Official Radeon 7970 Review and discussion thread

[Ninja Prime]

Originally Posted by MUYA

It is interesting that there is speculations that some GCN units (or whatever the are called) were disabled in 7970? Is this correct?

Maybe ATi are preparing/making headroom for Kepler release. In which a 7980 would surface?

Exciting times!

Or is this rumor just baloney?

Supposedly a hard count shows 36 CUs. Could be they wanted to launch first and have a better version ready to beat kepler when it comes out, at least, that would be the smart thing to do...

[Ninja Prime]

Originally Posted by Rollo

The FUDZilla article says they'll be giving product demos at CES next week.

I saw one of those "closed door demos" for Fermi at CES January 2010. In March 2010 I had Fermis in my computer. If the article is right and they're showing Kepler at CES, the cards will launch soon after is my guess.

Note that it says GT 600 series. Not GTX. They are launching mid range first, which won't beat what AMD has in any way. Real kepler that people want still seems to be set for 3Q 2012.

Also, maybe you, being in NVs pocket, had a 480 in march, but the rest of us had to wait until april to get any in real stores. In fact I think it was april 12th when they actually launched from vendors. Even then, they were rare, despite you whining about supply on this launch.

[K007]

Originally Posted by bob saget

wow didn't realize they packing the 3Gigs of memory...

7950 will also have 3gb

[Rollo]

Originally Posted by K007

7950 will also have 3gb

And is delayed until February:

http://vr-zone.com/articles/amd-post...ary/14404.html

[Rollo]

Originally Posted by Ninja Prime

Note that it says GT 600 series. Not GTX. They are launching mid range first, which won't beat what AMD has in any way. Real kepler that people want still seems to be set for 3Q 2012.

Actually it says "GT 600 series" it doesn't say mid range, low, or high end. It's a good bet you don't know if mid range or high end is launching first as I don't.

You also don't know if mid range Kepler will equal or beat the 7970, or what NVIDIA will be launching in Q3.

Nice attempt to post guesses as fact though.

Originally Posted by Ninja Prime

Also, maybe you, being in NVs pocket, had a 480 in march, but the rest of us had to wait until april to get any in real stores. In fact I think it was april 12th when they actually launched from vendors.

The 7970 was supposed to launch last year, and was paper launched in the last week of the year.

The 7950 was delayed a second time till next month.

I think everyone can see there are supply problems with this launch. It would have happened last November if not.

Now we have rumors it's not a fully functional launch as well, just like the GTX480. Apparently ATi couldn't build enough fully functional cores even for it's delayed paper launch.

[shadow001]

Originally Posted by Rollo

And is delayed until February:

http://vr-zone.com/articles/amd-post...ary/14404.html

Funny you linked that since it also mentions the GK 104 from Nvidia, wich is a midrange part based on kepler and using 28nm and coming out first...

In a way, this is an appropriate delay as well since NVIDIA is widely expected to introduce its GK104, its first part based on 28nm Kepler architecture in the last week of January or in early February.

From the looks of it, even though we're still going through the hangover of New Years' party, 2012 is looking even more exciting on the GPU front. It looks like 28nm process from TSMC is nothing short of brilliant.

[Johnny C]

Originally Posted by slaWter

I was referring to the price itself. $650 for a single GPU card might seem a lot for US customers but it's the normal price here (and probably also in Australia/NZ).
It's even on the lower side for a brand new card. That's why I said I'd consider that cheap

My bum is still sore from paying $769CAD for an 8800GTX at launch. The past 4 cards I've purchased have been at launch and I haven't been disappointed with any of them.


8800GTX at launch
4870 1GB (preordered a 1gb model while using a 512mb loaner from the local store)
5850 at launch
6970 on launch day (I particularly liked this one as prices haven't dropped significantly in a year)

Honestly I'm probably gonna grab a 7970 on the 9th...but since I use a single monitor, I may wait to see what NV has got for us....and I'm also betting on an AMD product with 2304 shaders getting launched the day that nV launches their new "high end" part.

