AMD Updates Radeon HD 7950 to Counter GeForce GTX 660 Ti

[tecmo34]

Prior to release of the Nvidia GTX 660 Ti, AMD countered with a BIOS update for the Radeon HD 7950 to increase performance.

AMD Updates Radeon HD 7950 to Counter GeForce GTX 660 Ti : Read more

 

[master_chen]

Yay!

 

[Marco925]

So basically this new bios update overclocks the card?

 

[rebel1280]

Good news everyone! (in Professor Farnsworth voice)

 

[innocent bystander]

So basically this new bios update overclocks the card?

Or clocks it where it should have been from the get-go

IB

 

[tanjo]

Anyone buying these kinds of video cards would probably go with custom coolers which is usually factory overclocked. The price difference between custom and reference design cards is not that big. Buyers don't want to risk their cards with crappy reference coolers.

Would non-reference cards with stock clocks follow suit?

 

[matt_b]

[citation][nom]tanjo[/nom]The price difference between custom and reference design cards is not that big. Buyers don't want to risk their cards with crappy reference coolers.[/citation]
Buyers looking to water-cool WANT the reference boards so the type of cooler is irrelevant to them, savings are welcomed.

This generation of Radeon cards have so much headroom to overclock anyway, so why not. The original clocks were conservative anyway. Not like it matters much, anyone can take your basic CCC and do it themselves. Besides, Nvidia and AMD are staggered quite a bit on their release cycles these days, in a short while, we'll be back at it with the GTX6xx vs the Radeon HD 8xxx price/performance war (hard to believe this card is already over 7 months old).

 

[master_chen]

What I really lol at (and like it, at the same time), is that 925 MHz are basically the same frequency at which reference non-OCed HD 7970 works! Thus, you get HD 7970-performance, but for the price of HD 7950. I wouldn't really buy it for myself (because I have both Sapphire's HD 7970 AND MSi's "R7970 Lighting"), but for people who cannot afford HD 7970 or don't know anything about GPU OverCloking (or both at the same time), this is probably the best option so far. Seriously, if you want HD 7970 performance - get this, not the reference HD 7970. From now on, reference HD 7970 is absolutely useless.

 

[bustapr]

this update just seems like an excuse for AMD not to drop prices. the card magically became better!

 

[bustapr]

[citation][nom]master_chen[/nom]...reference HD 7970 is absolutely useless.[/citation]


Ill gladly take that useless reference 7970 off your hands

 

[Formata]

Nice one AMD! 6 months later, your customers can now use their GPU the way it could/should have been from the start. Or are you admitting you had the settings wrong at release of the product?

 

[Formata]

You treat us like idiots and wonder why your market share crumbles.

 

[master_chen]

[citation][nom]bustapr[/nom]I'll gladly take that useless reference 7970 off your hands[/citation]
But I don't have it. Re-read my previous comment. :3

 

[master_chen]

[citation][nom]scrummage96[/nom]http://goo.gl/QJ4OF[/citation]
100% Spam-bot. Please kill it with fire, thank you.

 

[TechnoBowl]

And in other news:

AMD DRIVERS STILL SUCK!

This update brought to you by common knowledge.

 

[firefyte]

Time to update ALL the benchmarks!

 

[Netherscourge]

This is why competition is good.

Apple - you should take notes!

 

[KelvinTy]

How much louder would they get? From what I have heard (from reviews and a frd), they are already pretty loud... With the OC, wouldn't be super loud?

 

[dissbelief]

Why must there always be so much hate and brand loyalty every time Intel, AMD, or Nvidia are mentioned by Tom's? As consumers shouldn't we be discussing price/performance or at least discussing the contents of the article? When I read the Comments here I try to learn from my fellow users but I have to sift through all the fanboys just to get a little bit of knowledge. AMD makes good products. Intel makes good products. Nvidia makes good products. Buy what you need at a price you can afford and you'll be fine if you do the research. Most gamers go for overkill but thats ok if you can afford it and like having awesome toys to play with. Personally, I will be passing on Nvidia's tasty new line of cards because of their compute performance. Since I will be using my graphics card on Linux for computing (Windows/Wine for gaming), I will be upgrading my GTX 460 to AMD's 7xxx series because it fits my needs and it is a wonderful card. This BIOS flash if great for Linux users because it's a pain to OC in Linux and AMD gave us a hand. Thanks AMD.

