More details emerge on Radeon HD 7950 ahead of launch

[Jos]

More concrete details are starting to emerge regarding the upcoming AMD Radeon HD 7950 graphics cards, which is based on the Pro derivative of the 28nm 'Tahiti' core that debuted with the HD 7970 earlier this month. According to information obtained by Donanim Haber, reference specs include a GPU core clocked at 800MHz, down from 925MHz on its higher-end sibling, while its 3GB of GDDR5 memory runs at 1,250MHz (5GHz QDDR) but maintains the same same 384-bit memory interface.

As previously reported, the Radeon HD 7950 will come with 4 compute units disabled compared to the HD 7970, bringing the number of stream processors down from 2048 to 1792. According to 3DMark 11 Extreme results obtained by the Turkish site, the card scores 2385 marks and is faster than the GTX 580. Of course we'll rather test real-world gaming performance ourselves but the data helps form an idea of what to expect.

AMD has given the green light for board partners to come up with their own designs right out the gate, so we'll be seeing a few models with custom coolers and factory overclocked settings when the Radeon HD 7950 arrives in a week or so -- though such models may come in a bit higher than the expected MSRP of $450.

Currently, Radeon HD 7970 cards are listed for $550, with an overclocked XFX Black Edition going for $600.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/47162-more-details-emerge-on-radeon-hd-7950-ahead-of-launch.html

 

[Guest]

Well I sure hope it's faster than the gtx 580 considering it is the next generation of card released by them. I mean in all honesty this series from them should literally smoke the GTX 580 but it doesn't. Still a great card though I had higher hopes for them than this.

 

[Guest]

The margin between the 7970 and 580 seems about right to me. Go figure.

 

[howzz1854]

are the shaders unlockable is all i care about.

 

[dividebyzero]

are the shaders unlockable is all i care about.

No, they are not.

OCUK have had benches up for a few days. Gibbo tried without luck to enable (the now presumeably fused off) shaders

 

[Guest]

I will never ever buy an ATI again, too many bugs and you spend your time lurking on forums trying to solve your problems.

Well, actually buy one if you wanna learn a thing or two. Don't if you just want to run programs.

 

[Eddo22]

Guest said:
I will never ever buy an ATI again, too many bugs and you spend your time lurking on forums trying to solve your problems.

Well, actually buy one if you wanna learn a thing or two. Don't if you just want to run programs.

I've owned a number of Radeon's including a 2900xt/3870x2/4870x2/5870/6990 (some older ones) and I can't figure out what your talking about. With the exception of lack of newly released game driver support they have been flawless. I'd suggest a pibcak problem.

 

[Guest]

Eddo22 I wish I had a good experience with ATI, I really do !

 

[Guest]

"The margin between the 7970 and 580 seems about right to me. Go figure."

20-25% faster for an all new architecture after GTX580, despite being on 28nm vs. 40nm?

I am sorry but your standards are too low. Sure, compared to the GTX580, HD7970 looks wonderful. I see that argument all over the Internet and it makes no sense because it assumes that GTX580's $500 price level itself is justified. Considering GTX580 is 14+ months old, its price is NOT a proper metric for what the expected performance at the $500 level should be today. Normally, a next generation mid-range card comes close to or matches the performance of the previous high-end card. Of course, we'll see exactly how ridiculously underwhelming/overpriced HD7970 really is when NV responds. We'll likely be able to buy GTX580 level of performance for $349 from NV and their $600 high-end Kepler will leave HD7970 for dead. Of course, faster clocked HD7970 is expected to come out. But all rumors indicate that HD7970 will be a stop-gap card like X1800XT series was back in the day.

There is no way in the world we'll only see 20% performance increase on 28nm generation from previous high-end 40nm generation.

 

[Guest]

I'm not too sure what the guest above me is talking about - a 7970 offers between 20 and 40% moar fps than a 580, and, as seen in every review, can be expected to OC comfortably to nearly 590-performance levels. That's a much better performance jump than we got from 480 to 580 or 5870 to 6970 and is pretty similar to the difference between a 295 and 480 or 4870 and 5870.

Then there's compute performance, that sees a stock-clocked 7970 outperform the 6990 and 590 for half the power-chomping.

I imagine that nVidia can match 7970 performance, but when OCs are considered I suspect the 7970 will be top of the heap.

