Amd Radeon 6970 Rumours Source claiming it to be faster than gtx 580.

[WelshBloke]

In another thread I said the 580 was a pretty good refresh product. And a local zoner told me it wasnt impressive because it was only 20% faster than a 480. To which I said lets wait and see what the 6970 brings to the table before declaring the 580 not impressive.

It was a jab at that poster if this thing turns out to be slower than the 580. Yeah, it was slightly off topic. But whatever.......................

Not to single you out, because you certainly aren't the only one doing it, but thats really not helpful to the forums at large. If everyone made an effort not to do it the few remaining antisocial Herberts would soon get banned.

 

[ShadowOfMyself]

In another thread I said the 580 was a pretty good refresh product. And a local zoner told me it wasnt impressive because it was only 20% faster than a 480. To which I said lets wait and see what the 6970 brings to the table before declaring the 580 not impressive.

It is unimpressive regardless of what the 6970 brings to the table, thats the point

Like T2K said, if the 6970 doesnt beat the 580 then AMD did something wrong, considering its been over an year since last gen launched, and it will be even more unimpressive... At which point, the only thing that would make it attractive would be a kickass price like the 4870

 

[WelshBloke]

It is unimpressive regardless of what the 6970 brings to the table, thats the point

Like T2K said, if the 6970 doesnt beat the 580 then AMD did something wrong, considering its been over an year since last gen launched, and it will be even more unimpressive... At which point, the only thing that would make it attractive would be a kickass price like the 4870

Sorry I'm tired at the mo but are you really saying you find nothing good about the 580?

Its the fastest single GPU card. Its quiet and runs cool. What exactly do you not like about it?

It is expensive but, hey the top cards always are when they come out.

 

[Daedalus685]

I just don't get it...

The 580 is 20% faster than a product we all thought would be faster than it was.

We have no shrink this time around.

If AMD keeps their strategy the same (relatively modest die size), why should they be able to easily improve on a product that for all reports was very strong when Nvidia was 'only' able to get 20% improvement over one that was not.

It will be a feat to behold if AMD manages to improve on the 5870 by more than the 580 improved upon the 480. It is certainly possible but it is in no way given. Even if they manage that they still have ground to make up in order to defeat the 580 on top of that...

I don't want to speculate.. I truly hope the 6970 is utterly amazing, as Christmas is upgrade time... But we seem to be unreasonable at times.

 

[badb0y]

The GTX 580 is a beast card. It's faster than GTX 480, quieter, cooler, and less of a power hog.

The 6970 doesn't have to beat the GTX 580 to be impressive, it needs to be in the same ballpark.

 

[GaiaHunter]

It is unimpressive regardless of what the 6970 brings to the table, thats the point

Like T2K said, if the 6970 doesnt beat the 580 then AMD did something wrong, considering its been over an year since last gen launched, and it will be even more unimpressive... At which point, the only thing that would make it attractive would be a kickass price like the 4870

Well, if the 6970 is 360mm^2 that is 70% of the size of a GTX580. Drawing in performance would be solid. After all it would be 30-40% more performance out of a 7% larger die. So selling the 6970 for $400 would make the GTX580 simply crap.

But considering Barts vs Cypress it is possible the 6970 beats the GTX580. That would also be an explanation for why AMD delayed the 6990.

 

[AnandThenMan]

It will be a feat to behold if AMD manages to improve on the 5870 by more than the 580 improved upon the 480. It is certainly possible but it is in no way given. Even if they manage that they still have ground to make up in order to defeat the 580 on top of that...

I don't follow your logic. AMD has one hell of a transistor and thermal budget to play with here.

 

[badb0y]

Well, if the 6970 is 360mm^2 that is 70% of the size of a GTX580. Drawing in performance would be solid. After all it would be 30-40% more performance out of a 7% larger die. So selling the 6970 for $400 would make the GTX580 simply crap.

But considering Barts vs Cypress it is possible the 6970 beats the GTX580. That would also be an explanation for why AMD delayed the 6990.

