7970 Ghz edition - Worth it?

[Nordic]

So relatively soon the 7970 Ghz edition will be coming out. These are top binned matured process chips with stock clocks of 1000 Mhz meant to compete with the 680. There will of course be a price premium making the price around the 680's or more.

So is it worth it?

Speculate... at least till they are out. Then discuss...

 

[Melvis]

We wont know till the numbers are in, Price and performance will tell all.

 

[DOM]

My 3 7970 can run 1000+ on stock volts so idk what's up with this 1ghz... Marketing I would guess

 

[micropage7]

personally i wont take it
stuff that labelled with OC tagged in high price and if you can OC it manually why spend much money with buying OC things

 

[Nordic]

My 3 7970 can run 1000+ on stock volts so idk what's up with this 1ghz... Marketing I would guess

By what I know 1ghz is easy for a 7970. These are supposedly higher binned chips too. Could they be better overclockers also?

 

[micropage7]

By what I know 1ghz is easy for a 7970. These are supposedly higher binned chips too. Could they be better overclockers also?

newer architecture usually offers you better performance, lower power and so and so

 

[Over_Lord]

1.1Ghz or nothing

 

[Relayer]

1.1Ghz or nothing

+1

The 7970 Lightning @ 1070MHz matched the 680 @ 1080p, slightly better at 1600p. 1100MHz is where AMD want to be. They get a complete new set of benches and will come out a bit faster overall. They should do this without raising pricing, though. Mark down the 925's, or, better yet, software castrate them and sell them as 7950's that can unlock.

 

[Nordic]

+1

The 7970 Lightning @ 1070MHz matched the 680 @ 1080p, slightly better at 1600p. 1100MHz is where AMD want to be. They get a complete new set of benches and will come out a bit faster overall. They should do this without raising pricing, though. Mark down the 925's, or, better yet, software castrate them and sell them as 7950's that can unlock.

Great Idea. I'm down for that. I don't know about Amd though

 

[DOM]

By what I know 1ghz is easy for a 7970. These are supposedly higher binned chips too. Could they be better overclockers also?

I don't think so cuz your only going to get so far on air/water due to temps...

But unless that changed something I wouldn't expect for crazy clocks

 

[W1zzard]

So is it worth it?

that will only depend on price

 

[INSTG8R]

I will chime in that I am enjoying my Sapphire 7970 OC. Just a simple BIOS switch flip and it runs at 1GHZ and gets a more aggressive fan profile to go with it. I haven't even bothered to try to OC it anymore yet as I haven't seen the need to. Price wise it was much cheaper than a 680 anyway and the 3GB of VRAM is plus as well when it's cheaper than a 680 with just 2GB of VRAM.

 

[Meowws]

All 7970 owners are experiencing random black screen crashes! E.g. black screen crash with audio stuttering that requires a hard reset! AMD really fuck us over instantly. not going back to AMD ever again. wanted to give them a try and BAM!

 

[phanbuey]

I would buy one for $350

 

[INSTG8R]

All 7970 owners are experiencing random black screen crashes! E.g. black screen crash with audio stuttering that requires a hard reset! AMD really fuck us over instantly. not going back to AMD ever again. wanted to give them a try and BAM!

Sorry I haven't had any issues what so ever with mine at all... New member with a little spite in themselves me thinks(AMD hater) :shadedshu

 

[manofthem]

All 7970 owners are experiencing random black screen crashes! E.g. black screen crash with audio stuttering that requires a hard reset! AMD really fuck us over instantly. not going back to AMD ever again. wanted to give them a try and BAM!

I haven't experienced any of that yet, and I've had a 7970 since January.

My 3 7970 can run 1000+ on stock volts so idk what's up with this 1ghz... Marketing I would guess

+1 to this. My 2 now max ccc which is more than 1000core and my original 7970 (low voltage card) hit well over 1000.

 

[Yukikaze]

All 7970 owners are experiencing random black screen crashes! E.g. black screen crash with audio stuttering that requires a hard reset! AMD really fuck us over instantly. not going back to AMD ever again. wanted to give them a try and BAM!

I had that with my HD7950. Rolling back to an earlier driver solved it.

 

[the54thvoid]

All 7970 owners are experiencing random black screen crashes! E.g. black screen crash with audio stuttering that requires a hard reset! AMD really fuck us over instantly. not going back to AMD ever again. wanted to give them a try and BAM!

You my sir are a complete freaking troll.

Or you are exceptionally naive to believe that every 7970 experiences crashes. Mine doesn't. Only the most fervent fanboy makes such ludicrously unsupportable claims. My 7970 isn't perfect, it's a reference board so i get coil whine a little when rendering certain fps (next time i buy a board with better chokes). But hell, it destroys my old GTX 580 Lightning and it's running 24/7 at 1100 core and 1500 memory.

Edit: I've also ran 12.4, 12.5 and 12.6 CCC and none of them have given me problems.

Get back under your bridge.

 

[de.das.dude]

All 7970 owners are experiencing random black screen crashes! E.g. black screen crash with audio stuttering that requires a hard reset! AMD really fuck us over instantly. not going back to AMD ever again. wanted to give them a try and BAM!

you just sound like an AMD hater. never heard of that problem. and no one hear is facing it either.

 

[SonDa5]

If the cards have a beefed up VRM power delivery design then it may be more than just marketing and possibly worth the money.

 

[erocker]

By what I know 1ghz is easy for a 7970. These are supposedly higher binned chips too. Could they be better overclockers also?

From the various news posts/articles I've read they are "binned" (loose term) to run at 1ghz at the power envelope of the 7970 GPU's that preceded it. The rest of the card on the reference model (if there will even be one) will go unchanged. To answer your question a better binned GPU is more likely to be a better overclocker though it is not definite.

 

[phanbuey]

From the various news posts/articles I've read they are "binned" (loose term) to run at 1ghz at the power envelope of the 7970 GPU's that preceded it. The rest of the card on the reference model (if there will even be one) will go unchanged. To answer your question a better binned GPU is more likely to be a better overclocker though it is not definite.

Right especially since the power circuitry and alot of the other components can vary in quality between the two cards.. Ive had identical reference GTX 570's and one had way more Vdroop than the other... coincidentally the one that had the worst vdroop overclocked terribly.

 

[Nordic]

Tahiti XT2, or Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition, will ship with a core clock speed of 1100 MHz, 175 MHz faster than the HD 7970. The GPU core voltage of Tahiti XT2 will be lower, at 1.020V, compared to 1.175V of the Tahiti XT. It's unlikely that AMD will tinker with memory clock speed, since Tahiti already has a 384-bit wide GDDR5 memory interface, which gives it 264 GB/s memory bandwidth at 1375 MHz (5.50 GHz effective). According to the source, the new SKU enters mass-production next week. So best case, it should reach markets by late-June or early-July.

Worth it?

 

[the54thvoid]

Worth it?

Given nothing has changed except the chip is being produced at a 'better' spec, we can hope (foolishly) they will release it at current price points....

 

[Huddo93]

We wont know till the numbers are in, Price and performance will tell all.

Exactly, There really is no way in telling until we see the price vs the new performance. No room for specualtion imho.