[Skinner]

Originally Posted by slaWter

If I remember correctly, nV even made a small utility for it. It all started with that one driver set that had this bug, which allowed SSAA instead of Transparancy Supersampling.
They corrected it in the next driver but made a separate utility for it. So it's not part of the NVCP but from nV.
http://nvidia.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/2624

Official or unofficial solution... Fact is, SSAA works with nV in DX9-11 but it doesn't with AMD. This is probably more important than PhysX or SSAO for most gamers.

More flexible SSAA is the reason I probably stay with nvidia and even with ssaa I'm already often CPU limited (even with SSAA) with my CPU and res. (these MSI GTX 580's are clocking near 1 ghz)

If AMD would follow nVidia and gave us SSAA in dx10+ I consider (but even then, SSAA is a lot more flexible with nV, i have a lot more possibility's to tweak/use).

[K007]

Originally Posted by shadow001

Funny you linked that since it also mentions the GK 104 from Nvidia, wich is a midrange part based on kepler and using 28nm and coming out first...

I thought ATi is delaying the 7950 because of that reason alone. It seems they might be holding back the power on these cards a lot.

Originally Posted by slaWter

I was referring to the price itself. $650 for a single GPU card might seem a lot for US customers but it's the normal price here (and probably also in Australia/NZ).
It's even on the lower side for a brand new card. That's why I said I'd consider that cheap

lol thats not cheap..thats too much for a single gpu.

[Rollo]

Originally Posted by K007

I thought ATi is delaying the 7950 because of that reason alone. It seems they might be holding back the power on these cards a lot.

It's all part of their brilliant marketing scheme.

You see, ATi knows that NVIDIA will be building the GTX680 Ultra between 12/27/2011 and 1/9/2011.

Sooooo...they give reviewers cards with disabled clusters of processing units, clocked at 925MHz instead of the 1300-1500 they're truly capable of. THEN they write a special review driver that has game profiles in it with GTX580 fps and a limiter at 125% built in for the 7970!!

Haha Hoho! Won't NVIDIA be shocked when the cards are released next week at 1300-1500MHz with all clusters enabled!!! They'll be done with their flagship GTX680 Ultra and the single GPU crown will sit on ATi's head for all of 2012. Everyone who buys the 7970 will be part of the subterfuge, an "in the know" gaming guru. There will probably even be a secret handshake.




Or, it could be pretty dumb to hold back the power on these cards at all because they're actually trying to SELL them next week and the lackluster framerates everyone who might buy them has already seen made the all important first impression.

I dunno- could be either way......

[shadow001]

Finally got the displays and hooked everything up, calibrated them identically in brightness and colors and contrast with a friend who's a photographer and wow, these are some gorgeous displays with a huge amount of flexibility and increadible image quality, however there is an issue that i never though would be a problem....


Seems that i need to relocate the PC under the desk rather than beside the desk, as the video cable for the third monitor( the one that's further from the tower), will only display it's native resolution of 2560*1440 when said cable is a maximum of 6 ft long, regardless if it's Dual link DVI or Display port....At longer cable lenghts(tried with a 10 ft long one) it's limited to 1920*1080 wich looks like crap btw.


Just a quick heads up before i move the tower under the desk and closer to that third monitor.....

[Maverick123w]

Originally Posted by Rollo

It's all part of their brilliant marketing scheme.

You see, ATi knows that NVIDIA will be building the GTX680 Ultra between 12/27/2011 and 1/9/2011.

Sooooo...they give reviewers cards with disabled clusters of processing units, clocked at 925MHz instead of the 1300-1500 they're truly capable of. THEN they write a special review driver that has game profiles in it with GTX580 fps and a limiter at 125% built in for the 7970!!

Haha Hoho! Won't NVIDIA be shocked when the cards are released next week at 1300-1500MHz with all clusters enabled!!! They'll be done with their flagship GTX680 Ultra and the single GPU crown will sit on ATi's head for all of 2012. Everyone who buys the 7970 will be part of the subterfuge, an "in the know" gaming guru. There will probably even be a secret handshake.




Or, it could be pretty dumb to hold back the power on these cards at all because they're actually trying to SELL them next week and the lackluster framerates everyone who might buy them has already seen made the all important first impression.

I dunno- could be either way......

Lackluster frame rates? What the hell are you going on about?