• We’re currently investigating an issue related to the forum theme and styling that is impacting page layout and visual formatting. The problem has been identified, and we are actively working on a resolution. There is no impact to user data or functionality, this is strictly a front-end display issue. We’ll post an update once the fix has been deployed. Thanks for your patience while we get this sorted.

Sapphire AMD HD 9970 News

Page 9 - Seeking answers? Join the AnandTech community: where nearly half-a-million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.
expecting AMD to price a product which has Titan like performance at anything below USD 550 is highly unrealistic. AMD is not stupid to do that. The realistic price for AMD HD 9970 even if it falls in between GTX 780 and Titan performance is USD 550 - 600. AMD will throw in their BF4 game bundle to sweeten the deal. that in itself would be a killer deal.

AMD is not going to kill margins if they have a competitive product and rightly so. Any well run business needs to extract the best possible price for its products in the competitive marketplace. :thumbsup:

Best case scenario it beats Titan, by a little or a lot doesn't matter, and it's $550. This would actually justify the release price of the 7970, as it would be the same, and at $550 AMD would look like nice guys (Ironically).

Releasing it too cheap does them no good at all. Look at the 5870, a great card at $370 (IIRC?), people still waited 6 months for the 480. As it turns out the 480 was only marginally faster than the 5870, except in tessellation and that only mattered in a couple of nVidia sponsored titles, used heaps more power, way more than the 7970 over the 680, and was one of the loudest cards ever made. Did it matter? Not really. Many people waited all that time for it, skipping the 5870, and bought it anyway. Those who point out that AMD took over marketshare, that was with zero competition from nVidia, and then only barely took over marketshare. As soon as Fermi came out people ponied up. AMD should sell the 9970 for as much as they can, all things considered. Which includes peoples perceptions of good and evil, as this has always been a strong point for AMD. It serves them well to make nVidia look like the bad guys. Hopefully it's $550 and it's worth it (relatively speaking). $650, or more though, is definitely a possibility looking at recent history.
 
Best case scenario it beats Titan, by a little or a lot doesn't matter, and it's $550. This would actually justify the release price of the 7970, as it would be the same, and at $550 AMD would look like nice guys (Ironically).

Releasing it too cheap does them no good at all. Look at the 5870, a great card at $370 (IIRC?), people still waited 6 months for the 480. As it turns out the 480 was only marginally faster than the 5870, except in tessellation and that only mattered in a couple of nVidia sponsored titles, used heaps more power, way more than the 7970 over the 680, and was one of the loudest cards ever made. Did it matter? Not really. Many people waited all that time for it, skipping the 5870, and bought it anyway. Those who point out that AMD took over marketshare, that was with zero competition from nVidia, and then only barely took over marketshare. As soon as Fermi came out people ponied up. AMD should sell the 9970 for as much as they can, all things considered. Which includes peoples perceptions of good and evil, as this has always been a strong point for AMD. It serves them well to make nVidia look like the bad guys. Hopefully it's $550 and it's worth it (relatively speaking). $650, or more though, is definitely a possibility looking at recent history.

Realistically, I would imagine AMD to sell it at $500-$550, more likely 550. Since from what I can tell it's not on 20nm, and I think it's when there is a shrink where prices go up; I don't remember a refresh ever being that much more expensive than the previous gen.
 
Realistically, I would imagine AMD to sell it at $500-$550, more likely 550. Since from what I can tell it's not on 20nm, and I think it's when there is a shrink where prices go up; I don't remember a refresh ever being that much more expensive than the previous gen.

Depends on the die size & bus width. The Chinese are hinting at around the 2500sp mark so its about 20% extra raw units (size), with higher clock speed, should hit 30% extra performance.
 
Depends on the die size & bus width. The Chinese are hinting at around the 2500sp mark so its about 20% extra raw units (size), with higher clock speed, should hit 30% extra performance.

1. not hawaii XT
2. model they are referring to is unlikely to have higher clockspeed
3. yes
 
1. not hawaii XT
2. model they are referring to is unlikely to have higher clockspeed
3. yes

What do you think about my new speculation?

9970 (3x Bonaire):

2688 SP
168 TMUs
48 ROPs
4 raster engines and 4 ACEs
384-bit, 7 Gbps, 6 GB GDDR5
Power consumption around 7970 GHz
Performance 7970 GHz +40%

9950:

2304 SP
144 TMUs
44-48 ROPs
4 raster engines and 4 ACEs
384-bit, 6 Gbps, 3 GB GDDR5
Power consumption around 7970
Performance 7970 GHz +20%
 
what do you think about my new speculation?

