AMD price cuts

[SiliconWars]

They are all likely to have some improvements in power draw and clock speeds over 7-series but it's nothing that is going to make much of a noticable difference. It's pretty safe to buy any 7-series card right now at these prices.

 

[96Firebird]

The GHz versions have never been much cheaper than that. Maybe the Sapphire hit $330 at one point, but it's the standard 7970s that are on sale.

The chart in the OP has it the GHz at $309 now, I was hoping to find one for that price. :\

 

[RussianSensation]

Jaydip, no I didn't think for a second that HD7990 at $999 was good value. I even said when it launched a person is better off getting 2x 670s or 2x 7950 OC or 2x 7970s. At $579 now vs. $1000 GTX690, it is way better value.

I think you missed my point that NV keeps charging way higher prices in US/Canada and since gamers keep buying their cards, NV has no incentive to lower prices. That's all.

How is the 7950 at 1440p compared with SLI GTX460s? I know the GTX460 is limited on ram, but it does everything I need great at 1080p.

GTX460s were excellent overclockers. A lot of them can hit 850-875mhz and some can hit 925mhz at which point their performance was near HD5870 or faster in some titles. If I were you I would overclock them and hold out for 20nm cards given that you said they play your games well already. :thumbsup:

I only game at 1920x1200, but just thinking about performance on future games, the extra memory, and something I could hopefully keep for a couple years at least. Or based on the perf of a 660 Ti and my resolution, is it probably not worth it? Would like to hear what you think!

If you are going to be overclocking I would switch. HD7950 oc is going to be 6-29% faster than 660Ti oc. Additionally, if you get the 7950, you also get 3 free games. If you don't have those titles, then there is more incentive for you. Otherwise if those free games don't matter and you won't be overclocking, then keep the 660Ti and wait to upgrade on 20nm.

The chart in the OP has it the GHz at $309 now, I was hoping to find one for that price. :\

Or since you already know how to overclock based on your 460, you could get a $268 Asus DCUII 7970 (due to 7% off discount off $309 price + $20 MIR) and overclock it to 1050/6000.

 

[raghu78]

Damn... I have a $210 Newegg Canada gift card to spend. Time to buy this?
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product...82E16814125414
or
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product...82E16814125414

the PCS+ HD 7950 has one of the quietest coolers and is a very good card. unlocked voltage. so 1100 - 1150 mhz is quite easy with voltage tweaking. :thumbsup:

http://hexus.net/tech/reviews/graphics/35033-powercolor-radeon-hd-7950-pcs/?page=12
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Powercolor/HD_7950_PCS_Plus/26.html
http://www.vortez.net/articles_pages/powercolor_pcs_hd_7950_review,9.html
http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/powercolor_radeon_hd_7950_pcs_review,9.html

 

[RussianSensation]

Anyway, I'm not taking Nvidia's side here because I do think the 770 and 780 are priced about $50 higher than they should be, but just because AMD is trying to clear inventory for a new line up doesn't mean Nvidia is all of a sudden price gouging. When Maxwell comes out, there will be good deals on 600 and 700 series GeForce products like always. When I bought these two 760's for $250 each, AMD's 7950's were selling around $300 bucks.

1. HD7950s were selling for $250-280 before GTX760 launched. HD7950s were not $300 for a long time.

2. HD7870/HD7970 were selling for $170-200 / $300-350 for months before GTX770 launched. 12 months ago HD7970 1Ghz cards were already just $380.

AMD's HD7970Ghz launched with after-market cards on Newegg at $469 instead of $499, and undercut GTX680 from day 1 despite a 10-11% faster performance.

P.S. I think GTX760 SLI for $500 is still an very awesome deal. I wouldn't hesitate to pick it over HD7950 CF btw.

Just curious, does the 7950 have CGN Architecture? Unless I mistaken...Mantle is only going to give CGN Architecture a boost.

All retail desktop HD7000 cards are GCN, versions 1.0, except for HD7790 which is 1.1. They should all in theory benefit from Mantle. The easiest way to tell if an AMD GPU is from GCN family is if it DX11.1 support or higher. The second easiest way if it has CU (Compute Units). HD7950 supports DX11.1 and is made up of 28 CUs @ 64 shaders each = 1792 shaders.

 

[Jaydip]

Jaydip, no I didn't think for a second that HD7990 at $999 was good value. I even said when it launched a person is better off getting 2x 670s or 2x 7950 OC or 2x 7970s. At $579 now vs. $1000 GTX690, it is way better value.

I think you missed my point that NV keeps charging way higher prices in US/Canada and since gamers keep buying their cards, NV has no incentive to lower prices. That's all.



