Why aren't people upset about the HD 7970?

[Trackr]

This is the first time in history where a new generation (not a refresh), based on a lower process doesn't even manage 50% performance boost, let alone 100%.. heck, it's barely 25%!

HD 4870 was more than twice as powerful than HD 3870.
HD 5870 was exactly twice as powerful as HD4870.
HD 6970 was a refresh, on the same process, and thus was only 25% better.

Now, HD 7970, on the 28nm process(!) manages what, 10-25%?!

And everyone is acting like this is fine...

What gives, people?!

[acerace]

Don't just look at the FPS performance. Look also the power consumption. ~15W at idle, that's great!

[DanTheBanjoman]

Antidepressants.

A 4870 is still sufficient in most games anyway. Upgrading every generation really isn't worth the money these days.

[DannibusX]

My, what a nice GTX590 you have.

[uuuaaaaaa]

beta drivers. and this card is more than 15% faster than the 6970...

[Trackr]

Originally Posted by acerace

Don't just look at the FPS performance. Look also the power consumption. ~15W at idle, that's great!

You mean 15w LESS at idle, not 15w.

Personally, I want more performance, not lower power consumption.

If I wanted lower power consumption, I'd get a mid-range card.

Originally Posted by DanTheBanjoman

Antidepressants.

A 4870 is still sufficient in most games anyway. Upgrading every generation really isn't worth the money these days.

It's not about that. It's about every generation being 50-100% faster.

If that is broken, what is to stop AMD/nVidia from selling us a card that is 10% faster for twice the price?

Originally Posted by DannibusX

My, what a nice GTX590 you have.

I sold the GTX 590 in anticipation of HD 7970/Kepler.

I'm now running a GTX 480, pretty disappointed with what I'm seeing as my upgrade path..

[Bo$$]

Originally Posted by Trackr

HD 4870 was more than twice as powerful than HD 3870

show me.

[DannibusX]

Don't get all upset over it man. Sucks you sold your beastly card in anticipation of the next gen of cards, but next time you should wait for performance reviews before overcommiting to new hardware.

I'm going to hold out for some driver refreshes and see if performance creeps up at all.

[Trackr]

Originally Posted by uuuaaaaaa

beta drivers. and this card is more than 15% faster than the 6970...

Look at the HD 5870:

It was 100% faster than the HD 4870 and 50% faster than the GTX 280.

Now, look at the HD 7970:

It is <50% faster than the HD 6970 and ~20% faster than the GTX 580.

And I just don't understand it..

1536 @ 40nm =/= 2048 @ 28nm.

[Dent1]

Originally Posted by Trackr

This is the first time in history where a new generation (not a refresh), based on a lower process doesn't even manage 50% performance boost, let alone 100%.. heck, it's barely 25%!

HD 4870 was more than twice as powerful than HD 3870.
HD 5870 was exactly twice as powerful as HD4870.
HD 6970 was a refresh, on the same process, and thus was only 25% better.

Now, HD 7970, on the 28nm process(!) manages what, 10-25%?!

And everyone is acting like this is fine...

What gives, people?!

We are reaching a point where performance will stagnate. This is normal, it's a scientific fact that GPUs and CPUs performance will not increase as fast as it once did. Hence the push for multi-GPU PCBs and multi-core processors.

[brandonwh64]

Why would you think the 7970 would be an upgrade to a GTX 590? If you have followed ATI/AMD's naming scheme then you would realize that xx70 is mid-high scale. Wait for the 7990 before you decide to upgrade if the 7970 does not do you justice.

[Trackr]

Originally Posted by Bo$$

show me.

Why should I when you can just Goog.. oh, whatever.

Originally Posted by DannibusX

Don't get all upset over it man. Sucks you sold your beastly card in anticipation of the next gen of cards, but next time you should wait for performance reviews before overcommiting to new hardware.

I'm going to hold out for some driver refreshes and see if performance creeps up at all.

I'm fine with my mistake.

What I am not fine with is everyone talking about how awesome the HD 7970 is..

[Trackr]

Originally Posted by brandonwh64

Why would you think the 7970 would be an upgrade to a GTX 590? If you have followed ATI/AMD's naming scheme then you would realize that xx70 is mid-high scale. Wait for the 7990 before you decide to upgrade if the 7970 does not do you justice.

I'm not stupid.

I was going to either get HD 7970 Triple-Crossfire, or whatever comes out of Kepler.

[Trackr]

Originally Posted by Dent1

We are reaching a point where performance will stagnate. This is normal, it's a scientific fact that GPUs and CPUs performance will not increase as fast as it once did. Hence the push for multi-GPU PCBs and multi-core processors.

Why is it normal?

28nm means that you can fit 3000 ALUs in one GPU.

[Maban]

Apparently double means 56% these days. Nice triple post there BTW.

[brandonwh64]

Originally Posted by Trackr

I'm not stupid.

I was going to either get HD 7970 Triple-Crossfire, or whatever comes out of Kepler.

I thought based on your OP that you expected one card to be close to GTX 590. This card in the beginning was suppose to swap blows with the GTX 580.

