AMD Confirms Radeon HD 8000 Delay

[blazorthon]

Crossfire does not automatically lead to good performance at 5760x1080. Tom's article suggests two 7970s wouldn't be enough. HardOCP showed a pair of 7970s in Crossfire giving 51 FPS average at 2560x1600... that's not much buffer for stepping up to 5760x1080.
And the 6850 really isn't noticeably faster than the 7770 anymore.

That is where we have to think about "just fine" instead of great or perfect. I still say that he/she was right.

Also, keep in mind driver updates like another Tom's member said earlier. AMD has increased performance a considerably (as has Nvidia, granted to a lesser degree) since most previous reviews.

 

[nikoli707]

sorry to burst your bubbles but the msi lightning gtx 680 is the fastest single gaming gpu on the planet. fps in games is NOT a bench mark, synthetic benchmarks like direct compute single/double precision etc are what makes a video card fast, and the 680 holds those records by a considerable margain over the 7970

 

[blazorthon]

[citation][nom]nikoli707[/nom]sorry to burst your bubbles but the msi lightning gtx 680 is the fastest single gaming gpu on the planet. fps in games is NOT a bench mark, synthetic benchmarks like direct compute single/double precision etc are what makes a video card fast, and the 680 holds those records by a considerable margain over the 7970[/citation]

The 680 is by far weaker than the 7970 in single precision compute (something like two thirds of the 7970) and it's double precision is less than a fifth of the 7970's performance (closer to a sixth, especially to the 7970 GHz Edition). The Sapphire 7970 GHz Edition 6GB is the fastest single GPU card available (probably soon to be dethroned by Nvidia Titan).

 

[Guest]

My ageing 4850 still plays all games on ultra settings. Until that changes i have no reason to upgrade...

 

[blazorthon]

[citation][nom]alj2kljkl[/nom]My ageing 4850 still plays all games on ultra settings. Until that changes i have no reason to upgrade...[/citation]

Crysis 3 will supposedly not be compatible at all with the 4850 and unless you're playing on like 720p or lower, there's no way it comes near maxing out a lot of games such as BF3 MP, Metro 2033, FC3, Sleeping Dogs, and more.

 

[blazorthon]

[citation][nom]Tomfreak[/nom]yeah but delaying 8000 means 7000 will price drop will delay.HD7000 may beat GTX600 in pricing, but it is still one of the most expensive AMD HD graphic series. HD3000,4000,5000,6000 are all overall cheaper when they are release in the market.[/citation]

It's only expensive relative to other Radeon series because AMD is matched with Nvidia for the top spot instead of offering more budget oriented cards below Nvidia.

 

[Sakkura]

That is where we have to think about "just fine" instead of great or perfect. I still say that he/she was right.

Also, keep in mind driver updates like another Tom's member said earlier. AMD has increased performance a considerably (as has Nvidia, granted to a lesser degree) since most previous reviews.

Well, I doubt people who go 5760 x 1080 (or similar) are content with "just fine" instead of great or perfect. For most people it's not an issue though.

 

[Aoyagi]

Not exactly what they need, but considering I'm still fine with 5870, I cannot complain.

 

[kinggremlin]

[citation][nom]Sakkura[/nom]Well, I doubt people who go 5760 x 1080 (or similar) are content with "just fine" instead of great or perfect. For most people it's not an issue though.[/citation]

Anyone gaming at that level can buy multiple unofficial 7990's and crossfire them. That market is WAY too small for either AMD or NVidia to care about. Until monitors with higher res than 1080p become mainstream or games become significantly more demanding (not likely any time soon), we don't really need anything more powerful than we have.

 

[photonboy]

[citation][nom]nikoli707[/nom]sorry to burst your bubbles but the msi lightning gtx 680 is the fastest single gaming gpu on the planet. fps in games is NOT a bench mark, synthetic benchmarks like direct compute single/double precision etc are what makes a video card fast, and the 680 holds those records by a considerable margain over the 7970[/citation]

Wrong.
The MSI Lighting 680 has a core clock of 1110MHz. The Asus 680 DC2T ("top") card has a core clock of 1201MHz and has been overclocked as high as 1400MHz (though I wouldn't do it myself) due to it's 3-slot solution allowing a huge heatsink.

*It also varies on the game whether an HD7970 or GTX680 is top as well. Some games favor one architecture over the other. This is were benchmarks can be very misleading if the sample of games is small and biased.

 

[ohim]

I would like to see Adobe making Mercury Playback Engine available for AMD GPUs also, i`m stuck to Nvidia only as an option till then.

