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

[badb0y]

http://nl.hardware.info/reviews/2472/39/amd-radeon-hd-7970-review-conclusie

First review I have found.

Not sure how I feel about this yet. More data is needed to reach a conclusion :hmm:

EDIT: It's an odd card sometime it smashes everything and sometimes it doesn't do that great....

 

[blastingcap]

http://nl.hardware.info/reviews/2472/39/amd-radeon-hd-7970-review-conclusie

First review I have found. *snip*

I think this gives you the honor of setting up the "Official HD79xx reviews" thread or something.

Also, I am a bit bummed by their Eyefinity treatment, as I have no digital adapter and don't want to pay for one.

"Like the two previous generations, the Radeon HD 7000 series supports Eyefinity course, AMD's technology to send up to 6 screens. The restriction that a maximum of two screens via VGA, DVI or HDMI can be connected remains: for three or more screens display port is required. The advent of very cheap DisplayPort to DVI converters has truly earned it's no real barrier anymore.

Another innovation is that Eyefinity 2.0 now offers the possibility to display all its own audio channel to send. Existing AMD cards can only send audio to a monitor, the rest is silence. This multipoint audio system offers interesting possibilities. So you, when you do video conferencing, multi-monitor setup with the sound of the call will actually hear from the screen when the application is visible. In the Windows control panel you will be with Eyefinity 2.0 also as much as audio devices connected monitors to see, possibly supplemented by a separate (onboard) sound card. Of course you can set yourself what audio outputs at all you do and do not want to use.

With the Radeon HD 7970 AMD speaks about Eyefinity 2.0 which refers to a number of improvements. First, it is now possible to even three or more 3D screens to combine . In addition, AMD's drivers optimized. So there will soon support for custom resolutions and you from the update scheduled for next February at last to a multi-monitor setup choose on which screen you will see the Windows taskbar. These driver changes are also all available for Eyefinity existing video cards."

EDIT: I see that they bundle a mini-DP adapter, but I suspect that's for the 7970 reference version only and that the 7950, which will have non-reference models available immediately, will not include the adapter. I dunno if I should wait for Kepler or not... anyone heard anything about Kepler natively supporting 3 monitors?

 

[Ares1214]

Damn its flying (near matching 6990) in Skyrim, Shogun 2, Crysis 2..

Yeh fortunately for me, Shogun 2 and Skyrim, along with BF3, are my main 3 games :awe: Although I must say, a more in depth review would be nice. I want to see overclocking, more games, non-reference cooling and noise, and so on before I make my choice. Most important pricing, along with the difference between this and the 7950. If it costs the same as the GTX 580, its a nice deal, anymore, and to be honest, isn't quite such a blow away bargain.

 

[Ares1214]

Not sure how I feel about this yet. More data is needed to reach a conclusion :hmm:

EDIT: It's an odd card sometime it smashes everything and sometimes it doesn't do that great....

Same boat here. Performance doesnt seem high enough off the bat to warrant an unquestionable success, but its good enough to not be disappointing, so more features and details are needed to decide.

 

[zebrax2]

http://nl.hardware.info/reviews/2472/39/amd-radeon-hd-7970-review-conclusie

Compared to the 6970 it looks damn good but not so much in comparison with 580

 

[Silverforce11]

Obviously different games/optimization will have the biggest impact on performance, but seriously for immature drivers for a totally new architecture, i am very impressed so far.

Plus, less power use.

LOAD

IDLE

Edit: F1 2011 is severely CPU bound, refer to other reviews on CPU OC performance.

 

[badb0y]

I was like :awe:

Then I saw this :

And I was like :|

 

[lavaheadache]

I wasn't really that excited when I read that review until I got to Skyrim, the one game I am playing right now and the 7970 is simply stunning in that game. Looks like I will be forced into the card, lol

 

[tviceman]

No, your logic makes no sense. If they release a product with a LOT of OC headroom, it means their chip is actually very capable, but they run it lower to fit with a designated target TDP. Power use efficiency is their major focus. IF they release a gpu with crap OC headroom it means they were force to clock it higher to meet a perf target at the expense of TDP.

If I would have said the exact same thing about Nvidia GPUs (and it is even more true regarding Nvidia GPU's) you would have agreed with me.

If a chip generally has great overclocking capabilities, why don't the chip makers capitalize on this and release faster chips? Intel could have come to market with 4+ ghz sandy bridge chips. The answer is simple. They want their products within a certain TDP, and across the board 3.4ghz was the fastest speed they found that most of their chips could operate at within 95 watts. If they could clock the card to the moon without dramatically raising it's power consumption, they would. But instead they have to settle for the maximum average clock for their TDP that the yields are giving them. The same thing applies to Nvidia and AMD.

Intel has been the proof in the pudding mantra about this. All of their "K" variant processors overclock like crazy. But Intel is all about performance per watt, almost to a fault. Intel's mantra regarding performance and power consumption has been stated in Anandtech articles several times (it's alluding me right now).

If AMD could clock Tahiti higher and still get really great yields at their ~250w power envelope, they would. Instead, they are hitting the thermal wall well before the chip's potential has been completely tapped. The chip is significantly smaller than GF110 and it's on a smaller node process, but yet it's going to consume as much power under load and have lots of overclock potential (just like Fermi). It's because there is room for improvement in the chip and we'll likely see it in the fall with a new Tahiti.

