AMD Working On Radeon HD 6930 Graphics Card

[btarunr]

AMD is reportedly working on a new Radeon HD 6900 series single-GPU graphics card based on the "Cayman" silicon, the Radeon HD 6930. This SKU will be designed to make things very competitive for the non-Ti GeForce GTX 560 from NVIDIA. In its most recent salvo, NVIDIA launched a limited edition GeForce GTX 560 Ti with 448 CUDA cores, targeting select markets in the winter shopping season. Tests showed it to be very competitive with HD 6950 and HD 6970, and is priced accordingly, at $289. AMD's new SKU will be designed to heat things up in the sub-$200 market where GTX 560 non-Ti and HD 6870 are trading blows.

Carved out of the 40 nm "Cayman" silicon, the GPU in its HD 6930 configuration will carry the codename "Cayman-CE". It will feature 1280 advanced VLIW4 stream processors, 80 TMUs, 32 ROPs, and a 256-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface that will hold 1 GB of memory. The core will be clocked at 750 MHz, and the memory at 1200 MHz (4.80 GHz effective). Most AIBs will reuse their cost-effective HD 6950 1 GB board designs with the new SKUs. The new Radeon HD 6930 is expected to be priced around $180.



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[BrooksyX]

Why? Will it really be that much better than the 6870? Maybe they have a bunch of 69xx chips that arnt very good clockers that they are trying to dump?

 

[RejZoR]

Probably. If it's priced well, why not? You'd get EQAA along with improved Tessellation which ain't a bad thing.

 

[Tatsumaru]

well now, this must be the first 6000 radeon card that simply has no purpouse,
its only a bit faster than 6870 , and will not be able tu pull ahead of 560ti original version,
the way i see it, this is amd s exact version of 560ti, so im sure 6930 will match its speed easily, but will not jump it, unless its a phenomenal overcklocker,cause 560ti has a great overcklocking potential..

 

[faramir]

well now, this must be the first 6000 radeon card that simply has no purpouse,

Actually that was 6770, aka 5770 with BIOS update.

 

[BrooksyX]

Well if its anything like past amd chips with disabled components it should be a great overclocker. I used to have dual 4830 (a 4870 chip with disable spus) which came with a stock core clock of 575. I had no problem reaching 950mhz core speeds on both cards with some slight voltage mods.. I would consider that a great overclock.

 

[Relayer]

Maybe it'll be a dual bios design?

 

[_LEGendARY_]

Omg

It's anus aching what they're doing in the graphics cards market
Ridiculously so many models and so many re-brands.


6450/6570/6670/6750/6770/6790/6850/6870/6930/6950i_1GB/6950_2GB/6970/6990

 

[radrok]

Maybe it will unlock like the 6950, who knows... might be a win

 

[Hayder_Master]

Tell me it will be unlock

 

[1Kurgan1]

Interesting they are putting this out there with the 7k cards are slow close, seems a bit pointless.

It's anus aching what they're doing in the graphics cards market
Ridiculously so many models and so many re-brands.

6450/6570/6670/6750/6770/6790/6850/6870/6930/6950i_1GB/6950_2GB/6970/6990

The only rebrands are in the lower end cards, and that happens many of the times, who really cares about the cheap cards.

 

[Hustler]

Anyone remember what an absolute stinker the 5830 was, hot running, power hog..

History repeating itself..?

 

[HossHuge]

I guess it fits at the $180 mark, but who's going to pay $40 for about 6-8% more performance?

Cheapest 6870 139.99 with rebate
Cheapest 6950 209.99 with rebate

 

[Completely Bonkers]

Interesting they are putting this out there with the 7k cards are slow close, seems a bit pointless.

It tells you something about the7k cards. Either they hope to price them somewhere in outer orbit... or they are lackluster and so AMD might as well swamp the retail channel shelves with ANOTHER same-ish product already.

 

[btarunr]

Anyone remember what an absolute stinker the 5830 was, hot running, power hog..

History repeating itself..?

That was because AMD messed with ROPs. In this new SKU, only the SP (with it TMU) counts and core clock speed are lowered. Rest is the same. There's a real chance that these can unlock to HD 6950 1GB since they'll most likely reuse boards.

 

[Zubasa]

Anyone remember what an absolute stinker the 5830 was, hot running, power hog..

History repeating itself..?

The 5830 sucked because it is bottle necked by its 16ROPs, this thing will have its full 32ROP and should be fine.

