Radeon 7870/7850 Reviews Are up!

[AnandThenMan]

A 3rd tier AMD card is almost on par with a top end Nvidia card, that seems pretty good to me.

 

[3DVagabond]

core:
1100MHz -- OK after 5 min burn-in
1200MHz -- OK after 5 min burn-in
1300MHz -- crash
1275MHz -- crash
1250MHz -- crash
1225MHz -- crash

memory:
1200MHz -- 6414 kombustor -- stock
1300MHz -- 6894 kombustor -- OK after 5-min burn-in
1400MHz -- 6423 kombustor -- (resets to stock)
1350MHz -- 7186 kombustor -- OK after 5-min burn-in
1375MHz - 7312 kombustor -- OK after 5-min burn-in

overvolting:
1300/1375MHz -- 1.250v -- crash
1300/1375MHz -- 1.275v -- crash
1300/1375MHz -- 1.300v -- crash
1275/1375MHz -- 1.300v -- OK after 5-min burn-in

The Tech Report

Holy cow!

 

[Red Hawk]

A 7800 series will likely be my next upgrade. I'm going to wait until Kepler comes out to see if that pushes down AMD's prices at all.

HD5870 released Sept 2009 at $379 40nm
HD6970 released Dec 2011 at $369 40nm 15% faster than HD5870
HD7870 released March 2012 at $350 28nm 10% faster than HD6970

So after 15 months we have 10% faster card on average at the same price on a new 28nm process.

From Sept 2009 to March 2012 at the $350-380 price point we have 25% increase(edit: in performance), so you tell me, does this look healthy for you ???

Keep in mind that simple game performance is not the only improvement the 7000 series offers. There's lower power consumption thanks to the 28nm process, more up to date hardware functionality for compute and video encoding, etc. Also what others have said about AMD holding the lead right now.

 

[videoclone]

ok so ummm where can you buy these cards from??/... this looks to be a paper launch... ??

 

[AtenRa]

AMD intends to milk as much as possible before nvidia releases their response.

Waiting on Nvidia to make a move.

Direct result of lack of competition, and AMD no longer selling cards to only gain markets-hare. It's not any more complicated. I don't like it either, but until Nvidia responds, it is reality.

NVIDIA's CEO Discusses Q4 2012 Results - Earnings Call Transcript

Jen-Hsun Huang

The top line decline for Q1 is expected to be due to the hard disk drive shortage continuing, as well as a shortage of 28-nanometer wafers. We're ramping our Kepler generation very hard, and we could use more wafers. The gross margin decline is contributed almost entirely to the yields of 28-nanometer being lower than expected. And that is, I guess, unsurprising at this point. And because we have -- we use wafer-based pricing now, when the yield is lower, our cost is higher. And so we've transitioned to a wafer-based pricing for some time. And our expectation, of course, is that the yields will improve as they have in the previous generation nodes, and as the yields improve, our output would increase and our costs will decline. And that's why we expect to exit the year at 52% or about.

Jen-Hsun Huang

And so all of the transition of 28 is going to be very fast. And so we're just going to have to continue to work with TSMC and get the yields of 28-nanometer up as fast as possible. And we surely expect that by the end of the year, we're going to be in a pretty good place. We're in a pretty decent place now, but we just need to get the yields up.

Jen-Hsun Huang

There's no particular problem. This is the first major quarter of 28-nanometer shipments. There have been some shipments. There've been some shipments in previous quarters but very, very small. And so for TSMC, this is probably the first large quarter of shipments, and we're going to continue to improve yields from here. So there's nothing particularly wrong. This is just early in the learning cycle of a new node. And so we'll improve it with every single outs [ph]. And also this isn't a problem that we can solve. Everybody's using the same 28-nanometer. And so this affects all of us, anybody who uses 28-nanometer. So I think with everybody ramping production, there's going to be a lot more learning cycles both from us and from other people. But TMSC is in a good place now and we just have to keep improving it.

You people believe the AMDs Radeon prices are high due to luck of competition from NV, you are about to witness the worst GPU release (Performance/price) in years.

AMD have sett the price/performance point with the GCN series cards from $100(H7750) all the way up to $549(HD7970) and according to JHH, Im expecting NV to fallow in the same trend.

Say hello to $450 GK104 cards at +10% performance over GTX580 shortly

 

[AnandThenMan]

AMD have sett the price/performance point with the GCN series cards from $100(H7750) all the way up to $549(HD7970) and according to JHH, Im expecting NV to fallow in the same trend.

Say hello to $450 GK104 cards at +10% performance over GTX580 shortly

Manufacturing costs and the free market will decide the price points. Nvidia is free to set their own prices, If NV wants to offer more value, they are free to do so. BTW, the supposed shortage of 28nm wafers don't appear to be affecting AMD significantly, they will soon have what, 6 SKUs on 28nm? It would make sense that AMD is trying to balance price/wafer availability though.

 

[Vesku]

Looks pretty balanced, just has to hit closer to 280 for me to be tempted.

 

[AtenRa]

Im not videoclone

ehehehe

 

[aaksheytalwar]

I would like to add, AMD going back to old pricing need not be entirely because of nVidia. Back in the age of the 9700 Pro to 2900XT, AMD cards were typcially $450-550 for their high end cards and around $200-300 for their mid range parts. And this was like 5-10 years ago.

Perhaps they are going back to their old pricing and 10 years could mean a 10% inflation as well and hence slightly higher prices today compared to 7-8 years back.

AMD 3xxx series was only a mid range card and hence the prices were low, besides, it was a failure. Even the 2900 series was a failure.

Perhaps AMD bought ATI and hence kept the prices of the 4800 to 6900 series relatively low, with small increments in price each time.

But now that they are at the peak again, they don't have any reason to pull more people towards them with a better price, they can price equivalent to nvidia and that is what they are doing now.

IMO , nVidia will probably pull off their single GPU flagship over $650-700 if it is really 15-25% faster, as it did with the GTX 8800 series. So prices won't drop either way.

Just my 2 cents.

 

[JBT]

I really think if amd gave these cards a bit more speed at stock people wouldnt be upset. Its clear they oc like crazy so why not spread out the numbers abit more?

 

[skipsneeky2]

The 7870 looks like a impressive card from power consumption standards.

Lower then 6870 tdp,with better then 6970 performance and heck the 6970 pulled like 80 watts more on the guru3d review and that i think is a win for the 7870.

Price seems fair,it could be lower but people will still buy it any day of the week over the gtx570.

 

[Ieat]

Price and performance is a little better then I expected so a mild thumbs up to AMD for that. But I'll hold off until kepler to see if nvidia offers a single card that can power 3 monitors without screen tearing using dvi/hdmi. AMD not bothering to fixing the screen tearing problem was a big no no for me.

 

[BallaTheFeared]

Price seems fair,it could be lower but people will still buy it any day of the week over the gtx570.

Why?

You can get a 40nm last gen GTX 570 for $305 new...

*Three recent popular releases - cherry picked*

 

[IlllI]

i've considered the possibility that if nv counterparts are indeed faster, that nv will just price theirs higher than amd.

i dont know why most people assume that whatever nv comes out with will be the same prices at the new amd cards today and will thus 'force' amd to lower their prices.

 

[skipsneeky2]

Why?

You can get a 40nm last gen GTX 570 for $305 new...

*Three recent popular releases - cherry picked*

If you saw this card for $349 and a gtx570 for $305 on a shelf,the extra 700 mb vram and its lower then 6870/gtx460 tdp wouldn't even interest you even one bit?

 

[BallaTheFeared]

Yeah but the problem is I saw the 570 on the self 18 months ago.

I guess if I was buying today, I'd pick the 7870, or I'd read up and wait a bit longer.

