AMD 7000 Series Graphics Cards - First 7970 Reviews Are Live

[Offender_Mullet]

They're coming. I think I just did after viewing these specs.

Report: First AMD 28nm GPU Due in December

Industry sources told Germany's heise online that AMD is targeting December 6 as a launch date.

There was no information which architecture these new GPUs will be based on, but there appears to be reason to believe that AMD may be unveiling performance desktop boards, which will become available in very limited quantities in December, heise said. Due to 28 nm transition problems, it may take some time until there is enough supply to meet demand.

If heise's sources are correct, then we assume that the announcement in December will be about AMD's Southern Island GPU family, which is expected to be called the Radeon HD 7000 series. We are expecting these GPUs to use Rambus' XDR2 DRAM memory instead of GDDR5, MIMD instructions instead of VLIW, support for PowerTune as well as x86 addressing and Partially Resident Textures.

TSMC reportedly increased its pricing for 28nm products as it noticed substantially higher demand than the company initially expected. Xbit labs speculated that TSMC's capacity for 28nm wafer production is only 7000 to 10,000 units during the current fourth quarter.

AMD is set to launch its next-generation graphic processors this coming fall and it is shaping up to be more than expected with use of XDR2 memory interface.

Based on a leaked road-map, AMD will be releasing their new GPUs in Q4 for the upcoming holiday season. The GPUs will start with four different GPUs based on the 28nm version of the VLIW4 (Very Long Instruction Word) architecture. The four GPUs will be equipped with 768 to 1536 Radeon cores (stream processors) and GDDR5 memory.

The fun begins when you start to look at the new high-end GPUs codenamed "Tahiti", which is expected to see a Q1 2012 release. The "Tahiti" will make use of PCIe Gen3 interface, which has a massive bandwidth of 32 GB/s. The 7900 series is set to utilizes new AMD's Graphics CoreNext GPU architecture. The GCN is expected to boost performance per square millimeter die area to improve upon the VLIW4 architecture .

The most interesting change is AMD's decision to go with XDR2 memory interface from Rambus over previous generation DDR5 memory interface. Rambus claims the XDR2 is twice as fast as DDR5, while offering 30 percent less power consumption.

Additional information leaked has the Radeon HD 7970 series with, 2048 Radeon Cores, GPU frequency of 1000 MHz and XDR2 memory at 8000 MHz, which would result in a memory bandwidth of 256 GB/s over a 256-bit memory interface. This compared to the 176 GB/s in Radeon HD 6790 with GDDR5 memory at 5500 MHz. All this power will be packed within an estimated power consumption of 190 watts

There looks to be some interesting times ahead for AMD in the coming months for us to keep watch. AMD will be releasing its new "Bulldozer" architecture, along with the new GCN architecture for the 7900 series GPUs (if the information leaked is accurate).

Link: http://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd...ory,13408.html

There are a few Pci-Express 3.0 motherboards already on the market. Love that lower power consumption compared to my 6970. Wow. Can't wait for the 7970.

[BLindsay]

grr and i was hoping to keep my pair of 6970s for a while lol.

[Offender_Mullet]

The 79**'s won't be out until Q1 2012 so we have a few more months of use left. However, PCIe 3.0 means new motherboard if you want to take 'full' advantage of the supposed performance gains. NewEgg has 5 Pci-Express 3.0 Z68 boards out. I'm just not a fan of ASRock and have never tried a MSI product before. Glad I haven't bought my new board yet.

EDIT: Ah ha, look at this. "To run the PCI Express 3.0 slots in Gen 3 speed, please must install the Ivy Bridge CPU which supports PCI Express 3.0. If you install the Sandy Bridge CPU, the PCI Express 3.0 slots will run only at Gen2 speed." Taken from the ASRock website.

[RocShemp]

Meh. I just got my 6850. I'm not upgrading anytime soon.

