'7890' Review

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

It could be the reason(rampant speculation mode),that HD7900 series prices were quite high initially,as yields were not as good as expected??

One of the AMD people,mentioned that the HD7900 series clockspeeds were too low,and that the later cards actually took advantage of the lessons learnt with the HD7900 series.

[watercooled]

If they have a ton of them, I'd have expected this SKU earlier like you said, possibly at release. The boost upgrades could also imply better than expected yield, but either way they're still bound to end up with a few imperfect but usable dies, once they collect enough I suppose it makes sense to do something like this.

I find it hard to believe, as some people think, that GK110 was ever intended to be in the initial 600 line-up considering its die size if nothing else. 104 is only really used for 3 SKUs, excluding OEM/690, which fits in with previous lines.

[Willzzz]

I think AMD were a little bit quick to drop prices on their top cards. With the new higher clocks and better drivers they arguably beat the Nvidia competition and yet AMD charge quite a lot less, when they could be making much more healthy margins that the company presumably needs.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

TBH,AMD was too conservative with the clockspeeds with the HD7900 series and I think they kind of admit it now(chap talking about increasing HD7900 series clockspeeds was Dave Baumann). I think they were too concerned power consumption would look poor compared to the previous generation. However,IMHO they should have just clocked them higher as even launch HD7970 cards seemed to hit between 1GHZ to 1.1GHZ ,without massive issues.

Nvidia OTH,just pushed the GTX680 and GTX670 clockspeeds quite high with their boost technology,which I suspect AMD did not predict.

No wonder,Nvidia said themselves,that 2012 was going to be a good year for them after the HD7900 series launch!

[watercooled]

I could also be as simple as charging more because of lack of competition. Now, charging less probably makes more money by attracting customers who would otherwise find it hard to choose between the two. Also remember Nvidia tend to get away with higher price/performance anyway.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I could also be as simple as charging more because of lack of competition. Now, charging less probably makes more money by attracting customers who would otherwise find it hard to choose between the two. Also remember Nvidia tend to get away with higher price/performance anyway.

The sad thing is that AMD is considered the "value" brand even if they have the fastest graphics card,which means people expect them to really initiate price wars. This is what you saw with all the hostility against the HD7900 series on forums. Like I said at the time,Nvidia could have initiated it by dropping GTX580 prices. It was not only the fault of AMD.

Edit!!

TBH,AMD should have stuck with the ATi brand IMHO.

[Willzzz]

The difference in price is currently nuts at the top end.

The cheapest 680 is £360 and the cheapest 7970 is only £300. That's a £60 quid difference, and the 7970 is probably faster overall.

If Nvidia can sell 680s for a 20% premium, you'd think AMD could at least add 10% to their prices, even if there is some sort of Nvidia fanboy effect.
However going by the threads on here we have managed to convince many to avoid the overpriced 680s in favour of 7970s.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I think part of the issue is that fact that at the launch,the GTX680 was considered faster and consumed less power than a HD7970. Even a site like HC,which tends to be generally an OK site said the following:

"While AMD is still very much alive in the graphics game, Kepler makes the Tahiti architecture look half a generation out-of-date and about nine months too late."

HC is the major hardware review site in Canada.

Bit-tech:

"The GTX 680 2GB represents a meaningful jump in performance, features and efficiency that AMD's high-end hasn't matched"

I don't like them but they and CPC which are one and the same,have a large readership.

As first impressions count when people read reviews,so it would not surprise me many think Kepler>>>>>>>>>>>>>>GCN,so Nvidia gets away with charging more with non-techies. Techies who read the latest reviews and keep up to date,might understand that AMD is more competitive now.

[Willzzz]

There is a lot to be said for getting things right at the beginning. While it's great that prices have come down and performance gone up, it would been so much nicer if it had been that way from the start.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Very true,but I think jumping to conclusion GCN is out of date for example,was a tad premature. The HD7700 and HD7800 series cards,are certainly competitive with the rest of the Nvidia cards even with regards to efficiency. Fermi based cards like the GTX480 had its issues,but you could not really fault the baseline architecture,and the GTX460 showed that.

Personally,I think AMD should have just aimed a bit higher. Even if the HD7970 had merely matched the GTX680 at launch just via brute force,it would have made it look better. However,loosing on two metrics at the GTX680 launch was not so good.

[watercooled]

Out of date? Did they forget the 680 was released a good while after the 7970? It is a strange things for HC to say?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Another review:

http://www.kitguru.net/components/gr...iew-tahiti-le/

Aria have listed one model for around £185:

http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Compo...roductId=53474

Edit!!

Another review:

http://www.pcgameshardware.de/AMD-Ra...ition-1039564/

[Willzzz]

I'm starting to work out why AMD partners are annoyed by this card. I'm guessing AMD has sold them lots of 7870s and 7950s which they have in stock and are now going to find rather hard to sell at decent prices.

While you can't argue with the price/performance, I think it's a bit of a stretch to say that this card has no down sides.

"The VTX3D is one of the most memorable video cards this year, alongside with the Sapphire HD7970 6GB Toxic Edition."

A rather odd conclusion, the Toxic memorable mainly for being incredibly expensive, which is quite the opposite of this card.
Also I have to say I hate kitguru reviews, the graphs look awful, it's often hard to work out what settings are used (BF3!) and there are no comparison for temp, noise and power.

Aria have at least done a nice job labeling the card, making it very clear that this is the Tahiti version, and a very nice price as well!

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I wish the AMD cards were shorter TBH,as a SFF PC fan,even some of the normal HD7870 cards are rather on the long side.

[Willzzz]

Yeah the 7870 is just HUGE next to the adorable Zotac 660:
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/201...0-2gb-review/2

Awww, it's so cute!

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The Zotac GTX670 Dual King is as short it seems:

http://www.zotackor.com/?this_in=dow...eq=122&clist=9