AMD Readies Radeon HD 7950 GHz Edition

[btarunr]

NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 670 presents a big problem to AMD's Radeon HD 7900 series lineup. It clearly outperforms Radeon HD 7950, outperforms Radeon HD 7970 in most cases, and maintains a healthy cost-performance lead over Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition, even if it lags behind in performance. To combat this, AMD is reportedly working on a new SKU, called Radeon HD 7950 GHz Edition.

The "new" Radeon HD 7950 GHz Edition will be priced competitively to the GeForce GTX 670 (around $350-400), will retain the core configuration of the original HD 7950, with 1,792 Graphics CoreNext stream processors, 112 TMUs, 32 ROPs, and 384-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface holding 3 GB of memory; but will feature higher clock speeds, with a core clock speed ≥1.00 GHz, and could feature AMD PowerTune with Boost feature. It is also reported that a majority of HD 7950 GHz Edition graphics cards launched to the market (later this quarter), will be cost-effective non-reference designs by AMD's add-in board (AIB) partners.



Sources: Benchmark.pl, Expreview

[Totally]

Inb4 speculation and fanbashing

[thunderising]

Yay I'm happy. Free performance boost at the same price. Excellent for people who were gonna settle for the HD7950. At similar price they will get a better product

[reverze]

great idea, cant wait for these cards!

[Zubasa]

Just make sure they do a better job at setting the card's bios than its bigger brother

[KooKKiK]

and what about the original 7970 ???

[alwayssts]

This is long overdue.

There was never an inherent problem with this sku, only the stock clockspeed which created some marketing fallacy I will never completely understand.

Sure, it has more bw and isn't as tightly coordinated as the 670 so the tdp will be slightly higher for similar performance at 1080p, but it is and should be more versatile at higher-rez. That's the basic trade-off, and not really a huge one that should be an issue if one is cheaper than the other.

Hope they don't cripple voltage tweaking with powertune as they seemed to in the 7970 ghz ed. Still po'ed these 'new features' seem to be more-and-more excuses to take away value potential and create market separation.

That said, odds are the guy at ATi that gave us software voltage tweaking probably doesn't even work there anymore...

[Zubasa]

Originally Posted by KooKKiK

and what about the original 7970 ???

The original reference 7970 have been obsolete for a while now
There are so many better non-reference designs out there, and the GTX 670 is such good price performance compare to the original 7970.

[thunderising]

Can't wait for HD8000 actually.

Optimized 28nm

[Hustler]

Here's an idea...why don't you just drop the price on the standard 7950, to a level it should have launched in the first place..because right now they're $75-$100 over priced.

That way you wont have to worry about the 670, because the majority people looking to buy a new Gfx card will always look at the price,before performance.

[Fluffmeister]

A more power hungry 7950, just what the market needs.

[SIGSEGV]

AMD Radeon HD7900 series are overpriced, but they had a reason for that, their competitor could not supply enough 600 series cards in the market.

[farquaid]

Originally Posted by Zubasa

The original reference 7970 have been obsolete for a while now
There are so many better non-reference designs out there, and the GTX 670 is such good price performance compare to the original 7970.

It seams like the original 7970 was a wait and see product. It was first with 40nm and had the performance crown while still leaving a huge room to grow for future products. And when Nvidia released their product it was easy for AMD to upgrade the cards.

[DarkOCean]

i hope they put better cooler on this not like 7970 ge.

[Recus]

Originally Posted by SIGSEGV

AMD Radeon HD7900 series are overpriced, but they had a reason for that, their competitor could not supply enough 600 series cards in the market.

Reality.

Just small country's local store.

[radrok]

Originally Posted by Recus

http://s7.postimage.org/9og5nzh6z/Kepler.jpg
Reality.

Just small country's local store. http://s14.postimage.org/3lnuptmml/image.gif

He's probably talking about post launch days, not now.

[function69]

too little, too late

[adams]

Originally Posted by function69

too little, too late

And too faked.
http://extrahardware.cnews.cz/amd-ne...afie-jsou-fake

[phanbuey]

They need to sell for about $300, then they would be ok...

[Dj-ElectriC]

I hope this card wont sell at all. I hope that something will happen to AMD to make their cards cost-effective again, even at the sake of losing market share.

[mastrdrver]

Originally Posted by phanbuey

They need to sell for about $300, then they would be ok...

You can get vanilla 7970s on ebay for ~$350, relatively new too.

[cadaveca]

Originally Posted by mastrdrver

You can get vanilla 7970s on ebay for ~$350, relatively new too.

I can get brand new 7970, with wararnty and everything else for $429.

This card best sell for $329 or less. THat is the only way AMD can really compete. 7970 should be $379-$429(stock, oc, GHz, GHz OC @ $10 intervals), and 7950 should be $309-$349).

Just my opinion though, of course.

[INSTG8R]

GDDR 5 isn't cheap and you get 3GB standard. People seem to forget this. NV has nothing in this price range to compete with that.

[MxPhenom 216]

I would just buy a normal 7950 and overclock it lol.

[tacosRcool]

I need benchmarks!!!