Right but in the hands of overclockers?
HD7950 800mhz 1792 shaders
HD7970Ghz 1050mhz 2048 shaders (50% faster theoretical)
vs. Real world overclocking
http://www.legionhardware.com/artic...z_edition_7950_iceq_xsup2_boost_clock,13.html
That's the whole point of AMD's 2nd tier cards -- if they leave ROPs and memory bandwidth intact, you can usually overclock to 10% within the flagship's overclocked performance.
Looks like my prediction that 980 might suffer collateral damage between a $389 390X and a Fiji Pro might be closer to reality with these specs. I knew it was a reasonable guesstimate that AMD would have a ~3300-3800 shader Fiji Pro since it would be madness to throw out the non-100% yielding die.
Look at the specs and now imagine full blown overclocking.
Look how Fiji PRO has the same 128 ROPs intact (!). ROPs are easily one of the most important aspects of why HD5850/6950/7950/R9 290 performed so well compared to the flagship once both were overclocked. NV often cuts ROPs which is why there tends to be a bigger difference between their 2nd tier cards. For example if you max overclock a 970 and a 980, the 16% performance gap remains. You can't cut that down at all with clocks.
At identical clocks:
256 TMUs vs. 224 TMUs (14%)
4096 SPs vs. 3584 SPs (14%)
Identical ROPs (!!)
Identical memory bandwidth (!!)
That means in the best case scenario for the Fiji XT is just a 14% increase in performance over the pro @ same clocks.
That once again will make the 2nd tier AMD card by far the better value for overclockers, assuming it overclocks as well as the flagship.
If Fiji XT is $699 and Fiji PRO is $499, that's $200 saved for just 14% less performance!
GCN scales almost linearly with specs. Look at 290X vs. HD7970Ghz (1000mhz x 2816 / (1050mhz x 2048) = 31%
33% faster
Also, if the 128 ROP number is true, good bye pixel fill rate bottleneck. Memory bandwidth with Tonga's color compression, good bye memory bandwidth bottleneck. If AMD fixed the geometry performance, this card will be almost entirely shader and TMU bottlenecked (and possibly VRAM at 4K in CF).
40% faster at ComputerBase
37% faster at TPU
38% faster at Sweclockers
46.7% faster (Uber mode max power and temp limits) at Hardware.fr
42% faster at TechSpot ("The Radeon R9 290X is serious value at $300 - $350 as the GTX 980 Ti costs ~100% more but only delivers 42% more performance at 1600p and 2160p.")
54% faster than 290X at 1440P/4K makes it faster than a 980Ti or the Titan X.
I am pretty shocked if this is true. 32 Tonga ROPs on 285 >>> 64 Hawaii ROPs on a 290, despite the 290 having higher clocks. I can't see it or 19.9 pixel fill-rate of Tonga will become a 70-80 on the chart? Can't be....
I am glad that gamers are finally paying more attention and giving some love to the 2nd tier AMD card. It has been a sleeper for a long time, but of course it has to be overclocked for the true potential to come out.
Memory refresher: (800mhz 1792SP HD7950 vs 925mhz 2048SP 7970)
"Our look at the reference Radeon HD 7950 and HD 7970 cards shows there to be a 15 per cent gap in performance in favour of the range-topping GPU. But raise the HD 7950's clocks to the higher speeds of the 7970 and the gap melts away to around five percent, often a little less, depending upon gaming title." ~ Hexus Review
If Fiji PRO is $499-549, 2 of those overclocked will mop the floor with a max overclocked $1K Titan X. Even at stock speeds with 3584 shaders, 128 ROPs, and 512GB/sec memory bandwidth, 980 at $499 is about to get crushed. 27% more performance than a 290X at 4K is possible.
Bye-bye 980!
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