[VC] AMD Radeon HD 9000 Series Launching in October?

[SolMiester]

Its a 28nm refresh, its not going to be spectacular. AMD have shown no will to go with a big die so the best they can hope for are refined design that hit higher clockspeeds.. but lets not kid ourselves, 780 and Titan aren't massive performance targets, 15-25% is easily within reach.

Its bad for consumers, because you could have had this performance over a year ago, get a 7970, OC it to 1.2ghz and there you have it, 780 speeds. I'm still surprised by the low expectations from NV, so many forum posters are filled with glee at the gtx770 refresh when its nothing more than a higher boosting 680. Sure, its priced lower, but the original was a major rip off. Overall, 28nm has been a win for early adopters who got 7950 or gtx670 and OC them. The rest has been meh... and its going to be a long long time til 20nm GPUs with qualcomm and apple eating up the wafers.

ps. This does not deserve the 9000 series name, its a weak refresh and not a major leap.

I dont understand why people say this?, the 7970 even at 1.2 is not as fast as 780, and then that too can OC. How can you say the 680 was a rip off, when it was faster and cheaper out of the box?, than the 7970?....as for the 770?, well, is faster and cheaper again?...

 

[Elfear]

I dont understand why people say this?, the 7970 even at 1.2 is not as fast as 780, and then that too can OC. How can you say the 680 was a rip off, when it was faster and cheaper out of the box?, than the 7970?....as for the 770?, well, is faster and cheaper again?...

A 780 is ~15% faster than a 7970Ghz and 1200Mhz would be an almost 13% clock increase so it would be pretty dang close to a 780. Of course, as you stated, the 780 could also be overclocked for a sizeable lead over the 7970 but I think SilverForce was talking stock.

 

[bystander36]

A 780 is ~15% faster than a 7970Ghz and 1200Mhz would be an almost 13% clock increase so it would be pretty dang close to a 780. Of course, as you stated, the 780 could also be overclocked for a sizeable lead over the 7970 but I think SilverForce was talking stock.

Yes, I'm sure he was talking stock, but the whole premise doesn't really add up. If you are willing to overclock one card, there is no reason you wouldn't overclock the other. So either you compare stock vs. stock, or OC vs OC.

 

[3DVagabond]

I think about the best we can hope for would be 7870x2 type performance. Remember Tahiti was the first 28nm design and even Pitcairn was a pretty big improvement. Bonaire has raised the bar more. I don't think TDP will be an issue unless they go with 512bit mem bus (not going to happen, IMO).

 

[Silverforce11]

The premise holds when you consider how old 7970 is already. For someone to have one since release and OC to 1.2ghz or even higher, they already had 780 performance for so long..

Now AMD is talking about a refresh in a few months that offer ~780 performance.. for $500?? Come on, that's a major rip off and should be by anyone's standards.

@SolMiester, the 680 was a rip off, weak gains over a gtx580 it replaced while being more expensive. This ofc includes the 7970 launch prices as well, nobody denies this. My point is the entire 28nm generation has been bad for consumers, low performance leap, major pricing jump.

ps. By the time AMD's refresh hits, we would be nearly 2 years into this gen and still getting craptastic perf/$.

 

[Zanovar]

Jesus 20nm next summer:S,i may just grab AMDS next offering.(im guessing and hoping faster than 780 for less).

 

[RussianSensation]

My point is the entire 28nm generation has been bad for consumers, low performance leap, major pricing jump.

ps. By the time AMD's refresh hits, we would be nearly 2 years into this gen and still getting craptastic perf/$.

In latest games 7970GE and GTX780 are 80-100% faster than their predecessors. We are not likely to see the same leaps as we've seen from 8500 to 9700Pro or 7900GTX to 8800GTX but 780 and 7970GE are a reasonable performance jump over their 580/6970 counterparts. What spoiled us was that you could pick up a 480 by fall 2011 on Newegg for $175-225 and HD6950 for $230 unlocked into a 6970 as early as Feb 2010. Based on that, the current generation is much more expensive. However, 1Ghz 7970 has now fallen to $300-320 which is a nice drop from $549 launch price.

