Now it starts to become obvious why people shouldn't be doing cartwheels in the streets over Southern Islands. Its a nice chip, it really is. But the problem with its pricing just became even more obvious with the 7950 as AMD is selling you yesterday's performance at next-gen prices. In other words, if you wanted this level of performance, you could've gotten it a year ago with the GTX 580 for almost the same price....over a year ago....
And that's why AMD's pricing of these parts fails. With the 7950 it all comes into focus and if it wasn't clear before, it will become crystal once Kepler drives the nail home when it launches at its expected prices and performance levels. What's left for AMD to launch? A 7870 that's as fast as the 6970 but costs $50 more? A 7850 that's as fast as the 6950 but costs $75 more? Do we really think Nvidia is going to launch a 580 equivalent at 28nm and price it at $450? See how it all comes into focus?
But Nvidia really has a chance to return the favor to AMD here with a pricing debacle of GTX 260/280-esque proportions. If GK104 comes within spitting distance of the 7970 or even 7950 at $300, AMD is going to look really bad. If GK110 beats the 7970 by 20-25% and costs only $500, AMD execs will be jumping out of windows. We're talking about issuing rebate checks that AMD can't afford to write on every 7950/7970 sold at these ridiculous prices for however many months it takes until Nvidia releases Kepler.
1) I believe you mean "consistently faster than last-gen performance for the same price", which is how it will remain until NVIDIA gets a card out that can compete.
1) Well the good news is Nvidia decided to compete over a year ago when they launched the GTX 580. At these prices AMD has set, Nvidia is still amazingly competing with their 14 month old last-gen parts.
and
2) The better news is AMD has set the bar extremely low for Nvidia. Should be easy pickings for Kepler.
Yet a overclocked 7970 is about as fast as a gtx590, yeah... nvidia sure is competing. lol
Really there is no reason to get a nvidia card right now, with the gtx580 and its continuing high costs not even able to hold its own again even a 7950. Once the 7xx series launches I can see AMD launching the hd89xx series no to long after with XDR2 memory and higher clocked cores.
For overall performance per watt it seems AMD cant be touched right now.
The real question is, Do we really need these upgrades anymore. I mean todays games barely push tech. Most of my friends are happy with their 5870's and GTX 480's we bought about 2 years back
Thing is games are designed with consoles in mind and with next gen console hardware rumors to be around the level of 6670 GPUs, why would anyone upgrade anymore, unless they intend to be running multiple screens.
I personally run GTX 580 SLI. I think i personally wont be upgrading until i see a game that actually stresses my system in eyefinity settings.
Its a sad state but many games recently released dont even support freatures like AA or even any pc options, games are rather straight console ports, with PC as an after thought. Why buy such expensive hardware for ports?
I agree. Even my 5850 hasn't stressed much in recent games...and I bought it for 280 USD a couple years ago.
Performance per dollars, and temp per dollar, AMD is on target, more often than not....now, if only we could get the FX sorted out...
I used to buy nvidia cards, but haven't since the 5000 series, and it looks to continue this way.
The moral is, competition is ultimately what brings prices down and motivation to up the performance.
I hope AMD can throw out something cool soon on the CPU side, because while I always have, and likely will continue to buy Intel, I love the competition. Sorry, I sorta gave up on AMD after the i7-930 came out. But that doesn't mean I'm not rooting for them...even if it is only for the sake of competition.
On the other hand, upgrading the 5850 that you've had for several years is going to require you to jump to a /higher/ price tier. That's insanity. If that kind of pricing structure existed for ANY other consumer electronics product, people would be vocally antagonistic. AMD deserves some antagonism.
I disagree. Supply and demand. They don't have the supply and there's a big enough demand to keep prices inflated. Nobody can be upset at all about the prices. If you don't like them, don't buy the product. It's that simple. Capitalism fails us often, but here's a case where it works just fine. :)
By your foolish reasoning, AMD would be in top form if it produced and sold just a couple of hand-crafted units each quarter. That they can't meet volume demand is a failing, not a benefit.
I've got to say that I agree with JohnnyDough, in the short term keeping prices high and making a killing off of each card sold is a good thing for AMD, not so great for us consumers but again, its not like anyone is forcing you to buy it. However you are correct in that in the long term that is a failing strategy for a company like AMD, its not like they're making luxury sports cars :). Either way it makes no difference to me and it puts them in a great position for a coming price war with Nvidia and Kepler which will inevitably be faster, I just hope Nvidia does something about their power profile.
Perhaps, but judging by Newegg's current stock of 7950, supply is exceptionally good or demand is exceptionally soft for this product at its current price. Maybe somewhere in the middle?
But as you said, if you don't like it, don't buy it and it seems in this case, capitalism works just fine. ;)
I was drooling when I first read about the Sapphire 7950 and the XFX 7950 DD, but now until AMD developes better drivers, I am still on the fence, and holding on to my 5850 Toxic. I believe most people are like me, $500? I'll sit back and wait, till I see better driver support, and a $300 dollar price tag! I believe you are right also about demand being soft, as I believe most purchases are fresh builds not upgrades.
I totally agree with you, I am running a i7 940 with a 5850 Toxic, and even with all of the latest games that have recently come out, I am not even pushing this rig yet. Since games are now being locked at 60 fps, what's the sense of spending $500 for the latest and greatest and only getting 60 fps? Until game developers pull off the 60 fps govenor, (catering to console ported games) it will be a while yet before I am ready to let go of this Video card.
I totally agree. I have a 6850 I got at a very good price. It runs any game on the market reasonably well. I run Crysis 2 with DX11 patch and texture patch @ 2048x1152 with reasonable framerates (I think my dual core is my bottleneck, usually I only get ~70% GPU utilization). I used to get cards slightly higher in generation performance, but these days it doesn't really matter with mostly crappy console ports.
I agree for the most part, but there are at least 3 major influences pushing game technology:
1) Increases in VRAM usage in current games. Whether its due to MSAA, higher-res textures and texture mods, games like Skyrim, BF3, Metro 2033, Crysis 2 are really chewing up VRAM budgets on cards. These games will use 1.5GB no problem at 1080p, so just imagine higher resolutions or muti-display set-ups.
2) As mentioned, multi-display set-ups like EyeFinity or Nvidia Surround. They'll use up ~3x the VRAM as a single monitor and with increased AA requirements, that quickly adds up. In these instances, a 7950/7970 would shine over last-gen parts with less VRAM and bandwidth.
3) 3D. 1080p isn't that demanding anymore, but 1080p in 3D is roughly double the rendering requirements but puts an even greater emphasis on maintaining 60FPS minimums. Its really quite demanding and an area more GPU horsepower is always welcome, even with SLI/CF configs.
But yes, other than these niche areas there's probably not too much reason to upgrade at this point, especially when these offerings don't really shift the price/performance/value bar at all.
Well from personal experience i have GTX 580 in SLI. Both the cards have 1.5gb memory.
I game at a resolution of 5760*1080. Unless i shift the AA to some crazy setting like 8x AA, my VRAM generally isnt a bottleneck.
I am currently playing a game like Skyrim at 5760*1080. Maxed out settings with 4X AA, FXAA & 4xTRAA
My game is mostly running locked at 60fps, sometimes in towns it does drop down to 45fps, however otherwise the experience is quite smooth.
Hence i would disagree that VRAM really is a limitation even at insanely high resolutions, 1.5GB Vram is pretty dam good.
Now with the next consoles only expected to be sporting GPUS like 6670, i wonder how Nvidia and AMD intend to keep both markets alive.
At one hand they support console gaming which doesnt really bring them too many chips a year and it will eventually cause PC gamers to stop upgrading. The business model looks like its going to axe their own feet.
I have a single 1.5GB GTX 580, and at 2560x1600 I definitely feel the lack of VRAM. If he doesn't notice lack of RAM at 5760x1080, I don't trust his judgement. (Hint: it's the minimum frame rates and stutters that come from the lack of memory; averages can be fine, but minimums often tank.)
Yeah I completely agree about "feeling" the lack of VRAM, because it literally feels like I've submerged my mouse/monitor in oil or molasses. Idk the input lag and stutters from deferred AA just gets really unbearable once you start exceeding VRAM.
But yeah I dropped a note in Ryan's 7970 closer look about PCIe bandwidth, VRAM and memory bandwidth. It'd be interesting to see how much of an impact PCIe bandwidth plays a role on cards with less VRAM, since that's when you'd expect more paging to system RAM over the PCIe bus. Also for memory bandwidth, although that's more between the GPU and RAM modules.
Anyways would be interesting to see something like that done using 1.5/3GB variants maybe a 580 and the 7950 when the 1.5GB arrives?
Yes I would enjoy more performance (esp at a lower power draw). I like to get ~60fps minimum @1080p. In games with fancy lighting effects, 4xAA, high res textures, like Witcher 2, metro 2033, crysis 2 dx11 current cards cant deliver that. Its a luxury sure, but one I am willing to pay for. I also think there is still plenty of room for improvement in graphics.
Bingo. The fanboys are too focused on bickering to realize these GPUs are blowing past 100fps on popular games. Who cares? Game companies stopped pushing the limits years ago.
