Friday, December 23rd 2011
AMD Dual-GPU Radeon HD 7990 to Launch in Q1 2012, Packs 6 GB Memory
Even 12 months ago, an Intel Nehalem-powered gaming PC with 6 GB of system memory was considered high-end. Now there's already talk of a graphics card taking shape, that has that much memory. On Thursday this week, AMD launched its Radeon HD 7970 graphics card, which features its newest 28 nm "Tahiti" GPU, and 3 GB of GDDR5 memory across a 384-bit wide memory interface. All along, it had plans of making a dual-GPU graphics card that made use of two of these GPUs to give you a Crossfire-on-a-stick solution. AMD codenamed this product "New Zealand". We are now getting to learn that codename "New Zealand" will carry the intuitive-sounding market name Radeon HD 7990, and that it is headed for a Q1 2012 launch.
This means that Radeon HD 7990 should arrive before April 2012. Tests show that Tahiti has superior energy-efficiency compared to previous-generation "Cayman" GPU, even as it has increased performance. From a technical standpoint, a graphics card featuring two of these Tahiti GPUs, running with specifications matching those of the single-GPU HD 7970, looks workable. Hence, there is talk of 6 GB of total graphics memory (3 GB per GPU system).
One can also expect the fruition of AMD's new ZeroCore technology. This technology powers down the GPU to zero draw when the monitor is blanked (idling), but in CrossFire setups, this technology completely powers down other GPUs than the primary one to zero state, when the system is not running graphics-heavy applications. This means that the idle, desktop, and Blu-ray playback power-draw of the HD 7990 will be nearly equal to that of the HD 7970, which is already impressive.
Source:
Softpedia
This means that Radeon HD 7990 should arrive before April 2012. Tests show that Tahiti has superior energy-efficiency compared to previous-generation "Cayman" GPU, even as it has increased performance. From a technical standpoint, a graphics card featuring two of these Tahiti GPUs, running with specifications matching those of the single-GPU HD 7970, looks workable. Hence, there is talk of 6 GB of total graphics memory (3 GB per GPU system).
74 Comments on AMD Dual-GPU Radeon HD 7990 to Launch in Q1 2012, Packs 6 GB Memory
As I have 8 physical threads ( 8 integer cores)
How ever 2 integer cores share the resources ( albeit bumped up ones) of what would normally be 1 core.
So bulldozer does 8 threads in parallel where as a 4core 8 thread intel cpu does 4 threads at a time but in a really efficient way . ( Think of it as a really well organised tightly packed queue)
Sorry for off original topic in regards to original post. Will take conversation to PM if if anyone wants to discuss it.
Anyone with me? Anybody? Yes? Maybe? Fine~
Let's say, 1,5 cores per module is more appropriate...
Still I'd love to see improvements with the upcoming patch and surely I'd want to see AMD to address the enormous latency on the cache but this is another cup of tea and I'm going off-topic :)
Remaining on thread I seriously hope that AMD will stick to single slot solution for the HD 7990 like the HD 6990
1080p + 8xSSAA & Edge detect + EQAA + Morplological filtering + Ambient lighting + Physics + Tesselation + 16x Quality/Trilinear filtering + massive negative LOD .
Ya the power can still be used on single monitor setups.
Besides, this card will stay quite relevant for single monitor setups for years. The very low idle power will save the fan from dust/wear.
What?
That's just false.
So you are playing at less fps than the GTX480 and this isn't even a graph for maxed out details. (and the below TPU graphs from W1zzard are 1050 res.
Again
It'd be nice if folk stopped lying about their system's capabilities. There is no way your C2Quad and a 5870 are maxing out all gfx details and playing the above games for example on decent fps. Unless you have a magical PC.
You realise a single 7970 is already right up a 6990s arse right?
And you realise in games where crossfire works the 7970 has +90% scaling?
I complete wrecks two 580s in sli let alone 6990.
( wrecks Asus mars two as well)
Go read the crossfire reviews man :toast:
until Nvidia release their cards the 7000 series will be best on market.
Morphological AA is a post processing, it is applied after the frame has been rendered.
It doesn't recognize text and so it smooths the text too making it blurry
- The whole memory buffer can be used, so wasting half of it on mirroring won't be necessary
- The two GPU's will work as one logical double-wide GPU
- Microstuttering should be eliminated
- The card will work exactly like a single GPU card, but with double the performance and its full performance will always be available without requiring any special profiles for specific games like we have now
Obviously, this kind of functionality won't be available with two physical cards, because the GPU's will be too far apart physically and on different boards.
This will be a true innovation and whichever company implements it first will wipe the floor with the other one. Well, here's hoping it comes to pass.
When they didn't really even market them as x 2 etc.