AMD Radeon 7000-Series 28nm (Southern Islands) | 7990 7970 7870 7770 | Discussion

[Arkadrel]

@Skipsneeky2

how could you forget GLquake!? I demand it be put on the list too if you do make such a site ^-^
(can modern cards even run that? what about glide?)

serious note:

I think any review should have new titles in it like:

Skyrim, BF3, CoD MW 3, Batman: Arkham City..... since their probably played alot right now.

 

[skipsneeky2]

@Skipsneeky2

how could you forget GLquake!? I demand it be put on the list too if you do make such a site ^-^
(can modern cards even run that? what about glide?)

Both games are way before my time even doom but i got doom working from a collectors edition disc i was given using windows 7 32 bit...pretty awesome:biggrin:

Always wanted to try and get into quake but i would be such a major geek dork for such nostalgia i would be condemned for it

 

[blastingcap]

That's why i am here very rarely - besides having my own forum.

Join Date: Mar 2000
Posts: 34,896

You're usually at OTHER sites at launches, attempting to drum up traffic to your own site. I can't think of any other site that does this forum-involved marketing. I understand why you do it, and I even appreciate it sometimes when you give the inside scoop, but you do this every launch... you aren't here "very rarely."

I will wait for Anandtech and HardOCP to review. AT for the in-depth technical explanations that nobody else in the industry does as well, and HardOCP for their time-graphs that go beyond a simple "minimum" and "average" framerate number, at Eyefinity resolutions, for the heaviest-load games. Visiting any other sites is just gravy after those two.

 

[blastingcap]

3 x 23" 5760x1080 Eyefinity | Sapphire HD6850

How?

I recently upgraded from 5040x1050. 5760x1080 puts a dent in my framerate, but I can still play older games like TF2 and L4D2 fine with some overclocking and low or no AA to avoid the VRAM wall. But I'm semi-interested in 28nm GPUs to claw back some frames per second and to have more VRAM.

Also, I don't game much anymore, and I've found non-Eyefinity uses for going triple screen when I do game, e.g., playing Dragon Age on one screen (window mode or full) while the other 2 screens have the Rune Crafting table and Gift Giving tables up, and stuff like that.

 

[Grooveriding]

Considering the amount of excess power we have in GPUs these days, the only games worth seeing benched on the 7970 are Metro 2033, Crysis/Warhead, Crysis 2, BF3, Shogun 2, Civ V and maybe a few others I can't remember. Really all the hard-hitting DX11 titles and DX10 Crysis still makes the shortlist because it is still a hardware killer today.

Everything else out there can be taken as a given that you'll be getting more FPS than you need with a 7970, unless you are doing eyefinity benches.

 

[Hypertag]

BF3 is prob the most popular game this season many 7000 series card purchases will more then likely be based off how they perform with BF3.

So review sites stop reviewing cod4 ut3 farcry 2 and review BF3 and other newer titles or so help me god i will make my own review site and start reviewing cards with such titles as...

BF2
UT99
ut2003
0t2004
doom 95
counterstrike source

I will do this too don't doubt me i will use all the current cards even tri sli gtx580s with max settings!

be sure to test at 320x240 resolution

 

[RussianSensation]

I think a lot of people here underestimate GTX580's performance (based on TPU's benchmarks of old games), and haven't carefully compared GTX580 vs. HD6970 in the same games AMD uses in their slidedeck. Also, let's add that GTX580 overclocks another 21%.

Review 1
Review 2

Xbitlabs did an excellent Overclocked vs. Overclocked review in all the games where AMD specifically shows HD7970 dominating the HD6970.

So what happens when a review actually includes those same DX11 games that AMD uses in their slidedeck to show HD7970 dominating HD6970 (Shogun 2, Crysis 2, Unigine, STALKER: COP, Lost Planet 2)? Here we go.

GTX580 @ 935mhz is 57% faster than HD6970 @ 940mhz at 1920x1080 AA modes
GTX580 @ 935mhz is 33% faster than HD6970 @ 940mhz at 2560x1600 AA modes

I hope someone does an overclocked GTX580 vs. stock HD7970 vs. overclocked HD7970. GTX580 gains a huge amount of performance over HD6970 when overclocked in DX11 games.

I can see HD7970 being better than an overclocked GTX580 for 2560x1600 or higher due to more VRAM and higher texture filtering. But at 1920x1080/1200, an overclocked GTX580 plows an overclocked HD6970 in the very same DX11 games AMD is showing HD7970 in good light.

If this slide is correct, then HD7970 would be easily 70-80% faster than an HD6970, considering it's showing HD7970 beating GTX580 by 40-60% already. But if this is true, then HD7970 would be almost as fast as a single HD6990.