 

[idisarmu]

[citation][nom]Sakkura[/nom]The 7970 only gave a 37 FPS average in Far Cry 3 @ Ultra 1920x1080. Crysis 3 is on the way.[/citation]

There must be a CPU bottleneck in the system tested then, because I play at 1440p with a 2gb 7850 @ 1000 core, 1250 mem with ultra settings (but only 2x AA) and it feels fluid... probably 30-40 fps average with 25fps min

 

[madjimms]

[citation][nom]JOSHSKORN[/nom]Maybe it's just the 8 different Call of Duty Games...the 5 or 6 different Battlefields...they're all the same, anyway. Played 'em once, played 'em all. Now if Microsoft would actually port the newer Halo games to PC, we'd have something.[/citation]
Battlefield games BEFORE Bad Company 2 were not "the same" as everything else.

 

[redeemer]

MSI Lightning GTX 680 the fastest GPU?? Hahahaha no! Actually Tahiti has far better scaling ie a 7970 @ 1250Mhz vs 680 @ 1250mhz?? Winner the 7970 big time!!

 

[InvalidError]

[citation][nom]blazorthon[/nom]CPUs mostly slowed down because of AMD. Intel can't let AMD get too far behind or else they risk becoming a monopoly and getting screwed over as a result through anti-trust lawsuits and such[/citation]
CPUs plateau'd mostly because very little modern mainstream programs need more power than what a modern Celeron can provide so there is no mainstream demand for more powerful CPUs. On the other hand, there is very strong demand for mobile platforms and longer battery life, which is what Intel is throwing everything including the kitchen sink at, trying to make x86 compete with ARM on low-power.

 

[blazorthon]

[citation][nom]InvalidError[/nom]CPUs plateau'd mostly because very little modern mainstream programs need more power than what a modern Celeron can provide so there is no mainstream demand for more powerful CPUs. On the other hand, there is very strong demand for mobile platforms and longer battery life, which is what Intel is throwing everything including the kitchen sink at, trying to make x86 compete with ARM on low-power.[/citation]

CPUs would have kept on going if not for AMD screwing up. Whether or not there is mainstream demand wouldn't have changed the fact that they'd keep going because Intel wouldn't let AMD get ahead again. Intel is going with mobile/longer battery life not only because they see more demand for it, but also because that's all that they can do to avoid lawsuit issues. If they didn't let AMD be competitive, then they's be crushed by anti-trust lawsuits even worse than before.

Intel would still be working on lower power even if AMD hadn't screwed up a while back, but they'd also be improving performance. Heck, we've seen Ivy. We know that they could have made significant performance improvement simply by not using that crap paste between the IHS and CPU die. Decreasing power consumption in no way encouraged Intel to hamstring their desktop Ivy CPUs. That had other motivation like I said.

 

[sarcasm]

Hopefully the new consoles whatever they will be called, will be powerful enough for developers to start pushing games to utilize all our video cards. I still have my GTX 680 and need a reason to buy a second one lol.

 

[BestJinjo]

@ Sakkura "The 7970 only gave a 37 FPS average in Far Cry 3 @ Ultra 1920x1080. Crysis 3 is on the way."

You must be looking at early benchmarks. Since then the game got more patches and AMD/NV released newer drivers that improved performance. HD7970GE hits almost 40 fps at 2560x1600 Ultra with HDAO in FC3:
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2012/12/17/far_cry_3_video_card_performance_iq_review/4#.URabF6VZUeo

At 1080P, 45 fps with 4xMSAA and 68 fps without MSAA.
http://gamegpu.ru/images/stories/Test_GPU/Action/Far%20Cry%203%20v.%201.0.2/fc3%201920%20ss%204x.png

http://gamegpu.ru/images/stories/Test_GPU/Action/Far%20Cry%203%20v.%201.0.2/fc3%201920%20ss.png

Crysis 3 has a nearly 35% performance hit with 4xMSAA due to the engine using a deferred lighting path model. Drop down to 2x SMAA (medium) and you get 55-60 fps on an 1100mhz HD7970 with superior IQ. Also, for many people it's not worth it to spend $500 to upgrade from GTX680/7970 just to go from 0AA to 4AA. People tend to want much more significant increases if they are spending $500 for an upgrade.

@ hasten "Try again. $400 in the US (us.ncix.com). Canadian does not matter to most of us."

$350 XFX 7970 with Bioshock Infinite and Crysis 3:
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3242918&CatId=7387

@ ojas "Nvidia's official road-map...Kepler for 2011 and Maxwell for 2013."

Incorrect. Nvidia has long clarified that Kepler was for 2012 and Maxwell for 2014. This was from their own slide decks before Kepler even launched last year. The rumors of Kepler for 2011 and Maxwell for 2013 go back to 2010 before Fermi launched. You are way behind on the data.

http://i.imgur.com/uYIe8.jpg

@ bit-user "I think a more likely explanation is that AMD knows their lineup won't stand up well to the next generation of Keplers, so they went back to the drawing board to squeeze a little more performance of their GCN2's."

