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Find out if AMD's 'new' cards sink or swim.
that price drop is the real deal here - $100 makes it the same price as a GTX 760 , which is stomps all over
Let's see what the retailers do with the 7970 GE stock they currently have. Also, no overclocking benchmarks?
I know we were to expect this but it's still hugely disappointing to have yet another GPU rebadge except at the very top end which will be out of most self-builders' budgets. Okay so the price cut is welcome, because GPU prices have gotten absolutely absurd in the last 2 years.
I wonder if you can crossfire with the equivalent 7 series card like you could with the 5770 and the 6770?
Not terribly exciting. I was interested to see was what they would do with the rebadge of the 7950; the real gem in amd's current line up.
We expecting an anouncement for a R9 275X?
Very cheaky calling the 270X a R9 along with the 280X. They should hire me to come up with a better naming system (or even my 5yr old son).
I'm very disappointed the new gen are all just rebrands with the possible exception of the 290, especially after all the big talk at AMD's Hawaii event. Oh well I guess I can wait for another generation ! (12-18 months?)
Indeed, the 7870 rebrand is not in the same league as the 7970 rebrand, yet they are both R9...Quote:
Originally Posted by Domestic_Ginger
Fairer naming scheme equivalents could have been R9 = 79X0, R8 = 78X0 and R7 = 77X0
its exactly what NVidia did GTX 670>gtx 760 , GTX 680>gtx 770 = rebadged cardsQuote:
Originally Posted by Nobull
I believe we're expecting an R9 280 (i.e. non-X version), although I could be wrong.Quote:
Originally Posted by Domestic_Ginger
I think it's reasonable to go with a broadish range of R9-branded cards, tbh. It makes positioning a lot easier for OEMs/resellers: you want a gaming card? Get an R9. You just do casual gaming? You'll be fine with an R7. System integrators can brand their systems as having "AMD R9" graphics *and* offer a wide range of price points. And since they won't be changing the market segments each generation, the SI branding won't need to change. This year's AMD R9 system (with a 270X) can still be next year's AMD R9 system (with a 370X). It's not at all unlike Intel's Core iX branding...
If it is a 280 (non-x) then I believe we're looking at a 256bit bus and a lower shader count from what I know. Very confusing. Surely it would have been better labeled as the 270x and the current 270x being the 270.
The intel naming system is a bit broken as the have to increment all the number each year.
I suppose it doen't really matter i suppose :rolleyes:
Hexus,
can you tell me why in the article you have listed all the new AMD cards as not having boost when the majority seem to have. The R9 280X, and R9 270X are both boost enabled on msi and xfx versions and other reviews this morning go into depth on how it is now similar to nVidia's system. It appears only Asus cards are not and they all seem massively overclocked as standard. Which is good because it is still keenly priced, but it does skew the results on the 280 slightly especially on power consumption for the direct cu II top. How do the other cards in the same category compare and what cards did you get for sampling if you dont mind me asking.
Don't see why? It makes sense to me that if the R9 280X is the fully enabled chip, the R9 280 would be a slightly slower card based on that chip (just like the 7970/7950 now). Then the R9 270X and R9 270 will be based on the next chip down (as appears to be the case). That said, a quick google doesn't turn up anything obvious either way - I don't think AMD have announced any intention to release a non-X version of any card apart from the R9 290.Quote:
Originally Posted by Domestic_Ginger
But if I was AMD, that's what I'd be doing - 7950 refresh == R9 280, 7850 refresh == R9 270. That's assuming they'll bother doing intermediate cards at all, of course: as this is essentially a rebranding exercise they might not bother...
EDIT: as to the intel Core naming convention, it actually seems to work for consumers. I've heard plenty of non-techy people having at least some knowledge of i3 v i5 v i7, and it means consumers don't have to worry about generational differences between the chips; they can get a Core i5 laptop and know it'll be a bit faster than a Core i3 laptop. Of course, once you go down that route there's less impetus to have big jumps in performance from generation to generation: you don't want next generation's Core i3 to be faster than this generation's Core i5, because that throws off your naming system ;)
Well it made my mind up - ordered the Asus DirectCU II TOP 7970 for £220 from Scan.
My Sapphire 7870 Ghz edition should be up for sale in the forums by Thursday if anyone is interested :)
No overclocking Hexus?
Likewise...just sold my old 5850 and with what I should get for the games I'm a happy bunny.Quote:
Originally Posted by cptwhite_uk
Not too worried, having bought a 780 recently. Obviously these are much cheaper, but if the higher power draw, load temps and noise are anything to go by, the R9 290X isn't going to be a complete 780-slayer (even if it will probably take the crown in a handful of titles that are AMD favoured).