 

[lavaheadache]

I was like :awe:

Then I saw this :

And I was like :|

almost looks like a cpu bottleneck in F1

 

[tviceman]

http://nl.hardware.info/reviews/2472/39/amd-radeon-hd-7970-review-conclusie

First review I have found. Most benchmarks seem to put it at like 15% faster than the GTX 580, or atleast the ones that matter:

Exactly as I said. In ultra high resolutions or multi monitor setups, it will excel. But in situations where vram is not an issue, it will only be 5-20% faster than a gtx580.

EDIT: And the review found it to be a fairly loud card too. http://nl.hardware.info/reviews/2472/38/amd-radeon-hd-7970-review-geluidsproductie

Looks like Apoppin was spot on.

 

[skipsneeky2]

I wasn't really that excited when I read that review until I got to Skyrim, the one game I am playing right now and the 7970 is simply stunning in that game. Looks like I will be forced into the card, lol

I would only expect you to buy it look at that arsenal of yours:biggrin:

Waiting for a more official review site before i jump to conclusions but looks like a respectable card but not $679 impressive.

At $499-$540 count me in

 

[lavaheadache]

I would only expect you to buy it look at that arsenal of yours:biggrin:

Waiting for a more official review site before i jump to conclusions but looks like a respectable card but not $679 impressive.

At $499-$540 count me in

I actually have sold 2 480's, and 2 460's very recently =)

Anyhow, I agree... I can't in right mind spend $600+. I hope not anyway:hmm:


I have officially started refreshing New Egg.

 

[badb0y]

Exactly as I said. In ultra high resolutions or multi monitor setups, it will excel. But in situations where vram is not an issue, it will only be 5-20% faster than a gtx580.

EDIT: And the review found it to be a fairly loud card too. http://nl.hardware.info/reviews/2472/38/amd-radeon-hd-7970-review-geluidsproductie

Looks like Apoppin was spot on.

That graph makes no sense to me.... HD 6870 is a loud card? It consumes less than a system with HD 6970 but is somehow harder to cool? Did they F up the cooling system?

 

[toyota]

I actually have sold 2 480's, and 2 460's very recently =)

Anyhow, I agree... I can't in right mind spend $600+. I hope not anyway:hmm:


I have officially started refreshing New Egg.

you live in fantasyland if think the cards will be available for sale now. I cant figure out why you insist this is more than a paper launch.

 

[Silverforce11]

http://vr-zone.com/articles/amd-rad...ocking-benchmarks-and-conclusion/14308-4.html

Holy smokes, 1125mhz OC with just default CCC. <- no voltage mods. Insane.

OMG, AMD onto a winner with this HPC architecture.

 

[tviceman]

That graph makes no sense to me.... HD 6870 is a loud card? It consumes less than a system with HD 6970 but is somehow harder to cool? Did they F up the cooling system?

They probably switched out the hd6870 with the hd6990. Anand will give us more reliable results with the fan noise. But if it's as loud as the review indicates, the reference version of this card will be awful.

 

[badb0y]

They probably switched out the hd6870 with the hd6990. Anand will give us more reliable results with the fan noise. But if it's as loud as the review indicates, the reference version of this card will be awful.

Yea your right about that.....but based on those power consumption numbers something seems off...

http://vr-zone.com/articles/amd-rad...ocking-benchmarks-and-conclusion/14308-4.html

Holy smokes, 1125mhz OC with just default CCC. <- no voltage mods. Insane.

That's it I'm in

 

[HurleyBird]

http://vr-zone.com/articles/amd-rad...ocking-benchmarks-and-conclusion/14308-4.html

Holy smokes, 1125mhz OC with just default CCC.

Wow, things just got interesting again!

 

[lavaheadache]

you live in fantasyland if think the cards will be available for sale now. I cant figure out why you insist this is more than a paper launch.

Let me hope, What's it to you?

If it doesn't happen so what... This is more for fun than anything

 

[badb0y]

Let me hope, What's it to you?

If it doesn't happen so what... This is more for fun than anything

I like this guy :thumbsup:

VR-Zone says 549$ for the card. So I sell off my HD 6950 for 200~ ish and I spend 350.

 

[tviceman]

http://vr-zone.com/articles/amd-rad...ocking-benchmarks-and-conclusion/14308-4.html

Holy smokes, 1125mhz OC with just default CCC. <- no voltage mods. Insane.

Tessellation performance is through the roof. Destroys the gtx580. But in every game they have benchmarked:

bf3 < 20&#37; faster than gtx580
batman AC < 10% faster
crysis 2 < 10% faster
AvP < 20% faster
sf4 - slower than gtx580

Wow. I guess having a triple monitor setup or "Nvidia amounts of tessellation" is a requirement for this card to shine.

 

[nanaki333]

Let me hope, What's it to you?

If it doesn't happen so what... This is more for fun than anything

word! my ready to replace my xfire 6970 with some xfire 7970 lovin. my sb-e is hungry

there's always hope!

 

[toyota]

Let me hope, What's it to you?

If it doesn't happen so what... This is more for fun than anything

you might as well hope for a million bucks though. even that one review that is up mentions the cards will be available sometime in January. you are the only one I have come across that seems to think otherwise. :biggrin:

 

[skipsneeky2]

Better load and idle power usage then a gtx580 15&#37; faster loving it so far at first i was happy if it was 30% better with the same consumption but 15% better with lower consumption suites me fine.

Not years better but the fact its sipping less power then any of the last gen high end single gpu counterparts while outperforming them is rather impressive.

Amd is large and in charge with this card one can hope more initial driver updates can open up the envelope even more.