7800 specs leaked (and possibly prices)

[RussianSensation]

*snip

So the PR slides are showing HD7870 as 41% faster on average than GTX570?

I guess HD7870 is as fast as an HD7970?

BF3 1920 * 1080 4MSAA FXAA ultra-

7950 36.7fps
7870 35.9fps
GTX570 35.5fps
6970 32.5fps
7850 30.1fps
6950 28.6fps

Crysis 2 1920 * 1080 AA ingame DX11 High Detail

7950 43.5fps
7870 39fps
GTX570 36.2fps
6970 33.1fps
7850 32.4fps
6950 29.9fps

Looks like AMD is targeting HD7800 series at HD5800 users.

Who would upgrade their HD5850 or HD5870 to a $300 HD7870 for 20-25% more performance? I t hink HD4800 users are a much better target market.

 

[Ieat]

MSRP for the HD 5870 2GB was $480, taxes and shipping covered the last $20. For the benefits the card brought to my setup, I think I got a decent product.

I bought a Sapphire 5870 2gb from newegg for $180 AR on 2/24/11. Can you kinda see why people expect performance to go up while prices remain the same or goes down for new models or as time passes?

 

[Grooveriding]

You are using the wrong resolution RS.

Dude, you are starting to make some broken arguments now and making assumptions such as the 20% 5870 to 7870. Do you think 7870 is going to only be 20% faster in BF3 and C2 than 5870.

When I upgrade my 480s you can have one for free, will be the most epic price/performance ever! I kid

 

[railven]

Why are people such dicks online? This thread, and EVERY other thread i have seen turns into a bunch of random assholes who think that they are right and everyone else is annoying for disagreeing. Why cant it just be about facts.

We only use the facts we like But my first name isn't Richard haha.

 

[tviceman]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ee925OTFBCA

Your inflammatory trolling is reaching new epic heights each and every time you post. Seriously, do everyone a favor and become a console gamer. Go outside. Maybe try a gym.

So the PR slides are showing HD7870 as 41% faster on average than GTX570?

I guess HD7870 is as fast as an HD7970?

Russian there is no point in trying to convince grover that the sky is blue. A simple matter-of-fact statement like "it's more informative when a company compares their new offerings to their older ones instead of competitors" gets the reply from him that I quoted at the top of this post. When he, and people like him, reduce conversations to extreme flame baiting and unintelligent gibberish it's best just to completely ignore them and allow them to be happy in their own little world thinking they know what is best.

 

[railven]

I bought a Sapphire 5870 2gb from newegg for $180 AR on 2/24/11. Can you kinda see why people expect performance to go up while prices remain the same or goes down for new models or as time passes?

Umm...yeah. I do. And a whole year later you bought a product that depreciated through the normal means:

A) a competitor was introduced
B) it aged

The ceiling for the top tier card was $500 set in April 2009 and it ended in January 2012. Do you see now why I can understand the prices? ANd don't get me wrong, I expect the prices to go down. So in 2013, someone will post "I bought an HD 7970 for $180 AR." Because, that is normal.

The card is only ~2 months old. It still has zero competition. What do you expect?

 

[toyota]

never mind

 

[railven]

the MSRP for the 5870 was $380 not $480.

NVM too

 

[tviceman]

NM

 

[GaiaHunter]

Ok, I'll try to make it as clear as possible. There are 3 ways to look at the price of HD7950.

View #1: Which is if I understand correctly is your view:

"Which is the best card to buy today at $450-500?"

HD7950 is the best card today at $450-500 = almost everyone agrees. Not a single person here disagrees with that assessment and hasn't since HD7950 launched. Based on GTX580's $450 price, HD7950 at $450 is reasonably priced today.

View #2: What a lot of us have been saying for the last 2 months since HD7950 launched to understand if its price makes sense in the historical context and in terms of technological innovation:

"How much faster should next generation be based on a node shrink + new architecture and in light of historical price/performance curve and Moore's Law and what we have seen in the last 10 years of generational leaps?"

= HD7950 doesn't live up to that expectation and therefore is not appropriately priced in this context.

Therefore, HD7950 is severely overpriced based on the technology curve, Moore'se Law and the assumption that technology gets cheaper for a given level of performance or much faster at a similar price level. This applies to tablets, smartphones, laptops, CPUs, RAM, SSDs, etc.

