AMD Radeon HD 7850 & HD 7870 2048 MB

[HD64G]

Originally Posted by W1zzard

yeah i think driver optimizations. just waiting for a final whql driver that supports all new amd cards so i can rebench

Nice thought W1z! It is very obvious that newer drivers will add much in 7970, 7950, at least in most popular or recent games with new game engines.

[jamsbong]

Originally Posted by HD64G

Nice thought W1z! It is very obvious that newer drivers will add much in 7970, 7950, at least in most popular or recent games with new game engines.

Agree, the 79xx cards don't have optimised drivers yet.

Here is a speculative thought, is ATI sandbaging, holding out the real performance and getting ready for Kepler? I bet there will be a driver release on the day when Kepler hits the reviewers. hehehe... At least I hope that is the case. One thing is definitely true, there is more within the 79xx cards than what we are seeing now.

[W1zzard]

Originally Posted by jamsbong

is ATI sandbaging, holding out the real performance and getting ready for Kepler? I bet there will be a driver release on the day when Kepler hits the reviewers. hehehe... At least I hope that is the case

those changes will be included with the new bulldozer driver that doubles performance

Originally Posted by jamsbong

One thing is definitely true, there is more within the 79xx cards than what we are seeing now.

definitely not true. the two lower end GPUs have disabled shaders, but not tahiti

[cadaveca]

Originally Posted by W1zzard

those changes will be included with the new bulldozer driver that doubles performance

[jamsbong]

Originally Posted by W1zzard

those changes will be included with the new bulldozer driver that doubles performance

I like the sound of that! hahaha...

[Maban]

So what I get from this is that AMD was rather stupid not to give Tahiti 48 or 64 ROPS. Would love to see a crossfire 7870 review.


/awaits Kepler

[cadaveca]

Originally Posted by Maban

Tahiti 48 or 64 ROPS.

I kinda wonder about this myself.

[m1dg3t]

Originally Posted by Maban

So what I get from this is that AMD was rather stupid not to give Tahiti 48 or 64 ROPS.

Originally Posted by cadaveca

I kinda wonder about this myself.

+2 I'm an idiot and i wonder as well

Maybe they really are sandbagging a bit, toying with consumer's/Nvidia

Edit: W1zz class review as always

[xenocide]

Originally Posted by cadaveca

I kinda wonder about this myself.

Because then they can relaunch the same GPU reworked with 48/64 ROP's at the end of the year or in the fall as the 8xxx series!

[Benetanegia]

Come on guys it just cannot be ROPs. If it had 40 ROPs, that'd be a 25% increase, so more than enough.

And now die size, how much do you think ROPs take, 1/4th of the die being very very generous*? So having 25% more ROPs would increase die size by 1/16, a little more than 5%. You just don't skimp 5% of die area on your flagship GPU if it's going to hurt performance in any significant way, you just don't. And in fact, you just don't put R&D money researching how to decouple your ROPs from memory controller, so as to being able to go 384 bit if a lower number of ROPs is going to hurt performance. It's not ROPs.

* The last AMD GPU die shot that I'm aware of is RV770. 800 SPs, 16 ROPs. The orange area is suposed to be ROPs + cache + other things. And also note that Tahiti has a higher SP-to-ROP ratio and it's shaders are more advanced and have more functionality so the area devoted to shaders is probably bigger.

[theoneandonlymrk]

The extra performance comes from dual on die gpus as i thought dual geometry and setup makes for less waste and a good half bin . Plus the circuits pre tested prior to trunity bonus its doin well.
Gd review wiz

[N3M3515]

Originally Posted by W1zzard

those changes will be included with the new bulldozer driver that doubles performance

Epic sarcasm.....LOL

[Homeles]

Originally Posted by Benetanegia

* The last AMD GPU die shot that I'm aware of is RV770. 800 SPs, 16 ROPs. The orange area is suposed to be ROPs + cache + other things. And also note that Tahiti has a higher SP-to-ROP ratio and it's shaders are more advanced and have more functionality so the area devoted to shaders is probably bigger.

Here's a nice diarrhea-brown colored die shot of Tahiti:

[Nihilus]

THIS is the card that the Xbox 3 needs! An under clocked "7860" would be perfect. We know sony is going AMD now so if they would use this card instead of the Xbox's foretold 6670, I will be canceling my Live account.
As for the price, they are a bit high but AMD is definitely in the driver's seat. Remember the price of Nvidia's cards before the hd 4800's and then after. Green team will have the 680 big dog to brag about for 1% of the market, but AMD will have lots of room to play for the rest of the 99% of the market. Maybe this generation, AMD will have an hd 4890 type card to counter back....or maybe they wont need it!

