AMD: R9xx Speculation

[Silent_Buddha]

Meh, you don't have to look at Nvidia cards to see that AMD messed up big time, IMO, on Barts and Cayman naming. You only have to compare them to 57xx and 58xx to see that. They would have fit better and made more sense as 67xx and 68xx both from a performance and a pricing perspective.

Fair or not, being named 68xx and 69xx put rather high expectations on both chips in many consumer's minds.

The fact that Nvidia then comes along with proper upgrades to x60, x70, and x80 cards only rubs salt in the wounds.

Regards,
SB

 

[swaaye]

It's like you're offended that they changed their scheme. Which consumers are confused? The people who don't know about any of it anyway, or the people who are too stupid to read reviews and just go buy something at the store? LOL. Let them waste their money if they're that dim!

NVIDIA is by far the worst offender of screwed up generations. Those guys have seriously played games with 8000, 9000, GTx 2xx, 3xx, 4xx, 5xx. Hell, 560 is just another rebrand. G92 spanned 3 eras of NVnumbers. I've just about given up on figuring out what chip they have where.

 

[Mize]

LOL. Yes, I'm suddenly disappointed in my 6970s now that I realize how dorked the naming is!
Wah! I want my 580 back...sniff sniff...it had a better name!

 

[Silent_Buddha]

It's like you're offended that they changed their scheme. Which consumers are confused? The people who don't know about any of it anyway, or the people who are too stupid to read reviews and just go buy something at the store? LOL. Let them waste their money if they're that dim!

NVIDIA is by far the worst offender of screwed up generations. Those guys have seriously played games with 8000, 9000, GTx 2xx, 3xx, 4xx, 5xx. Hell, 560 is just another rebrand. G92 spanned 3 eras of NVnumbers. I've just about given up on figuring out what chip they have where.

A few of my customers that upgraded to 6870's thinking they were getting a good bargain and an upgrade to their 5870's.

They didn't stay disappointed too long though as they switched to Nvidia's 5xx series after that experience. And are fairly happy with those.

Some of those guys had switched from Nvidia to ATI after the 8800 GTX -> 9800 GTX snafu and had been happy with the 4870/90 and 5870.

Regards,
SB

 

[Blazkowicz]

6870 is now in my mind like 3870, as in "nice but weak", whereas GTX 460 sounds like "powerful, almost the high end"

 

[BRiT]

Oh gawd, please, no, not more of the Product Names Are All Wrong... Do we really have to relive that topic once a month in threads not dedicated to it?

 

[compres]

If naming does not matter, how come they did not name barts as 6600, and cayman 6700? Think about it...

 

[digitalwanderer]

A few of my customers that upgraded to 6870's thinking they were getting a good bargain and an upgrade to their 5870's.

Dumb question, but why didn't you warn them? Isn't part of your job sort of advising your customers, or do you have one of them caveat emptor attitudes towards it?

 

[Squilliam]

Dumb question, but why didn't you warn them? Isn't part of your job sort of advising your customers, or do you have one of them caveat emptor attitudes towards it?

He doesn't have customers which is why he's semi-retired.

 

[Shtal]

I ONLY found one benchmark that you need more than 1GB of video memory. (Otherwise it's a waste - unless you have 2 or more monitors)
HD6950 1GB vs. HD6950 2GB

 

[Alexko]

I ONLY found one benchmark that you need more than 1GB of video memory. (Otherwise it's a waste - unless you have 2 or more monitors)
HD6950 1GB vs. HD6950 2GB

There's also Crysis Warhead and Metro 2033, and in 1920×1200 at that: http://www.hardware.fr/articles/818-5/dossier-geforce-gtx-560-ti-contre-radeon-hd-6950-1-go.html

 

[Lightman]

And GTA IV as well.
Finally I can play it maxed out with reasonable frame rate.
Not possible on 1GB cards even in 1680x1050.

 

[Mize]

There are also other games that would likely benefit from 2GB at lower resolutions if you up the AA to 8 or 16x...only then you'd need CFX to get reasonable framerates...

 

[I.S.T.]

Or if you're a heavy mod user...

 

[swaaye]

What if you like 1360x768 with 8X SSAA My "6960" has no prob doing that with most games. I would imagine it uses a lot of RAM.

 

[mczak]

What if you like 1360x768 with 8X SSAA My "6960" has no prob doing that with most games. I would imagine it uses a lot of RAM.

SSAA should have the exact same memory requirements as MSAA. Hence with that low resolution you're using I don't think there would be any issue with 1GB with any current game.

 

[psolord]

Hey guys. I need some explanation if it's not too much trouble.

I've been wondering how the cooling system of the 6990 will work (the fan specifically)

Along with the fan's intake, will the airflow be like this

or like this?

 

[Kaotik]

Hey guys. I need some explanation if it's not too much trouble.

I've been wondering how the cooling system of the 6990 will work (the fan specifically)

Along with the fan's intake, will the airflow be like this

or like this?

The first pic - radial fans take air from the middle and push it out to all other directions.

 

[psolord]

The first pic - radial fans take air from the middle and push it out to all other directions.

Great, thanks.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Dumb question, but why didn't you warn them? Isn't part of your job sort of advising your customers, or do you have one of them caveat emptor attitudes towards it?

I would have, but after the consistent naming scheme with regards to performance of 3xxx -> 4xxx -> 5xxx, they had finally come to trust AMD's naming scheme and decided they could just buy the next one as it would be a performance increase just as it had been for the past few generations.

That combined with what Squilliam said, that I'm semi-retired from computer consulting and troubleshooting, I've been letting them know that at some point I won't be "on call" anymore.

And Brit, just for you, I'll try to make this my very last post on this. I'll be happy to answer questions about it in PMs though.

Regards,
SB