Monday, March 4th 2013
AMD Redoing Radeon HD 7990 Under New Codename - "Malta"
AMD topped off its "Southern Islands" graphics card family with Radeon HD 7990 "New Zealand," although it didn't have a reference design board of the said SKU. Around October 2012, AIB partners PowerColor, VTX3D, and Club 3D each released their custom design Radeon HD 7990-branded graphics cards, which packed a duo of Radeon HD 7970 GPUs, a total of 6 GB of memory, making up for a dual-GPU solution. Among most of these, the GPUs were clocked in the neighborhood of 950 MHz, and memory at 5.50 GHz. ASUS joined the party much later with the ROG ARES II, with 1100 MHz core, 6.00 GHz memory, and liquid cooling, but commands a hefty $1,600. Post GTX Titan, ARES II remains, at least according to AMD, the single fastest graphics card. The company seems interested in standardizing a new set of specifications for HD 7990, which could be priced competitively against NVIDIA's GTX Titan and GTX 690.
Enter the new Radeon HD 7990 "Malta," a new codename, redone specifications (clock speeds), same dual-GPU graphics card, with [hopefully] a competitive price. Its development checks out with AMD's recent statement in its teleconference last month, where it stated that we could see "more HD 7990 action" this year. According to a Technic3D report, AMD is looking to replace the generally accepted 925/950/1350 MHz (core/PowerTune Boost/memory) clock speed standard of the HD 7990 with something over 1000 MHz, probably even 1050 MHz for the core. There is no word on memory clock speed changes, although with its 384-bit wide memory interfaces, we don't imagine the "Tahiti" GPU to be facing a dearth of memory bandwidth. The HD 7990 "Malta" like the HD 7990 "New Zealand," will lack an AMD reference design, so one could expect more custom-design cards by partners. The new SKU could launch some time before July.
Source:
Technic3D
Enter the new Radeon HD 7990 "Malta," a new codename, redone specifications (clock speeds), same dual-GPU graphics card, with [hopefully] a competitive price. Its development checks out with AMD's recent statement in its teleconference last month, where it stated that we could see "more HD 7990 action" this year. According to a Technic3D report, AMD is looking to replace the generally accepted 925/950/1350 MHz (core/PowerTune Boost/memory) clock speed standard of the HD 7990 with something over 1000 MHz, probably even 1050 MHz for the core. There is no word on memory clock speed changes, although with its 384-bit wide memory interfaces, we don't imagine the "Tahiti" GPU to be facing a dearth of memory bandwidth. The HD 7990 "Malta" like the HD 7990 "New Zealand," will lack an AMD reference design, so one could expect more custom-design cards by partners. The new SKU could launch some time before July.
43 Comments on AMD Redoing Radeon HD 7990 Under New Codename - "Malta"
You do realize that there are already sub-$1K HD 7990's in the marketplace from PowerColor (2), VTX3D, Club3D, and HIS ? ...and that doesn't seem to have affected Titan uptake to any great extent.
At present it appears that NVIDIA is the one with multi GPU driver issues since neither Quad SLi 690 or Tri-SLi Titan will return correct scores in 3DMark and game performance feels patchy and rough compared to Dual SLi Titan, 680, 690 and to a lesser extent 7970/7990.
If AMD can do a 4890 style update to the 7970/7990 then they have a contender if it's marketed well.
But then, I saw a number of people on these very forums hailing an overclocked and overvolted 7970 GE as a whole new product, so you could well be right.
If "many" would buy a G92 powered GTX 780, I'd expect even more would shell out for a GK 114 version.As Euripides noted; "Every man is like the company he wont to keep.”
Your mate isn't a dumb ass, he's a fucking vegetable :) . To buy six different G92's he would have had to downgrade at least twice (i.e. buy a 8800GT >downgrade to 8800 GS > upgrade to a 8800 GTS > upgrade to a 9800 GX2 > downgrade to 9800 GTX > no change in downgrade to GTX+...or skip one or more of those SKU's and downgrade to 9800 GT or downgrade to a GTS 250/240 or downgrade to an OEM card).
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malta
They should've named it Tasmania.
All we really know is that it will use clocks above 1ghz, and let's be realistic, that would use greater than 375w if Tahiti in full spec. If this thing is competing on some level (performance, value alternative, or both) with Titan or 690, it will also compete with them on power envelope, which is 300 or 375w. Full Tahiti GHZ ED just ain't feasible.
While I can't rule out they would staple a couple 7950s together and increase the default core clock/voltage and give it 375w, it would make just as much if not more sense to use the chip everyone is waiting to compete with (on an efficiency level) to 680. The only thing that is iffy is a ram config. Tahiti could use 6GB, perhaps better for 2560, while obviously the other part would likely be 4 (1080p) or 8GB (2560+). 8gb seems questionable if the part comes soon, but 4Gb (512MB) ram chips are coming ~q3-q4.
Who knows what this will end up being, but it will not compete on performance if not 1792sp. Less (1536sp) could be a good value (like 4850x2 back in the day), but it won't get up to 690 level. 2048/384-bit will not be as efficient and use too much power or leave clockspeed efficiency on the table. AMD needs at least 1792x2 @ 1000-1050 and 6700-6800mhz 256-bit or 4500mhz/384-bit for the product to REALLY make any sense outside of being a better value.
AMD/ATi have never launched a new product line with a dual GPU card first out of the gate, and I'm not sold that they are going to reverse that trend with a bean counter in chargeFeasible or not, sometimes you run with what you've got. Review benchmarks invariably only use reference SKU's for on-going comparisons, and at this time, AMD aren't dominating with the 7970GE. My guess (as it was a few weeks ago) is that AMD will just toss in the Tahiti based 7990 as a stop gap measure to break up the Nvidia monopoly in those review graphs. They won't look favourable in power consumption, but that didn't stop AMD launching the 7970GE to combat the GTX 680.
I thought only a few vendors done some own releases and non offical release by AMD/ATI....
since i´ve seen none pcb branded with AMD on the 7990 series
i looking forward for this :cool: