[LR] AMD releasing 7770 1Ghz Radeon shortly with 'Verdetrol'

[thilanliyan]

I don't think that is true at all. There were some silly results posted on Tom's hardware that made everyone think that 7970 sucked at mining, but apparently the reviewer didn't have a clue what he was doing and proper mining with an optimized miner shows excellent results.

For example, see this thread:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=57410.0

Sorry, my fault. I had seen that thread before too but thought the 5 series cards were still getting better MH/watt and/or MH/$ but it seems per watt the 7 series cards are pretty good and I guess they could get even better once the miners are programmed to take better advantage of the architecture.

 

[lifeblood]

How much is AMDs compute worth? Are any apps taking advantage of it? If a 7770 performs equal to or a little worse than a 6850, but costs $150, is it a good value? Based purely on games, I say no. But if it allows faster rendering or bitcoin mining or something, does that make it ok?

I feel NV charges a bit more for their cards than the performance would justify, but they do have CUDA (which a few apps use) and PhysX. They can make a case for charging a bit more.

 

[blckgrffn]

How much is AMDs compute worth? Are any apps taking advantage of it? If a 7770 performs equal to or a little worse than a 6850, but costs $150, is it a good value? Based purely on games, I say no. But if it allows faster rendering or bitcoin mining or something, does that make it ok?

I feel NV charges a bit more for their cards than the performance would justify, but they do have CUDA (which a few apps use) and PhysX. They can make a case for charging a bit more.

There are ton of DC apps that have AMD support - and some of them only support ATI. But ah, to your point... I think it has to do with compute power at a given wattage.

If I can get 6850 compute power on a sub 75W card, that would be a pretty big deal, really. To win the trifecta, though, it needs to be cheap too - as you alluded to. I want 6770/6750 pricing, not 6850/6870.

If more apps are written in OpenCL to facilitate the usage of AMD cards because the their throughput is more reliable (nvidia like) then that will do much to level the playing field and put pressure on that "compute premium" that nvidia is charging.

Further, if Intel includes OpenCL support in their IVB graphics I think that is going to really put a lot of stress on the CUDA ecosystem. ie, you could run OpenCL on any vendors platform, but Cuda will require an nvidia card. When was the last time that really worked out?

I'll loosely quote Sunny129 from a DC post - "If AMD can keep their advantage in what they are good at (like bit coin hashing) while approaching the performance level of nvidia in other use cases then that will be a huge success." I agree.

IMHO, bit coin was good for AMD because it showed off their compute power in a financially compelling way.

 

[VulgarDisplay]

There are ton of DC apps that have AMD support - and some of them only support ATI. But ah, to your point... I think it has to do with compute power at a given wattage.

If I can get 6850 compute power on a sub 75W card, that would be a pretty big deal, really. To win the trifecta, though, it needs to be cheap too - as you alluded to. I want 6770/6750 pricing, not 6850/6870.

If more apps are written in OpenCL to facilitate the usage of AMD cards because the their throughput is more reliable (nvidia like) then that will do much to level the playing field and put pressure on that "compute premium" that nvidia is charging.

Further, if Intel includes OpenCL support in their IVB graphics I think that is going to really put a lot of stress on the CUDA ecosystem. ie, you could run OpenCL on any vendors platform, but Cuda will require an nvidia card. When was the last time that really worked out?

I'll loosely quote Sunny129 from a DC post - "If AMD can keep their advantage in what they are good at (like bit coin hashing) while approaching the performance level of nvidia in other use cases then that will be a huge success." I agree.

IMHO, bit coin was good for AMD because it showed off their compute power in a financially compelling way.

The nvidia only thing is working out great so far. Look at physx titles.

On a serious note now. OpenCL is going to begin forcing CUDA out of the compute picture. Simply because it will work on both nvidia and AMD hardware.

 

[blckgrffn]

The nvidia only thing is working out great so far. Look at physx titles.

On a serious note now. OpenCL is going to begin forcing CUDA out of the compute picture. Simply because it will work on both nvidia and AMD hardware.

I like to think of Glide as the poster child of that approach. DirectX... OpenCL... it seems like history repeating itself. Is there any MS push to add an API like this native into Windows?

This has to be the last time AMD has a CPU without any sort of APU (BD/PD). They need OpenCL support in platform they sell... if Intel buys in, the number of OpenCL platforms will be legion and it will be hard to come back from that.

I realize that is possible CUDA has the better programming framework right now, etc. If we look to how apps are developed for mobile platforms, it seems clear that # of target customers trumps that once a certain threshold is met. Not to say that Tesla is dead, far from it. As long as nvidia concentrates on that HPC field, for them CUDA versus OpenCL might be a moot point so long as they move with the market.

 

[formulav8]

OpenCL is going to begin forcing CUDA out of the compute picture. Simply because it will work on both nvidia and AMD hardware.

There you go. And I honestly hope it buries nvidia's proprietary stuff. :thumbsup:

NVidia majorly messed up with PhysicX already imo. Should have been open from the beginning. :thumbsdown:

 

[3DVagabond]

Any thoughts on how compute on the 77xx is going to shake out? Anybody folding on a 7970 that can chime in on how OpenCL scaled over the earlier VLIWx architectures?

Tom's does a little bit of GPGPU testing. They fully admit that it's by no means in depth or at all inclusive. They hope to improve it, but here it is.

Not very impressive in bitcoin mining compared with their prior cards. Take into acct. enrgy usage and initial outlay and the 5870 is still the king.

Absolutely screams in Luxmark.

A bit of a mixed bag with GPU Caps viewer.

Compared to VLIW, much better. Now competitive with the 580, where before it smoked the AMD cards

Pretty much falls in line with Bitcoin mining.

 

[thilanliyan]

There you go. And I honestly hope it buries nvidia's proprietary stuff. :thumbsup:

NVidia majorly messed up with PhysicX already imo. Should have been open from the beginning. :thumbsdown:

Technically is was open from the beginning I believe, but I can see why AMD didn't go that route. It was open but was still owned by nV so they could do whatever they wanted with it, whenever they wanted. And that would be a bit of a dangerous position to be in for AMD.

 

[blckgrffn]

Tom's does a little bit of GPGPU testing. They fully admit that it's by no means in depth or at all inclusive. They hope to improve it, but here it is.

*crap graphs*

Pretty much falls in line with Bitcoin mining.

Sorry, but these graphs have been debunked hardcore w/regards to bit coin mining. Check out Chiptorean's posts in the GK104 topic to see what results actual bitcoin miners have extracted from the 7970's.

They are the best bit coin miners you can buy, perf/watt. They just cost too much upfront right now.

They were so far off with that, it's hard to take them seriously at all.

 

[3DVagabond]

Sorry, but these graphs have been debunked hardcore w/regards to bit coin mining. Check out Chiptorean's posts in the GK104 topic to see what results actual bitcoin miners have extracted from the 7970's.

They are the best bit coin miners you can buy, perf/watt. They just cost too much upfront right now.

They were so far off with that, it's hard to take them seriously at all.

LOL So, I go through the effort of linking and posting everything and you say, "Nah, and go find it yourself."