Except GTX700 is also rumored to be pushed back to Q3-4 2013 based on similar sources (Sweclockers, Videocardz, etc.). Since HD7970GE is already 10%+ faster than GTX680, even if GK114 is 25% faster than GTX680, that would only make it 14% faster than HD7970GE. If GK114 launches at $499, AMD could just lower the price of HD7970GE to $349. They have bigger things to address like re-writing the memory management sub-system of all GCN parts, which in itself could improve performance/smoothness of their GPUs. Makes little sense to release HD8000 parts when their HD7000 parts are not even fully optimized by the drivers when HD8000 is based on the GCN 1.0 architecture. Might as well maximize performance from GCN 1.0 so that it translates into HD8000 series. AMD rushed HD7000 series to market and then spent 7-8 months optimizing it. Due to their drivers, the 7970 was initially noncompetitive at $550 with a $500 GTX680. The result was price drops. If they have the new driver that resolves memory management issues and gives HD8000 another 10% boost, they could launch a more competitive card at $499-549 and actually make $.

@ gurg "I made my decision and bought a higher performing Gigabyte 680 yesterday for my single monitor. Wanted a Gigabyte or XFX 7970 ghz"

Umm no. Gigabyte HD7970 Ghz is faster than a Gigabyte GTX680, considering it also ups the clocks to 1100mhz. Newegg has that card for $429.99 with no rebates:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125439

Moreso, Gigabyte HD7970Ghz is $379.99 on the Egg and it will max out at the same clocks as the Ghz edition since it's identical GPU. You can just flash the BIOS from the Ghz edition onto that card.

Then there is the Sapphire Vapor-X 7970 Ghz for $440 which is also faster than the GTX680 you bought:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202001

If you don't buy stuff online, it doesn't mean there aren't better deals to be had.

@nikoli707, "sorry to burst your bubbles but the msi lightning gtx 680 is the fastest single gaming gpu on the planet."

Nope. NCIX also pitted GTX680 Lightning against Asus Matrix HD7970 Platinum both OC to the max. The 680 Lightning lost:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJaoY0-kfk8

That's not even considering that HD7970GE dominates the 680 in multi-monitor gaming:
http://www.legionhardware.com/articles_pages/gigabyte_geforce_gtx_680_4gb,6.html

Or in titles that use DirectCompute for graphical effects:
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/graphics/display/his-iceq-x2-7970-7950-7850_11.html#sect5

HD7970GE also delivers superior FPS/smoothness compared to 680 in BF3 now:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qR3ewLMbywY

You cannot make a case that GTX680 Lightning is the single fastest GPU unless all you play is AC3, WOW, BL2 and Project CARS.

 

[rohitbaran]

[citation][nom]Stickmansam[/nom]This thenhttp://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 38566&SID=[/citation]
Trying too hard to prove an invalid point, aren't you? $379 is not close to $300.

 

[jessterman21]

All I want to know is when can I get a Kepler card with a 256-bit interface and 2GB VRAM for less than $200?

 

[Masturomenos]

Blizzard didnt make it big by creating games that only work on top end video cards. Titan to be a success needs to be playable in every internet cafe in europe and asia and at the most require maybe a 6500 6700 level card if it comes out by 2014/2015. The only option i can see that makes sense is maybe a toggle that allows a higher level of graphics for the better systems. Blizz doesnt design mmo gameplay for the 1% and also doesnt design games only the 1% have a system able to run the game. Look at every mmo since wow all of them tried to beat it with better graphics and when 8 million of 10 million wow players went to try the new game out they coudnt even run it on their computer. The majority always beats the minority not always the best means the best. Just like cars we all know a ferrari outruns a carolla but most of us still drive the toyota.

 

[stickmansam]

[citation][nom]rohitbaran[/nom]Trying too hard to prove an invalid point, aren't you? $379 is not close to $300.[/citation]

I wasn't the original poster claiming this, just providing info and I get down voted and its $360 after MIR

 

[XZaapryca]

Who cares about insanely more powerful gpu's if all the game devs do is make the same console port for six or seven years? Just got a 7870 though. *shrug*

 

[rantoc]

So AMD will have to delay the launch of the 8k series to enhance its performance due to Nvidias titan by the looks, guess no one was expecting the sudden 100% increase in single GPU card performance (IF the benchmarks are true, with huge emphasis on IF!)

 

[Masturomenos]

Cards can keep getting more powerful but until the majority runs their computers on monitors that will benefit from these graphics it makes no sense to keep coming out with super powerful gpu. I agree amd would benefit more from making the top level cards they have less expensive so that more people purchase them rather then working on tech only few people benefit from. We already have tech that surpasses anything graphic wise that is available game wise. 9/10 times its the engine the games are built with that cant support the amount of players being online at once rather then the computer the players are using. Amd can always have a skunkworks division who keeps progressing their tech but they will def make more money and help players more with reducing the cost to get their top end products available currently. It seems like gpu tech is already too far ahead of the tech used in the rest of the tech used to build the remaining parts that make a computer work.