 

[Subyman]

Paying full price for last gen performance... The overclocking headroom is promising, but not worth the upgrade for most of us. I mean, if you own a 560TI or above there is no reason to pay the premium. The 7850 seems hamstrung by the lower core AND the lower shader count. They should have went with one or the other, but not both. If you happen to be looking to upgrade from a 5850 or something, then this is a good time, anyone else shouldn't be too excited.

It seems like this gen has been a side step instead of major progress.

 

[skipsneeky2]

Yeah but the problem is I saw the 570 on the self 18 months ago.

I guess if I was buying today, I'd pick the 7870, or I'd read up and wait a bit longer.

Yup,the market is very stall with its pricing right now i mean hell i did not expect the 7970 to hit over $449,nor the 7950 to be really over $350,plenty of people thought the 7870 would be $299 and well its $350 and when i heard rumors of the 7700 i made a gamble it would be $130 after news of the 7950s price in the reviews basically told me the whole series will not have bargains,and well the cheapest on newegg is $159.

 

[aaksheytalwar]

What people don't seem to get is, that most 7870s will OC about 20% at stock volts, and with the 7xxx it means 20% more FPS. That means an oced 7870 on air with stock volts and stock cooler is faster than a GTX 580 when overclocked.

As far as the high pricing is concerned, I have tried to make a point in the previous post, please go through it

 

[BallaTheFeared]

Pretty sure the 580 has better per core, per clock performance.

Think of it like bulldozer vs SB... I guess. A i5-2500k @ 3.3 GHz vs a Bulldozer cpu at 4.2GHz is slightly faster, it doesn't need to continue to match clock speeds at this level to continue being faster because it has higher IPC, meaning it gains more for increased MHz than bulldozer does. 7870 vs 580 works exactly the same way.

 

[videoclone]

Im not videoclone

ehehehe

You stoleded meeeee!!! NOOOOooooooooooo give back

 

[Imouto]

Pretty sure the 580 has better per core, per clock performance.

Think of it like bulldozer vs SB... I guess. A i5-2500k @ 3.3 GHz vs a Bulldozer cpu at 4.2GHz is slightly faster, it doesn't need to continue to match clock speeds at this level to continue being faster because it has higher IPC, meaning it gains more for increased MHz than bulldozer does. 7870 vs 580 works exactly the same way.

Seriously... No.

Stop doing misleading comparisons like this in every single thread.

 

[maddie]

Pretty sure the 580 has better per core, per clock performance.

Think of it like bulldozer vs SB... I guess. A i5-2500k @ 3.3 GHz vs a Bulldozer cpu at 4.2GHz is slightly faster, it doesn't need to continue to match clock speeds at this level to continue being faster because it has higher IPC, meaning it gains more for increased MHz than bulldozer does. 7870 vs 580 works exactly the same way.

78xx performance has surprised me.

78xx prices have depressed me.

The above argument has some apparently clutching at straws.

 

[BallaTheFeared]

Seriously... No.

Stop doing misleading comparisons like this in every single thread.

No?

So the 7870 is faster per clock, at 1000Mhz while being slower in benches?

I'm confused as to what is actually misleading?


772Mhz 580 is faster than 1000MHz 7870, adding 200MHz to the 7870 would not require the 580 to run at 972 to maintain the same performance advantage.

 

[wahdangun]

It's a heck of a lot faster than 6970 in games where it matters:

BF3 :

Shogun 2:

Skyrim: (no CPU bottleneck at this res)

And lol @ Crysis 2 results, obviously drivers have improved it a huge amount, beating the older release driver 7970:

And a good 20% OC with great scaling, low power consumption/heat even under OC.. $350 makes this card IMO just right. Im eagerly awaiting for gk104 and see how it all stacks up, grabbing whichever gives the best perf/$ and perf/w. Good times.

maybe pitcard is the actual card that charlie mean sometimes faster than HD 7970 and priced aroun $300 ??? and somehow charlie mistaken it for nvdia kepler GPU lol