• Some users have recently had their accounts hijacked. It seems that the now defunct EVGA forums might have compromised your password there and seems many are using the same PW here. We would suggest you UPDATE YOUR PASSWORD and TURN ON 2FA for your account here to further secure it. None of the compromised accounts had 2FA turned on.
    Once you have enabled 2FA, your account will be updated soon to show a badge, letting other members know that you use 2FA to protect your account. This should be beneficial for everyone that uses FSFT.

AMDs Secret Weapon

S

SixFootDuo

Supreme [H]ardness
Joined
Oct 5, 2004
Messages
5,839
Is it just me or do other people get the feeling that AMD has more shaders on that new GPU of theirs?

Been reading a lot of these reviews lately with OC'd 7970's and the amazing headroom and ... if you think about it, AMD might and probably does have an ace up it's sleeve, no doubt, to go against whatever the GTX 780 ends up being here over the next handful of months or whenever that card does come out.

Pieces of the puzzle are start to come together for me.
 
There is definitely more hardware in that GPU and some of it is disabled. Maybe instead of asking if the 7950 will unlock I should be wondering if the 7970 will unlock. LMAO :D

Imagine when Kepler launches AMD simply releases a bios to flash to unlock the full gpu and an additional 15% more performance from the GPU with a core clock of 1100Mhz
 
$100 price cut would be a good place to start on secret weapons.
 
for the performance it is in line with all past pricing.... cant afford it, drop down a level.
 
Why do people think there is locked parts on this GPU??

What made me curious is why their was missing power / vrm components on the reference PCB given out to reviewers. Is it that this GPU just doesn't need them... why include them on the reference PCB layout then. Is this to limit the overclocking by the reviewers... not sure why they would do this but with a little more voltage, who knows what these cards can do.
 
Last edited:
Falling Anvil said:
Or it could just be bad yields.
Click to expand...

Yeah, this.

There is no logical reason for them to unlock the super secret hidden shaders later rather than now.

They're most likely disabled for power/stability reasons.
 
28nm is still new tech and there's probably problems with manufacturing. so you draw up original specs that run at (x) capacity, assuming that with manufacturing problems you'll really get (.9x) or so. then when manufacturing matures you start getting more of the (x) cards without changing anything on your end.
 
Well if its really there and some of us get lucky at unlocking it,lol that would be sweet. But in reality I am sure AMD has laser cut these GPUs. But who knows, it costs more to laser cut them I would assume. Right?

Plus, what a marketing tool. Some peoples cards unlock, so many more people go out and purchase 7970s to unlock them, but if not all unlock then its a gamble. AMD still sells more cards this way.
 
sounds like a legit reason not to wait for Kepler, super secret unlocked shaders lol
 
GreenGoose said:
I wish they would up the price to $1000 so you people would stop crying about it.
Click to expand...

Us AMD customers are spoiled you know. Too many generations of them being the best deal out there. Evergreen was more expensive but I also remember evergreen being much much faster than GTX 280 too. Not only a good 20 or so %

I will say that the graphics cards seem to be requiring a higher resolution to show their muscle. As there are 2 ways to look at it.

1. 7970 is 20 or so % faster than a GTX 580 3GB OC card @25x16
2. 7970 is 50 or more % faster in crossfire eyefinity over a pair of GTX 580 3gb in SLi @57*12

I tend to look at #2 more than 1 as I'm not sure Kepler will bring a noteworthy improvement at 1080p or 25x16 either. Also I game in eyefinity and will continue to do so until newer monitors supporting higher resolutions are available.
 
Lord_Exodia said:
Us AMD customers are spoiled you know. Too many generations of them being the best deal out there. Evergreen was more expensive but I also remember evergreen being much much faster than GTX 280 too. Not only a good 20 or so %

I will say that the graphics cards seem to be requiring a higher resolution to show their muscle. As there are 2 ways to look at it.

1. 7970 is 20 or so % faster than a GTX 580 3GB OC card @25x16
2. 7970 is 50 or more % faster in crossfire eyefinity over a pair of GTX 580 3gb in SLi @57*12

I tend to look at #2 more than 1 as I'm not sure Kepler will bring a noteworthy improvement at 1080p or 25x16 either. Also I game in eyefinity and will continue to do so until newer monitors supporting higher resolutions are available.
Click to expand...