Edit: LOL btarunr beat me to it.

 

[Completely Bonkers]

I guess it fits at the $180 mark, but who's going to pay $40 for about 6-8% more performance?

This product and pricing strategy is NOT about offering objective performance to the informed. It is about clogging the retail channel and limited shelf space with another "new" card, with a "9" in it, priced at the same point as a competitor card, and with a different "product bundle" so that the retail consumer will take it to the cash desk.

This card isnt about the TPU community, but about Best Buy, Media Markt, Currys, High Street Shopping etc.

 

[20mmrain]

Why also with this when the HD7000 series is right around the corner?.... I mean seriously this news releases on a day that AMD was rumored to release details on their HD7000 series. This is really anti constructive.
The only thing I can think of is.... the HD 6970/6950 are still selling very well and instead of lowering the price on those.... make a 6930 to help get rid of more chips with higher profit.

 

[HossHuge]

This product and pricing strategy is NOT about offering objective performance to the informed. It is about clogging the retail channel and limited shelf space with another "new" card, with a "9" in it, priced at the same point as a competitor card, and with a different "product bundle" so that the retail consumer will take it to the cash desk.

This card isnt about the TPU community, but about Best Buy, Media Markt, Currys, High Street Shopping etc.

I hear what you're saying. Sometimes I forget that there are people out there that will drop a bunch of money on something and not research it first....:shadedshu

 

[Hustler]

That was because AMD messed with ROPs. In this new SKU, only the SP (with it TMU) counts and core clock speed are lowered. Rest is the same. There's a real chance that these can unlock to HD 6950 1GB since they'll most likely reuse boards.

Yeah maybe they have learnt from their mistake this time, anyway, i would have thought the sensible thing to do from a marketing point of view would be to discontinue the 6850 and 6870, and release this as a budget 7830.

$150 7830
$200 7850
$250 7870

This line up Would make alot more sense.

 

[Completely Bonkers]

I hear what you're saying. Sometimes I forget that there are people out there that will drop a bunch of money on something and not research it first....:shadedshu

Yes, Graphics Cards are getting like mobile phone industry. There are so many nearly-the-same products plus a merry basket of subscription package options... remember they are DESIGNED to confuse the retail shopper. Hate that.

If A>B>C then it is easy to choose A. But if there is a multi-dimensional matrix of models and options then it can be designed such that THERE IS NO SOLUTION. Mathematically, there is "no formula", you actually CANNOT OPTIMISE. So you have to play "lucky dip bingo" somewhere around the price and feature set you want. But remember that IS RELATIVE to what you see in the store on the shelf that day. Retail channel confusion. Hate that.

 

[cdawall]

I bet they had a bunch of damaged cores and wanted to make some money.

 

[TRWOV]

Why also with this when the HD7000 series is right around the corner?.... I mean seriously this news releases on a day that AMD was rumored to release details on their HD7000 series. This is really anti constructive.
The only thing I can think of is.... the HD 6970/6950 are still selling very well and instead of lowering the price on those.... make a 6930 to help get rid of more chips with higher profit.

The first HD7000 cards will be the mobile and low end cards so this one isn't overlapping with any.

 

[bear jesus]

I bet they had a bunch of damaged cores and wanted to make some money.

that's was what i was thinking while reading through the article and entire thread.

Think how many wafers are made and how many chips that almost work are on each wafer, the 570 and 6950 are chips that almost work as they should but don't quite meet the 6970 or 580 grade so with a little poking around they give them another name and disable the faulty parts, these are just chips that could not quite make the grade of 6950 and instead of just throwing them away or recycling them they are being sold relatively cheap.

To me it looks like a win win situation as long as the chips are not too chopped up, people get relatively cheap and powerful cards and AMD makes money of more chips per wafer.

 

[1Kurgan1]

It tells you something about the7k cards. Either they hope to price them somewhere in outer orbit... or they are lackluster and so AMD might as well swamp the retail channel shelves with ANOTHER same-ish product already.

Estimated pricing for the 7950 is $349, for the 7970 is $449, I haven't looked lower than that. But those cards specs are far greater than whats out there for AMD right now, so I doubt the performance being lackluster. The 7870 has slightly greater specs then a 6950, my guess is those will land around $220 - $250, And I would bet the 7850 would fill the exact price segment this card aims to, except the 7850 would use about half as much watts.