I think the move to 20nm might not be as great though since from what I am reading 20nm from TSMC is about half as good as the leap from 40nm to 28nm was.

 

[5150Joker]

Will it still have broken Crossfire? If so, I wouldn't touch it no matter how good the price.

 

[hyrule4927]

Will it still have broken Crossfire? If so, I wouldn't touch it no matter how good the price.

Fix is less then a month away now.

 

[bystander36]

The premise holds when you consider how old 7970 is already. For someone to have one since release and OC to 1.2ghz or even higher, they already had 780 performance for so long..

The person who has OC'ed their 7970 for so long will be OCing their next card to, most likely. Why would they compare their card OC'ed card to something stock?

Whether the improvement is worth upgrading is another story, but that doesn't mean you don't want to compare based on how you'd use it.

 

[VulgarDisplay]

The person who has OC'ed their 7970 for so long will be OCing their next card to, most likely. Why would they compare their card OC'ed card to something stock?

Whether the improvement is worth upgrading is another story, but that doesn't mean you don't want to compare based on how you'd use it.

The point is that you could have gotten a $550 card at launch well over a year ago that with overclocking can perform similar to a $650 GPU that was released last month. It doesn't matter that the $650 card can outperform said $550 card over a year later.

So $350 bucks from AMD can get you $650 of nvidia's performance. Even if Nvidia's $650 of performance can net you their $1000 of performance it's still only around 15-25% more performance that you can get for $350.

 

[lopri]

Its a 28nm refresh, its not going to be spectacular. AMD have shown no will to go with a big die so the best they can hope for are refined design that hit higher clockspeeds.. but lets not kid ourselves, 780 and Titan aren't massive performance targets, 15-25% is easily within reach.

Its bad for consumers, because you could have had this performance over a year ago, get a 7970, OC it to 1.2ghz and there you have it, 780 speeds. I'm still surprised by the low expectations from NV, so many forum posters are filled with glee at the gtx770 refresh when its nothing more than a higher boosting 680. Sure, its priced lower, but the original was a major rip off. Overall, 28nm has been a win for early adopters who got 7950 or gtx670 and OC them. The rest has been meh... and its going to be a long long time til 20nm GPUs with qualcomm and apple eating up the wafers.

ps. This does not deserve the 9000 series name, its a weak refresh and not a major leap.

Have to agree. Last time I bought both the 670 and the 7950 which I rarely do (I usually get one high-end and one mid-range). Enjoyed them both and now they both are sold for I don't play PC games these days. Still, this being a hobby, I looked at what's available today - and there isn't anything enticing, to tell the truth.

Same goes for CPUs. I just don't see values that should (and ordinarily would) accompany the prices. Basically I don't think anything short of a second coming of the 8800 GTX or the HD 5870 will impress me.

 

[Black Octagon]

The point is that you could have gotten a $550 card at launch well over a year ago that with overclocking can perform similar to a $650 GPU that was released last month. It doesn't matter that the $650 card can outperform said $550 card over a year later.

So $350 bucks from AMD can get you $650 of nvidia's performance. Even if Nvidia's $650 of performance can net you their $1000 of performance it's still only around 15-25% more performance that you can get for $350.

Just to confirm, you're comparing 7970 at a typical overclock to the 780 at STOCK, right? Is that fair, given that the 780 itself can be overclocked (yielding an average 17% performance increase on average)?

Don't get me wrong, I love my 7970, but I believe we should always compare stock to stock or OC'd to OC'd. Comparing one card OC'd to another one at stock isn't particularly useful.

Here's an example of a useful comparison: http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?p=24502493

In there, I see several instances in which the overclocked 780 is outpacing the overclocked 7970 by about 20%

That said, $650 is certainly more than 20% more expensive than $350, so people should probably ask themselves how many $-per-% they're willing to pay as a premium.

 

[omeds]

I just did the numbers from those oc 7970 vs oc 780 results and it works out to the 780 being 33% faster on average across that test suite.

 

[RussianSensation]

Same goes for CPUs. I just don't see values that should (and ordinarily would) accompany the prices. Basically I don't think anything short of a second coming of the 8800 GTX or the HD 5870 will impress me.

