Supposed AMD Radeon HD 8970 XT Photographed

[RedundantInk]

The Radeon HD 8970 will reportedly feature a 28 nm Curacao XT architecture, a base clock of 1000 MHz and a cut down version of the Radeon HD 7990’s cooler.

Supposed AMD Radeon HD 8970 XT Photographed : Read more

 

[ojas]

True, spec sheet is reasonable. Not sure they'd call it the 8970 XT though, just the 8970.

 

[brandonjclark]

Can't wait!

 

[outlw6669]

Not really that much of an improvement if these specs are accurate.
Hard to believe they would spend all the time engineering and validating a new chip for such a minor bump.

 

[catswold]

I am surprised at the level of improvement over the 7970--only about a 14% increase in processors--seems pretty modest to me. Saving the big guns for the 9XXX series?

 

[cmartin011]

Yay! 8970 news lets hope its false lol

 

[unknown9122]

The non-centered coolers are bothering me lol.

 

[unknown9122]

The non-centered coolers are bothering me lol.

 

[TheCapulet]

There could be IPC improvements that we can't see on paper. But realistically, this is all speculation anyways at this point. Lets not get excited over something that was spewed out of 4chan.

 

[ddpruitt]

Seriously?!?
Tom's is reporting on rumors from 4chan!
May as well just guess!!

 

[Kamen_BG]

If this holds true then, sadly, AMD won't have a GTX 780 competitor.

 

[blubbey]

If this holds true then, sadly, AMD won't have a GTX 780 competitor.

If this is true, 12.5% more SP's, TMU's, 50% more ROP's and a higher clock won't be competitive? Won't these increase performance by ~25-35%, which would make it a direct competitor....?

 

[gigantor21]

LOL 4chan.

 

[Mike Stewart]

yes but it will murder GTX770 instead.

 

[hannibal]

Hmmm... If I remember correctly, the next AMD GPU should have been made with next manufacturing proses and so using smaller production node... Is the TSMC late again... or is this bogus? The idea was to keep the chip at the same size and then increase transistors. Now they are going to make a bigger chip. Not very AMD like thing to do...
Salt and pepper from here...

 

[silverblue]

I think AMD cards have been far too ROP limited for too long now. If this was indeed true, it could reveal performance that they've left untapped, especially with the high-end cards.

 

[sincreator]

Looks like that cooler doesn't suit/belong to that card at all. I have had a HD5870 and HD7950 and neither had the power connectors that far off the PCB. Looks easy to break, and sloppy to me.

5870 http://www.google.ca/search?q=hd+5870&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=fq64UeLhE5Lb4AO6zICIBQ&ved=0CAcQ_AUoAQ&biw=1024&bih=640

HD7950 http://www.google.ca/search?biw=1024&bih=640&tbm=isch&sa=1&q=hd+7950&oq=hd+7950&gs_l=img.3..0l10.73777.76772.0.77764.8.7.0.1.1.0.180.696.0j5.5.0...0.0...1c.1.17.img.SPSL--W1h34

It looks like a cooler laid on top of a card that it doesn't fit on. lol

 

[Novuake]

210W - 250W. Seems like AMD, lets hope they can keep the 210 thermal ceiling for once in their lives. We really don't need the cards to get any hotter.

 

[hetneo]

True, spec sheet is reasonable. Not sure they'd call it the 8970 XT though, just the 8970.

My guess about XT thing in name is that it's due to the fact that HD 8xxx was announced to be re-badgeing of 7xxx series, thus 8970 sans-XT will be old 7970.

 

[redeemer]

Should compete nicely with the GTX 780

 

[Guest]

Nice, if they release this in 2-3 months we'll have a nice price drop on the 780 (if the 8970 can keep up). Then we'll just have to wait for Maxwell.

 

[Guest]

Nice, if they release this in 2-3 months we'll have a nice price drop on the 780 (if the 8970 can keep up). Then we'll just have to wait for Maxwell.

 

[redeemer]

I think AMD will get the jump on Mawell with its Volcanic Island

 

[Nashten]

XT? Would be interesting if they brought back those titles. XT, XTX, Pro and such. (Nvidia did something similar when they brought back their 'Ti' suffix.)

 

[Michael Wolfe]

I have my doubts these are the real specs, just as I doubt that image. Stream Processor counts haven't changed like that ever. It's gone: 320, 320, 800, 1600, 1536(likely why the 6k series failed), and finally the obvious 2048. An insignificant increase of 256 (1/8th) wouldn't amount to more than directly competing with the GTX780 point for point in benchmarks and that's performance the 7970GE can get with overclocking. Top it off with the fact that a binned 7970GE overclocked to it's limit can almost match the GTX780 already and that's considering the GTX780 overclocks automatically to it's thermal limit. So yeah, I'll reserve judgement until I actually see the official release and it's official specs. Any reputable reviewer wouldn't break NDA just to leak images and specs, they risk losing their vendor support if they do. Call me when the NDA lifts and official information is available.