Wednesday, January 4th 2012
Retail Radeon HD 7970 FOB Price Cut to $475, From $525
On the 22nd of December 2011, AMD launched its Radeon HD 7970, announcing that the cards will be available in the retail channels by 9th January, 2012. It permitted reviewers with access to AMD-made samples to post reviews on the 22nd, and told the press that it will have a FOB (freight-onboard) price (the price at which each card ships out of its place of origin, in this case Hong Kong, China) of US $525. Market sources told DonanimHaber that this price has been adjusted from $525 to $475. That doesn't necessarily mean that retail HD 7970 will cost lower than the $550 target retail price AMD talked about in several occasions. It will be up to downstream distributors and retailers on whether they want to convey this latest cut to the end-user, or keep a bigger "cut" (margin) for themselves. AMD hasn't officially announced any price updates so far.
Source:
DonanimHaber
77 Comments on Retail Radeon HD 7970 FOB Price Cut to $475, From $525
This is good new for retailers so they can gain more profit at launch.
Whats wrong with 7970? AMD
I once had a 4670 on my secondary PC, and the drivers were a BIG problem, i.e I had to use some 9.xx drivers for YEARS, before they finally released 10.9. And all this cause all the other 10.x drivers fucked up with OpenGL editing softwares, (in my case, Magic Bullet Looks) and caused it to crash before opening up. And cause I had to use these old drivers, I had many many other problems. MBL was a must for me at that time so I didnt have a choice. It was a common driver-caused problem among the MBL-community.
Thats what its all about but in the end its still a moot point the cards not shit as you put it.
still faster overclock vs overclock
972 is roughly 20% faster due to non linear scaling closer to 18-19% increase over stock
that puts the 580 3gb give or take at 1920x1080 and higher at 2-4% faster then a 7970
Sapphire HD 7970 atomic is still 41% oc = 38% increase so 7970 is still 35% faster give or take and at the ultra high end GPU segment AMD multi gpu scales a bit better then SLI does, so with 7970s in xfire on mainstream titles 2x 7970s at 1335 core as per Sapphires launch would be around 40% faster then 2x 580 3gb at the same price point.
so at this point same price larger performance benefit. and the game I play most just dosent like SLI which is kinda sad as previously it loved SLI aka Total War series
Shogun 2 responds better to Xfire then SLI where as every previous game liked SLI and hated Xfire. It all boils down to games. and right now 2x 6950s are 10% faster then 2x 580s in Shogun 2. 7970 in that title destorys everything else. cant wait to try that game out and test it again. to see what happens.
altho same can be said with other games. like Lost Planet 2. where you needed nvidia gpu to really enjoy that game. or better yet 2x nvidia gpus.
eitherway your point of the cards being crap is rather invalid.
It boils down to user experience and games played.
Ive honestly had 0 issues with drivers from AMD as of late, skyrim xfire was the only real problem and it was solved with radeon pro .
now my 4870x2 on the other hand i had some issues with at release. but I digress 7970 is faster and will remain so untill Kepler launched in which case ill sell the 7970 or 7970 xfire and buy 2x Kepler gpus. depending on price :toast:
HOWEVER ATI never released a driver that burned up a card ether. Not that they won't. But they have yet to. NVIDIA has. Both have issues but you cant take anything away from the 7970. Its a beast of a card and you called it crap due to previous Open GL issues is a little closed minded. Sorry. Working in apparel I've dealt with a lot of import/export issues. Its all acronyms lol.
currently with 12.1 drivers i have no issues with
Maya
3DS Max
or
Mudbox
all use open GL
photoshop still has issues which ive noticed but i dont use photoshop enough lately to matter.
Toms has a AMD7770 on their site with some tests results, it seems the 7770 falls somewhere in between Nvidia ION and Intel IGP (nvidia 460 and Nvidia 470) performance wise.
The AMD7770 would be ideal for a NAS or headless server depending on the price.
As much as I am tempted to make the purchases no game that is out at the moment warrants a GPU upgrade right now :) unless the purchase is made for bragging rights, but that's just another cup of tea.
Also this is a good moment to stand and watch how the market will shape around when Nvidia launches Kepler, let's just hope they don't come SO much late to the party and they don't come out with insane pricing.
Meh anyways, does anyone think AMD's partners will release non-reference cards on Jan 9th?
I see some retailers here pre-selling XFX cards with two different model numbers.