A billion here, a billion there - pretty soon it adds up to real money. ',Senator Everett Dicksen (1896-1969)" - 1 "279"
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AMD releases Tahiti-based Radeon HD 7970
CHIP DESIGNER AMD has released the Radeon HD 7970 based on its Tahiti GPU chip.
AMD's Radeon HD 7970 is the first graphics board design based on its 28nm Southern Islands Tahiti GPU. The chip, which AMD claims has 4.3bn transistors, has been significantly changed from the previous Northern Islands generation Cayman Radeon HD 6970, has more on-chip cache and the firm claims it has greater overclocking headroom.
AMD's Tahiti architecture has up to 32 compute units with 32 colour render output units. A 384-bit memory interface results in memory bandwidth of over 264GB/s, with the firm spending a great deal of effort telling journalists about the need for 3GB GDDR5 memory by the latest triple-A games titles.
The firm's Radeon HD 7970 reference graphics board design has 2,048 stream processors, 3GB of GDDR5 memory, one DVI port, an HDMI port and two mini-Displayport outputs supporting a total of six displays. This power hungry graphics card has one six-pin and one eight-pin power connectors.
Listening to AMD's spiel there's no doubt that the firm is positioning the Radeon HD 7970 as a significant step beyond Nvidia's Geforce GTX 580. Internal "reviewer's documents" circulated to journalists suggest the firm is seeing between 70 to 90 per cent increase in performance over its previous generation Radeon HD 6970 in games running at 2550x1600, though as usual it is best to take such figures with a pinch of salt.
Like all chip vendors, AMD didn't waste time to extol the virtues of a process node shrink. The firm not only claimed that the 28nm process node allows a 3W idle power draw by its chips, but that through its Powertune software users can automatically receive 33 per cent overclocks.
AMD told journalists it wouldn't be limiting board vendors by prescribing clock speeds and the ability to slap intricate cooling units onto the boards. While that sounds great, browsing through the current Radeon HD 6970 boards on sale, it looks like few board vendors bothered to do much more than slap a sticker onto AMD"s reference cooler.
TSMC is the wafer baker for AMD's 28nm chip. Traditionally AMD prefers to release chips made using a new process node on mainstream boards, but the firm wouldn't explain to journalists why it will have only ultra high-end 28nm parts from the outset. However, with TSMC becoming busier punching out Apple's A6 chips, perhaps AMD's relatively low-volume discrete graphics chips had to take a back seat.
AMD is pricing Radeon HD 7970 boards around £450 at launch, a hefty £200 premium over its current single-GPU range topper. At that price it really has to be trying to embarrass Nvidia's Geforce GTX 590 rather than show up the significantly less expensive single-GPU boards from either AMD or Nvidia. µ
Tags: Amd
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Adios. Best of luck in 2012.
No new articles for a while, I'm concerned. Reading between the lines I wouldn't be suprised in the inq didn't stick around for long, but that would be sad.
I think releasing the best they have first is a great idea. I look at how many sales they may have lost this holiday season while Intel based laptops with their poor on board graphics had to be sold out of the chains, while only their low end APU's, if you could find one, were available for sale.
I would have bought a low end 350 APU if it would have been in a 7 or 10" tablet with a windows OS, but no one made that. Instead they put them in 15" laptops, and for that size I would want a high end APU with a dual high end card. This is a good strategy, and one I hope they do with their APU's in the future.
honesty I realy not understad why people come to this sete. I mean it's so hard to understad what they are saying!
I too have been more than happy with my 5870 2gb Eyefinity6 from Sapphire for a while now. I actually RMA'd a GTX280 from PNY and they sent me the 580GTX as a replacement but i decided to keep my ATI card (yes its not as fast as the 580, but the $430 i sold it for on ebay was more worth it than the bump in performance i would've received) I tend to buy a top line GPU and then not upgrade until every other generation (at least my last 3 GPU's have been that way!)
Traditionally AMD prefers to release chips made using a new process node on mainstream boards, but the firm wouldn't explain to journalists why it will have only ultra high-end 28nm parts from the outset. << I agree.. chip shrinks don't usually go first with the biggest chip..with the flagship.. it's usually a medium range chip that gets it first. Valid point and a good article!
Really? What does this sentence mean?:
"Traditionally AMD prefers to release chips made using a new process node on mainstream boards, but the firm wouldn't explain to journalists why it will have only ultra high-end 28nm parts from the outset."
What does the pre comma portion have to do with the "but" portion?
Is there a reason why punters wouldn't prefer "only ultra high-end 28nm parts from the outset"?
It's a pity "the firm wouldn't explain to journalists" because this journo sure as hell can't explain it to readers.
And then, there is this gem:
"However, with TSMC becoming busier punching out Apple's A6 chips, perhaps AMD's relatively low-volume discrete graphics chips had to take a back seat."
What does this mean? Tahiti-base HD 7970 can't be released due to it taking a backseat to Apple's A6? What we can't get them because AMD released them as you say, but oh, they're just not all there?
I may be daft, but apparently, I'm in need of some of the same grogg you did.
The cost of these boards will be $590 or £378 at release, unless of course you brits get fucked like you usually do and have to pay the "non-american" surcharge then the price will in fact be £450.00
Anyone who says this card isn't worth 550 today is completely off their rocker.
There are some tidbits from the various reviews floating around that point out some truly astonishing tidbits about GCN.
It OVERCLOCKS....realy well which can be seen from the low TDP overhead when it was OCed to over 1100 on stock cooling, a refrence board, and new drivers.
Stack that on top of the recently revised restrictions that allow board makers to break the mold on day one.
We could see a card such as the 7970 MSI lightning or some other brand that overbuilds the components to allow a 7970 overclocking monster very soon.
Grab a decent board stick on an aftermarket water cooler and we might see cards running 1300/1400 core clocks.
Screw the naysayers....I'm gettin one of these puppies.
To be honest, I am going to buy this card.
5870 served me well for heading towards 2.5 years, and this breaches the 50% performance barrier for single GPU card.
I thought that The Inquirer was the US version of The Register. Have we switched to the British pound now?
I think the proper term is 'Filthy rich enthusiasts'. Personally, I can't afford to be that enthusiastic.
Can't wait for the YouTube video from the One Percenter who'll set these up in Quadfire and make their local nuke plant go all Fukushima
Its a launch price, like the list price for cars. That is unless it absolutely destroys everything else. If you truly only need one rather than going for a crossfire or SLI setup which could cost about the same and gives you more headroom to improve in the future it looks better value for money. e shall see! Some independent reviews will be good to see.
"At that price it really has to be trying to embarrass Nvidia's Geforce GTX 590 rather than show up the significantly less expensive single-GPU boards from either AMD or Nvidia. µ
"
What...? What are you trying to say? That it's embarrassing for nvidia because of the price? This happens all the time, nvidia will drop their price down a bit and life goes on. Then nvidia will come out with something more powerful charge a lot and ati will drop their price and it will go back and forth.
So GTX580 3GB boards are cheaper than 7990...?
AMD has moved from very large Space Interface to Graphics new Core. Not Parsed, yet Seperate Bursts, as as Parsed in Seperate Timing Spaces. leaving open Spaces Between. Those Open Space if occupied, make more bits Fly thru mechanism, thus overclocked. Same as todays latencies, when filled in, overclocked.
in effect, room at top for more bits/sec. so Thar.
drashekologist....
don't even try to post your miserable comment on how much you want to buy this.
For what?
To watch pr0n and browse facebook?
£450???!! Fuck! I paid £290 for a 6970 when it was released last year, what a rip off, an extra £160.
The new cards should be £290 also, not £450. £450 is a joke.