And there is actually a 3rd view which relates to lack of competition and 28nm supply constraints.

View #3: "In the absence of high-end competition from a competitor, and lack of 28nm capacity at TSMC, AMD can afford and should price their cards as high as the market will bare to offset their higher manufacturing costs at the beginning of the 28nm ramp-up and to maximize its profits for as long as possible."


Based on View #1 and #3, HD7900 pricing is 100% justified.
Based on View #2, HD7900 pricing is not justified.

When we are discussing why we think HD7950's price makes no sense, we are coming from View #2. And that's exactly why the discussion about GPU cycles vs. consumer readiness to buy came up.

When we discuss our viewpoint, it's not from the context of what "we expect" like a charity as many people here claim. It's 100% from a context that technology should get cheaper over time OR much much faster (for GPU generations that's about 40-50%, for smartphones that might be going from a single core to a dual core, etc. each market segment varies). HD7000 series as a whole fails to meet that historical criteria without resorting to required overclocking. Which means from a technology curve perspective, it's either too slow, or too overpriced.

What you aren't understanding is that it's not "OUR perspective" but how the world of technology works.

Does that clear things up now?

Ignored facts:
#1 - AMD performance basis is their last gen and not NVIDIA last gen.

#2 - Opposed to the previous generational leaps you are referring too, the 7970 doesn't increase its resources as much. For example:
8800GTX->GTX280 128 shaders->240 shaders 768M transistors -> 1400M transistors;
GTX280->GTX480 240 shaders-> 480 shaders, 1400M->3000M transistors;
6970->7970 1536 shaders-> 2048 shaders, 2640M->4313M transistors.

And there is always the chance our perspective of our world of technology will have to be re accessed, because we can't expect exponential increases forever without expecting exponential resources invested.

The last few years have shown difficulties getting to smaller nodes (with the exception of Intel).

Lets see what NVIDIA brings to the table for a better judgement.

 

[Homeles]

Who would upgrade their HD5850 or HD5870 to a $300 HD7870 for 20-25% more performance? I t hink HD4800 users are a much better target market.

If you ask me, buying any GPU is a bad idea right now unless you absolutely can't survive without a new one.

 

[Grooveriding]

Your inflammatory trolling is reaching new epic heights each and every time you post. Seriously, do everyone a favor and become a console gamer. Go outside. Maybe try a gym.

Haha dude, always so sensitive. I think you need the break. I already jogged my 5 miles for the day, so no, I will not do you a favour.

Use the report post button if someting that is actually funny and lightens the mood over incessant whining is not preferable to you. I think you are quite familiar and a fan of it.

 

[RussianSensation]

Ahh...another edit with another giant addendum. Really guy? Haha.

"haha, guy?" Are you still in high school?

How many languages do you speak? Only 1?

You can say "the card isn't what I expected considering the node shift and architecture change. I expected more" which still supports view #2,

Many people have expressed this viewpoint many times.

but view #1 is set by the competition of the card in the market TODAY.

That applies to any product in the world then. Using your logic, all products are prices accordingly. Then no argument would ever take place. Arguing that something is priced @ X today because it has no competition is not an argument. It's stating the obvious. No one disputes that view. Which is why it's not even an argument in the first place.

"Again, another fail in application.

That whole blurb that made no sense to me. You need to explain it better. Technology gets cheaper over time or much better. HD7950 is none of those things.

You never told me where you thought the card should be priced. I'm curious.

If HD7870 is only as fast as an HD6970, it should cost way less. In other words, on the technology curve, HD7870 would need to be 30-50% faster than HD6970 at $379 OR cost 40-50% less than HD6970 if it's only as fast as the HD6970.

It most certainly is what you expect. And your expectations are based on trends of the past. There is no flaw in that opinion. You trying to argue that it isn't based on what you expect is misleading.

My opinion is based on how technology works. If you don't think technology should get much cheaper and / or faster over time, then we disagree about how innovation should take place in the world.

Technologies change, there are other categories of technology that aren't seeing double gains also.

No one said anything about double gains. It should fall in-line with previous technological gains in the world of graphics since we are specifically comparing graphics cards.

