AMD 8000M Series To Debut at CES

[RussianSensation]

And they are offering a good price - about $150. The 7950/670 go for about $420 here. If I had sold the 5850 then, I'd been happy to spend $250-odd for the upgrade. Now my dilemma is do I sell the card and buy a GPU - although I honestly don't have any games that are unplayable. I mean, the 5850 still plays all recent games at 1920x1080 at Low/Med settings (typically no MSAA).

If your 5850 plays most of your games at decent settings, just overclock it more. At 725mhz stock clocks, it's not unusual for these chips to overclock to 850-900mhz on air. If it's so difficult to sell used cards in your country, wouldn't that mean the high $420 prices of HD7950/670 cards will plummet on the used market once next generation launches? Since next generation is still based on 28nm, you might be able to pick up a GTX670/7970 for very cheap prices in the used market and those cards may not be that much slower than the latest and greatest HD8000/GTX700. I doubt your 5850 will drop more than $50 in resale value but those $420 cards will probably lose $150 of value by Q2 2013. If I were you I would overclock the 5850 and hold out for another 5-6 months and buy a used GTX670/7970 card once they are no longer viewed as 'new tech' in your country on the used market.

640 GCN SP is a lot more than 640 VLIW4/5 SP.

HD7870M is a Cape Verde 28nm GCN chip. HD8870M vs. HD7870M is not GCN vs. VLIW. HD7870M (GCN 1.0) > HD8870M (GCN 1.0). Why didn't they call it HD8770M? See now why it's so confusing?

The Tflops numbers you listed for the 8870M only applies at full 775Mhz turbo. Without its 0.896Tflop. AMD took a 7870M chip, lowered the clocks and enabled turbo while speeding up memory. Placed a new sticker and called it a day. AMD writing 992Gflops on their slide without saying its due to turbomode is...misleading.

Ya, that's what I am saying that it's misleading. They replaced low end VLIW cards like HD7670M with GCN-based HD8870M at the same price. If you don't follow the mobile dGPU sector closely, you'd automatically assume that HD8870M > HD7870M but who in the world thinks HD8870M is a price replacement for HD7670M, unless you are AMD. :hmm:

 

[Silverforce11]

HD7870M is a Cape Verde 28nm GCN chip. HD8870M vs. HD7870M is not GCN vs. VLIW. HD7870M (GCN 1.0) > HD8870M (GCN 1.0). Why didn't they call it HD8770M? See now why it's so confusing?

Yeah this is pretty BS and lame, renaming and moving up the number while going down in perf. LAME.

 

[thilanliyan]

I am sorry but that type of marketing practice is unacceptable and a disservice to the consumers.

When was marketing about providing a "good" service? It is about separating your money from your wallet!

 

[SirPauly]

This says you can mix different generations for crossfire. Or, at least they planned on it. Whether or not it was ever actually implemented, I don't know. It does raise the possibility of mixing GCN with VLIW4 though.

That would be a neat ability to mix different generations -- for example an 5850 with 6870 or an 6970 with 7870.

 

[theprodigalrebel]

If your 5850 plays most of your games at decent settings, just overclock it more. At 725mhz stock clocks, it's not unusual for these chips to overclock to 850-900mhz on air. If it's so difficult to sell used cards in your country, wouldn't that mean the high $420 prices of HD7950/670 cards will plummet on the used market once next generation launches? Since next generation is still based on 28nm, you might be able to pick up a GTX670/7970 for very cheap prices in the used market and those cards may not be that much slower than the latest and greatest HD8000/GTX700. I doubt your 5850 will drop more than $50 in resale value but those $420 cards will probably lose $150 of value by Q2 2013. If I were you I would overclock the 5850 and hold out for another 5-6 months and buy a used GTX670/7970 card once they are no longer viewed as 'new tech' in your country on the used market.

You always make sense.

I live in India BTW. Yeah, I just need to fend off the upgrade itch. My GDDR memory doesn't overclock AT ALL so I left it at stock. The core however is OK until around 830MHz. However, I had to dial it down after I got the Windows 8 Upgrade. It ran fine before for as long as I had the card - but in Windows 8 (or rather MSI Afterburner in Windows 8), I get some odd flashing, particularly when scrolling (in a browser, in Explorer, doesn't matter - scrolling causes it to break into fits). Issue went away after I uninstalled that application.

So I have it set to 775Mhz which is the max CCC will allow. To go any further, I have to use MSI Afterburner and the scrolling glitch returns.

I don't really have any faith in the used market here though - at best, you will find budget-oriented stuff ($50-$100) but nothing with any significant power. Even if you do find a rare listing for more enthusiast-class hardware, it's always some dude unwilling to ship and looking for in-person-exchange only. And I am always in the wrong city.

Thanks for reinforcing the 'hold on to the card' sentiment. Guess I'll wait and just work on patience.