Huh? There was basically no reason for the switch to vliw4. They still increased the size of the gpu, anyway. IMO the big disappointment of 6970 was that it was a "new" process, they had 15 months to build it, it was larger than the card it replaced, yet it was only 15-20% faster. Factor in the time it took to make it and the larger die size, plus the immeciate switch to GCN, and vliw4 starts to look kind of like a turd, doesn't it? Unless, of course, it really is just a minor iterative improvement to vliw5. I was simply giving AMD the benefit of the doubt.
VLIW4 didn't make a huge difference in games. They likely could have released a 1600 shader 6870 and had it be faster in games than the 6970 (Maybe even the 580?). The Fire Pro release was a pretty big improvement overall though than the previous gen VLIW5 card. It was as fast or faster, depending on the application, cheaper, used less power, and due to that, single slot. All of which is far more important in workstations than in gaming rigs.
To me, nVidia has been very quiet.
Maybe they don't want to get AMD's expectations up?
Where did you get this from? The 480 was a bad card for lots of reasons. The least of which was perf/$. Although, it wasn't good at that metric either.
The price of the 5870 matched the "perceived" competitive climate. AMD believed that the release of a card even better than the 580 was eminent. A 512 core card running at competitive clocks and a 225W TDP was supposed to be out before year's end. They priced the 5870 accordingly. When the 7970 was released when was the rumored release date of it's likely next gen competitor? Q2 2012.
Pulling arbitrary numbers and trying to say they add up to anything meaningful just shows either a complete absence of understanding business. Or, an attempt to baffle people with BS. You reporting that the 7970 is only 6% faster than the 580 makes me believe it's the 2nd reason more than the 1st.
The 7970 is priced where it is because that's where AMD believes they will sell everyone they make as fast as they can make them and still be able to justify it's price against it's competitor's offering.
At least the 5xxx series offered the first DX11 gpu, which was a selling point people are still waiting to matter. 7xxx doesn't bring anything more than a few more fps.
The stock cooler is garbage, no question, a problem they solved with 5 series by moving to a vapor chamber, the power draw of a 580 is slightly higher than that of the 480 in Furmark, however there is another problem there.. All those initial reviews were using Furmark... Which is a problem in of itself.
Nvidia's 5 series clearly improved on some things, but a lot of it has to do with the cooler design as well. Any blower cooler out there is garbage, the 7970 is no exception.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pEYJI8B4-kU
Some decent points prior to you making this one.
About all any card can bring over the previous series if we are not at the introduction of a new DX API is 'a few more fps'.
With feet firmly planted on the Earth not the Moon, it's safe to say when nvidia releases their true high end flagship, all it's going to bring is 'a few more fps' as well. Looking on past history for a loooong time, you'll get a card that is about 20% to 25% faster than the 7970 for the same or a higher cost.
All this pooh poohing on the 7970 is getting old. You just have to look at the overclocked benches and insane overclocking ability of the card to know that there is an iteration of the 7970 coming that is going to be even more smoking fast than the current one.
7970 48% faster than an overclocked 580.
7970 72% faster than an overclocked 580.
The card is a beast.
It's down to nvidia to get their act together and fix whatever issues they have and get a release out sooner than later, or they'll be competing with a 7970 refresh performing like the one above and quite likely even better than that, not a 7970.
If you don't like the price, then high end GPUs are not for you, don't worry about it if you don't want to buy it - other consumers will take care of that. If they start to lose interest the card will get cheaper, if they don't, it will continue to sell for $550. Economics 101.
The 480 isn't a bad card, are we really having this discussion?
Was the i7-920 a bad chip because you could only get 3.2Ghz with the stock cooler? Is the i5-2500k a bad chip because it hits 80C at 4Ghz with the stock cooler?
Was the 6970 a bad card because the 480 was cheaper and provided the same overall performance while offering drastically more features and tess performance?
I didn't think so.
The 5870 was priced lower than the 7970 is, while beating the 285 by more than the 7970 beats the 580. You can make any old excuse you want, the fact remains the reasoning for ignoring the benefits of Nvidia over AMD no longer include performance per dollar with competitive release prices on competitive products. The 580 wasn't even mentioned, you're thinking of the 480.
I didn't pull any numbers Sherlock, I used the wrong one. There is a difference and it would be nice if you could figure that out on your own without me having to explain it. However the difference between 6%, which is what I said, and 11%, which is what I meant doesn't change the logic behind anything I said. Point of fact is you were unable to actually discuss what I said, and instead used a common board tactic of picking irrelevant points to discuss.
I don't think AMD is moving as many 7970 as you want to believe. I don't really care what Nvidia is doing with their last gen product that was overpriced in it's own right. The state of the gaming industry isn't as such where releasing a few months early is going to make or break anyone. Are you seeing the same benches I am? Everyone's getting playable FPS, only tools and idiots assume their gaming experience changes because they have paid out the wazoo for the latest and greatest.
At least the 5xxx series offered the first DX11 gpu, which was a selling point people are still waiting to matter. 7xxx doesn't bring anything more than a few more fps.
@Lonyo Your opinion doesn't make things fact.
@Lonyo Your opinion doesn't make things fact.
@Grooveriding
1600p is different than what I'm talking about, and that needs to be clear. What some people value, may not be what others value. When I make comments about something such as this I'm speaking on what is important to me, and 1600p isn't. While I'm aware it is for you, my comments weren't directed towards that type of system.
BF3 @ 1600p with 1.5GB vram is commendable, however 860 core "factory" overclock compared to the most they could get is senseless and plays into the favoritism [H] is known for. I could see 1000Mhz vs 860, but 1.26 vs factory?
Would it make sense for me to run around comparing my 950 core 470s to factory clocked 7970s? No, it really wouldn't air makes more sense than comparing water clocks, but even still I use the 1300 core water cooled results.
Also 38 mins in a competitive FPS isn't really what I'd call acceptable for play, nor are 21 stock mins and 29 overclocked mins in Deus. Having those types of requent fps drops would detract from the overall game experience more so than lower avg fps. Not that the 580 is producing ideal fps, it is however from what I've experienced producing a smoother gaming experience.
yet the result calculated has a minimum fps listed as 9.
The 7970 is producing a smoother game experience in BF3 but not in Deus.
The games we're discussing don't have built in benchmarks
The 5870 was priced lower than the 7970 is, while beating the 285 by more than the 7970 beats the 580. You can make any old excuse you want, the fact remains the reasoning for ignoring the benefits of Nvidia over AMD no longer include performance per dollar with competitive release prices on competitive products. The 580 wasn't even mentioned, you're thinking of the 480.
Cayman was disappointing because it was planed for TSMC 32nm node, but that got canceled and AMD had to backport everything they could to 40nm at the last minute.
Are you dense or just can't read a graph? Any dip below refresh rate can be noticeable, I need a near constant 60fps to really enjoy a game. OC7970 stays above 60fps for 95% of the time and GTX580 is almost always below 60fps mark and yet you say that GTX580 provides smoother gameplay in deust ex? Just WOW
Are you dense or just can't read a graph? Any dip below refresh rate can be noticeable, I need a near constant 60fps to really enjoy a game. OC7970 stays above 60fps for 95% of the time and GTX580 is almost always below 60fps mark and yet you say that GTX580 provides smoother gameplay in deust ex? Just WOW
What you forgot to add is that GTX580 ($430-600) is priced higher than the GTX285 (~$300) as well.
What you forgot to add is that the GTX295 was $480 and the only GTX590 on newegg is $749.
It seems to me graphic cards are overall more expensive (and the 6990 and GTX590 are hard to find).