Its funny because next-gen single-GPU performance *USED* to be measured against previous gen x2 GPU card or CF/SLI where we would expect 50+% increase over last-gen single-GPU.
But yes its easy to ignore the fact the 580 also overclocks quite well. I don't know what would be worst though for a new 7950 or 7970 owner. Kepler launching and make these prices look like tragic comedy, or AMD releasing the HD89xx not too long after to make them feel even worst about their purchase.
Either way, you make a compelling argument against buying one of these cards today.
obviously you missed the part where the 7970 can oc to 1125 on the cvore and max out the vram clock with STOCK voltiage, and when you do so it beats BEATS the gtx 590 a current gen dual gpu card.
Rather than call you a fanboy, I would ask for an example of a high end card going against the previous gen x2 card...and bear in mind that ONCE does NOT consitute a trend. I think evolution of performance is always incremental, at least is has been since gtx200 and radeon 4000 series.
-GTX 280 was very close to as fast as 9800GX2 Filter prevented a link for this, but google computerbase GTX 280 review and look at performance rating summary.
-GTX 480/580 was faster than GTX 295 Same deal, google 480 review for that site.
-GTX 680 should be very close to GTX 590 performance
What makes this easier on the next-gen GPU flagship is the last-gen X2 parts generally have to make sacrifices in either bandwidth, functional units, or clockspeeds to stay within TDP envelopes along with imperfect multi-GPU scaling, so you generally see only 50-75% scaling over the top single-GPU of that generation.
So you can look at it two ways, either next-gen should be ~50% faster than the top last-gen GPU, or it is very close to the last-gen X2 GPU card.
I'm trying not to take any shots at AMD fans, but their reactions to these Tahiti parts in light of historical price and performance leads me to believe they either have very low standards/expectations or they just haven't been paying attention to the industry.
''they just haven't been paying attention to the industry''
Wait, if I buy a GPU now, and I want the top single gpu for multiple screens, whatever the people in the world think about what I WANT, I realize that I have more power for my money by buying a 7970 and I go with it, it turns out that because I have done that, I'm an AMD fanboy because I haven'T been paying attention to the industry?
OMG I'm such a tard, I forgot I haven'T paid attention to the industry so I should of paid more for a less performing card..... darn that's how stupid I am.....
If you absolutely had to have a new card today, sure you'd have some reason to buy a 7970, but still not at these prices imo.
If you wanted to maximize your return on the dollar however, you'd be much better off waiting for Kepler because even if the 7970 still suits your needs better at that point, Kepler will almost assuredly force downward pressure on all Tahiti AND Fermi parts and force AMD and Nvidia to adjust prices accordingly. In the past AMD has done this when they launched a next-gen part first (See: 5850/5870 launch), but not this time.
This actually reminds me a lot of the X1950XTX launch. Great performance when it launched and price perfectly justified compared to Nvidia's last-gen G70/G71 designs like 7900GTX and 7950GT. But as soon as G80/8800GTX launched a few months later, it made that buy decision look horrible in retrospect.
So yes, while a X1950XTX today, er I mean 7970 today looks perfectly justified, it would be a mistake to ignore what the future holds and what the past has told us when making a buying decision.
What about the pricing of gtx 280 at launch vs the price of 8800gt were selling? There's always an example about Ati making bad pricing decisions, but nvidia... not out of your mouth?
I'm no ATI fanboy, I'm just waiting for you to show us you see the other side of the medal...
Those GTX 280 650$ at launch while the 8800gt was about 55-65% of the performance of that card but HEY it was three times cheaper... No you haven't heard of? Oh I forgot, Nvidia makes no mistakes, it's ATI that did with the 4870 pricing it so low, but Nvidia... they make no mistake.
But hey the price of the 7970 accordingly to it'S performance is SO BAD compared to the triple price of that GTX 280 for not even double the performance over that nice 8800gt...
Oh wait, wait, the 9800gx2 was priced 150$ lower than the GTX 280 and was performing more than gtx 280!! LOL speak about mispricing.... LOL OMG THAT'S RIDICULOUS
LOL that 7970 story pricing like it was the worst decision a Video card manufacturer ever made is so ridiculous chizow, it'S not a good decision either, we would all like to see lower prices considering we know the size of the die under the hood and we know it can be priced lower.
But that GTX 280 thingy because Nvidia was thinking they had no competition was a little like taking people for DUMMIES. The radeon 4870 wasn't so mispriced, it was the gtx 280 that WAS. The GTX was uber big but didn'T justify over triple the price of 8800gt or higher price than a 9800gx2 considering the performance of those parts..... HELL NO.
In the end, I prefer a pricing according to performance than being taken for a DUMMY by a company leading the technology with a little more performance...