I moved from a 5870, which has given me 4 years of awesomeness, but it doesn't look at first glance as though AMD will pull out another '5870' moment with this series. And if they do, ho hum - the 780 is still a great card!
I hope there is good competition at the top end though, it's been a while since AMD was up there...
We're leaving overclocking for partner cards. The R9 280X, if you'll see, is actually a downclocked Asus DCU II TOP - AMD wouldn't sample standard cards for this model. Review on that coming very, very soon.Quote:
Originally Posted by cptwhite_uk
So the R9280X is basically just a rebranded 7970GHZ. Just looked on scan and you can get them significantly cheaper than 7970's as well! I hope 7970 prices drop real soon so I can CF mine :D
By the way - where the hell do you get the amd 13.11 drivers?? The latest I can see is 13.10 Beta2!
Multiple reviews have stated that Nvidia will not lower the price of the 770. Perhaps Hexus should ask Nvidia for a comment on that and update the conclusion appropriately? Basically put, the 770 is an absolute joke at current prices.
Can't really draw any conclusions about power draw/temps/noise of the R9 290X from these reviews, as the R9 290X is a completely new chip, whereas these are basically re-releases of the existing generation with minor firmware tweaks.Quote:
Originally Posted by Roobubba
That said, the 290X is a bigger chip than the 280X/7970, and it's still on 28nm, so they'll have had to pull off an absolute miracle to stop it pulling more power than a GTX780....
Very disappointing in my view, cant see a reason to move from my 6970 to these cards. 290x better be something good on the new archie or NVidia might be my next card
The price when tax is added will not be £230, look on scan and see the prices for pre-order. I'm in the middle on these, not bad but could be better.
To think that in 2 months, the last generation of cards will be nearly 2 years old, and 2 years on the main stay of their refreshed line up is...the same thing again. That means realistic AMD will have gone maybe 3 years before a major overhaul of their product line up :|
The GTX780 uses an even bigger chip though??Quote:
Originally Posted by scaryjim
The thing is the R9 series appear to have low clockspeeds like the GTX780 and Geforce Titan with high boost clocks,unlike the HD7970 which has much higher stock clockspeeds.
Scan always get excitable on price but plenty of retailers have them starting from £230 delivered.Quote:
Originally Posted by Andcog
I think at £230 the R280X is still over priced.
Where are all the salvage parts of Pitcairn and Tahiti going?? No new SKUs seem to use them!!
Who gives a monkey's about power use! All will be forgiven as long as the performance is good enough.Quote:
Originally Posted by Roobubba
Well now I can buy the R9-280X and guys that is the price-performance value I like, Great Job AMD Radeon ! :)
Just found A MSI R9 280X Review here
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/R9_280X_Gaming/
and it has crossfire !
@CtV 270x is pitcairn?
Yep.Quote:
Originally Posted by Domestic_Ginger
well, you could pre-order an R9 280X for around £250 ... or you could buy the practically equivalent ASUS 7970 DirectCU II TOP from Scan right now for £220.
Knocking $100 off the MSRP is all well and good, but it's a bit futile if the vast majority of etailers are already selling the older card for $100 less than MSRP anyway.... ;)
True, but the R9 280X draws around the same (if not more) power as a GTX780. So I don't see how AMD are going to make a chip that's bigger than Tahiti use less power?Quote:
Originally Posted by CAT-THE-FIFTH
Well its always the case,this happens I suppose,and you can get a decent HD7970 for around £210. However,I did remember that card being cheaper a few days ago too!!::pQuote:
Originally Posted by scaryjim
All the cards use crossfire it's just done over the PCIE bus instead of the typical crossfire bridge.Quote:
Originally Posted by abychristy
Edit:
Although that MSI card might give better crossfire performance on a PCIE 2 motherboard. Nice spot.
These are the card power consumption figures:Quote:
Originally Posted by scaryjim
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/M...Gaming/24.html
If you look at the performance per watt measurements,the GTX680 is inferior to both the GTX780 and Geforce Titan. However,the latter two cards are just lower clocked,and have a die size around 87% larger in area. However clockspeeds instead of being 1006MHZ+ for the GTX680 are 863MHZ+ and 837MHZ+ which is around 14% to 16% lower.
Even if absolute power consumption is higher for the GK110,it is not in-line with how much bigger the GPU is TBH,and the size difference is massive.
TPU measures power consumption at the PCI-E slot and PCI-E power connectors.