As you get older, hardware becomes less impressive. The "I am uber impressed" value should come from the games, not the hardware. Even if AMD released a GPU 2x faster than HD7970 and priced it at $549 tomorrow, without next generation games, all you are looking are blazing fast speeds on outdated graphics engines. When 8800GTX came out, we had Crysis, the most ground-breaking game graphically. There have not been such game that wows us the same way since then which means every GPU since 8800GTX could never dream of impressing us the same way.

I am not sure why you singled out 5870 though because 5870 traded blows with HD4870X2 but the same is true for HD7970GE vs. HD6990/6950 2GB CF.

HD7970GE is 64% faster than HD6970 at 1080P.

About 2 years after 5870 launched, it was 44% faster than HD4890 on average at 1080P.

Not to mention 7970GE actually paid for itself with mining many times over. HD7970GE as a whole is far more impressive than 5870 was. It even has more VRAM ready to go for next gen games, while 5870 1GB version is a paperweight in Shogun 2 or any games that use tessellation. What made 5870 so impressive was NV screwing up royally on Fermi and AMD maintaining lower pricing during 4870-6970 eras. Hardware wise, 7970GE is a bigger leap over 6970 than 5870 was over 4890.

 

[sontin]

Cool, now we ignoring the 7970 which was only <50% faster than the 6970...

BTW: The 7970GE came out 20 months after the 6970, the 5870 around 7 months after the 4890. So it was much more impressive than the 7970GE...

 

[Black Octagon]

The 7970GE I basically ignore, because (unless you were particularly unlucky in the chip lottery) a regular ol' vanilla 7970 was always better value for money. Overclocked to higher levels and on less volts.

The GE was only a consideration for those people who refuse to engage in overclocking themselves

 

[Black Octagon]

I just did the numbers from those oc 7970 vs oc 780 results and it works out to the 780 being 33% faster on average across that test suite.

Quite possible. I had a very cursory look and did calculations in my head.

 

[Zanovar]

The 7970GE I basically ignore, because (unless you were particularly unlucky in the chip lottery) a regular ol' vanilla 7970 was always better value for money. Overclocked to higher levels and on less volts.

The GE was only a consideration for those people who refuse to engage in overclocking themselves

or were looking for better acoustics.Those amd ref blowers are cack.

 

[Black Octagon]

Even then, I'd get one of the myriad other factory OC'd models before getting a GHz Edition one.

(you are correct about the loud fans on the vanilla cards, though)

 

[tviceman]

Its a 28nm refresh, its not going to be spectacular. AMD have shown no will to go with a big die so the best they can hope for are refined design that hit higher clockspeeds.. but lets not kid ourselves, 780 and Titan aren't massive performance targets, 15-25% is easily within reach.

Its bad for consumers, because you could have had this performance over a year ago, get a 7970, OC it to 1.2ghz and there you have it, 780 speeds.

Hmm kinda like a gtx580 oc'd to 7970 speeds. Weird how this whole generation has been defined by oc'ing previous best cards to match the new best ones.

 

[RussianSensation]

Cool, now we ignoring the 7970 which was only <50% faster than the 6970....

Since this an enthusiast forum, if you want a real comparison how about (1) HD5870 OC vs. HD4890 OC and (2) HD7970 OC vs. HD6970 OC. No matter how you slice it, HD7970 OC is a bigger leap in performance than HD5870 OC was over 4890 OC.

Oh and btw, way to single out the 7970 vs. 6970 comparison and completely ignore the point I made which is 780 vs. 580 and 7970 vs. 6970. Both of those are stated to be "meh" increases but performance in latest games proves otherwise more and more frequently. Saying let's ignore HD7970GE makes no sense since 99% of 7970's can hit those speeds on stock volts.

It's one thing to talk about NV/AMD price increases but performance wise 7970 OC and GTX780 OC smash their predecessors.

In Arma III for example, 7970GE is 85% faster than 6970 and 780 is 76% faster than 580, while GTX680 is 81% faster than GTX480 (680 launched about 2 years after the 480). More importantly, HD7970/7970GE/680/770 are all neck and neck with last gen dual-GPU flagships - the 590 and 6990.