Wiz will probably do a review of them in crossfire soon I would assume.

[DannibusX]

Originally Posted by Trackr

What I am not fine with is everyone talking about how awesome the HD 7970 is..

I'm still rockin' 5000 series cards which the 7970 shows a nice performance increase over what I have, so it's awesome to me. Hell, I may just skip this generation too and see what the future holds.

[cdawall]

Originally Posted by Trackr

This is the first time in history where a new generation (not a refresh), based on a lower process doesn't even manage 50% performance boost, let alone 100%.. heck, it's barely 25%!

HD 4870 was more than twice as powerful than HD 3870.
HD 5870 was exactly twice as powerful as HD4870.
HD 6970 was a refresh, on the same process, and thus was only 25% better.

Now, HD 7970, on the 28nm process(!) manages what, 10-25%?!

And everyone is acting like this is fine...

What gives, people?!

Other than your math fucking sucking nothing

Originally Posted by cdawall

Review your facts again


6870->6970
5870->6870
4890->5870
3870->4870
2900XT->3870
Overall performance summaries

[Celeras]

Originally Posted by Maban

Apparently double means 56% these days. Nice triple post there BTW.

Registering solely to point out your stupidity. The 3870 is 56% when the base(100%) is the 4870. If the 3870 was the base, the 4870 would be nearly twice as fast. Guy above me made the same mistake.

Apparently posting on a tech site doesn't require that you pass third grade math.

[the54thvoid]

Originally Posted by cdawall

Other than your math fucking sucking nothing

I lolled.

Originally Posted by Celeras

Guy above me made the same mistake.

Apparently posting on a tech site doesn't require that you pass third grade math.

How so.

By your own comment, 3870 is 56% the power of a 4870. Which makes the 4870 short of being twice as fast (would require 3870 @ 50%).

The OP states the 4870 was more than twice as fast as the 3870.

So wrong there. Dont bring significant statistical innaccuracies to a tech forum. If you're going to start quoting numbers, make damn sure you're 100% correct.

[Maban]

Originally Posted by Celeras

Registering solely to point out your stupidity. The 3870 is 56% when the base(100%) is the 4870. If the 3870 was the base, the 4870 would be nearly twice as fast. Guy above me made the same mistake.

Apparently posting on a tech site doesn't require that you pass third grade math.

Apparently it doesn't. 36 / 64 = 56.25. You cannot simply count the difference in percentages in the graph. The 3870 is 64% AS FAST as the 4870. The 4870 is 56% FASTER THAN the 3870.

[Celeras]

I'm sorry, was my original explanation not clear enough? I'll break it down for you.

Card A averages 100FPS
Card B averages 50 FPS

From the perspective of Card A, Card B is half (50%) as fast. From the perspective of Card B, Card A is twice (200%) as fast. It's always relative to the starting point, which in the case of the above example, is the 4870.

Again, third grade. And if you're really going to nitpick about the 12% in the guys OP, which would equate to probably less than 1-2 FPS, you deserve where this conversation is going.

[Tatty_One]

Since one or two are talking about education......

1. Trackr - Please learn to use the "Multiquote" button, that certainly does not require genius........ triple posting is somewhat tiresome.

2. Please keep things civil!

[Dent1]

Originally Posted by Trackr

Why is it normal?

28nm means that you can fit 3000 ALUs in one GPU.

Moore's Law, 101

The exponential processor transistor growth predicted by Moore does not always translate into exponentially greater practical CPU performance.

Let us consider the case of a single-threaded system. According to Moore's law, transistor dimensions are scaled by 30% (0.7x) every technology generation, thus reducing their area by 50%. This reduces the delay (0.7x) and therefore increases operating frequency by about 40%.

In multi-core CPUs, the higher transistor density does not greatly increase speed on many consumer applications that are not parallelized. There are cases where a roughly 45% increase in processor transistors have translated to roughly 10–20% increase in processing power.

Parallel computation has recently become necessary to take full advantage of the gains allowed by Moore's law. For years, processor makers consistently delivered increases in clock rates and instruction-level parallelism, so that single-threaded code executed faster on newer processors with no modification.[71] Now, to manage CPU power dissipation, processor makers favor multi-core chip designs, and software has to be written in a multi-threaded or multi-process manner to take full advantage of the hardware.

To summerise, computers are not becoming faster, as time goes on transister count will do less to improve performance, hence the push for multi CPU or GPU and multithreaded application. AMD Bulldozer is proof of Moores Law!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore's_law

[Maban]

Originally Posted by Celeras

I'm sorry, was my original explanation not clear enough? Ok Captain Derp, I'll break it down for you.

Card A averages 100FPS
Card B averages 50 FPS

From the perspective of Card A, Card B is half (50%) as fast. From the perspective of Card B, Card A is twice (200%) as fast. It's always relative to the starting point, which in the case of the above example, is the 4870.

Again, third grade. And if you're really going to nitpick about the 12% in the guys OP, which would equate to probably less than 1-2 FPS, you deserve where this conversation is going.

I basically just said that in my post. 4870 is 156% as fast as the 3870. Are you going by the 3850 which was 56% as fast as the 4870?