Friday, June 15th 2012
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AMD Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition "Tahiti XT2" Detailed
We've known since May, the existence of a new high-end single-GPU graphics card SKU in the works, at AMD. Called the Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition, the SKU is being designed to regain AMD's competitiveness against NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 680. We're hearing a few additional details about the SKU. To begin with, AMD has worked with TSMC to refine the chip design. The Tahiti XT2 will be able to facilitate significantly higher clock speeds, at significantly lower voltages, than the current breed of Tahiti XT chips.
Tahiti XT2, or Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition, will ship with a core clock speed of 1100 MHz, 175 MHz faster than the HD 7970. The GPU core voltage of Tahiti XT2 will be lower, at 1.020V, compared to 1.175V of the Tahiti XT. It's unlikely that AMD will tinker with memory clock speed, since Tahiti already has a 384-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface, which gives it 264 GB/s memory bandwidth at 1375 MHz (5.50 GHz effective). According to the source, the new SKU enters mass-production next week. So best case, it should reach markets by late-June or early-July.
Source:
OCaholic.ch
Tahiti XT2, or Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition, will ship with a core clock speed of 1100 MHz, 175 MHz faster than the HD 7970. The GPU core voltage of Tahiti XT2 will be lower, at 1.020V, compared to 1.175V of the Tahiti XT. It's unlikely that AMD will tinker with memory clock speed, since Tahiti already has a 384-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface, which gives it 264 GB/s memory bandwidth at 1375 MHz (5.50 GHz effective). According to the source, the new SKU enters mass-production next week. So best case, it should reach markets by late-June or early-July.
112 Comments on AMD Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition "Tahiti XT2" Detailed
Nice to see higher clocks and lower voltage, well done AMD.
But is it enough?
FirePro W9000 (Dual GPU)
www.4gamer.net/games/135/G013536/20120615004/
EDIT: fixed
Needs 7GT/s memory to make it a monster
I'm looking forward to seeing reviews.
And pricing. :shadedshu
Edit: form the source If that maintains the 1100 clock speed, it will beat the 690.
Makes me wonder if it's tuned to clock at the high-end range of 28nm (~1200-1300mhz) at the leakage curve which is somewhere around 1.175v. That would be pretty neat and if curious if the process as a whole is being tuned toward that idealism. It makes sense and could be a stepping stone towards why TSMC is adopting a singular performance/leakage level for 20nm. Guess we'll see, but I think it could be a huge indicator.
Agree it shouldn't need higher mem speeds, but that's pretty close to matching memory bandwidth with computational ability...which is smart and something they really should have done from the beginning. Should, in theory, out-of-the box give it a tangible benefit very close, to slightly better, than what even an overclocked 7gbps (figuring ~7700mhz) 256-bit design can achieve when (big 'when' I suppose) those resources are used. Good play capitalizing on the design strong-points and delivering a compelling reason for their decisions with Tahiti.
2) Price (If it retails around the same price as the 680 and it's slightly faster we also need to take into consideration the upcoming NV specific features / GRID - VGX)
If it can overlcok to 1300-1400MHz it will be a monster!
This is not the AMD we used to know.
Plus, nvidia's 670 is prime for a good price drop, which is all they would have to do to counter this card.