Monday, May 7th 2012
AMD Readies Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition
AMD's Radeon HD 7970 could not hold on to the single-GPU performance crown for too long. It lost it to NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680, and the upcoming GeForce GTX 670 threatens to damage its competitiveness even further. Reports suggest that AMD is working on a new Tahiti-based graphics card SKU, the Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition. AMD unveiled the "GHz Edition" moniker to denote SKUs that come with engine clock speed ≥1 GHz. The new HD 7970 GHz Edition will come with reference core clock speed of 1050 MHz.
AMD needn't tinker with memory clock speed, as it already has a 384-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface compared to the GeForce GTX 680 and its 256-bit memory bus width. Sources told Atomic PC that improved yields and manufacturing processes have benefitted Tahiti just as well as GK104, and ES Tahiti chips from the latest batches "easily" hit 1250 MHz core. These batches could make custom-design graphics cards with extremely high core clock speeds possible.
Sources:
Atomic PC, Engadget
AMD needn't tinker with memory clock speed, as it already has a 384-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface compared to the GeForce GTX 680 and its 256-bit memory bus width. Sources told Atomic PC that improved yields and manufacturing processes have benefitted Tahiti just as well as GK104, and ES Tahiti chips from the latest batches "easily" hit 1250 MHz core. These batches could make custom-design graphics cards with extremely high core clock speeds possible.
203 Comments on AMD Readies Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition
(Yes colorful have an igame kudan 680 in the works, get your l33t graffiti skillz out.)
my HD7970 stats
GPU Clock: 1125MHz
Memory: 1575MHz
Pixel Fillrate: 36.0Gpixel/s
Texture Fillrate: 144.0GTexel/s
Bandwidth: 302.4GB/s
how is paying the same price for a card that performs worse, runs hotter, and uses more power a better deal?
2. Runs hotter yet OC WAY BETTER.
3. Less then 1 watt at idle and now NVIDIA users care about power consumption?
4. 7970 is cheaper AND in abundance.
There is NOTHING wrong with the 7970. It was just over priced in the first month or so.
From a price and performance stand-point the AMDs are better. As many have pointed out going from a 580 to 680 your getting less for your money at a higher price point as they are currently sold.
The 580s where not crippled as the 680 or for that matter the GK104 chip . Ofcouse this wont matter if playing games is your only concern but even then your still paying more for less of a product and features.
I sugguest you go read the Official Nvidia web-site forums and you'll find out a lot of 680 users are wanting features currently only found on the AMD 7000 series. The IQ debate over there is interesting. Oh wait what about the cry'n about the driver issues and all that jazz. Unless you have fanboy glasses on, reading Nvidias forums will take care of that. Heck they still have a thread going from 2009 on BSOD.
So unless your extremely partasin to one brand i dont see how 20-50 dollar differance is cause for such an uproar. Especially when you get pass the ?% overall benchmark disparity and you start comparing core features and abilities.
What am i saying. Keep posting i enjoy reading :D
The question not being answered here is... could these process improved chips now providing a 1Ghz, but offering the same power efficiency and TDP? It kind of reminds me of what was a original Fermi, and then what Nvidia got from their re-spin (GF100 Vs GF110). I don't think it's just marketing saying we’ll offer reference clocks at 1Ghz... but a re-release of what Tahiti was to offer originally. I mean what's the difference between this and what the GTX260 had when they release it as a "Core 216"?
That said those who went for 7970’s at $550 are a little upset though AMD never actually knew at that point TSMC could fix their issues or if Nvidia would fair any better, so you've got to go with what you've got. If AMD bring these 1Ghz I figure they’ll be a $480-500 price while they get the other moved out. If they hold or better the current power consumption, and can C-F with existing 7970 that might take a Bios flash to the 1Ghz. It's an equitable response to counter Nvidia, and not upset folk who purchased 3-4 months back.
with this conversation gk104 is far more driver intensive compare to hd7970
here with hardware canuck domain test - gtx680 about 15% faster than hd7970
for better comparison in future game 3dmark11 told us gtx680 about 20% faster than hd7970-new games better run on gforce cards - and we bought card for new games - not for 2006 crysis
:)
Edit, i dont see how its even possible to show a cards true performance since the drivers is what makes them efficient, ... fold with both gpus which ever one can fold with the highest points average i guess would show which one is truely the most powerful
That tells me what, exactly? It's very obvious it's different already, and you've said nothing other than that it is...:wtf:
I WANT SPECIFICS!!!
:laugh:
The 680 is a mid end card cranked high on clocks and turboed to fill the missing high end spot.
Like other mid series cards it has its dp gpgpu capability cut out... that is also why it uses less power.
Great on games sucky on gpgpu...less value for more.
If you only play games... its a great card. Unfortunately I use both so I spend less and get more... ;)
i wouldn't be surprised if these GHz Edition cards are simply a reference card with a BIOS flash.
Well, I'm no microarchitecture designer yet, so I can't tell you specifics beyond what I've read.
As you know, the original CUDA architecture used in Fermi was complicated, and used a lot of power to work with it.
AMD was at the same time using VLIW, an architecture great for pushing pixels due to the large number of shader units, however while it is good for simple parallel processing tasks, due to it's simplicity it isn't very suitable for computing.
With GCN, AMD decided to adopt a more complex shader architecture, closer to the CUDA cores present in Fermi, and made an architecture that was good for mostly any purpose, partially due to their future focus on APUs, and floating point math is a priority for the architecture. (HSA allows for floating point calculations to be done on GPU cores rather than FPU calcs on a separate CPU, and a GPU is better for floating point anyhow.)
Then with the GTX 680, Nvidia decided to focus on a gaming architecture, simplifing CUDA in order to fit more cores in a smaller number of space, and therefore improve rendering, however due to the simplification of the core design, computing is hampered, and may point to a complete split between workstation and gaming architectures for Nvidia. (this last statement is a personal assessment, due to the lack of a GK110 chip being present or confirmed for a gaming GPU at this time.)
That's how I understand it all.
2. You're right from the point of view of percentage over stock but not many 7970 can do 1300MHz on air (maybe I'm wrong?)
3. 7970 at 1200MHz uses little under 100W more watts than a 680 at the same clocks.
4. Right
There's nothing wrong with the 7970 but it is still overpriced. Wait and see what the 670 will bring. (Unfortunately availability will be the main question)
It doesn't matter what the gtx 670 brings to the table if it's going to be the same story as gtx 680, unavailable and where it is, it costs $100 more.
2. See W1zz's review.
3. Hows that 680 look at idle compared to the 7970? ;)
On a more serious note, in my poor country the cheapest 7970 is the equivalent of 580$ and the only 680, an ASUS, which is available, one can actually buy, is at 740$. So you are right, probably it's the same all over the place. I personally will NEVER pay this amount of money to play console ports but that's another story. If one wants to get these cards then of course the 7970 is the option.