I think the 6970 is going to be about 10% slower than the GTX 580 but the price should be around $399.99 - $449.99 MSRP. Leaning more towards the $399.99 so there won't be a hug gap between the 6870-6950-6970.

 

[Jhatfie]

I personally do not expect the 6970 to beat the 580, but I do expect it to be a 30-40% increase in performance over the 5870. If they can achieve that, it should put it very close to the 580 and hopefully at a $150-200 cheaper price point which would certainly make it the overall winner in my eyes.

 

[GaiaHunter]

If AMD keeps their strategy the same (relatively modest die size), why should they be able to easily improve on a product that for all reports was very strong when Nvidia was 'only' able to get 20% improvement over one that was not.

It will be a feat to behold if AMD manages to improve on the 5870 by more than the 580 improved upon the 480. It is certainly possible but it is in no way given. Even if they manage that they still have ground to make up in order to defeat the 580 on top of that...

Maybe you are right.

But, AF quality shenanigans aside, the 6800 series have shown some of the weak spots of the 5870. Even the 5850 did that by being so close in performance especially when clocked to similar speeds.

 

[Daedalus685]

I don't follow your logic. AMD has one hell of a transistor and thermal budget to play with here.

They won't simply throw thier strategy out the window because 32nm was canned.

We are not going to see something as large as Fermi, rumors have it at 360mm^2 last I heard.

It would simply be very uncharacteristic to release a huge GPU just to be fast. They will improve upon the 5870 a good bit I'm sure, but if 20% improvement was not good enough over a poor product in the 480... it is going to be even more difficult over a good product in the 5870 to see an equal 20%.

I could be wrong.. I just done see a die much larger.. 360 is only between 5 and 10% larger than cypress and that is about as large as I'd expect. Any larger represents a drastic change in mind set.

I was just stressing how utterly huge 20% would be this time around.. If AMD can make a new card that is 40% faster on the same node over a chip that was reviewed very strongly the engineering feat won't soon be forgotten. It would be amazing. I am not commenting on whether it is possible or not.

 

[Triggaaar]

If it's not at least 15-20% faster than 580 in key games (no, not in Metro-like NV-handicapped ones) then AMD seriously messed up something IMO because they said they were expecting GTX580 to arrive...

It's not going to be 15-20% faster than the 580. The 5870 was slower than the 480, so why will there be a sudden turn around this time? Not because AMD new what they were up against. They try to make the card as fast as possible within power limits and cost constraints - knowing how quick the opposition is doesn't suddenly make them do a better job. It's not like they'd normally not bother trying.

 

[edplayer]

I just don't get it...

The 580 is 20% faster than a product we all thought would be faster than it was.

If you are talking about the GTX 480, you are in the minority.

Lots of people posted that they thought it was going to be faster than it is.

 

[edplayer]

and I think it could do well even if the 6970 is slower than a 580. For example, if it has 90~95% of the performance but only retails at $399.

 

[AnandThenMan]

We are not going to see something as large as Fermi, rumors have it at 360mm^2 last I heard.

Even if Cayman is 400mm² that is still ~30% smaller than the 580. And given AMD gets a fair bit higher performance per mm², something like that would have very high performance.

But you may be right, AMD is not ready to abandoned, or at least racially alter their strategy. Will be very interesting to see what they've come up with.

 

[Aristotelian]

Even if Cayman is 400mm² that is still ~30% smaller than the 580. And given AMD gets a fair bit higher performance per mm², something like that would have very high performance.

But you may be right, AMD is not ready to abandoned, or at least racially alter their strategy. Will be very interesting to see what they've come up with.

Radically?

I agree. Look at it this way: Nvidia moved from hot/loud/power hungry to a more modest animal (with better performance). They did it because people often do care about at least one of the three variables. AMD's cards were less power hungry and less loud, but now that Nvidia's transitioning towards the quieter/less power hungry/faster stance with the 5XX series, I highly doubt they'll push products towards the 4XX series in nature and suffer that backlash as Nvidia did.

 

[Daedalus685]

If you are talking about the GTX 480, you are in the minority.

