Ghz edition 7970 coming very soon! (Softpedia)

[aaksheytalwar]

0% 0/100=0 it is not there yet

Lol

 

[KompuKare]

In that 670 TT thread there was mention of the 670 using a lot more power than the 680 (although TT's methodology was questioned and at 16 pages I never read the whole thread so maybe there was an explanation for those power figures). So, it seems Nvdia may have done some serious binning for the 680 (and the 690), but if that 670 is indicative of all the 670s, those chips which failed to make it as a 680 use a lot more power.

So process improvements even and binning could make a major difference to power usage. (I'd really love someone with knowledge, like IDC, to shed some light on that.)

Anyway, it seemed to me that AMD could find some 1200MHz Tahiti cores which don't use massive amounts of power and actually officially release them and it looks like that's what they are doing.

Also, I still think Pitcairn is a better balanced chip since (almost) nobody wants to pay for compute and a well binned 1200MHz part maybe coupled with faster memory or even some other minor re-spin might make a lot more sense for AMD rather than being forced to sell Tahiti chips cheaply.

 

[3DVagabond]

In that 670 TT thread there was mention of the 670 using a lot more power than the 680 (although TT's methodology was questioned and at 16 pages I never read the whole thread so maybe there was an explanation for those power figures). So, it seems Nvdia may have done some serious binning for the 680 (and the 690), but if that 670 is indicative of all the 670s, those chips which failed to make it as a 680 use a lot more power.

So process improvements even and binning could make a major difference to power usage. (I'd really love someone with knowledge, like IDC, to shed some light on that.)

Anyway, it seemed to me that AMD could find some 1200MHz Tahiti cores which don't use massive amounts of power and actually officially release them and it looks like that's what they are doing.

Also, I still think Pitcairn is a better balanced chip since (almost) nobody wants to pay for compute and a well binned 1200MHz part maybe coupled with faster memory or even some other minor re-spin might make a lot more sense for AMD rather than being forced to sell Tahiti chips cheaply.

The sample of the 680 that TT received through their clandestine supplier also wasn't particularly efficient. It used 67W more power at load and a whopping 79W more power while idling than the reference 7970. Not sure what the deal is? Their idle ratings are all ove the place. The only explanation I can come up with is they don't know how to measure power usage.
http://australia.tweaktown.com/revi...reference_card_video_card_review/index17.html

 

[KompuKare]

The sample of the 680 that TT received through their clandestine supplier also wasn't particularly efficient. It used 67W more power at load and a whopping 79W more power while idling than the reference 7970. Not sure what the deal is? Their idle ratings are all ove the place. The only explanation I can come up with is they don't know how to measure power usage.
http://australia.tweaktown.com/revi...reference_card_video_card_review/index17.html

Well, there goes that theory :-(

The only excuse is that their clandestine supplier might have given them an early engineering sample. But more likely their measurements were off. Mind you, any 'total system power' measurements are a bit poor so I tend to only base power usage of sites like ht4u.net, hardware.fr/behardware.com and the like who measure the draw of the actual card.

 

[Grooveriding]

You guys are basically saying that you're willing to pay someone else to overclock for you. There is no fun in that imo plus it costs more.

Agreed, which contributes to the GTX 680 not being a fun card for an enthusiast in some ways. Lack of voltage control and it does not have much OC headroom using offsets, which is limited by the lack of voltage control

There is no reason to believe a higher clocked 7970 will not continue to have some additional headroom on top of stock, as well as voltage control like the current 7970 does. AMD is saying the process has improved enough for them they can deliver better clocks reliably than they can now. To me that translates to increased clocks across the board, whether that is shipping stock clocks, or additional headroom for the end-user to tweak on top of that.

This is good news as it sounds like the 7970 will be brought up to parity or better than the 680. Perhaps forcing cheaper prices and bringing higher stock single-gpu performance than is available from either vendor atm.

 

[Crap Daddy]

1GHz is not enough to beat a stock 680. It might be enough to beat a 670. Have you thought about that?

 

[aaksheytalwar]

Ghz edition 7970 are 1250Mhz stock core, faster than 680 OC even at stock.

Anyway, when are they releasing? Price?

 

[Gloomy]

I don't think we know the stock clocks yet. Do we? :|

 

[lavaheadache]

Ghz edition 7970 are 1250Mhz stock core, faster than 680 OC even at stock.

Anyway, when are they releasing? Price?

who said that?