GTX460s were excellent overclockers. A lot of them can hit 850-875mhz and some can hit 925mhz at which point their performance was near HD5870 or faster in some titles. If I were you I would overclock them and hold out for 20nm cards given that you said they play your games well already. :thumbsup:



If you are going to be overclocking I would switch. HD7950 oc is going to be 6-29% faster than 660Ti oc. Additionally, if you get the 7950, you also get 3 free games. If you don't have those titles, then there is more incentive for you. Otherwise if those free games don't matter and you won't be overclocking, then keep the 660Ti and wait to upgrade on 20nm.



Or since you already know how to overclock based on your 460, you could get a $268 Asus DCUII 7970 (due to 7% off discount off $309 price + $20 MIR) and overclock it to 1050/6000.

Fair enough.You must understand that performance/price delta varies between each individual.We have people in our forum who have 3960x/4960x(despite being slower than a ~$249 processor sometime) and 4x Titan/2x 7990 and so on.These guys bought these setup not considering performance/price rather on the absolute performance which is a valid metric as well.Don't get the impression that I like to pay more for NV cards when the truth can't be further from it.I don't like to pay more than $499 for the top end but in this case it was my fault as I was interested in a better performing card than my previous 680.I like your views regarding performance/price but I believe sometime that may not be the metric buyers looking at

 

[3DVagabond]

You can already get 280x performance from an HD7970 for $280, so waiting won't get you much.

That's an assumption because the specs are the same. We don't know what, if any, performance improvements there may be from improved efficiency. The new cards might benefit from arch improvements used in Hawaii.

 

[ShintaiDK]

That's an assumption because the specs are the same. We don't know what, if any, performance improvements there may be from improved efficiency. The new cards might benefit from arch improvements used in Hawaii.

So far it seems to be the exact same chips. Also AMDs own drivers only show a single new GPU for that matter.

http://www.techpowerup.com/gpudb/2398/radeon-r9-280x.html

If thats the spec of the 280X, its a rerelease of the 7970 non GE.

 

[3DVagabond]

So far it seems to be the exact same chips. Also AMDs own drivers only show a single new GPU for that matter.

http://www.techpowerup.com/gpudb/2398/radeon-r9-280x.html

If thats the spec of the 280X, its a rerelease of the 7970 non GE.

Again, that's an assumption. Read it.

This graphics card is not released yet.
Data on this page may change in the future.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Again, that's an assumption. Read it.

Yes, and looking on the 4 other cards below. I wouldnt hold my breath.

290 and 290X is new, rest rebrands.

 

[Lonyo]

Yes, and looking on the 4 other cards below. I wouldnt hold my breath.

290 and 290X is new, rest rebrands.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4135/nvidias-geforce-gtx-560-ti-upsetting-the-250-market/2

Who knows.

 

[Silverforce11]

Yes, and looking on the 4 other cards below. I wouldnt hold my breath.

290 and 290X is new, rest rebrands.

7790, ie. GCN 1.1 could well happen, similar performance, better efficiency. Unless some serious leaks start to happen, we can all only speculate without certainty.

 

[RussianSensation]

I don't like to pay more than $499 for the top end but in this case it was my fault as I was interested in a better performing card than my previous 680.I like your views regarding performance/price but I believe sometime that may not be the metric buyers looking at

I know that price/performance is probably not a consideration for those getting $600-650 GPUs. Imagine though if Mantle brings 20-30% more performance in AAA titles to AMD cards, well that next Titan III / IV card might actually be $650 instead of $1,000. ()

 

[antef]

If you are going to be overclocking I would switch. HD7950 oc is going to be 6-29% faster than 660Ti oc. Additionally, if you get the 7950, you also get 3 free games. If you don't have those titles, then there is more incentive for you. Otherwise if those free games don't matter and you won't be overclocking, then keep the 660Ti and wait to upgrade on 20nm.

Thanks...you seem to not factor the console connection/Mantle into that. I'm assuming it's because it's best not to speculate until we see actual games and benches in a couple months, but I'm considering it now due to the 7950 sales. Since I just bought the 660 Ti this year I'd prefer something as close to break-even as possible, as opposed to getting a $300 R9 card later. So it's a question of guessing what sort of advantage GCN may provide on future titles over the next couple years. It's hard to guess but for some reason I feel "safer" having the same GPU that's in consoles, as unjustified as that may be.

 

[RussianSensation]

Thanks...you seem to not factor the console connection/Mantle into that. I'm assuming it's because it's best not to speculate until we see actual games and benches in a couple months, but I'm considering it now due to the 7950 sales. Since I just bought the 660 Ti this year I'd prefer something as close to break-even as possible, as opposed to getting a $300 R9 card later. So it's a question of guessing what sort of advantage GCN may provide on future titles over the next couple years. It's hard to guess but for some reason I feel "safer" having the same GPU that's in consoles, as unjustified as that may be.