 

[Will Robinson]

Originally Posted by apoppin
That's why i am here very rarely - besides having my own forum.

Really? You have nearly 35,000 posts. You're here spamming your site all the time.

LOL..pwned +1:biggrin:

 

[AnandThenMan]

As to CharLIE, i am certain he did not read my article. He is seeing what others are telling him what i wrote. He also has an awful track record of being generally 100% wrong about Nvidia's upcoming products.

I had to read this twice. You think Charlie is generally 100% wrong about Nvidia? Everyone knows by now that Charlie is not exactly and Nvidia lover, but he has hardly been "100% wrong". In fact, he has broken several pretty significant stories, and was bang on about them.

Unlike CharLIE bitter hatred of Nvidia, i did not say an unkind word about AMD or their HD 7970 in my preview article.

Are you sure you wrote your article, or even read it? You had little positive to say about AMD at all, the whole piece to me came across as highly negative, even when the negativity was only based on wild speculation. That is not good journalism.

And yes, i have 3.0 PCIe platform - but it won't be necessary for 7970 .. and probably not necessary for 7990.

As mentioned, how can you know this without actually doing the testing? Odd comment.

FWIW, I found your article sounded pretty bitter, like a sour grapes story.

Same.

That's why i am here very rarely - besides having my own forum.

..........

Well, I have not been here regularly for a few months, I come back and silly season is in full swing. It's a lot of fun if nothing else. BTW, I am not sure why AMD is releasing GCN now instead of just waiting until actual product availability. Just so they can "keep a promise? I don't like paper launches.

 

[badb0y]

I think a lot of people here underestimate GTX580's performance (based on TPU's benchmarks of old games), and haven't carefully compared GTX580 vs. HD6970 in the same games AMD uses in their slidedeck. Also, let's add that GTX580 overclocks another 21%.

Review 1
Review 2

Xbitlabs did an excellent Overclocked vs. Overclocked review in all the games where AMD specifically shows HD7970 dominating the HD6970.

So what happens when a review actually includes those same DX11 games that AMD uses in their slidedeck to show HD7970 dominating HD6970 (Shogun 2, Crysis 2, Unigine, STALKER: COP, Lost Planet 2)? Here we go.

GTX580 @ 935mhz is 57% faster than HD6970 @ 940mhz at 1920x1080 AA modes
GTX580 @ 935mhz is 33% faster than HD6970 @ 940mhz at 2560x1600 AA modes

I hope someone does an overclocked GTX580 vs. stock HD7970 vs. overclocked HD7970. GTX580 gains a huge amount of performance over HD6970 when overclocked in DX11 games.

I can see HD7970 being better than an overclocked GTX580 for 2560x1600 or higher due to more VRAM and higher texture filtering. But at 1920x1080/1200, an overclocked GTX580 plows an overclocked HD6970 in the very same DX11 games AMD is showing HD7970 in good light.

If this slide is correct, then HD7970 would be easily 70-80% faster than an HD6970, considering it's showing HD7970 beating GTX580 by 40-60% already. But if this is true, then HD7970 would be almost as fast as a single HD6990.

We don't know how the 7970 will react to overclocks though. Since the architecture is somewhat similar to Fermi, it should show similar gains when overclocked.

 

[Ares1214]

Well, I have not been here regularly for a few months, I come back and silly season is in full swing. It's a lot of fun if nothing else. BTW, I am not sure why AMD is releasing GCN now instead of just waiting until actual product availability. Just so they can "keep a promise? I don't like paper launches.

I don't see why people complain so much. The alternative is NDA is lifted same day as launch, so we get reviews the day they are released. If there's a paper launch, we get to see benchmarks and reviews of the card a few days to a few weeks in advance, so that we can make an educated choice of whether we want to sell our current card and buy a 7970 or not. That, and then AMD can keep their promises to investors and what not, or have better marketing, so in the long run, everyone is happy.

 

[RussianSensation]

We don't know how the 7970 will react to overclocks though. Since the architecture is somewhat similar to Fermi, it should show similar gains when overclocked.

Ya, I hope it overclocks well. 925mhz sounds too conservative for 28nm. I think 7950 is going to be the star of the show. If it's basically the same chip as the 7970, unlocks & overclocks, and comes with 3GB of VRAM, I see little value in the 7970, just like 6970 was vs. 6950.

 

[Concillian]

You're usually at OTHER sites at launches, attempting to drum up traffic to your own site. I can't think of any other site that does this forum-involved marketing. I understand why you do it, and I even appreciate it sometimes when you give the inside scoop, but you do this every launch... you aren't here "very rarely."

