AMD: Southern Islands (7*** series) Speculation/ Rumour Thread

[mczak]

Looking from the optimistic side, it's more like 36% less shading power on the same bandwidth.

True enough
In any case the difference is huge. Both the clock AND the simd count difference is larger than HD5750/5770, and the clock difference alone will guarantee a very healthy lead of the 7770 over the 7750 (I still don't expect really good shader scaling though with such low counts those 25% more CUs will certainly make some difference too). I guess same bandwidth slightly balances this though probably the reason for that has more to do with pricing of different speed grade gddr5 chips...

 

[Psycho]

plus the 7750 should definitely be without power connector.

 

[HMBR]

Pulled from radier at XS

comparing to what they released back in late 2009 it doesn't look promising,

I think is safe to assume that the 5770 can beat the 7750,
interesting how the slides from AMD changed from maximum to typical power,

 

[Alexko]

comparing to what they released back in late 2009 it doesn't look promising,

I think is safe to assume that the 5770 can beat the 7750,
interesting how the slides from AMD changed from maximum to typical power,

Maybe it's because with PowerTune, the maximum board power can actually be 20% over the typical power on that chart, provided you choose the +20% setting, of course.

Also, don't pay too much attention to the 5700/6700 to 7700 comparison: remember that AMD changed their naming scheme, so it's not apples to apples. Cape Verde is probably a good bit smaller than Juniper, and if those specs are real, Cape Verde XT draws less power than even Juniper Pro. Finally, GCN comes a lot closer to its peak performance, so the jury's not out on real performance until we see actual benchmarks.

 

[AlphaWolf]

I think is safe to assume that the 5770 can beat the 7750,

Is it? I'd like to see more than a leaked 3dmark before I'd say anything is safe. I expect the 7750 might have an edge in anything with any tessellation. It's also going to have a huge edge in laptops where it could actually appear as is.

 

[swaaye]

Yeah more people leaving AMD, too bad. If you didn't know he actually used to post here (sireric) though not recently.

I think that mostly stopped after people ran him in circles in the R600 interview thread years ago. It was an interesting thread for awhile though.

 

[AlphaWolf]

http://www.techpowerup.com/ has a whole pile of 7770/7750 reviews up. Amazing perf/watt. Crossfire 7770s approach 7950 performance (within 15% at least at lower resolutions) for quite a bit less power and price.

 

[Arty]

Is this the closest we're going to get in terms of a die-shot?

We could double-confirm the CU count of Pitcairn from this.

 

[DuckThor Evil]

http://www.techpowerup.com/ has a whole pile of 7770/7750 reviews up. Amazing perf/watt. Crossfire 7770s approach 7950 performance (within 15% at least at lower resolutions) for quite a bit less power and price.

Appaling perf/$, close to being a joke. Quite a bit worse than I expected.

edit: almost 2.5 years and a process shrink later this is what you get over the old 5770...

 

[Erinyes]

Agree, the price/performance ratio of Cape Verde is terrible. Its actually a Turks replacement which AMD is trying to push on us as a Juniper/Barts replacement..and at Juniper/Barts prices no less At least HD 7970 and 7950 beat their competitors convincingly, and were priced either the same or lower. Here we have HD 7770 barely reaching HD 6850/GTX 460 while launching at a good $10-20 higher.

I really wonder why they didnt go for a 12 CU part instead of 10. Adding 2 more CU's would have added very little to the die size, say 10 mm2. Surely the cost difference between a 130 mm2 chip and a 120 mm2 chip cant be that high. And the memory clock is on the lower side as well. Maybe they reused the old Barts MC because of the smaller size. With 20% more CU's and BW (say if it was clocked at 5.5 Ghz), the performance might have still been acceptable, and would have pushed it into the next segment. The cost increase would have been negligible.

I was actually looking forward to Pitcairn..but now i dont think i'll keep my hopes up

Edit: Also for a 12 CU part, if they launched a cut down part with 2 CU's disabled, the differnce would have been lower(16%) than between a 10 CU and 8 CU part (20%)

 

[HMBR]

so it have 3 CU Arrays, 1 with 4 CU and 2 with 3... so could this GPU have in reality 12 CUs with 2 disabled for now!?

anyway, the price is just to high... for now buying an older card make more sense (apart from power consumption)

 

[RedVi]

Appaling perf/$, close to being a joke. Quite a bit worse than I expected.

edit: almost 2.5 years and a process shrink later this is what you get over the old 5770...

If you call the 5770 a 5870, and then move every other model up, they've just jumped up one performance grade in 2.5 years. A more far better comparison would be to 5670. x8xx now sits where the x7xx series used to, so wait for Pitcairn to compare to 5770

 

[Albuquerque]

Appaling perf/$, close to being a joke. Quite a bit worse than I expected.

edit: almost 2.5 years and a process shrink later this is what you get over the old 5770...

Aaaaaand here we go. What else are you going to buy new today that fits in this power envelope and delivers this performance? Who else are they really competing against, other than themselves?

Just like the 7900 series, the 7700 series are going to 'enjoy' the lack of any obvious competition. When competition finally shows up, prices will reset themselves to wherever it makes sense. Until then, the market can bear this price tag, and so there it shall remain.

