AMD: Radeon HD 7790 to be 10% slower than 7850, 7990 prototype "ready"

Rick

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It's no surprise AMD plans to fill the ill-strategized void left somewhere between its Radeon HD 7700 and 7850 offerings -- a space where Nvidia's GTX 650 Ti is likely getting comfortable. According to hardware.info though, at a recent CeBIT conference AMD offered onlookers new details regarding its upcoming Radeon HD 7790 graphics chip.

In short, AMD's Radeon HD 7790 will be based on a 28nm "Bonaire" GPU with unsurprising support for Direct 11.1 and OpenGL 4.3. The company also claims the HD 7790 will be about 10 percent slower than its HD 7850, although that figure may not be truly indicative of real-world performance without context.

Recent rumors suggest the HD 7790 will feature a 1075MHz core equipped with either 896 or 768 shader units. Although memory and clockspeeds remain unknown, AMD confirmed the card would contain 896 shader units. 

AMD told the European crowd its Radeon HD 7790 will carry a recommended price tag of £118, which is about $175 USD. Note that the U.S. price will likely be lower and it'll need to be -- graphics cards like the Radeon HD 7850 can be found for about $140. It's clear AMD will have to do better than $175 that if it hopes to make the Radeon HD 7790 a hit in the states.

The chip maker also mentioned its Radeon HD 7990 "Malta" prototype is ready -- a dual-GPU Radeon that may be destined to become the fastest AMD card available. Little is known about  the 7990 either, but recent rumors indicate it will arrive during the first half of 2013.

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The 7990 better be good. It needs to kill the 690 or it will be a bust. I wonder if the rumor of a single GPU 7990 is true.
 
175 bucks just because it uses the 22nm process which isnt even fully ironed out... I would rather get more horse power from the 7850 for 30 bucks less.
 
7990 will have to be clocked higher than non-GHz 7970's to be competitive with GTX690 and Titan. And, even more competitive on price, since there is a single-GPU solution available already..

UNKNOWN9122: Single-GPU solution would be interesting.. I don't think AMD has that though, otherwise there would be no need for GHz edition.
 
IMHO the 7770 was a gimped up chip
All the other 28nm GCN chips are 256 shaders apart
7970 = 2048
7950 = 1792
7870XT = 1536
7870 = 1280
7850 = 1024
7770 = 640 (384 less than 7850, only 128 more than 7750)
7750 = 512

They should have made the 7770 at 768 shaders to begin with, that would have prevented a performance gap to from in the first place.

As it is the 7790 can cannibalize the 7850 [and even the 7770] if it is priced too low but fail to be a success if priced too high, leaving AMD little wiggle room.
 
The 7990 better be good. It needs to kill the 690 or it will be a bust
The 7990 already is the fastest card in general terms- it just isn't an official reference model ( TUL -PowerColor's parent company, makes the PowerColor, VTX3D and Club3D versions), so isn't included in ongoing benchmark reviews. Unfortunately it is also triple slot, sucks power like the fat kid at the smorgasboard, and has decidedly non-spec/non-OEM friendly 3 x 8-pin power connection requirement. The added advantage is that the new card would have purposed AMD engineered drivers (that is a plus, right?)
I wonder if the rumor of a single GPU 7990 is true.
Nope.
2 x Tahiti GPUs.
GPU design is generally 3-4 years in the making before it sees the light of day, so you don't cook up a new architecture overnight...especially on the same process node (Nvidia's Kepler design for instance was started seven years ago)
7990 will have to be clocked higher than non-GHz 7970's to be competitive with GTX690 and Titan. And, even more competitive on price, since there is a single-GPU solution available already..
Already $100 cheaper than the 690. The 7990 isn't a direct competitor to the Titan, mainly because the 7990 is a 2 or 4 GPU solution (Crossfire or quad). If you're looking at benchmarking then four Titans will smoke two 7990's. The only other likely area of direct competition would be compute- but each architecture has its own benefits, so absolute performance generally would play second fiddle to the software workload required.
 
The 7990 better be good. It needs to kill the 690 or it will be a bust. I wonder if the rumor of a single GPU 7990 is true.
I'm getting an odd vision. It's where the 7990 will be clocked poorly and the 690 will tear it apart. A month later, AMD will release a GHz edition of the card that will actually beat the 690, but will cost $100 more than the standard 7990.
 
The 7990 better be good. It needs to kill the 690 or it will be a bust. I wonder if the rumor of a single GPU 7990 is true.
I'm getting an odd vision. It's where the 7990 will be clocked poorly and the 690 will tear it apart. A month later, AMD will release a GHz edition of the card that will actually beat the 690, but will cost $100 more than the standard 7990.

And the entire debate would be that the GHZ edition isn't a real card, it's what AMD should've initially released, ignoring the fact that even with the price increase you would get better performance at times and for the same, or lower price than the competition depending on OEM.
 
Your link to a 7850 takes you to the Google Shopping results for a 7850, but all the cards linked to it are 7770s. Fail.
 
Your link to a 7850 takes you to the Google Shopping results for a 7850, but all the cards linked to it are 7770s. Fail.
Google shopping is garbage, I stopped using it a while ago, Amazon is better for comparing in my opinion
 
And the entire debate would be that the GHZ edition isn't a real card, it's what AMD should've initially released, ignoring the fact that even with the price increase you would get better performance at times and for the same, or lower price than the competition depending on OEM.
well yeah, I just hope AMDs decision to not get first grabs by delaying 22NM till Q4 is a good idea. Hopefully it will be more developed than the 700 series. AMD needs to bounce back to survive
 
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