hd 7950 3gb review.. amd beats fermi to a pulp

[railven]

Obviously you've never heard of Februany at Subway!

Of course I'm aware of that, now, but my point was more of a joke - and even with $3 6-inch subs, add chips and a soda and then the tax - you're looking at $5.80 (least in my area.) I remember this bag of chips they charge me $0.95 cent for use to cost $0.50.

 

[peonyu]

The thing about the 7970 is that anyone who buys it is probablly 'in the know'. Just like the GTX460, it begs to be overclocked. Once the clocks are cranked on the 7970, it's no contest. I think AMD released the 925MHz part now because it was fast enough to overtake the GTX580. They'll have a higher clocked and tweaked part coming for Keplar.. I have nothing to back that up, it's just a hunch.

The 7970 does have massive headroom for sure, im at 1000 mhz with no voltage increase [its fast enough as is really]. Alot of that has to do with 28nm though, I think overall Keplar and the 7000 series will be comparable in speed. I would just be surprised if Nvidia cant release a card that is atleast ~50% faster than their 1 year old tech when overclocked.

 

[Covrich]

Hi New here

I have been watching these cards with a vested interest for a while. However I have to say I am a little disappoint din the way both vendors are now playing a leapfrog price war instead of trying to beat each other and push the other down.

It is like last technology sets the baseline as the current price. If old technology almost 12-18 months old holds its price and new hardware is priced based on its %age performance above it.. We are heading down a wrong path.

Here in UK the budget cheapest 7950 is £350 but most are pushing towards £400. The top tier is currently sat at £450-500+.. So if Nvidia come along and trump the 7970 will this yield a tag of what? £550. and then what ? do we see 660gtx and 7870s pricing around the 6970 and 570 mark.. Sure they are comparable on price and performance but you'd hope that 79xx would entice nvidia to reduce their prices but they simply do not. the 580 570 amd 6970 have all been untouched by the latest releases.

If this remains how long before a tier 3 single GPU card is our of most peoples budget. Something will of course give.

I am neither an AMD or Nvidia fan and I get what I feel is best at the time of buying. It is almost like they are both guilty of this and creating a stalemate situation which is not actually beneficial to the consumers.

You can understand that a company will charge as much as they can get but I do hope if this continues it starts to bite them in the backside and they are forced to come down to earth a bit, because how long is it before we see 880 GTX or 9970 $1000.

 

[Termie]

Oh, you mean something like the HD5770 circa 2009? That would actually mean same price, less performance.

Yup, that's what we're gonna get. Stock up on 6870s now, because they're about to become more valuable.

I'm gonna quote myself here based on this new info reported on my Tom's:

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/AMD-Radeon-HD-7000-gpu-video-card,14596.html

The replacement for the 5770/6770 is shown as comparable to 6790 performance, (i.e. way slower than the 6870) for $150, and arriving Feb. 15th. Get your 6870s now!

The only reason you may not be able to take this table literally is that the 7950 is listed as having 6970 performance, and we know it's faster. So perhaps AMD will surprise us - these might be performance "classes", with the new cards in each class faster than the outgoing ones.

 

[Kloreep]

The only reason you may not be able to take this table literally is that the 7950 is listed as having 6970 performance, and we know it's faster.

Err, only reason? I don't think there's any particular reason to think they're positioned by performance. There may not have been much thought given to the spacing beyond making it look pretty, it's just a slide.

I mean, the Pitcairns are placed well below the 6900s, when from leaked specs and pricing it sounds like they should be pretty similar.

 

[darkewaffle]

I actually ordered a 7950 almost the day it came out, frankly either the 7950 or 7970 would have been massive upgrades for me from a 5770, and gaming at only 1680x1050 I honestly don't think I'll run into many (or any) situations where there would be much of an appreciable difference between the two. However what really tipped me in favor of the 7950 was the stellar noise/heat performance from the Sapphire card in the AT review. Kind of a niche case admittedly, but it's essentially the card I've been waiting for.