7970 STOCK is
wait until we get some benches on 1335 clock ones
 
Not sure why they didn't just clock those to 1337 and call them the Sapphire Elite 7970 :D
 
GreenGoose said:
I wish they would up the price to $1000 so you people would stop crying about it.
Click to expand...

I remember paying over $500 for a graphics card more then 10 years ago. As far as actual price, things haven't changed. You figure in inflation and these cards today are cheaper. Prices are based on what the market will bare.

Edit: I think the people complaining about prices haven't been buying video cards for as long as some of us.
 
Donat76 said:
I remember paying over $500 for a graphics card more then 10 years ago. As far as actual price, things haven't changed. You figure in inflation and these cards today are cheaper. Prices are based on what the market will bare.

Edit: I think the people complaining about prices haven't been buying video cards for as long as some of us.
Click to expand...

exactly, with gpu's you really do get what you pay for. Naturally AMD has spoiled alot of customers over the years, so they expect to pay less. But until Kepler comes out, AMD is it right now and I guarantee you the price per performance ratio will be much better then Kepler's.
 
i rememer my brother plopping down $300 for a radeon 9600 PRO. and it wasn't even that fast.
 
my guess is that if the 780 performance is 15-20% higher then the 7970 i wouldn't be surprised if we see a 7980. sort of like what they did with the 4890. of course they won't be able to call it the 7990 since that will be the dual gpu card but you get the point.



risqu3 said:
i rememer my brother plopping down $300 for a radeon 9600 PRO. and it wasn't even that fast.
Click to expand...


the 9600 PRO wasn't a bad card, though the better card was the 9500 non pro which could be soft modded to a 9700 non pro which is what i had. served me very well until i got my hands on a 9800 SE that i soft modded to a 9800 PRO.
 
The reference board has to be designed to worst case standards well before the actual production numbers are known. If the number of VRMs has dropped from the original design it means it's running significantly cooler than expected. This probably means that TSMCs 28nm process is in fairly good shape, vs the various predictions that it was going to be a disaster like their cancelled 32nm one apparently was.
 
Lord_Exodia said:
There is definitely more hardware in that GPU and some of it is disabled. Maybe instead of asking if the 7950 will unlock I should be wondering if the 7970 will unlock. LMAO :D

Imagine when Kepler launches AMD simply releases a bios to flash to unlock the full gpu and an additional 15% more performance from the GPU with a core clock of 1100Mhz
Click to expand...

Extra shaders aren't going to do much. I did a test with shaders unlocked and a stock 6950 and at the most there was a 6% increase, 2-3% on average.
Whether the cards will be unlockable or not, it's not going to yield noticeable increase over stock, the clock speeds matters more.

If a gpu fell 15% short of performance because of shaders, they will delay the release.
AMD needs to increase yields so they can raise the clocks to 1GHz+ as intended. That's were the extra 15% in performance is hiding.
 
DanNeely said:
The reference board has to be designed to worst case standards well before the actual production numbers are known. If the number of VRMs has dropped from the original design it means it's running significantly cooler than expected. This probably means that TSMCs 28nm process is in fairly good shape, vs the various predictions that it was going to be a disaster like their cancelled 32nm one apparently was.
Click to expand...

Well that pretty much answers my questions about the reference PCB.

With how well the 7970 seems to be overclocking in most cases, it makes you wonder if AMD intentionally left a little head room for overclocking, not just for the sake of yields at a given bin, but to give the AIB partners the ability to differentiate their products with different clocks to help increase their profit margins as I am sure it is not much at reference speeds and prices

I have read and correct me if I am wrong but AMD has allowed custom PCB design and clocks at launch instead of requiring the AIBs to wait a specified period of time.

I assume the AIB partners speed bin the GPUs for their overclocked cards after they receive them from AMD at the reference speed bin, rather then AMD binning them for them. Otherwise AMD could just charge more for this service / GPU and the AIBs profit margin just went down.

AMD has also recently invested a lot more money into developer relations to help game developers build their game engine around AMD's hardware more efficiently with more help from AMD engineers. Also more investment in driver support and more cross promotions with game releases. Nvidia has been doing this aggressively for some time. AMD has always had good hardware, it's just their follow through always seemed lacking somehow. I think this more aggressive approach is what they need to stay viable in the long term.
 