[legends84]

a massive upgrade from my GTX460 1gb and 5850... dang.... want one of two 7870 or must wait for kepler performance first

[hardcore_gamer]

Originally Posted by Nihilus

As for the price, they are a bit high but AMD is definitely in the driver's seat .

AMD will be in the driver's seat when they make better drivers.

[symmetrical]

Originally Posted by Volkszorn88

I'm very happy with my 2x 6950s for the time being, but these are some nice cards.

A bit pricey, but nice nontheless.

Agreed.

I actually just pulled the trigger on 2 6950's that are unlocked to 6970s for $415 after seeing these reviews.

Don't get me wrong, I'm sure 2 7870s would be boss, but not for $349 a piece or 2 for $761 (w/ tax) or even 2 7850s for $543 (w/ tax).

[mrb00m]

Why you no!

[qubit]

The 78xx & 79xx series cards are very competitive with nvidia, so hopefully they will start a price war. We really need one.

I'm waiting to see what Kepler offers.

[m1dg3t]

Originally Posted by Benetanegia

Come on guys it just cannot be ROPs. If it had 40 ROPs, that'd be a 25% increase, so more than enough.

I don't think anyone is saying the performance is lacking due to the ROP's just curious why ATi stay's with 30 ROP's and less on their card's; at the same time additional ROP's would/could increase performance. I don't think ATi has ever used more than 30 ROP's on any card

[Benetanegia]

Originally Posted by m1dg3t

I don't think anyone is saying the performance is lacking due to the ROP's just curious why ATi stay's with 30 ROP's and less on their card's; at the same time additional ROP's would/could increase performance. I don't think ATi has ever used more than 30 ROP's on any card

I have the impresion they said that 7800 and 7900 are so close to each ther because of a lack of ROPs in HD7900 cards. And probably don't use more ROPs because they are not needed. ROPs only play an important role as resolution and AA goes up, since ROPs mostly take care of blending the final pixels. Unless there's a requirement for higher resolution, there's no much need for more ROPs. 16 ROPs were mostly sufficient for 1920x1200 a long time ago already, and 32 are probably more than sufficient for 2560x1600. i.e HD7970 has 29.6 GPixel/s and 2560x1600 is 4 Mpixel. So about 7400 frames can be blended per second or at 100 fps 74 blends per frame, so in theory at least more than enough for blending all the stages with 32xAA and then some...

Nvidia used more because they have them coupled to the memory controllers, as did AMD before Tahiti, so for 384 bits you get 48, 320 bit 40 and so on, but the advantage of extra ROPs is negligible.

[Yo_Wattup]

W1zzard, why do you not include 1920x1080 in your reviews? It's currently the most common resolution among gamers.

There is a few (silly) shortcomings in your reviews that prevent them from being the best on the web. Close though.

[eidairaman1]

Originally Posted by Homeles

Here's a nice diarrhea-brown colored die shot of Tahiti:

http://www.chipworks.com/media/wpmu/...x-backside.jpg

dont matter what color it is aslong as it performs well. AMDs Unlocked Athlon XPs were all brown, XP-Ms being Green and Locked models being yellow or green.

So I dont see how your thoughts really pertain to anything...

N Yo Wattup

Just look at 1920x1200 for a relative performance number for 1080p.

1080vs 1200, Ill take 1200 anyday, n plus its more standard than 1080 for monitor resolutions.

Originally Posted by hardcore_gamer

AMD will be in the driver's seat when they make better drivers.

I dont see the point ur trying to make, ATI/AMD users that have been here for sometime are not having any issues with drivers, i havent hand any since Before Cat 4.3s Launched, same with customers ive built machines for.

[EarthDog]

I dont think he was trying to start anything from the post you quoted. Jesus, this place is brutal sometimes.

You want to see trolling...here: You been here for almost 5 years... find the edit button instead of double posting or the multi quote button n00b. (really... I KID I KID! But I hope you see the difference.)

[eidairaman1]

Originally Posted by EarthDog

I dont think he was trying to start anything from the post you quoted. Jesus, this place is brutal sometimes.

You want to see trolling...here: You been here for almost 5 years... find the edit button instead of double posting or the multi quote button n00b. (really... I KID I KID! But I hope you see the difference.)

fyi i removed the double post before you posted thanks for noticing lol

N Jr i oughta take you out back n whip you lol