 

[Olikan]

7950 is 4% slower than a 7970 at the same clocks:thumbsup:

http://ht4u.net/reviews/2012/amd_radeon_hd_7950_test/index2.php

 

[railven]

7950 is 4% slower than a 7970 at the same clocks:thumbsup:

http://ht4u.net/reviews/2012/amd_radeon_hd_7950_test/index2.php

I'm more concerned about the ceiling. An HD 7970 can OC higher than that if I'm correct?

If that is the top they can reach on the HD 7950, I'd just opt for the HD 7970 with a good cooler and aim for the stars.

 

[MrTeal]

I'm more concerned about the ceiling. An HD 7970 can OC higher than that if I'm correct?

If that is the top they can reach on the HD 7950, I'd just opt for the HD 7970 with a good cooler and aim for the stars.

I think it will be hard to say for awhile without having a better sample size, but AMD might be binning parts pretty heavily now.

Even without that, the implementation of many of the 7950s might really limit them. It's not like cases where the PCB is the same between the xx70 and the xx50, with some of the 7950s you might see the VRMs and cooling give out before the chip does, if it's cut down PCB.

 

[Bryf50]

Maybe we'll get a card like the 8800gt(half the price but the same performance as the gtx) from AMD. Using a cheaper 256bit memory bus and bumping up clock/memory speeds. History has shown us that often gpu's launched with "exotic" memory configurations were refreshed by products with 256bit memory without much or any performance loss. 2900-3870 8800gtx-8800gt

 

[Madcatatlas]

Wow, the 7950 has got ALOT of press attention from the looks of it. Beating the 580 at a lower price has given it a nice press presentation in several newssites which i hadnt seen commenting on GPUs

 

[lavaheadache]

Wow, the 7950 has got ALOT of press attention from the looks of it. Beating the 580 at a lower price has given it a nice press presentation in several newssites which i hadnt seen commenting on GPUs

The value of their stocks have risen considerably since the 7 series release

 

[Nemesis 1]

Nice performance . But I out of high end gpus after IVB I believe . This is clear case of price fixing by staggering releases as AMD/NV have been doing for some time now . Just a matter of catching them and we will someone will sell the proof needed soon enough . Greed gets everyone in trouble.

 

[railven]

Nice performance . But I out of high end gpus after IVB I believe . This is clear case of price fixing by staggering releases as AMD/NV have been doing for some time now . Just a matter of catching them and we will someone will sell the proof needed soon enough . Greed gets everyone in trouble.

I smell an ABT exclusive and world first...wait, didn't IDC already mention this as a possibility?

IDC, say something like "and next the HD 7970 will drop to $200," maybe it will really happen

 

[Nemesis 1]

Yep He did more than once as have I and others . When there is a pattern present people see them .

 

[MrTeal]

Maybe they'll just keep it at $550 and offer a $350 MIR.

Make sure to cut the lines straight on the UPC and keep your signature inside the box.

 

[railven]

Maybe they'll just keep it at $550 and offer a $350 MIR.

Make sure to cut the lines straight on the UPC and keep your signature inside the box.

Rebate, companion card, anything would do EXCEPT DIRT 3. I oddly enough got a Dirt 3 coupon when I bought an FM1 processor for a low budget build. COnsidering it couldn't run Dirt3 even on the lowest settings I thought it was kind of odd. Well it "could" run it, just not playable.

I told the GF I was going to just buy an SB system and build now and she showed me the back of her hand. I cried my self to sleep last night

 

[felang]

A few stock voltage OC benchmarks, showing the 7950 just catching the 7970:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-hd-7950-overclock-crossfire-benchmark,3123-3.html

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/foru...eon-hd-7950-review-tahiti-pro-arrives-23.html

http://www.anandtech.com/show/5476/amd-radeon-7950-review/18

I´m gathering that about 1050mhz is the norm on stock cooling and volts for most 7950´s, only about 100mhz less than 7970´s.

I have no idea what the difference is when you up the voltage though... and realistically what max voltage they can take before the stock cooling becomes a factor.

 

[felang]

had my question answered

IMO you should also take into account that most newly released games don´t have acceptable crossfire scaling until at least a few weeks if not a month after release.