I've heard that there will be non reference 7950's on release, but nothing about non reference 7970.
 
tricky0502 said:
I've heard that there will be non reference 7950's on release, but nothing about non reference 7970.
Click to expand...

Could be, I wish I would of saved the link to the article I read. It may be only non-reference 7950s at launch. I guess we'll find out sooner or later though. A non-reference 7970 at launch with improved vrms and traces for overclocking stability shouldn't be out of the question. Unless AMD's partners haven't had enough time to implement them yet.

It does seem that overclocking on the reference board seems pretty straight forward. Now how much more can custom PCBs push out of this thing and would the cost / performance be worth it?
 
Donat76 said:
I remember paying over $500 for a graphics card more then 10 years ago. As far as actual price, things haven't changed. You figure in inflation and these cards today are cheaper. Prices are based on what the market will bare.

Edit: I think the people complaining about prices haven't been buying video cards for as long as some of us.
Click to expand...

I think the bigger reason is there is not really a need to upgrade. It use to be people upgraded so they could play current games. Right now you are upgrading so you can move a setting from 2x to 4x. So spending 500 bucks on something that will make such a small difference seems like alot.
 
Ticker305 said:
sounds like a legit reason not to wait for Kepler, super secret unlocked shaders lol
Click to expand...

Yep, just flash to the big boy version whenever Kepler is released. When is the last time a die shrink only yielded a 20% gain? The answer - never ;)
 
This "secret weapon" theory may end up being uneventful wishful thinking just like many people that had good thoughts about BD before it released.
 
This "secret weapon" theory may end up being uneventful wishful thinking just like many people that had good thoughts about BD before it released.
Click to expand...

You just dont give up on trying to insult AMD.
Its so obvious, the secret weapon theory is rooted in the 4890. That is why such a theory is plausible.
Also the price is fine on that card. If you cant afford it then stop complaining unless you are going to complain about the GTX5803GB too, since that card should be waaaay cheaper.
 
{NG}Fidel said:
You just dont give up on trying to insult AMD.
Its so obvious, the secret weapon theory is rooted in the 4890. That is why such a theory is plausible.
Also the price is fine on that card. If you cant afford it then stop complaining unless you are going to complain about the GTX5803GB too, since that card should be waaaay cheaper.
Click to expand...

No, he has a point. I remember after the GTX480 results were out, some (enough to remember) people were hoping for a hairbrained BIOS flash or miracle driver update that would somehow enable the GPU to improve it's tesselation power.
 
DASHlT said:
After looking at the guru3d's early 7970 crossfire results (great scaling btw). I think its an easy choice to get 2 of these 7970's for a 120hz monitor....

I would LOVE to max out games and get a solid 120fps with vsync on.

http://www.guru3d.com/news/radeon-hd-7970-2way-crossfire-performance/

P.S. it beats or comes close to 6990 crossfire, and 590 SLI. And this is at 925 stock clocks!
Click to expand...

Yeah, these benchmarks are pretty damn good. Now, imagine this with two overclocked 7970's. These look to be quite a significant leap forward from a 6970 and having just purchased a 120 hz monitor just for gaming, I need as much power as I can get.
 
2x6950 is $50.00 cheaper than 1x7970 and is faster. Seem to me that some of you are a bit short of logic.
 
Yobbles said:
2x6950 is $50.00 cheaper than 1x7970 and is faster. Seem to me that some of you are a bit short of logic.
Click to expand...

Thats until you overclock it.

So far, 99% of the 7970's overclock to 1125gpu.

When thats done, its almost as fast as 1 6990.

Which by that logic, 1 6990 is faster then 2x6950's

p.s. Also some of the vendors 7970's will come out with a 1335 GPU clock, while stock is 925.
 
Yobbles said:
I don't OC my video cards so it is an irrelevant point for me.
Click to expand...

Well that makes no logic at all. Specially on [H].

When all you have to do is move your GPU slider over on CCC over to 1125 to get an extra 15-20% performance, why wouldn't you.

Of course you could be trolling.

P.S. Thats like saying "hey i have 2x6950 that can be unlocked, but i wont do that for extra performance"
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top