 

[adamantell]

i have used 1950XTX : two 3870x2 : two 4870x2 :

over last 4 years and problem is alaways been drivers / game support... glitches random flashing objets "overheating"

i mean ati bring new drivers each 28 days : it fixes 0 just addes more unneeded support...

i tryed playing BF3 on MAX settings with i7 @ 4.6ghz 16gb ram with two 4870X2 (thats a lot of gfx power) and it ran 15-50 fps .... so many spikes its unreal i swaped them cards for one 580GTX 3gb and OMG 60fps all time just upgraded a 120mhz monitor aswell and now its about 90-110 fps all time. all maxed no problems at all even Batman and Skyrim run sooooooooo smooth cant belive it all this time i spent trying fix my old cards problems with drivers and now i swapped NEVER EVER GOING BACK !!!!! its 600 points higher? and ill just buy 2nd 580 when 680 comes out or sell my 580 and upgrade to 670 then ATI suck again

rage over !!!

typeo mass over !!

sorry ATI FAN BOYS trust me swap i used be one !

 

[Darth Shiv]

Guest said:
"The margin between the 7970 and 580 seems about right to me. Go figure."

20-25% faster for an all new architecture after GTX580, despite being on 28nm vs. 40nm?

I am sorry but your standards are too low. Sure, compared to the GTX580, HD7970 looks wonderful. I see that argument all over the Internet and it makes no sense because it assumes that GTX580's $500 price level itself is justified. Considering GTX580 is 14+ months old, its price is NOT a proper metric for what the expected performance at the $500 level should be today. Normally, a next generation mid-range card comes close to or matches the performance of the previous high-end card. Of course, we'll see exactly how ridiculously underwhelming/overpriced HD7970 really is when NV responds. We'll likely be able to buy GTX580 level of performance for $349 from NV and their $600 high-end Kepler will leave HD7970 for dead. Of course, faster clocked HD7970 is expected to come out. But all rumors indicate that HD7970 will be a stop-gap card like X1800XT series was back in the day.

There is no way in the world we'll only see 20% performance increase on 28nm generation from previous high-end 40nm generation.

Also depends on if you are factoring in operating temps. If the Radeon operates much cooler then AMD is just conservatively clocking it relative to NVIDIA as well so you aren't comparing apples with apples.

 

[Darth Shiv]

adamantell said:
i have used 1950XTX : two 3870x2 : two 4870x2 :

over last 4 years and problem is alaways been drivers / game support... glitches random flashing objets "overheating"

i mean ati bring new drivers each 28 days : it fixes 0 just addes more unneeded support...

Single chip cards haven't been too bad from my experience. I did also have overheating issues with my HD4870 but sorted with some case airflow improvements. Got to expect some heat from any top graphics card... if you need a 600W power supply, where do you think that heat is going to go once it is blown off the graphics card?

 

[adamantell]

Darth Shiv said:

adamantell said:
i have used 1950XTX : two 3870x2 : two 4870x2 :

over last 4 years and problem is alaways been drivers / game support... glitches random flashing objets "overheating"

i mean ati bring new drivers each 28 days : it fixes 0 just addes more unneeded support...

Single chip cards haven't been too bad from my experience. I did also have overheating issues with my HD4870 but sorted with some case airflow improvements. Got to expect some heat from any top graphics card... if you need a 600W power supply, where do you think that heat is going to go once it is blown off the graphics card?

i am not silly i have 1500watts psu and watercooled cpu and my 580GTX runs at nothing more then 77c when gaming for hours my 4870x2 ran that hot idle lol i even had them cleaned and repasted. still same .

nothing wrong with this card

 

[Guest]

Ive swapped back and forth from ATI to nvidia over the years, never had driver issues with either one. Ive had over heating issues with both and thats not ATI or Nvidia's fault in most cases. I just bought a refurbished 5870 and it idled at 42C and then went up to 90C under load. I took it apart, cleaned off the paste, applied new paste and now it idles at 29C and gets up to 76C with only 32% fan speed.

Ive never used dual GPU cards, so i expect there is a lot of problems i avoided there.

 

[LNCPapa]

I guess I've just been lucky since I've had no serious issues with either ATI or nVidia and both just work for me. I just buy whoever can give me the best performance at the time I make my purchase so I don't think I'm a fanboy of either... or maybe I am, of both. When my friends ask me for a recommendation I will suggest whatever closest matches their need/budget no matter which brand it may be. I'm excited about the 7xxx series and the 6xx series and can't wait to see how they affect each other in both price and custom configured performance. I've even started saving for a pair of new cards... I'll probably be deciding after the 680 comes out which ones they will be (if I can keep myself from ordering a new pair of headphones and amp.)

