Good work W1zz...
While, I've been trying to check other reviews (in between doing work). Several things:
- Nvidia now appears to have absolutely changed the game as the Boost found untapped potential without any reviews seeing any glitchy-ness during actual play; although most test aren’t covering real game play. While what the Adaptive V-Sync was different than Turbo Boost but near shown how it impacts FpS?
- I thought that first side saying a “new class of enthusiast card” because the 195W/2-pin GTX680 was misleading to say 7970/580 required a 6 & 8pins and had a TDP of 250W. That’s more a issue for the GTX680 as just because Nvidia can’t/doesn’t offer the old stratosphere OC’s and has it fitting with no way to turn off dynamic clocking so you get a algorithm will" _try_ to respect what you'd like it to do". Such card aren't "bad" because they permit options that aren't there for the GTX680. A 7970 it could easily make-due with two 6-pins and a much lower TDP had AMD restrain what enthusiast could expect. Just look at the power consumption if the CSN didn’t kick in under maximum load they wouldn’t be all that different.
- I see why they priced it $50 less it would’ve basically “one-up-man-ship” a 7970 and with that alone not a great wow. I think when at 2650x the 7970 has more value as when in games where it matters in (low Fps) the 7970 holds more advantage look a Metro, A&P, both Crysis titles, Shogun or even Skyrim, while we need to see how bigger resolutions 3-panels performs.
- I don’t really see the efficiency considering the means of using the Turbo Boost "Clock-Speed-Nanny" (CSN) and a small chip. I thought the whole CSN was going to work more at the Cuda-core level also; I haven’t got any reviews outlining such details.
- Improper case airflow will curtain your performance, most folk won’t even realize.
- There's still a bunch of things to determine here, but for most general operators this is nice cause it promotes plug-n-play and work with many PSU’s and cases… Really idiot-proofs this "new level enthusiast".
- I don’t know if we’ll see any price war from this, 7970 might see more rebates, but until TSMC get’s things moving there’s not enough volume for either to go running scared.
- Now Nvidia needs to keep releasing cards like this down the price structure to really make an impact. Can they continue releasing lower cost sku’s with Clock Boost PCB’s/technology at the real mainstream price point’s. Because the whole lower cost chip/clock boost is what got them to eke-out over the 7970. If they can't this will be ho-hum in 4 months.