To be fair, he was a LOT more involved before his site existed. Back in the days of Rollo being in full swing and earlier. I think he's here more than most other sites, because this "was his place" before he started his site. ABT isn't really that old.

 

[Ares1214]

Ya, I hope it overclocks well. 925mhz sounds too conservative for 28nm. I think 7950 is going to be the star of the show. If it's basically the same chip as the 7970, unlocks & overclocks, and comes with 3GB of VRAM, I see little value in the 7970, just like 6970 was vs. 6950.

I highly doubt it will unlock into a 6970, but I'd agree it will be a much better value as usual and have some sweet OC headroom. To be honest, I'm more curious how GCN responds to higher clocks, VLIW5 and VLIW4 could be OC'ed 20% but only get like 12% more performance, where as say a GTX 560 could be oc'ed 25% and get 20-25% more performance.

 

[kaktus1907]

Introduction
Tahiti architecture
GNC Compute Unit
level cache Tahiti
Tahiti's ROP, texture units and the memory controller
Tahiti's Tessellator
any general-purpose computing performance improve?
GCN and Partially Resident Textures
Tahiti power control
VCE video coding technology
AMD Steady Video 2.0
Eyefinity 2.0 and DDMA
RADEON HD 7970/7950 and the larger size

PCINLIFE

 

[blastingcap]

To be fair, he was a LOT more involved before his site existed. Back in the days of Rollo being in full swing and earlier. I think he's here more than most other sites, because this "was his place" before he started his site. ABT isn't really that old.

Yes which is why I noted the date joined as well as the number of posts, unlike someone else who cited just the number of posts. I have no beef with him and occasionally appreciate one of his posts during launch times; I am just pointing out the absurdity of his saying he's on here "very rarely."

 

[blastingcap]

snip

"not dependant"

Hmm, I guess it's possible that official slides have typos, but the typo makes me wonder if these slides are legit.

 

[tviceman]

I think Apoppin's analysis will end up proving to be fairly accurate. If the card overclocks as well as the PR slides indicate, then it's obvious to me that AMD did not hit their performance targets within the maximum TDP threshold they set for this product. In other words, all that untapped performance is there at the price of a huge power draw increase (EXACTLY like the gtx480) and will need some deep tweaking and respins to realize it's potential (EXACTLY like the gtx580).

There's nothing at all wrong with this from a consumer point of view. Rather than waiting to release a product for another six-eight months to optimize transistor types and do respins, AMD decided to release now and will likely work on Tahiti a little more to give it that extra shot of speed without blowing the power budget out the window. So I think we'll see Tahiti v2.0 about 6-8 months from now exactly like Nvidia moving from GF100 to GF110.

 

[Awkward]

I think Apoppin's analysis will end up proving to be fairly accurate.

not at all surprising you would think that

 

[AnandThenMan]

I don't see why people complain so much.

Don't get me wrong, I am looking forward to the reviews. But at the same time, I'll be frustrated because I can't buy one, and I've got the upgrade bug again. I still think AMD/Nvidia etc. are better served in the long run if they make actual availability coincide with NDA lifts. Just my opinion.

...

Seems like a really cynical way of looking at it. We could apply this logic to just about any product, overclock it and see nice improvements at the expense of major diminishing power draw returns. The bottom line is, if AMD has a product that can ship and give ~30% better performance than their competitor, why in the world would they wait? If companies waited until their hardware was "just right" then nothing would ever get released.

 

[GotNoRice]

Are we expecting to see reviews become available right at midnight tonight?

 

[badb0y]

Are we expecting to see reviews become available right at midnight tonight?

If NDA ends on the 22nd I am expecting reviews any minute now...It's already December 22nd in China lol.

 

[NoStateofMind]

nvm

 

[AdamK47]

they are supposed to be backwards compatible so it shouldn't matter what PCIE it is

Oh, of course. Let him run it at run it at PCI-E 1.0 speeds then. The card is backwards compatible so it shouldn't matter.

 

[RussianSensation]

Introduction

Tahiti architecture
GNC Compute Unit
level cache Tahiti
Tahiti's ROP, texture units and the memory controller
Tahiti's Tessellator
any general-purpose computing performance improve?
GCN and Partially Resident Textures
Tahiti power control
VCE video coding technology
AMD Steady Video 2.0
Eyefinity 2.0 and DDMA
RADEON HD 7970/7950 and the larger size

"RADEON HD 7970 with 32 ROP, 32 of each cycle to complete the color processing and 128 Z / Stencil treatment, but because of the higher effective bandwidth, in the real world performance than the theoretical value of 50% faster as the Cayman ."


Impessive. So Tahiti's 32 ROPs ~ 48 Cayman ROPs.