Wednesday, November 21st 2012
Leading AMD AIB Partners Avoiding "Tahiti LE"?
According to industry sources we spoke with, multiple leading AMD add-in board partners lack plans to launch Radeon HD 7870 "Tahiti LE" graphics cards. The new performance segment SKU is slated for November 27, and already lacks an AMD reference design. The new SKU is being designed as a limited-edition model, targeting limited markets, to help AMD score big on the winter shopping season. Earlier this week, Club 3D defied the November 27 launch date to release the HD 7870 jokerCard, which is believed to stick to the final specifications of "Tahiti LE." Since TUL is the contract manufacturer for Club 3D, one can safely confirm that two AIB brands owned by it, PowerColor and VTX 3D, will announce HD 7870 "Tahiti LE." Incidentally, the three are also among the only AIBs with a Radeon HD 7990 dual-GPU graphics card, apart from HIS.
Based on the 28 nm "Tahiti" silicon, the limited edition Radeon HD 7870 "Tahiti LE" is configured with 1,536 Graphics CoreNext stream processors, a 256-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface holding 2 GB of memory, and clock speeds of 925 MHz core, 975 MHz PowerTune boost, and 6.00 GHz memory (192 GB/s). It is said to be priced competitively with NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 660, while being allegedly 15% faster.
Based on the 28 nm "Tahiti" silicon, the limited edition Radeon HD 7870 "Tahiti LE" is configured with 1,536 Graphics CoreNext stream processors, a 256-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface holding 2 GB of memory, and clock speeds of 925 MHz core, 975 MHz PowerTune boost, and 6.00 GHz memory (192 GB/s). It is said to be priced competitively with NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 660, while being allegedly 15% faster.
18 Comments on Leading AMD AIB Partners Avoiding "Tahiti LE"?
well if 7870 would be out of production , then yes , 7890 would made some sense, but since 7870 is SUCH a SELLER card ! no wonder partners refuse...
Personally i think they will sell it for 270$ targeting 660ti, when in theory , if overklocked to 1ghz it will be as fast as 670.
So, if 7890 will go for 270$ ,then AMD send 2 of them in Massachusetts, got my money ready.
i can understand wanting to tap every price point of customers, but is it just too much to ask to stick with 2 entry level cards, 2 mid level, and 2 enthusiast level...
eventually nvidia will go back to their old days and start developing 665 665ti 675, then amd will create the 7890.5 or something, to compete at that price point ;)
Oh and next time? Don't bother refreshing the HDX600 series, give us the new stuff.
so in the end what matter the most to amd is making profit and they really need it badly
if LE is referring to the 7950, that would make sense, but not 7870LE.
Exactly. QED
If that were the case, it would make sense they would jump on a limited-edition product like this, where-as others may ride out the storm and bridge the gap until the next-gen launch with supplies of 7870/7950.
Like I've said, this is probably a limited-edition for a reason: I think 8850 will be this product spec reborn with a die ~75% the size, a shorter pcb, cheaper price and possibly even under 150w (depending on if amd wants to let users ramp the clock, like this product, and compete with 670 rather than 660ti, or if that will be the niche for this product while 8850 simply goes against 660ti). 8870 may launch at a price close-enough to this with performance that exceeds it (and hits an important niche) while using similar power. I wouldn't want to be left holding a stock of these cards when those products launch. It's very possible the shelf-life vs price factors into the equation of offering this card.