 

[HMBR]

If you call the 5770 a 5870, and then move every other model up, they've just jumped up one performance grade in 2.5 years. A more far better comparison would be to 5670. x8xx now sits where the x7xx series used to, so wait for Pitcairn to compare to 5770

the 5670 was released for 99USD, while the HD7770 for 159 USD and the HD5770 for 160 back in 2009, so I think comparing the HD7770 to the HD5770 is more appropriate,

 

[DuckThor Evil]

Aaaaaand here we go. What else are you going to buy new today that fits in this power envelope and delivers this performance? Who else are they really competing against, other than themselves?

Just like the 7900 series, the 7700 series are going to 'enjoy' the lack of any obvious competition. When competition finally shows up, prices will reset themselves to wherever it makes sense. Until then, the market can bear this price tag, and so there it shall remain.

Cape Verde looks like an utter joke compared to the 68xx series despite the lower power consumption. 6850 is faster than 7770 and cheaper to boot and at the moment you can get pretty sweet deals on that 6850 making the situation even worse.

 

[Putas]

Cape Verde is almost as small as Turks. Whether private companies should be allowed to capitalize on their advantages is for political discussion.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Appaling perf/$, close to being a joke. Quite a bit worse than I expected.

edit: almost 2.5 years and a process shrink later this is what you get over the old 5770...

And this right here is exactly the reason I absolutely HATED and blasted AMD for when they decided that the 6870 was the natural successor to the 5770 and the 6970 would be the successor to the 5870.

Now we even have enthusiasts confused about their naming schemes and not only regular consumers.

Also the reason I refused to buy anything from AMD for a year.

So just to clarify.

3870 -> 4870 -> 5870 -> 6970 -> 7970.
4770 -> 5770 -> 6870 -> 7870
4670 -> 5670 -> 6770 -> 7770

Yay for product naming confusion not only among the regular consumer masses (which I've been dealing with) but also now naming confusion among the enthusiasts.

So, short answer without the product naming confusion rant...

7770 should be compared to 5670 and not 5770. 5770 should be compared to 7870. At which point it looks quite a bit better.

Regards,
SB

 

[Albuquerque]

Cape Verde looks like an utter joke compared to the 68xx series despite the lower power consumption. 6850 is faster than 7770 and cheaper to boot and at the moment you can get pretty sweet deals on that 6850 making the situation even worse.

So your argument is that, because the old product in a 'hgher category' has depreciated to the point where it's cost-equivalent to a new product, the new product should still cost less?

In what other consumer realm does this exist? TV's? Nope. Audio? Nope. Cars? Nuh-uh. Go ahead, give me an example of some other commodity on this planet that follows your hypothetical model...

 

[HMBR]

And this right here is exactly the reason I absolutely HATED and blasted AMD for when they decided that the 6870 was the natural successor to the 5770 and the 6970 would be the successor to the 5870.

Now we even have enthusiasts confused about their naming schemes and not only regular consumers.

Also the reason I refused to buy anything from AMD for a year.

So just to clarify.

3870 -> 4870 -> 5870 -> 6970 -> 7970.
4770 -> 5770 -> 6870 -> 7870
4670 -> 5670 -> 6770 -> 7770

Yay for product naming confusion not only among the regular consumer masses (which I've been dealing with) but also now naming confusion among the enthusiasts.

So, short answer without the product naming confusion rant...

7770 should be compared to 5670 and not 5770. 5770 should be compared to 7870. At which point it looks quite a bit better.

Regards,
SB

I think pricing is a lot more important,

HD5770, October 2009 = price $159
HD6870, October 2010 = price $240
HD7770, February 2012 = price $159

HD5670, January 2010 = price $99
HD6670, April 2011 = price $100

 

[DuckThor Evil]

And this right here is exactly the reason I absolutely HATED and blasted AMD for when they decided that the 6870 was the natural successor to the 5770 and the 6970 would be the successor to the 5870.

Now we even have enthusiasts confused about their naming schemes and not only regular consumers.

Also the reason I refused to buy anything from AMD for a year.

So just to clarify.

3870 -> 4870 -> 5870 -> 6970 -> 7970.
4770 -> 5770 -> 6870 -> 7870
4670 -> 5670 -> 6770 -> 7770

Yay for product naming confusion not only among the regular consumer masses (which I've been dealing with) but also now naming confusion among the enthusiasts.

So, short answer without the product naming confusion rant...

7770 should be compared to 5670 and not 5770. 5770 should be compared to 7870. At which point it looks quite a bit better.

Regards,
SB

It's not as simple as that imo. Juniper was always a 128bit part so I dunno if comparing Pitcairn to it is any more warranted. i don't fully agree with your model. Barts was an entirely new class between two existing classes and thus the naming had to change in order to reflect that. I actually defended the naming change quite a bit, which I'm sure you'll remember, had I known then that it was all just to raise the prices massively across their lineup I wouldn't have.

If you compare 5770 to Pitcairn, don't forget the prices while doing so.

So your argument is that, because the old product in a 'hgher category' has depreciated to the point where it's cost-equivalent to a new product, the new product should still cost less?

In what other consumer realm does this exist? TV's? Nope. Audio? Nope. Cars? Nuh-uh. Go ahead, give me an example of some other commodity on this planet that follows your hypothetical model...

6850 launched at 179$ and has been at 149$ for a long time. Now comes a new card is more expensive and in all fairness loses to it with a clear margin and that sits just fine with you? It's not like 149$ has been some sort of clearance price point for the 6850. 6870 is not much more expensive and absolutely spanks the 7770, while according to Anandtech consumes something like 37w more in Metro 2033 (25w more for 6850) Yiihaa for savings...

I wonder what other consumer realm you see a company offering less, asking for more and have consumers on forums thinking it's great.