 

[aaksheytalwar]

I thought that based on the OP. My bad Was thinking of buying one if they hit 1500 core with the stock cooler?

 

[blackened23]

1GHz is not enough to beat a stock 680. It might be enough to beat a 670. Have you thought about that?

I don't think anyone knows the final clockspeed.

 

[Gloomy]

I think if they ever released a 7970 at 1250 stock with any headroom I might take out a loan.

 

[Chiropteran]

I love your optimism.

I'd figure the GHz Ed for 500$. And north of 400 for the 7950.

You may be right about the ghz edition, but 7970 have already been on sale for $405, I doubt the 7950 would remain above $400 after this new card is released.

 

[SickBeast]

The 7970 might hit 1250mhz if you overclock it to the max, but I highly doubt we will see cards shipped at that speed. I would say 1100mhz tops. There's no way these cards will hit 1500mhz as someone was hoping for as well.

 

[lavaheadache]

There are plenty of cards that can do 1250 without issue. My launch day 7970 was one such card. 1250 at 1.25v. I manually set the fan to 60% just for piece of mind. 1225 only took 1.23 I think and I did so using the stock fan profile.

A 1200 mhz 7970 without question is faster than what I can get out of my own 680 by a good margin.

 

[aaksheytalwar]

I run my 7970 at 1175 at 1.168V right now with mem @ 1625 @ 1.6V (stock)

 

[-Slacker-]

http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/too+little,+too+late

 

[lavaheadache]

I will gladly trade my 680 for the right 7970 :whiste:

 

[Upgrade_Itch]

Both cards are worth the money, imo. Its a wash. If I played BF3 (like most of my friends do) I'd have bought the 680.

 

[aaksheytalwar]

Both cards are worth the money, imo. Its a wash. If I played BF3 (like most of my friends do) I'd have bought the 680.

+1

 

[96Firebird]

I just want the sapphire toxic already!!

What ever happened to this? I remember that leaked spec sheet and it had the Toxic WC and the Toxic RX. Obviously the WC was designated for water-cooled, but I was curious as to what the RX was for. I thought maybe the WC had a pre-installed water cooling block, and the RX was a closed-loop WC system. Interested in what they can accomplish with this card.

 

[Olikan]

"Overall this looks to be another solid win from Kepler, which is simply a more efficient architecture than the competing AMD 'Southern Islands' at the heart of the HD 7970 and 7950

:| this guy declares that thahiti is GCN, but ignores that cape verde, pitcairn have similar perf/watt/mm² of kepler...

tahiti is just a "bad" chip, but is not an arquitecture

 

[Bobisuruncle54]

You sure seem to know all the answers for a guy that doesn't even HAVE a 7970, eh?

ANY Sapphire 7970 OC Edition owner is GUARANTEED to get a core overclock WELL IN EXCESS of 1100 Mhz.

Flipping the bios switch starts you at 1000 Mhz core....u can raise it to at least 1125 core with no voltage, most 1150 Mhz.

ADD some voltage thru Afterburner or Trixx and 1200- 1300 Mhz is attainable.

FROM AN OWNER, not a bullshitter.

I ran 3dmark2k11 at stock 2.8 Ghz cpu, 1200/1600 on the 7970 (although it reported 2.9 Ghz cpu and 150/300 for my gpu)

http://3dmark.com/3dm11/3346770

I ran it with Morphological filtering on, enhance application setting, 16X AF, enable surface format optimization, quality vertical refresh, super sampling 4X AA, Triple buffering Open GL NOT IN PERFORMANCE MODE in ccc. (Same settings I game at in any game)

You cannot base the unpredictable and unreliable metric that is overclocking potential from your single, personal account and apply it to the entire production run of the product in question, that's a logical fallacy. A sample size of one does not a conclusion make - so much for not being the bullshitter.

 

[Lepton87]

Tahiti at 1GHz is just enough to more or less match GTX680 at 2560x1600(1440) and lose in lower resolutions. To convincingly beat GTX680 they need to clock it at least as fast as MSI LIGHTING (1070MHz). For Nvidia fanboys it would take 1150MHz for them to admit that 7970 is faster than GTX680.

 

[Zanovar]

You cannot base the unpredictable and unreliable metric that is overclocking potential from your single, personal account and apply it to the entire production run of the product in question, that's a logical fallacy. A sample size of one does not a conclusion make - so much for not being the bullshitter.

This.