? How the world of technology works? Really...gotcha. Someone should tell Intel their doing it wrong.

Are you serious? Every 18 months Intel releases something much faster at a similar price level. What a failed comparison. Using performance increases expected on the CPU technological curve (usually 15% IPC every new generation from Intel and 5% on refreshes) and applying them to GPUs is the most failed comparison I've ever seen.

 

[RussianSensation]

You are using the wrong resolution RS.

^ Last Gen cards are fast enough to max out console ports @ 2560x1600. While HD7970 folds on its face in Metro 2033 and Witcher 2 with Uber Sampling.

Max Payne 3
Starcraft 2
Diablo 3
Mass Effect 3

The next way of games isn't what one would call demanding a $600 GPU upgrade. But that's besides the point. Separate discussion altogether.

I'd love to get a 2560x1600 or higher resolution large monitor (>37 inches) for less than $3,000. Where?

Dude, you are starting to make some broken arguments now and making assumptions such as the 20% 5870 to 7870. Do you think 7870 is going to only be 20% faster in BF3 and C2 than 5870.

Obviously not if they crank high Tessellation and MSAA. I was saying on average if you had noticed. On average HD6970 is only 15% faster than HD5870. So if HD7870 is 10% faster than HD6970, that puts it about ~25% faster on average than an HD5870.

Also, I am only using the benches you linked where HD7870 in those 2 games tested appears to be about 25% faster. I don't expect HD5870 users to upgrade to HD7870 series. You think that's enough of an upgrade for $250-300 2.5 years later?

When I upgrade my 480s you can have one for free, will be the most epic price/performance ever! I kid

I'd rather you give it to someone who needs a new videocard and is using an old one.

 

[Ieat]

Umm...yeah. I do. And a whole year later you bought a product that depreciated through the normal means:

A) a competitor was introduced
B) it aged

The ceiling for the top tier card was $500 set in April 2009 and it ended in January 2012. Do you see now why I can understand the prices? ANd don't get me wrong, I expect the prices to go down. So in 2013, someone will post "I bought an HD 7970 for $180 AR." Because, that is normal.

The card is only ~2 months old. It still has zero competition. What do you expect?

Where did that competition come from? Maybe from the better performing, possible unlockable shaders, quieter and cheaper $300 6950 2gb card from AMD themselves that made the 5870 2gb card obsolete? It makes absolutely no sense to defend no movement in the price to performance ratio after a year and a half. So in 1-2 years does that mean you'll defend the price of the say... a hd 8970 at $700 because it offers 20% better performance then a $550 7970 that came out the year before. Then a $850 9970 the generation after that because again its 20% faster. Because that's would be natural progression of pricing when the price to performance ratio doesn't move.

edit: Make that 30% faster.

 

[RussianSensation]

NVM too

Oh that's something I missed. So you bought an HD5870 for $480 and you are trying to justify the pricing of HD7900 series, that launches 15 months later? Powercolor HD5870 2GB Eyefinity was on sale for $180 on SlickDeals way back. Looks like you are 1% of 1% who needs 6 monitors Eyefinity, doesn't care if his $500 GPU loses $300 in value in 12 months and didn't mind paying 50% the market rate of most 5870s all the way back then, and don't time your purchases at all (for some reason). Everything makes sense now. Price/performance or GPU cycles or GPU depreciation or timing = all are irrelevant for you because you are 1% of 1% who uses 6 monitors on a single 5870. :thumbsup:

 

[SlowSpyder]

The leader never follows, Intel never does large reduction of their prices they just phase out their old products.

Nvidia is the Intel of the GPU world, awesome, amazing, always on top. Sure they might be a few months behind, but really whats a few months in a two year time frame?

I'd rather not validate a system where early to market products set the price structure, otherwise we're going to be overpaying for the superior Nvidia card since without question they'll be faster.

This is the most ridiculous thing I've ever read. Anywhere, ever.

I bought 470s but get the same features/support as 580s and the same stock performance at less than half the cost...

What exactly about that is flawed?

I wish Nvida would have marketed the 470's a little differently. Something like, "The GTX470... it's just like the Radeon 5870 you've been gaming on for six months now, but louder, hotter, and more power hungry, but plays the best game on Earth - Unique Heaven* - faster."


*Not an actual game, just a canned benchmark.