[BLindsay]

Originally Posted by Offender_Mullet

The 79**'s won't be out until Q1 2012 so we have a few more months of use left. However, PCIe 3.0 means new motherboard if you want to take 'full' advantage of the supposed performance gains. NewEgg has 5 Pci-Express 3.0 Z68 boards out. I'm just not a fan of ASRock and have never tried a MSI product before. Glad I haven't bought my new board yet.

EDIT: Ah ha, look at this. "To run the PCI Express 3.0 slots in Gen 3 speed, please must install the Ivy Bridge CPU which supports PCI Express 3.0. If you install the Sandy Bridge CPU, the PCI Express 3.0 slots will run only at Gen2 speed." Taken from the ASRock website.

eh considering though there is only a few % difference going from a x16 to an x8 slot on PCIE 2.0 i seriously doubt we will need 3.0 for this gen

[PrivatePixel]

Originally Posted by Offender_Mullet

The 79**'s won't be out until Q1 2012 so we have a few more months of use left. However, PCIe 3.0 means new motherboard if you want to take 'full' advantage of the supposed performance gains. NewEgg has 5 Pci-Express 3.0 Z68 boards out. I'm just not a fan of ASRock and have never tried a MSI product before. Glad I haven't bought my new board yet.

I use an MSI board on my secondary PC: pretty solid in terms of stability. If I had $200+, I would spring for one of their PCI 3.0-supported Military Class II boards right now. January isn't too far off, so we should see new PCI 3.0 boards from all of the major players. I thought about updating to a Z68-based mobo now (for Battlefield 3, of course), but my current primary should be able to handle it (with settings turned down) while I wait for the 2012 boards.

I'm happy with my current video card, but if I find a 7000-series card for a sweet price, I'll bite.

[Offender_Mullet]

Originally Posted by BLindsay

eh considering though there is only a few % difference going from a x16 to an x8 slot on PCIE 2.0 i seriously doubt we will need 3.0 for this gen

Very true, which is why I said "supposed gains" because we all know what kind of marketing hype new products carry. Plus, having to buy an upcoming Ivy Bridge cpu I don't think would be worth it. That was a bit disappointing reading that on ASRock's site.

Originally Posted by PrivatePixel

I use an MSI board on my secondary PC: pretty solid in terms of stability. If I had $200+, I would spring for one of their PCI 3.0-supported Military Class II boards right now. January isn't too far off, so we should see new PCI 3.0 boards from all of the major players. I thought about updating to a Z68-based mobo now (for Battlefield 3, of course), but my current primary should be able to handle it (with settings turned down) while I wait for the 2012 boards. I'm happy with my current video card, but if I find a 7000-series card for a sweet price, I'll bite.

Stability is one good thing I've heard about MSI products. I'm just so comfortable with Asus boards.

[PrivatePixel]

Originally Posted by Offender_Mullet

Stability is one good thing I've heard about MSI products. I'm just so comfortable with Asus boards.

Nothing wrong with brand loyalty. I'm not big on ASUS boards, despite being really good overclockers. I know quite a few people who had troublesome builds with ASUS boards in the past, but those that didn't swear by the brand.

[PrivatePixel]

Originally Posted by Offender_Mullet

The 79**'s won't be out until Q1 2012 so we have a few more months of use left. However, PCIe 3.0 means new motherboard if you want to take 'full' advantage of the supposed performance gains. NewEgg has 5 Pci-Express 3.0 Z68 boards out. I'm just not a fan of ASRock and have never tried a MSI product before. Glad I haven't bought my new board yet.

EDIT: Ah ha, look at this. "To run the PCI Express 3.0 slots in Gen 3 speed, please must install the Ivy Bridge CPU which supports PCI Express 3.0. If you install the Sandy Bridge CPU, the PCI Express 3.0 slots will run only at Gen2 speed." Taken from the ASRock website.

Good to know. I guess I won't be upgrading either of my desktops to a Sandy Bridge CPU during the interim; I'll just wait for the Ivy Bridge CPUs and improved selection of PCI 3.0 boards when 2012 rolls around.