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

That´s the reasson. This is the major process jump we have had for graphic cards in years. Double the transistors is what going from 40 nm to 28 nm allows. So Nvidia can if not double at least put 2 billion more transistors than GTX 580 in its new card. And do you think it only will be 20% more powerful than GTX 580?.

As I see it this card could very well end fighting against a GTX-760.

I also look at the overclock potential.
one reason for me when checking a card, 1200mhz potential? pretty sweet.
Guess we see hard core OC reaching 1,8ghz?
 
My point is, that you state things that are your opinion as if they were fact. Or how do you know how far from launching Kepler Nvidia really is?
So others stating how Kepler is going to beat Tahiti are fine, they know the performance of Kepler?

Yes, I do think my opinion has solid basis and I wouldn't hestiate to state it as fact at this moment.

So far we have seen one roadmap of unclear orgin (the one showing the big Kepler appearing near end of 2012), some wild speculation (768cores, 1024 cores, high core clock, no hot clock), one lolgraph with "benchmarks" and absolutely no information about tapeouts nor launch dates more precise than stating the quarter. While AMD has just launched their 28nm card. Furthermore, it is only 12 months away since AMD launched its previous top end card, which had a different architecture than previous and Tahiti is doing an even bigger change. While nVidia is already 13.5 months away, didn't require much extra work on the GTX580, and their next to be released "big" chip GK104 is rumoured to be either a hybrid or a die-shrink. And all we got it quite a lot of people saying how the GTX780 is going to be better anyways, completely skipping the fact the GTX600 series disappeared somewhere. Because I doubt nVidia is happy loosing the highest performance crown for long and allowing AMD to charge high prices, I don't think this all is going according to plan, so I conclude they screwed up already. If AMD can launch already, why can't nVidia?

What am I missing, where am I wrong? I'll happily adjust my opinion when presented new information. :)
 
I take it math isn't your strong suit.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...esktop Graphics / Video Cards&Order=BESTMATCH

Can you point out which one of those is 20% cheaper than $550 for me (there's one for $489, but it's such a terrible value it's out of stock)? Or better yet point me to the 3GB version that's less than $550 (the cheapest is $589). Interestingly the Galaxy model they compared the 7970 to at HardOCP, is priced at $549.

I bought 2x 3GB GTX 580s for $525 each just a couple weeks back. Newegg fluctuates their prices based on demand so they've climbed likely for holiday demand. Still, for the power issues I might have gone 7970 today (depends upon how much worse the AF is than 580).
 
I bought 2x 3GB GTX 580s for $525 each just a couple weeks back. Newegg fluctuates their prices based on demand so they've climbed likely for holiday demand. Still, for the power issues I might have gone 7970 today (depends upon how much worse the AF is than 580).

yea, going 2x580 would make me have to change the psu and add a huge cost.

2x7970 would likely make me keep current psu and be a ton cheaper.
 
I wish someone had done some CFX benchmarks and driver testing on the 7970. The reason I have 2x580 was CFX driver issues with 2x6970. If AMD managed to clean that up with the 7970 it would make a big difference to me.
 
What am I missing, where am I wrong? I'll happily adjust my opinion when presented new information. :)
I did not ask you to adjust your opinion. :)

I wish someone had done some CFX benchmarks and driver testing on the 7970.
I don't know about the US sites, but from what I'm seeing here in Europe, there seems to be only one sample per review. Hard to do CFX on one card. :)
 
Idle power consumption number are impressive. But drawing more power than a 6970 loaded, is not good. :/
That's not what it says at TPU:

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/HD_7970/26.html

Average powerdraw (while gaming) is 21W lower.
The problem is AMD sent wrong samples to press. We discovered, that our card doesn't have original thermal grease, but some crappy one, which was applied in a really wrong way (uneven, very thick layer etc). We exchanged it and temperatures, noise and esp. power consumption went down. Chech the table at the bottom of this page.

AMD said:
„Toronto team has been tracking the issue and it turns out that some of the boards in the Press sample batch indeed have incorrect thermal paste (or "TIM"). The Press sample boards were pre-tested before shipping, cooler was taken off and now it seems that for some of the parts the wrong TIM was used. In short the cooling performance is NOT representative of the retail product.“

AMD sent us this explanation... I think at least ComputerBase was affected, too.
 
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Thanks to the amazing drivers, you can actually go from 580 SLI to single 7970 and get a performance boost in DX11 titles :)

580SLI vs single 7970
BF3 33%+
Skyrim 17%+
F1 2011 -43%
Shogun 2: 18%+
Batman:AA -10%
 
They already screwed up big time, they are not ready yet and far from it.

Wouldn't you have to first know nVidia's target schedule, see how much 7970 availability there is and see Kepler's performance before claiming they screwed up?

This is simply AMDs Fermi, there's been a lot of investment in compute that won't necessarily benefit all games. The reaction is definitely mixed and I'm in the camp that was expecting more from such beastly technical specs. There's probably a good amount of untapped performance there though, otherwise GK104 could be within spitting distance (whenever it launches).
 
Thanks to the amazing drivers, you can actually go from 580 SLI to single 7970 and get a performance boost in DX11 titles :)

580SLI vs single 7970
BF3 33%+
Skyrim 17%+
F1 2011 -43%
Shogun 2: 18%+
Batman:AA -10%

Which review is this from?

Edit: seriously. Just ran through all the benchmarks on computerbase.de and the only place where the 7970 ever beats 590 (slower than 580 SLI) is at low resolutions. It generally lags significantly.
 
This is simply AMDs Fermi, there's been a lot of investment in compute that won't necessarily benefit all games. The reaction is definitely mixed and I'm in the camp that was expecting more from such beastly technical specs. There's probably a good amount of untapped performance there though, otherwise GK104 could be within spitting distance (whenever it launches).
NV definitely won't go for anything below 450~500 mm² range for the flagship Kepler, if they would hold on the "tradition", and this speaks much enough of what competition GCN could expect.
 
NV definitely won't go for anything below 450~500 mm² range for the flagship Kepler, if they would hold on the "tradition", and this speaks much enough of what competition GCN could expect.

But couldn´t nvidia redesign GTX 580 to fit in 250 mm2 with a increase in frecuencies and already match HD 7970?. If so imagine the 350 mm2 with the better Keppler architecture.
 
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