 

[Madcatatlas]

any graph showing the 590 above the 6990 is invalid in itself. The 6990 is clearly the faster card in 3 out of 4 games. Having resolutions as low as 1600x1000 tipping the scale in favor of the 590 shows the huge bias in these "performance ladder" graphs.


Also, keep it simple stupid, kiss

 

[RussianSensation]

I wish Nvida would have marketed the 470's a little differently. Something like, "The GTX470... it's just like the Radeon 5870 you've been gaming on for six months now, but louder, hotter, and more power hungry, but plays the best game on Earth - Unique Heaven* - faster."

Nvidia marketed GTX470 as a card made for next generation DX11 games, with world's most advanced Tessellation engine at the time and a card that wouldn't run out of VRAM in just 2 years.

^ All of that incidentally came true 2 years later. So actually NV marketed it exactly as it turned out to be. Apparently, AMD thinks HD5800 users should be ready to upgrade. It would appear they are implying HD5800 series is no longer good enough for modern games? I'd say GTX470 @ 480 speeds is ~ HD6970 is still a viable card, even for DX11 games.

Oh, plus native Ambient Occlusion + ability to not choke on MSAA deferred game engines (see SC2).

^ All that for a price that was cheaper than HD5870 and had overclocking headroom that gave GTX470 ~ GTX480 level of performance with a slight voltage bump to 1.087V. EVGA GTX470s came with a lifetime warranty and 2-4 free games (Mafia 2, Just Cause 2, Metro 2033, Cryostatis), for $50 cheaper than the cheapest HD5870 at the time.

Not trying to discredit the HD5870 as it was a great card back then, but 2 years later, it doesn't look so great compared to a stock GTX470.

 

[skipsneeky2]

I'd rather you give it to someone who needs a new videocard and is using an old one.

I'm giving away today my old 2gb gtx560 to a friend has my old 8800gts 512mb i bought brand new in 2007 and gave her back in 2008 when i got a gtx280,vastly overkill for 1440x900 but if her 6 year old viewsonic 19'' dies she will need to buy a 1600x900 or better anyways so this card will be epic for her machine.:thumbsup:

 

[BallaTheFeared]

This is the most ridiculous thing I've ever read. Anywhere, ever.

Orly?

I wish Nvida would have marketed the 470's a little differently. Something like, "The GTX470... it's just like the Radeon 5870 you've been gaming on for six months now, but louder, hotter, and more power hungry, but plays the best game on Earth - Unique Heaven* - faster."


*Not an actual game, just a canned benchmark.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8rZWw9HE7o

Before this review, we had done some in-house testing of the GTX 470 under different temperatures since it was reported that heat buildup had a massive impact upon power consumption of the GF100 architecture. Well, it looks like these reports were spot on since the Super Overclock was able to post lower than reference power consumption numbers even though its core was substantially overclocked

Nvidia should have marketed the GTX 470 like this "Buy a GTX 470, go water, decrease power requirements, eliminate noise, vent air to another room, achieve unprecedented 57% overclocks - compete with AMD's next gen products".

:thumbsup:

 

[AnandThenMan]

Orly?

Yes, have to agree, probably the most ridiculous and over the top thing I've read in a long time. I hope you were not serious.

 

[BallaTheFeared]

Just trying to fit in with the rest of the crowd, long live Nvidia.

Edit: That's odd, I replied to Anand and my reply went before his post?

 

[RussianSensation]

I'm giving away today my old 2gb gtx560 to a friend has my old 8800gts 512mb i bought brand new in 2007 and gave her back in 2008 when i got a gtx280,vastly overkill for 1440x900 but if her 6 year old viewsonic 19'' dies she will need to buy a 1600x900 or better anyways so this card will be epic for her machine.:thumbsup:

:thumbsup: Very kind gesture. You sure she is just a friend?

 

[dust]

Orly?




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8rZWw9HE7o





Nvidia should have marketed the GTX 470 like this "Buy a GTX 470, go water, decrease power requirements, eliminate noise, vent air to another room, achieve unprecedented 57% overclocks - compete with AMD's next gen products".

:thumbsup:

I'm getting tired just reading through that, don't make the mistake to believe you represent the vast majority of gamers. As for the last "compete" part, only in your mind it's true.