Lots of people posted that they thought it was going to be faster than it is.

I don't follow...

I said that the 480 was slower than most people thought it would be.. well I said we thought the product the 580 replaces would be faster.. but 6 of one half dozen another.. I guess I was a bit vague. For a long time many were expecting 512 cores at 700+mhz. Not appreciably slower than the 580 we just got.

Improving on a product that let us all down is not nearly as hard as improving on one that we were all happy with. 20% was impressive for the 580 for many reasons, if 20% over cypress (at least 20% in performance/mm^2) is not even more impressive for the 6970 I'm at a loss for how folks think up these things.

 

[happy medium]

and I think it could do well even if the 6970 is slower than a 580. For example, if it has 90~95% of the performance but only retails at $399.

This is what I think, but with the gtx580 pulling away with better drivers.
The gtx580 will be 75$ more, because it will be the fastest card.
Just like the gtx285 vs the 4890 last year.

 

[bryanW1995]

maybe the cards are close enough that amd opted for a week or two later release to just eke by gtx 580 in performance.

 

[bryanW1995]

Chiphell is saying the conference is this week, with launch on the 22nd still

Not sure where Fud is getting his numbers, but he seems to be pulling them out of his @$$ again

he'll post another article tomorrow claiming that release is definitely nov 22. next week he'll claim a delay until after xmas. He's a professional, let the man work!

I just don't get it...

The 580 is 20% faster than a product we all thought would be faster than it was.

We have no shrink this time around.

If AMD keeps their strategy the same (relatively modest die size), why should they be able to easily improve on a product that for all reports was very strong when Nvidia was 'only' able to get 20% improvement over one that was not.

It will be a feat to behold if AMD manages to improve on the 5870 by more than the 580 improved upon the 480. It is certainly possible but it is in no way given. Even if they manage that they still have ground to make up in order to defeat the 580 on top of that...

I don't want to speculate.. I truly hope the 6970 is utterly amazing, as Christmas is upgrade time... But we seem to be unreasonable at times.

it's different, allegedly. again, we're going by rumors here but if amd really did switch to 4v and/or made the actual NI switch that has been rumored for months then it's entirely possible that thye got 30-40% improvement, esp when you consider a 400mm^2 + die size. again, with that larger die size improved dx11/tesselation is clearly on the table as well. They've been running such a smokescreen campaign recently that I wouldn't even be surprised if they pulled out a brute-force tesselation model on par with gtx 580.

On the flip side the 6870 rumors were mostly bs, so 6970 could just be a slightly tweaked 5870 with higher clocks that ends up competitive with gtx 480 and smoked by gtx 580. we'll know here in 2 weeks (or 3, or 4, or whatever).


@happymedium:

you mean the fastest gpu, right?

 

[crisium]

The 580 is 20% faster than a product we all thought would be faster than it was.

It is only 20% faster than a 480 in a few titles. On average it is closer to 10-15%.

 

[happy medium]

@happymedium:

you mean the fastest gpu, right?

Untill they release a dual gpu gtx595 or 6990 in January, it will be the fastest card. (unless the 6970 is super)
Newer drivers should put it above the 5970. That dosen't matter anyway, the 5970 is on its way out, is not much faster and has crossfire problems anyway. Anyone who buys a 5970 over a gtx580 is a moron.

 

[WelshBloke]

Untill they release a dual gpu gtx595 or 6990 in January, it will be the fastest card. (unless the 6970 is super)
Newer drivers should put it above the 5970. That dosen't matter anyway, the 5970 is on its way out, is not much faster and has crossfire problems anyway. Anyone who buys a 5970 over a gtx580 is a moron.

If its faster why would that make them a moron?

 

[happy medium]

If its faster why would that make them a moron?

This has been beaten to death, if you don't know by now then you are the ........

 

[Aristotelian]

This has been beaten to death, if you don't know by now then you are the ........

Thought we agreed different strokes for different folks? You can't be too negative about multi gpu setups now, after how enthusiastic you were back in the 460 1GB SLI glory days, can you?