From what I gathered it was a reference design which was never released in large numbers in Europe or the US:
http://www.techpowerup.com/185003/tr...n-hd-7850.html
From what I gathered it was a reference design which was never released in large numbers in Europe or the US:
http://www.techpowerup.com/185003/tr...n-hd-7850.html
Last edited by CAT-THE-FIFTH; 15-02-2014 at 11:31 AM.
Single slot cooler too! I wonder why other manufacturers didn't produce anything similar?
The card is based on an alternate (more expensive to implement) reference design by AMD, which has been sporadically implemented by other AMD partners
cost would be my guess
Still I wonder how they did this. I mean even using the most efficient VRM design and PCB components, to go from 96W down to under 75W is quite a bit.
Plus they'd have to finally implement some proper throttling under FurMark as those 75W were TPU's 'peak' (Crysis 2 gaming) measurements not their 'maximum' (FurMark) which 101W. Source: TPU review of the R7-270X (which also still includes the 7850).
Guess an efficient VRM+PCB plus lower clocks and binned chips must get them down below 75W. But in general AMD don't bin their chips enough: not trying to encourage them to ship 'golden samples', but well binned Hawaii with a better cooler would have made a huge difference to the 290/290x launch. The leaky parts they could have kept till later for 285X or something.
Can't they release 7770/7790 or the new equivalents without the power connectors?
These comments appear to have been temporally shiftedThe article even says the AMD reference design is expensive... There's no reason not to think that engineering a 7770 to *peak* 75W power draw is going to add too much to the cost - particularly given it's now effectively a budget (£70) card...
My guess is a combination of more efficient VRMs, expensive low-voltage RAM, and carefully binned parts. Reducing voltage gives a much better power reduction than messing with clock speeds, and small savings everywhere can add up to an impressive saving overall.
As to binning/cooler on the Hawaii launch ... why bother? They targetted a price point - if they'd agressively binned chip and invested in a better cooler they would've had to increase the price, trashing the value proposition. I think they just about got it right, personally.
So right now from the AMD stable which is the fastest bus powered card?
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