Also, some people complain about microstutter (never seemed to bother me much)

I went from 4850 crossfire to a single 5870 about a year and a half ago and couldn´t be happier, no more waiting for drivers or Caps, just install games and play!

 

[bryanW1995]

Nice performance . But I out of high end gpus after IVB I believe . This is clear case of price fixing by staggering releases as AMD/NV have been doing for some time now . Just a matter of catching them and we will someone will sell the proof needed soon enough . Greed gets everyone in trouble.

I almost wish that it was price fixing, at least then we'd have hope that somebody would catch them at it. No, this is much more nefarious: lack of competition and relatively low supply. If AMD couldn't sell their 79x0 cards for these very high prices, then they would lower them. That won't happen as long as kepler is just a rumor at obr and tsmc is still getting production ramped up. Prices will natually soften up later this year as production increases and we start to get more concrete info about kepler, and they could (hopefully) really drop if kepler has a direct competitor to 7970 (as we've seen recently with gtx 570 vs 6970 and gtx 470 vs 5870). Only thing to watch out for is if the bitcoin/amd love affair continues, then amd prices might be artificially inflated again as they were in 2011.

See that? A completely logical explanation that doesn't involve any sort of conspiracy whatsoever. That doesn't mean that there isn't one, but I wouldn't waste too much time on this one.

 

[Termie]

I almost wish that it was price fixing, at least then we'd have hope that somebody would catch them at it. No, this is much more nefarious: lack of competition and relatively low supply. If AMD couldn't sell their 79x0 cards for these very high prices, then they would lower them. That won't happen as long as kepler is just a rumor at obr and tsmc is still getting production ramped up. Prices will natually soften up later this year as production increases and we start to get more concrete info about kepler, and they could (hopefully) really drop if kepler has a direct competitor to 7970 (as we've seen recently with gtx 570 vs 6970 and gtx 470 vs 5870). Only thing to watch out for is if the bitcoin/amd love affair continues, then amd prices might be artificially inflated again as they were in 2011.

See that? A completely logical explanation that doesn't involve any sort of conspiracy whatsoever. That doesn't mean that there isn't one, but I wouldn't waste too much time on this one.

You know, that would all make sense, except for one thing. The GTX580 still costs $480:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...33&IsNodeId=1&bop=And&Order=PRICE&PageSize=20

People say it's going EOL, but there are still 19 models available on Newegg. If the "direct competition" argument held up, the GTX580 would already be down to about $420. But if anything, it's gone up since the 7950 came out.

Here's my cynical viewpoint: everyone knew that the GTX580 was overpriced for the last 6 months of 2011. Who knows whether it was selling well...the one thing we all know was that it was the benchmark for the 7950 and 7970 prices. All the review sites gushed at how well-priced the $550 7970 was, and many (but not all) exalted AMD for pricing the 7950 so fairly (i.e., at the same price as the GTX580 for roughly the same or slightly higher performance).

Does anyone see the pattern here? GTX580 stays put at an inflated price until AMD's cards come out, and makes AMD's pricing look wonderful. GTX580 continues to stay put despite being clearly overpriced in February 2012, until Kepler comes out with similar performance at the same price or higher performance at a higher price.

Hate to say this, but the glory days, kicked off with AMD's small but mighty HD4870, are all over...I don't think we'll see HD6970/GTX570 levels of performance under $300 MSRP in this generation.

 

[Vesku]

GTX 580 not dropping much would make sense if NVIDIA 28nm is still 4+ weeks out. If Kepler shows up end of this month I'd have to start wondering about price collusion.

 

[lifeblood]

I've been in meetings where we determined the price of products and we priced it relative to our competitors. We didn't collude with them, we looked at the market and our estimates of how many units we'd sell, we looked at how the competition was doing, and we priced accordingly.

NV feels that PhysX & their other features makes a NV card worth more than an equivalently performing AMD card. Therefore they charge more for it (I disagree with them). No collusion, just a decision not to start a price war. Happens all the time.