AMD Radeon HD 9970 Specifications Leaked – Twice as fast as GTX 780 (ChipLoco rumor)

[Skurge]

So we ignore now that AMD sent those cards to the reviewer because there were no custom designs...
BTW: The 7970 went on sale in august - nearly 1 1/2 months after the launch.

I guess nothing new on the AMD side. D:

No. 7970 was launched 22 December and was on Sale 9 January. Thats about 3 weeks.

I don't even understand what you guys are talking about. There were custom cards available on the 9 Junary launch. Some of them clocked at 1000mhz, but those were not the cards used in 680 reviews and I think that was fair. There were custom cards before the 770 launched. Some clocked at 1100mhz and they weren't used in the 770 reviews and I think that was also fair. Why should this be any different? I'm pretty sure either sapphire or HIS or XFX will have custom overclocked cards and I don't want to see them in the launch reviews. I would rather see them in a seperate review against other custom 780s.

That would be the best for everyone. People who want to see stock vs stock and custom vs custom. Why would you want anything else when all the information is available and kept seperate so as not to alienate people.

 

[Saylick]

Skurge, they are talking about the GHz Edition, not the vanilla 7970, hence the summer release.
Beyond that, I have no idea (read: absolutely zero) about everything else. *shrug

 

[3DVagabond]

Skurge, they are talking about the GHz Edition, not the vanilla 7970, hence the summer release.
Beyond that, I have no idea (read: absolutely zero) about everything else. *shrug

You're ahead of 2/3's of the people in the conversation.

 

[Abwx]

This thread isn't about a ridiculous rumor anymore. It's just the same people arguing over nothing forever.

You actualy answered to a random generated post...

 

[Imouto]

You actualy answered to a random generated post...

Just noticed. Made more sense than any other in the last ~5 pages.

 

[stahlhart]

If all of you don't get back on topic, now, I'm going to take it as an indication that you're all done discussing the HD 9970, and I'm locking the thread.
-- stahlhart

 

[NIGELG]

If all of you don't get back on topic, now, I'm going to take it as an indication that you're all done discussing the HD 9970, and I'm locking the thread.
-- stahlhart

I believe there is no such thing as ''the HD 9970''.

I have distant recollection.
-- stahlhart

 

[Saylick]

I believe there is no such thing as ''the HD 9970''.

Hahaha, GJ being so cheeky about it.

But honestly, I don't see a reason to lock a thread when it's essentially dead. The card is coming out in less than 3 days. Any speculation at this point is going to be worthless with the unveil around the corner. With that said, for all intents and purposes, this is the last comment I am making in this thread.

 

[iMacmatician]

Anyhow, if this could be the anti-Cayman and actually live up to the hype that'd be great for everyone. As much as I'd like these numbers we're seeing to be true, we've all been burned before in the past.

I've been fairly pessimistic about specs/performance for Hawaii after the massive Cayman hype. But if Hawaii is as good as the recent leaks claim, then that's massively refreshing. It would also explain why some recent (and at least one older) leak(s) seem to claim that the upcoming AMD lineup will still have Tahiti.

 

[KingFatty]

As for pricing these new cards, I understand that you should pay more for getting higher performance. But any idea about the price per performance value? Like, will these be comparable to cards you can get today as far as value?

 

[BallaTheFeared]

It's unlikely these will beat current AMD and 6xx series Nvidia chips from a perf/$ standpoint.

Even if it's $500 it won't beat the sub $200 7950s for instance.

 

[Face2Face]

It's unlikely these will beat current AMD and 6xx series Nvidia chips from a perf/$ standpoint.

Even if it's $500 it won't beat the sub $200 7950s for instance.

I will +1 that.

$400 for two 7950's a killer deal for the performance you get. I am thoroughly impressed with the grunt of two 7950's while playing games. The R290X I think will need to be heavily overclock to match the performance of two avg overclocked 7950's.

 

[DownTheSky]

I will +1 that.

$400 for two 7950's a killer deal for the performance you get. I am thoroughly impressed with the grunt of two 7950's while playing games. The R290X I think will need to be heavily overclock to match the performance of two avg overclocked 7950's.

Yes but you won't get any of the Crossfire problems and the new card will perform way better in memory/bandwidth limited situations.

 

[Face2Face]

Yes but you won't get any of the Crossfire problems and the new card will perform way better in memory/bandwidth limited situations.

But it's also $200 more $$. I didn't think memory bandwidth was ever Tahiti's problem, and most cards will do 1500Mhz pretty easy on the GDDR5 and with it being on a 384bit bus equals a lot of bandwidth. I always thought the lack of ROPS was the issue for gaming @ high resolutions with filters...?

