OCLab's Quick Look at Sapphire HD7970 Toxic 6GB - The Best Air Cooled 7970

[mak360]

http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/showthread.php?t=163516

Some info here

 

[RavenSEAL]

I <3 me some Sapphire Tech.

 

[Tempered81]

Woot 12 gigs of video memory

 

[3DVagabond]

Hmm, isn't this the phantom card that was supposed to be clocked at 1335 Mhz... that all the AMD cheerleaders were quoting and trying to reference when mentioning 7970 overclocking? 1150 Mhz stock is not quite 1335 now is it... And 1300 at 1.27V is not quite stock either...

No, it's not. That was the "Atomic". Just a suggestion, if you're going to mock people you should check your facts.

 

[SolMiester]

I thought games had a 32bit memory ceiling?

 

[chimaxi83]

Woot 12 gigs of video memory

total, not effective, but you know that

 

[bunnyfubbles]

Woot 6 gigs of video memory

fixed

 

[notty22]

It's not exactly a stock cooler either. TPU news further down has announced a 1200mhz gtx 680. You can call that it's stock cooler if you want ?

 

[Tempered81]

tks for correctunz was unawares

 

[bunnyfubbles]

I thought games had a 32bit memory ceiling?

are you suggesting that games can only address 4GB of video memory? because that's not at all how things work

if anything a 32bit game will be limited on how much system memory is used, not video memory

 

[bunnyfubbles]

tks for correctunz was unawares

yeah yeah, I know its fun to talk about (just like it would be fun to contemplate someone trying to use even just one of these cards with a 32bit OS), its not as much about correcting it for your sake but for the sake of the average interwebz patron who might think adding up the RAM is the way to go when that is not how it works

 

[SolMiester]

are you suggesting that games can only address 4GB of video memory? because that's not at all how things work

if anything a 32bit game will be limited on how much system memory is used, not video memory

I thought addressing memory period was limited?....whether or not its system or video!

 

[Skurge]

It's not exactly a stock cooler either. TPU news further down has announced a 1200mhz gtx 680. You can call that it's stock cooler if you want ?

What does 1.2Ghz (base and boost) mean?

 

[BallaTheFeared]

6GB

bwahwhahwahwahaha.


I'm sure Vega and the other 5 people running 5x1600p in portrait mode will give a ^&#@.

 

[Tempered81]

I wanna see someone get this thing and do 1600P Eyefinity with 8x SGSSAA and HD texture mods, just to see if they can get the frame buffer anywhere near 6000mb -at which point the fps will be in the 20's or 30's anyway

 

[Concillian]

I thought addressing memory period was limited?....whether or not its system or video!

That's correct, however it doesn't apply to all the memory a video card uses.

IF you have 4xMSAA, for example, you're taking 4 samples per pixel, and must store 4x as much information as with no AA... however the game only needs to know about the final result.

Really, most of a game's address space is textures. I think the memory explosion happens mostly completely localized on the GPU in areas of memory that are not addressed by the game itself, and therefore not subject to a 32 bit addressable space limitation.

 

[SolMiester]

That's correct, however it doesn't apply to all the memory a video card uses.

IF you have 4xMSAA, for example, you're taking 4 samples per pixel, and must store 4x as much information as with no AA... however the game only needs to know about the final result.

Really, most of a game's address space is textures. I think the memory explosion happens mostly completely localized on the GPU in areas of memory that are not addressed by the game itself, and therefore not subject to a 32 bit addressable space limitation.

Ok, cool.....

 

[Gikaseixas]

Monster card. They should sell it @ $549 tops
Wondering if the so called Atomic will ever show up...

 

[Grooveriding]

What does 1.2Ghz (base and boost) mean?

It means it is either forced to 1.2, which may not even be possible, or it has a base 1.1 clock and they got it wrong.

Over at evga they are saying all their custom cards are going to be locked at 1.21 so I am wondering how zotac will manage it, unless they are increasing the voltage offsets in bios. You also need to keep a 680 below 70c or it throttles down. That zotac looks like a decent cooler will be on it though.

 

[SlowSpyder]

6GB

bwahwhahwahwahaha.


I'm sure Vega and the other 5 people running 5x1600p in portrait mode will give a ^&#@.

Assuming Sapphire is pricing this thing at $599 no matter what (just a hypothetical price), tell me what the advantage of 3GB would be, please. I think 3GB will be enough for some time yet, but this is a very high end part, so it is supposed to have some whacked out stats. If they're pricing it at $x no matter what, I'll take the extra memory, why not?

 

[BallaTheFeared]

Has that ever happened?

Has a 1GB 6950 been the same price as a 2GB 6950? Has a 3GB 580 ever been the same price as a 1.5GB 580?

If you can get it for no additional cost though, clearly you'd want to go for it... I mean that goes without saying, I'm not even sure why you said anything.

 

[RussianSensation]

Monster card. They should sell it @ $549 tops
Wondering if the so called Atomic will ever show up...

This card at $549 with 3GB of VRAM would have been preferable than 6GB of overkill.

From the TPU thread:

"Sapphire is working on two HD 7970 Atomic versions, which come with 1335/1434 MHz (core/memory) out of the box. We'll have pics of those cards pretty soon. One of them is air-cooled."

Sapphire get it out already!

At those specs, it would be 2x as powerful as an HD6970 without requiring water cooling. ^_^

 

[shaynoa]

I must have this card, i need this card, i will get this card,
which one of you people will buy me this card?
don't all stand at once.
shaynoa

 

[lavaheadache]

Hmm, isn't this the phantom card that was supposed to be clocked at 1335 Mhz... that all the AMD cheerleaders were quoting and trying to reference when mentioning 7970 overclocking? 1150 Mhz stock is not quite 1335 now is it... And 1300 at 1.27V is not quite stock either...

Not sure I understand why you came into the thread and spewed this uninitiated. Bottom line... The card kicks butt.

 

[Tempered81]

Not sure I understand why you came into the thread and spewed this uninitiated. Bottom line... The card kicks butt.

I agree this card kicks some serious butt! We must be mindful however. Some people don't have 6 gigs of video memory man. This card has 99 problems but VMEM ain't 1.

Those are friggin 7gbps memory chips too!!!! Never before seen memory right there, not just quantity, but speed too. No doubt a binned tahiti too. Just run your games from a ramdisk on the video card, problem solved.