9970 (3x bonaire):

2688 sp
168 tmus
48 rops
4 raster engines and 4 aces
384-bit, 7 gbps, 6 gb gddr5
power consumption around 7970 ghz
performance 7970 ghz +40%

9950:

2304 sp
144 tmus
44-48 rops
4 raster engines and 4 aces
384-bit, 6 gbps, 3 gb gddr5
power consumption around 7970
performance 7970 ghz +20%

9970 = $500-600
9950 = $400-500
 
Last edited:
What do you think about my new speculation?

9970 (3x Bonaire):

2688 SP
168 TMUs
48 ROPs
4 raster engines and 4 ACEs
384-bit, 7 Gbps, 6 GB GDDR5
Power consumption around 7970 GHz
Performance 7970 GHz +40%

9950:

2304 SP
144 TMUs
44-48 ROPs
4 raster engines and 4 ACEs
384-bit, 6 Gbps, 3 GB GDDR5
Power consumption around 7970
Performance 7970 GHz +20%

Neithger on either. Add some mem bandwidth, some SP's, call it a day
 
2816 SP (44 CUs x64 SP better manageable with 4 ACEs/raster engines) and 2560 SP (40 CUs) respectively, then?
As for memory bandwidth, 7 Gbps is the fastest there is. A memory interface that is wider than 384-bit? Maybe not 512, but 448-bit. That would provide close to 400 GB/s with 7 Gbps.
 
Last edited:
2816 SP (44 CUs x64 SP better manageable with 4 ACEs/raster engines) and 2560 SP (40 CUs) respectively, then?
As for memory bandwidth, 7 Gbps is the fastest there is. A memory interface that is wider than 384-bit? Maybe not 512, but 448-bit. That would provide close to 400 GB/s with 7 Gbps.

Hawaii is a testbed for GDDR6/stacked memory CONFIRMED! 😛

Seriously though, beefier caches are far more likely than an increased memory bus, that thing is already pretty big and hungry. I'd bet on higher clocked memory chips.
 
Is there even 8 Gbps memory out there? GDDR5 gets quite inefficient and very very expensive at those speeds. There is a reason why wide-I/O and differential-I/O is being developed.
GDDR6 and HMC is expected for 2014. I don't know if there are official final specs for GDDR6 yet.
 
Is there even 8 Gbps memory out there? GDDR5 gets quite inefficient and very very expensive at those speeds. There is a reason why wide-I/O and differential-I/O is being developed.
GDDR6 and HMC is expected for 2014. I don't know if there are official final specs for GDDR6 yet.

Would 8Gbps GDDR5 memory be actually needed though? Considering that the Geforce Titan is 6Gbps GDDR5 on a 384 bit bus width and doesn't seem to be bottlenecked by bandwidth. Of course, AMD could want to go back to 256bit bus with 20nm...
 
2816 SP (44 CUs x64 SP better manageable with 4 ACEs/raster engines) and 2560 SP (40 CUs) respectively, then?
As for memory bandwidth, 7 Gbps is the fastest there is. A memory interface that is wider than 384-bit? Maybe not 512, but 448-bit. That would provide close to 400 GB/s with 7 Gbps.

OMG 2816SP

hide your kids

If I can power 1280*1024 + 1920*1080 + 1280 * 1024 pixels on max settings for games, I'll be happy
 
Last edited:
I hope that is true and that AMD will be able to lauch all the way to the bank. Nvidia needs some real competition, otherwise we get another GTX 600 series............

I would be shocked if they launched on 20nm this year. The rumor is persistent though, but it just seems too improbable.

For arguments sake, let's say they do and we have 20nm available this year from AMD. It would likely be something in the 2560sp/338 bit memory bus class. That would probably be midrange on 20nm. 😉
 
I hope that is true and that AMD will be able to lauch all the way to the bank. Nvidia needs some real competition, otherwise we get another GTX 600 series............

Of course Wiki is not a reliable source at times (even w/those sources/info) and I wasn't even going to post this link, but I thought WTH the thread as a whole (other posts /opinions) was decent to read the other posts for me imo. 🙂
 
If its 512-bit I will pay up to 600$,

Huh! I paid $32 for a 512 Bit EVGA e-GeForce GTX 280 last fall = Great 1024 x768/120Hz CRT Performance but on the other hand I want flawless 2560x1440p/120Hz IPS/PLS 4K display performance - Was not the GTX 280 priced around $600 when it was introduced - How long ago was that? Man I'm getting old and have CRAFT Disease ;o)

Sish! A 256-Bit GTX 770 4GB is $450 today - Planning to buy one and perhaps another when I can afford it for SLI and 8 GB VRam to run a 1440p 4K Display.
 
I would be shocked if they launched on 20nm this year. The rumor is persistent though, but it just seems too improbable.

For arguments sake, let's say they do and we have 20nm available this year from AMD. It would likely be something in the 2560sp/338 bit memory bus class. That would probably be midrange on 20nm. 😉

Refresh?after all this time surely not.gloflo(im guessing here)and hoping btw😛
 
Last edited:
Back
Top