 

[howzz1854]

adamantell said:
i have used 1950XTX : two 3870x2 : two 4870x2 :

over last 4 years and problem is alaways been drivers / game support... glitches random flashing objets "overheating"

i mean ati bring new drivers each 28 days : it fixes 0 just addes more unneeded support...

i tryed playing BF3 on MAX settings with i7 @ 4.6ghz 16gb ram with two 4870X2 (thats a lot of gfx power) and it ran 15-50 fps .... so many spikes its unreal i swaped them cards for one 580GTX 3gb and OMG 60fps all time just upgraded a 120mhz monitor aswell and now its about 90-110 fps all time. all maxed no problems at all even Batman and Skyrim run sooooooooo smooth cant belive it all this time i spent trying fix my old cards problems with drivers and now i swapped NEVER EVER GOING BACK !!!!! its 600 points higher? and ill just buy 2nd 580 when 680 comes out or sell my 580 and upgrade to 670 then ATI suck again

rage over !!!

typeo mass over !!

sorry ATI FAN BOYS trust me swap i used be one !

your problem is mostly due to dual chip. the thing is dual chip will never have as good of a optimization as a single chip solution. i just so happened had the exact same experience but coming from the other side.

i had a 9800GX2, which ran games from 15fps ~ 80fps, and overheated a lot. soon as i upgraded to a single chip 4890 i was getting 60~90fps.

you can't judge that based on branding. both brands' dual chip solution rely heavily on driver optimization for specific games. if talk about branding... i actually have better experience with ATI than Nvidia. Nvidia gave me countless problems with resume from S3, and video output.

 

[dividebyzero]

I'm not too sure what the guest above me is talking about - a 7970 offers between 20 and 40% moar fps than a 580, and, as seen in every review.

Take off the rose-tinted goggles son, anything worn primarily by pre-pubescent girls and Yoko Ono isn't a great selling point. Here's the analysis of 31 HD 7970 reviews in relation to the GTX 580.

Eddo22 said:

Guest said:
I will never ever buy an ATI again, too many bugs and you spend your time lurking on forums trying to solve your problems.
Well, actually buy one if you wanna learn a thing or two. Don't if you just want to run programs.

With the exception of lack of newly released game driver support they have been flawless. I'd suggest a pibcak problem.

Maybe the Guest was referring to the lack of newly released game driver support ? OGL seems to have also taken a step backward lately...but I doubt the guest is referring to that aspect.

i tryed playing BF3 on MAX settings ..[ ]..with two 4870X2 (thats a lot of gfx power)

Unlikely. You won't get a lot of DX11 action with R700

580GTX 3gb and OMG 60fps all time just upgraded a 120mhz monitor aswell and now its about 90-110 fps all time. all maxed

Having a higher refresh rate monitor increased your graphics performance?...You're a couple of months early for April Fool's.
90-110fps w/ BF3 maxed ? What resolution is your 120Hz monitor...1280x1080 ?

i had a 9800GX2...

Sorry to hear about your misfortune

i upgraded to a single chip 4890

Nice card. Companys give out case badges...the HD 4890 should have come bundled with one as standard (Yes I owned one...the kicker being that I'm deaf...and no, the 4890 didn't make me deaf)

you can't judge that based on branding. both brands' dual chip solution rely heavily on driver optimization for specific games. if talk about branding... i actually have better experience with ATI than Nvidia. Nvidia gave me countless problems with resume from S3, and video output.

True enough. Dual-GPU cards are usually the last to see optimal driver profiles, and the first to have driver support fall away. Probably not an issue if 1. you don't play a game on release day, or 2. are happy tinkering with driver swap-outs, registry hacks, patches and mods.

And coming full circle...
This thread is supposed to be about the 7950. I believe it was last heard from way, way back in post #5...

 

[zillion]

....I wish for the time when u could buy a cheap-low priced-low budget-retarded gpu as the Zotac 8800gt, which turned out to be the best gpu for that price i have ever owned, ran as a stallion on crack (wonder if u can say crack on such a nice forum) but seems like it all ran off to the moon since then.....