If someone is still playing 5-8 year old games then sure this generation is underwhelming performance wise. Fire up a new game, and this gen flagships are 70-90% faster.

Hmm kinda like a gtx580 oc'd to 7970 speeds. Weird how this whole generation has been defined by oc'ing previous best cards to match the new best ones.

Except when 7970 came out, it was a $100 premium over 1.5GB cards and there was maybe a $50 premium over 3GB 580 cards. Now 7970 1Ghz is hovering at $310 and the cheapest 780 is $650. Performance wise, the 7970 is farther away from 580 than 780 is over 1Ghz 7970. GTX780 is far worse price/performance increase than 7970 delivered over the 580. Our forum has been over this 100x and it has been shown mathematically that 780 is way more overpriced than 7970 was over the 580. 7970 was overpriced at launch but 780 takes it to a whole other level.

Look at it another way. HD6970 was $349 in retail when 7970 came out for $549, it was about 40% faster. 7970 is now nearly 2 years old and 1Ghz version sells for $310. If HD9970 is 40% faster than 1Ghz 7970, a reasonable price in a similar context should be $485, $499 maybe. If HD9970 is only 20-25% faster and costs $549, that's way worse value once again than 7970 delivered over the 6970. I supposed that's why Silverforce11 is not impressed.

 

[Black Octagon]

Has anyone actually SEEN this original 'source'??? Videocardz.com refers to this site: http://www.chinadiy.com.cn/html/92/n-10092.html[/quote]

But when I click it, I see an article about a new Antec PSU. No record of any other news about AMD from the pat few days that mentions a 9000 series either...

 

[Silverforce11]

Look at it another way. HD6970 was $349 in retail when 7970 came out for $549, it was about 40% faster. 7970 is now nearly 2 years old and 1Ghz version sells for $310. If HD9970 is 40% faster than 1Ghz 7970, a reasonable price in a similar context should be $485, $499 maybe. If HD9970 is only 20-25% faster and costs $549, that's way worse value once again than 7970 delivered over the 6970. I supposed that's why Silverforce11 is not impressed.

Exactly. Perf/$ in hardware and tech consumables have been progressing towards lower pricing and more features/perf, giving consumers a win win situation with every new generation.. except this gen's GPU. Its getting to be like Intel, with pathetic IPC gains, same or more pricing generation after generation. Stagnation and going backwards is not a good outcome for consumers. Unless you own shares in these companies, you should expect better value for the end user, us gamers.

And tvm: we've been over this, the 7970 was horrendous value when it was released, I don't think anyone here denies this. The only redeeming product this gen has been 7950s, which were priced good a few months after launch and maintain great perf/$ as well as heaps of OC headroom. The 660ti/670 situation was nearly "good", but the 670 pricing was stubbornly high for a long time. After all this, nearly 2 years later and AMD thinks a 15-20% faster refresh for $500 is a good achievement? It's pathetic. Likewise, same for the GTX refresh, outside of the 760, the entire lineup is asking consumers to bend over and take it. The only difference is there are lots of NV fans here who defend the rip off prices.

Edit: Have to add, the only scenario where the 7970 wasn't a major rip off at release was for people who bitcoin mine.. these early adopters would have paid off their card many times over. Still, going forward, with the death of GPU mining, AMD has no right to charge $500 for a refresh product, certainly their sales will tank hard if they think they can get away with it. There's no bit mining to attract buyers this time for sure.

 

[SirPauly]

. HD7970GE as a whole is far more impressive than 5870 was. It even has more VRAM ready to go for next gen games, while 5870 1GB version is a paperweight in Shogun 2 or any games that use tessellation.

Imho,

I doubt that based on the efficiency, balance, performance, competitive MSRP, and bringing welcomed features like EyeFinity and SGSSAA to potential gamers.

The 5xxx series was so impressive it did take discrete marketshare away from nVidia; to such levels that AMD did take discrete share leadership.

The 7xxx series has lost share -- and needs price dropping and impressive bundles to compete.

IF one uses cherry picking -- can potentially spin anything, imho!