AMD Radeon HD 7900 to Utilize New XDR2 Rambus Memory

[maxinexus]

New GPUs are great but we need some software(games) to challenge that power as well. I run 6950 ala 6970 all max out at 1920x1200 without issues. Dirt4 would be nice

 

[brett1042002]

Ivy Bridge + 7950 please!

 

[Filiprino]

I can see the utility of the PCI-E 3.0 here. The bandwidth provided by XDR2 is too high (80GB/s more than top GDDR5 card) and the new bus will close the gap with better bandwidth ratio GPUVRAM:CARDBUS.
Also, the ROPs have been increased. That means more pixels per second. More data per second.
How much will impact on performance having these cards on PCI-E 2.0 remains to be seen until they can be tested.

 

[Onus]

Great power-use numbers. If the prices are reasonable, and benchmarks consistent with the claims, I see at least one of these in my future.

 

[saturnus]

[citation][nom]slabbo[/nom]is Global Foundries holding AMD back? their video cards (GPU's) are on a smaller die than their CPU's. WTF? Fix Global Foundries AMD, get them up to speed to at least match TSMC.[/citation]

Global Foundries uses a SOI process. TSMC (and Intel) uses bulk process. The difference is that on a SOI process you can pack transistors closer together even though the nominal process node is the same. 32nm SOI process packs transitors as closely as 28nm bulk process.

SOI process also have significant power savings which is why Global Foudries (and other SOI manufacturers) are generally one generation behind in power savings technologies (like High-K gate and such), simply because they don't need them before shifting to a small node than bulk process.

SOI process is more expensive though and a IBM/AMD patent which is why Intel will never use it (unless hell freezes over). It is also estimated that at 22nm all major manufacturers (again except Intel) will switch to FD (Fully depleted) SOI process because of it's prospected huge power savings advantages over Intel's FinFet technology.

 

[johnners2981]

2 x 7870's = less power consumption than a 6970, looks pretty sweet

 

[LeadSled]

These cards are most likely PCIe 3.0 aswell. Its about time XDR memory is going to be used since it showed up on roadmaps 3 generations ago.

 

[pocketdrummer]

Apparently everyone forgot the other half of the Rambus problem. They are the only company that can make it due to their patents, and they'll defend that patent at the detriment of the industry. If it really takes off and people stop buying other types of memory, they'll have a monopoly. In which case, they'll drive the prices up substantially.

I won't be buying this on principle... the last thing I want to do is fund that detestable company.

 

[jrb427]

I wonder how close this will come to bottlenecking pcie 2.0 @ 8x since most motherboards only have 1 16x lane to split between sli/crossfire.

 

[hannibal]

Interesting! One really interesting pair is Radeon HD 7870 and Radeon HD 6970. The main differencies are 28 nm vs 40 nm... and 120W vs 250W... Whoa! Good power consumption indeed! Allmost too good to be true... Who leaked these roadmaps in anyway? But if these numbers are true, the next GPU upgrade is usefull in every way. As Johnners2981 says, duo 7870 is amazing for new "middle upper class" category...

 

[Guest]

Man.....RAMBUS....AMD.....seriously.....you just lost a lot of respect from me....

 

[clonazepam]

[citation][nom]jrb427[/nom]I wonder how close this will come to bottlenecking pcie 2.0 @ 8x since most motherboards only have 1 16x lane to split between sli/crossfire.[/citation]

Today's games all run fine at pcie 2.0 @ 8x. If it bottlenecked, the lost performance would probably only be relevant in a benchmark. I doubt it would have any impact on actual gameplay.

 

[Guest]

the priority for me is for gpu memory size over memory speed

 

[saturnus]

[citation][nom]hannibal[/nom]Interesting! One really interesting pair is Radeon HD 7870 and Radeon HD 6970. The main differencies are 28 nm vs 40 nm... and 120W vs 250W... Whoa! Good power consumption indeed! Allmost too good to be true... [/citation]

Why? One full process node would indicate 50% power consumption for the same performance, or twice the performance for the same power consumption. That is pretty standard.

 

[PhoneyVirus]

Heterogenous is the Future and is going to put ARM and x86 architectures on the same die. Also networking, South-bridge sound can wait and all the other little chips that make Magic happen.

Who knew there would GPU's on the same die in this time frame so the above will happen its just a matter of time. Nice clean motherboard that means longer life span why heat is what kills the motherboard not VRM's Popping, I have motherboards from the dump that's 12 years old and still working.

 

[Pherule]

Bah, we need the 7950 out in November/December, not January!

 

[bison88]

I'm digging the lower power high-end graphics cards. Video cards these days are starting to make my light bulbs dim when gaming and running Folding@Home lol. My only complaint would be for a way to make them shorter so they are less of a pain to get in the case, but unless some rapid change happens in design I don't see how you could fit all that performance otherwise without an extended real estate.

 

[dimar]

I hope there will be at least 10 games to utilize the new card's full potential, by the time it comes out!

 

[dragonsqrrl]

Here's some additional information on the GCN architecture that was published by Anandtech a while ago. It goes pretty in-depth, but it's amazing how similar a lot of the broader design and feature changes are to the changes Nvidia made with Fermi. Basically AMD is designing GCN with compute performance and efficiency in mind.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4455/amds-graphics-core-next-preview-amd-architects-for-compute

 

[eddieroolz]

Oh AMD, why Rambus? You know better than to feed into a bunch of patent trolls.

But it's interesting how barely anyone criticizes AMD's decision. If this was NVidia the fanboys would be all over it with insults.

I see what Chris Angelini says about Tom's Forums being heavily slanted on AMD side.

 

[Usersname]

citation][nom]shreeharsha[/nom]These cards are 10 years ahead of today's consoles[/citation]

Shame the games are conceptually 10 years behind.

 

[buzznut]

Sounds like we'll need new motherboards to enjoy the PCI-x 3.0 bandwidth. Think I'll wait til the generation after.

 

[iam2thecrowe]

[citation][nom]crazybernie[/nom]Get that dirty Rambus away from my AMD GPU.[/citation]
i couldn't agree more. its not like ram uses SFA power any way, 30% less power isnt going to mean anything, id rather not have rambus. It may well change the performance/cost ratio AMD has been so good at, rambus is always more expensive.

 

[marraco]

I hope that, when released, Tomshardware tests it with PCI-E 2 and PCI-E 3. Because I have no plan to upgrade my mother.

 

[Filiprino]

[citation][nom]marraco[/nom]I hope that, when released, Tomshardware tests it with PCI-E 2 and PCI-E 3. Because I have no plan to upgrade my mother.[/citation]
Upgrading your mother is always serious business. Just get her to a good surgeon.