1. Do you have any of the games that come free with 7950 (gold level)?
2. What games do you currently play the most?

 

[yacoub]

7950 and 7970 are great deals once these price drops hit, and the new cards won't have as much VRAM as these do at that price level, as weird as that is.

 

[antef]

1. Do you have any of the games that come free with 7950 (gold level)?
2. What games do you currently play the most?

I don't usually factor free games into the price since they're so often titles I wouldn't have bought anyway - however, I just checked out the selection and I could easily be interested in picking up 3 of those titles (Saints Row, Tomb Raider, Hitman? Don't know much about any of them). So I admit that does increase the value tremendously.

Currently I'm playing BF3, Dark Souls, and Arkham City. So I guess the next question is, are there any potential downsides to the switch. It appears no - the 7950 seems to have similar load power consumption despite the higher TDP, it requires the same 2x6-pin plugs, has the 3 GB VRAM, and current benches seem to put it within spitting distance of the 660 Ti. So it seems at worse I get a card that performs the same, at best a card that handles future titles better if Mantle proves advantageous and with the extra memory.

Other features I bought the 660 Ti for included FXAA, adaptive V-Sync, and GPU Boost. I think AMD has their own version of Boost but not the first two features. Will I miss them?

 

[Termie]

I do not agree with buying a 7950 to replace a 660ti. It's not a big enough difference to warrant spending at least $180AR.

 

[Bateluer]

I'm sorely tempted to pick up another 7950 3GB for Crossfire. These prices are cheap, and the 'unveiling' for Volcanic Islands was so light on the details, I'm having difficulty talking myself out of it.

 

[antef]

I do not agree with buying a 7950 to replace a 660ti. It's not a big enough difference to warrant spending at least $180AR.

I agree with today's games - it's more about thinking which will hold up better over the next two years. If the 7950 is higher end than what's shipping in the new consoles, and an API like Mantle is available for optimizations, you have to wonder, what would make it incapable of playing the newest games at 1080p even 2, 3, 4 years from now? With the 660 Ti I may find myself crunched by the 192-bit bus/2 GB RAM, or simply lacking the sort of optimizations Mantle provides. It's all speculation of course, but I know I don't want to be dropping $300 on a new card next year - so it's about wondering if a swap now will last longer.

 

[Techhog]

If I didn't have a GTX 670 already I'd snap that up in a second. Hard to believe that's what I paid for a reference GTX 460 1GB in 2010. Its not so much comparing an old card to a new one, the performance category is so much cheaper at the moment. A GTX 460 back then would be the equivalent of an HD 7850 today. For the price category of 2010 you get two steps higher in 2013 (if that makes any sense!).

Posts like this make me feel so good about purchase. I'll feel even better once I build the computer.

Even though these are clearance prices, the new series is priced well too, and Mantle is a cool idea thay gets way too much hate. I just wish AMD would also compete on the performance front. I don't want them holding GPUs back the way that CPUs are held back. I'm fine with it not beating the Titan, but it should have at least come close to it.

 

[Vesku]

Anyone who just needs an affordable 1080P card to tide them over for a year or two should get the 7950, imo. Current prices are $100 lower than when I got mine last year. If you dabble in overclocking they can match un-OCed 7970 cards once you get to ~1050/1100MHz.

 

[Bubbleawsome]

The 7770 is a pretty great budget card. I have one while I'm waiting for money (student budget) and it's pretty nice. Got it back when it was $120, now it's better. Even managed a 100GB/s memory bandwidth over the normal 72.

While it doesn't help that much over just ~76. Clocks went from stock 1000/1125 to 1100/1564.

 

[Rikard]

When these price cuts hit my country I might grab another 7950. I do not need the performance, but boys and their toys... Actually the cheapest 7950 last week was a MSI TF3, which made no sense to me. Now I suspect that they introduced the price cut one week early at MSI (by mistake?).

 

[powruser]

I snapped up an Asus 7970 DirectCU II. Was 309.99, $20 rebate, free shipping, and also had a special 7% off coupon code which was really nice. Final price $268 and change. Pretty good deal I think. Heard it might be voltage locked, but I only want to crank it up to GHz edition speeds. I don't like to go crazy with OC at this point in my life, since I keep my rigs at least 3 years and like them as quiet as possible. The triple slot cooler keeps it nice and cool and most people report the fans don't go much above 40% on auto, so should be very quiet..

It's funny because when I was younger I remember I strapped a 80mm delta fan to my vantec cck heatsink just to get those extra MHz. Thing sounded like a vacuum cleaner. Lol! Those days are looking gone. I run my 4770k at stock hehe.