 

[raghu78]

It's unlikely these will beat current AMD and 6xx series Nvidia chips from a perf/$ standpoint.

Even if it's $500 it won't beat the sub $200 7950s for instance.

perf never scales linearly with price. normally the USD 200 - 300 cards provide the best perf/$. remember some of the best bang for buck cards of their times 8800 GT, HD 4870, HD 5850, HD 6950 and GTX 560 Ti were all in this price segment.

 

[Skurge]

But it's also $200 more $$. I didn't think memory bandwidth was ever Tahiti's problem, and most cards will do 1500Mhz pretty easy on the GDDR5 and with it being on a 384bit bus equals a lot of bandwidth. I always thought the lack of ROPS was the issue for high rez with filters gaming...?

Looks like bandwidth for 290X is the same as Tahiti so I think ROPS and frontend are the biggest improvement. The shaders are fed better.

 

[Face2Face]

Looks like bandwidth for 290X is the same as Tahiti so I think ROPS and frontend are the biggest improvement. The shaders are fed better.

That's what I thought

 

[thilanliyan]

It's unlikely these will beat current AMD and 6xx series Nvidia chips from a perf/$ standpoint.

Even if it's $500 it won't beat the sub $200 7950s for instance.

Of course it won't. How often are the newest high end cards the best bang for buck?

79XX series, Titan, 780, etc all had worse bang for buck compared to prior cards at release.

 

[KingFatty]

perf never scales linearly with price. normally the USD 200 - 300 cards provide the best perf/$. remember some of the best bang for buck cards of their times 8800 GT, HD 4870, HD 5850, HD 6950 and GTX 560 Ti were all in this price segment.

Surely AMD will come out with an equivalent card on this new architecture for the $200-300 price range? Or is this just for the higher enthusiast price range (but not uber enthusiast)?

 

[MK9]

How long does it usually take after launch for non-reference cards to appear?

 

[(sic)Klown12]

How long does it usually take after launch for non-reference cards to appear?

Depends, but with AMD they seem to come out not long after launch (sometimes right at launch) if yields are good and they have decent availability. If they're supply constrained it could be be weeks or more, like the 5870 release if I remember correctly.

 

[3DVagabond]

Looks like bandwidth for 290X is the same as Tahiti so I think ROPS and frontend are the biggest improvement. The shaders are fed better.

Tahiti needs to run 6700MHz on the RAM to match a stock 290X. So, not quite.

 

[ozzy702]

Tahiti needs to run 6700MHz on the RAM to match a stock 290X. So, not quite.

Not to mention a larger die and higher transistor density. It will be a very nice card and a solid incremental step up from the 7970.

 

[RussianSensation]

Tahiti needs to run 6700MHz on the RAM to match a stock 290X. So, not quite.

I bet that VRAM on Hawaii will hit 6200-6300 mhz. AMD likely capped it to hit its TDP target. In some of those benchmarks the Hawaii trashes a 7970Ghz. I bet with more ROPs the chip is now taking more advantage of the available bandwidth as there are more ROPs that need to be fed. Otoh, I believe Tahiti XT had too much memory bandwidth like 4890 in its day while the GPU was bottleneck from a pixel fill-rate, texture, ACE and geometry engine perspective. When I overclock my VRAM to 1800mhz, in some games the scores barely move and I am sitting at 345.6 GB/sec of bandwidth or 31% over a stock 7970 card. I think 400GB/sec is still way too excessive for a chip like Hawaii but perhaps AMD is testing 512-bit for their future GPU generations with GDDR6. It's a good "pipe cleaner" to get ready for their 20nm generation and see how GCN architecture responds to higher memory bandwidth as it scales. I was actually anticipating Hawaii to come in at 384-bit with 7Gbps VRAM. Interesting decision AMD made here with the 512-bit bus that's usually more expensive, increases PCB complexity and uses more power.

In 4-5 years once 4K becomes more mainstream we are going to need GPUs with 1GB/sec memory bandwidth.

 

[raghu78]

I bet that VRAM on Hawaii will hit 6200-6300 mhz. AMD likely capped it to hit its TDP target. In some of those benchmarks the Hawaii trashes a 7970Ghz. I bet with more ROPs the chip is now taking more advantage of the available bandwidth while Tahiti XT had too much memory bandwidth like 4890 in its day. When I overclock mine to 1850mhz, in some games the scores barely move.

even a conservative 6000 mhz takes the bandwidth to a massive 384 Gb/s. 6300 Mhz takes it to just above 400 Gb/s. but as usual the core overclocks are going to be the ones which provide the most perf increase. so Hawaii with voltage overclocking and 1.3 Ghz should be a treat as the 44 ROPs will allow good perf scaling. so the best approach is to experiment and find the highest core / memory OC pair which gives the best perf.