 

[Guest]

Why do they wait to "react to Nvidia"? Why didn't they just do this from the beginning? It's like they're try to see how lazy they can get away with or something.

 

[omnimodis78]

Move on if you don't like rants, this will be a rant. After years of buying nvida cards, last month I decided to get a 7870 (MSI TwinFrozr III OC), and on day one of using it, my heart sank the more I used the card. Researching all the problems, of course you then find out what others are reporting, and it's not a pretty picture! Yes, the card has solid specs and was a fantastic value, but I am shocked that AMD still hasn't gotten its act together with drivers, and also, as most pragmatic owners of AMD's newest GPU architecture agree, the HD7000 is loaded with problems that won't get ironed out until at least HD8000 - early adaptors of AMD's graphics architecture are all aware of this, and yes, not everybody has problems, but all I can say is even AMD's official customer service response to my problems was "it should (SHOULD) be fixed in future driver releases" - this was in response to "Grey Screens of Death", randomly crashing my system (never had such problems before or since I returned the card). Anyways, very happy with my GTX670. Shame on AMD! Love AMD cpu's btw!

 

[de5_Roy]

sad that nvidia has amd by the balls with one single asic - gk104 (gtx 680, 670, 660ti). amd's top end tahiti gpu is trying so hard to squeeze out every ounce of performance it can.....and then there's amd drivers....
just lower the prices, amd. better than any bios update or binning. :3
edit: it's not even nvidia's top asic...

 

[jossrik]

I remember when the cards first came out everyone was shouting that NVidia should come out with something competing, and no one said you know what, AMD should sell this with higher clock rates. I don't see anything wrong with what they did, they took a conservative clock and raised it to remain competetive at a price point without a ton of retooling, besides, it won't be long that the 8XXX series comes out and people will shout again ya but NVidia will come out soon, and the cycle continues. Sometimes I think people only use the comment section to complain. Free Clock Increase = Not Bad News

 

[dissbelief]

[citation][nom]omnimodis78[/nom]Move on if you don't like rants, this will be a rant. After years of buying nvida cards, last month I decided to get a 7870 (MSI TwinFrozr III OC), and on day one of using it, my heart sank the more I used the card. Researching all the problems, of course you then find out what others are reporting, and it's not a pretty picture! Yes, the card has solid specs and was a fantastic value, but I am shocked that AMD still hasn't gotten its act together with drivers, and also, as most pragmatic owners of AMD's newest GPU architecture agree, the HD7000 is loaded with problems that won't get ironed out until at least HD8000 - early adaptors of AMD's graphics architecture are all aware of this, and yes, not everybody has problems, but all I can say is even AMD's official customer service response to my problems was "it should (SHOULD) be fixed in future driver releases" - this was in response to "Grey Screens of Death", randomly crashing my system (never had such problems before or since I returned the card). Anyways, very happy with my GTX670. Shame on AMD! Love AMD cpu's btw![/citation]

Did you perform a fresh install of Windows? I would recommend this for any new major hardware unless you know exactly what you are doing. Random problems of hardware are usually user error, software conflicts, or flaws in the operating system.

 

[dissbelief]

[citation][nom]jossrik[/nom]I remember when the cards first came out everyone was shouting that NVidia should come out with something competing, and no one said you know what, AMD should sell this with higher clock rates. I don't see anything wrong with what they did, they took a conservative clock and raised it to remain competetive at a price point without a ton of retooling, besides, it won't be long that the 8XXX series comes out and people will shout again ya but NVidia will come out soon, and the cycle continues. Sometimes I think people only use the comment section to complain. Free Clock Increase = Not Bad News[/citation]

Amen