The thing is the later AMD cards were more efficient and if you read the comments of Dave Baumann(AMD chap),he said on another forum the lessons learnt from Tahiti made it into the later GPUs like Pitcairn and Cape Verde. We also saw Bonaire doing quite well in this regard.
Hawaii is rumoured to have a 423MM2 die size. That is only around 16% larger than Tahiti.
But look at the clockspeeds. Both the R9 290 and R9 290X only go upto around 950MHZ to 1GHZ with maximum boost:
http://wccftech.com/amd-radeon-r9-29...ons-confirmed/
The boost is temperature dependent meaning the upper levels are the best case scenario.
Base clockspeeds are meant to be around 800MHZ. That would be around 16% to 25% lower than the HD7970 and HD7970GE.
Another rumour is that the memory controller is based on Pitcairn and not Tahiti.
So a 16% increase in die area and a 16% to 25% decrease in base clockspeeds.
Its nearly 2 years later on the same node,after multiple designs. Tahiti was the largest 28NM chip until the GK110 was released 9 to 12 months later.
So,it would surprise me if Hawaii cannot beat Tahiti in performance per watt,or ends up being much worse in power consumption.
Hopefully we will see some manufactures make use of them. A pair of salvaged Bonaire XT chips with 2x4gb of memory and working True Audio could make a nice card.Quote:
Originally Posted by CAT-THE-FIFTH
All good points CAT, but I'm not going to get excited until a see a 290X review. I'm not saying it's impossible for them to produce a card that draws less power than a 780, just that I'm not holding my breath over it. The reviews seem to be fairly evenly split between those that found 280X drew more than a GTX780, and those that found it drew less - presumably that's going to be down to the specific load they used to test it. But if the 280X isn't consistently drawing less power than a GTX780, then it's going to take some phenomenal engineering for a faster card to consistently draw less power - and it'll raise a lot of questions about why they couldn't do that with the R9 280X...
Its probably the same question as how the GK104 is worse in performance/watt than an 87% larger chip!Quote:
Originally Posted by scaryjim
This is especially considering GK110 based cards use a 384 bit memory controller,a more complex PCB and far more RAM chips too!
OTH,look at the mobile versions of Pitcairn and the GK104. Power draw is far better than desktop cards,but clockspeeds are not massively lower. Its almost like as you approach 1GHZ,the power consumption starts rising quite highly for larger parts using the 28NM process.
I suspect that is the reason Tahiti launched at only 925MHZ,despite the fact people could get massively overclocks even with early examples was power consumption,especially with a 384 bit memory controller and a large amount of GDDR5.
The GK104 cards had a smaller die,and less complex PCBs and less VRAM,which is why they generally are a bit better overall with performance per watt.
Moreover,AMD and partners have boosted the clockspeeds since then,so any potential drops in power consumption with process node improvements,have been negated by the higher clockspeeds of the version 2 HD7970 cards.
The higher the clock speed the more heat you generate and that in turn increases the power consumption and starts a vicious circle.
Power use and heat output shouldn't be an issue as long as AMD don't go all GTX480 on us of course.
I have mixed emotions on the news so far, first, the majority of the cards tested are based on improving older designs and only one of the cards was actually based on a new chip design and this card was also the one that least interested me due to the segment they are aiming it at. So I was pleased at the lower price points and performance seemed ok for the price but I wasn't excited about anything in the article, not disappointed either I guess, just not moved at all, to tell the truth.
With the R7 260X, and the two new R9 290 + 290X however I am still quite excited about the possibility of the GPU being able to bring something completely new to my gaming experience and not just with performance but I want to see a review in which TrueAudio and Mantle are fully explored and evaluated by the reviewer and then once that's been done I want to see what nVidia Maxwell has to offer.
The thing that I am excited about more is seeing something completely new in the GPU market as I don't feel the current HD7xxx or the GTX7xx range have really managed that.
Bit disappointed to see the R7 line needing power connectors, TBH; I was hoping they'd be natural choices for HTPCs and mid-tier gaming rigs.
Is there really a 100usd price drop? On Anandtech, it says both the 7970 and R9 280X are for 299USD. Same at TechPowerUp.
yes, but 7970 was 399 when it came to the market
Hey great news If you have a 7970 you can crossfire it with a R9 280X because of the same Tahiti structure.
Seems like a quite good card series, but it's not a big leap between 79xx series and R9 280 or even none
Looks like the 650 Ti boost "permanent" price cut didn't last very long - http://techreport.com/news/25544/new...mises-reversal