute in the SAME power envelope


...the speculation you're passing off as fact (note the bolded part- feel free to post some factual links)


sergionography said:


> this slide states tenerife in single precision did 4500tflops as in MARCH 2012, meaning it can even get better


You mean the slide that found to be fake a few days after it showed up ? The same slide that had the word "enabling" misspelled in the fine print?







sergionography said:


> so if we take ur speculations seriously then 4000tflops for gk110 *is already something amd is achieving inhouse*


Supposition masquerading as fact ?


sergionography said:


> 2. at the days of ati they never made bigger chips and would never compete with nvidia on the fastest gpu, but were all about efficiency, the hd3870 was a tiny chip with 320radeon cores that had a die size(192mm2) smaller of that of the hd7870 pitcairn(212mm2)


Sorry, that's either bullshit or a knowledge base that doesn't extend further back than RV670
And do you know why ATi pursued a small chip strategy? It's because ATi released a pig called R600, and R600 was 420mm². ATi -prior to RV670 -before your time I assume, didn't have a small die strategy- it had a Win At All Cost strategy; ATi's R580 (352mm²) and R520 (288mm²) vs Nvidia's G71 (196mm²) being a prime example.


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## sergionography (May 10, 2012)

HumanSmoke said:


> I'm telling no such thing. What I'm putting forward is the speculation of others, much the same as...
> 
> ...the speculation you're passing off as fact (note the bolded part- feel free to post some factual links)
> 
> ...



exactly why i posted the following
"but does it matter? no it doesnt because untill its released there is no point of arguing"
but offcourse you decided to totaly ignore that
and spelling mistakes doesnt automatically mean its fake, it is humans who are subject to error who design these things.




HumanSmoke said:


> Sorry, that's either bullshit or a knowledge base that doesn't extend further back than RV670
> And do you know why ATi pursued a small chip strategy? It's because ATi released a pig called R600, and R600 was 420mm². ATi -prior to RV670 -before your time I assume, didn't have a small die strategy- it had a Win At All Cost strategy; ATi's R580 (352mm²) and R520 (288mm²) vs Nvidia's G71 (196mm²) being a prime example.



i hope you are aware that the post i was replying to was comparing to hd3000 and hd4000 to recent cards right? im talking in relevance to these generations which the earlier post mentioned which is the strategy that ati had at the time that recently changed
its just funny how you cherry pick statements or generalize my "specific" statements and forget the complete picture just for the sake of arguing. and thats what you have been doing so far, just arguing for the sake of arguing. it would've been way more productive to answer to the statements which you totaly ignored that are actually what this thread is about which is as of today, hd7970 dominates any other nvidia solution for compute, and as for gaming they trade blows depending on the titles, and which tahiti reaching a new level of efficiency things will get even more interesting, so whether you care about gaming or compute is up to the buyer, as for gcn it remains a very solid architecture which is'nt necessarily directed to compete with nvidia only, it is designed for future implementation with cpu cores and HSA so it is a step in the right direction, but again remember "the big picture"
either way please enough with your trolling and fruitless arguing and lets not kill this thread  by going way off topic, as im sure you can find some sentence or 2 here and there to find something to argue about, but i don't intend on keeping this going


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