Like I said Galidou, the GTX 280 absolutely earned the original MSRP. It was a true flagship card in every respect and maintained the price:performance increase you would expect from a new next-gen GPU over its predecessor.
You still haven't refuted this because again, the data is all out there. It was over 1.5x faster than the 8800GTX/9800GTX and roughly the same speed as the 9800GX2, the minimum baseline expectations anyone should have for a new flagship card on a new arch/gen/process.
AMD was the one who mispriced their card at the time they could least afford to do so. Some like myself argued they just didn't know how to make money. They could've easily priced it at $400 and STILL forced Nvidia to drop prices on the GTX 280 and especially the GTX 260.
But yes, Nvidia looked horrible after that decision but did right by their customers by issuing rebates. Now AMD is in the exact same position and stands to look badly with this pricing. Do you really think they will do the same if Nvidia forces them to cut prices on these parts? Its OK, you can say a bad thing about AMD too. ;)
We've already covered this, because with the exception of very rare and extraordinary increases like the 8800GTX or 9700pro, 2x increases over last-gen flagships are NOT normal.
The GTX 280 was easily 2x faster than the 8800GT, but the 8800GT was a refresh mid-range performance product. Whatever price:performance discount it carried already existed compared to the high-end parts of the time like the 9800GTX and 9800GX2, where it cost significantly less for excellent performance.
Similarly, in these last few generations of cards mid-range cards like the GTX 460 and GTX 560 can be had for less than half of what a GTX 480 or GTX 580 cost but they perform much better than the cost would indicate. Obviously the top Kepler does not need to be 3x faster than the GTX 560 in order to command a $500 price tag commensurate with the flagship slot.
In summary, the top cards do command a premium and determine the pricing for all cards that follow, but their merit for commanding that top price is judged against previous cards and generations.
Its already become obvious that 15-25% increase from Tahiti over Fermi doesn't carry enough mustard to push the stack, since its momentum wasn't enough to even shift the metric at the second stop, the 7950.
It was the same performance than a 9800gx2 when it was in 2560* resolution because of memory, for the rest(99.5% of the people with 1080p or less back then) the 9800gx2 was truncating the gtx280 for 150$ less.
No it was trading blows with the 9800GX2 and beating it at the highest resolutions and AA settings that mattered for people looking to upgrade.
This is going to happen with any new flagship part because of the overall increased pipeline. High-end cards are meant to push high-end settings and resolutions because what you have is usually enough at lower end settings. This is why we "upgrade".
Regardless, X2 parts are always going to carry some performance advantage at cheaper prices but that's because single-GPU always carries a premium that goes with being the top single-GPU flagship.
You can look at any forum and you see this decision making process all the time with both last-gen GPUs and newer ones.
But back to the point. Flagship next-gen GPUs do generally tend to compete with last-gen X2 in performance, not always a convincing win across the board, but enough to effectively retire those cards. That's clearly not the case with the 7970.
Nope you still can,T say something wrong about Nvidia you corrected them by saying they issued rebates to their customers, and AMD is not in the same position, they did not price it for dummies, it'S accordingly to it'S performance... wow when will you realize triple the price and according to it'S performance is different? that's all I wan you to say lol!
it'S not triple the price of 6950 it's a LITTLE more than double, fi you have to lie this discussion is over..... when I said triple the price of the 8800gt I was gentle, 650$ for gtx 280 while 8800gt were selling for I remember I got one for 180$ so that's in fact three times and a half, plus we're comparing a 1gb video card price to a 3gb while GTX 280 and 8800gt had 256mb difference.... Now that I see you have to lie I don't want to continue this, I may be not right in EVERYTHING I say but I ain't lying big time....
I prefer to be honest in my opinion than being dishonest in a certitude.....
Ati radeon 3870 sucked big time, they never offered as good a competition to Nvidia after the X1xxx products in my opinion and Nvidia have(most of the time) got better drivers, I prefer their interface, I dislike catalyst. Here's what I have to say about ATI and I have not much wrong about Nvidia but at least I can say I see both side of the medal.
I was offering you my perception ok I played the troll but I never lacked respect to you, I'm not saying you are stupid or anything while you did, respect is something you can't buy.
I may be poking your opinions because you see them as fact but thing is perception is different for everyone. I do not see anything SO wrong in the pricing of the 7970 while you obviously see something very bad in it. I can'T make you see my point of view so I guess you and I are right, depends for who reads us.
You want to talk about respect while throwing out inflammatory comments like fanboy every reply while ignoring the actual facts and logic of an argument? Respect is given where its due.
Anyways, like I said, just draw out the pricing history on these high-end parts for the last 5-6 years and you will see what AMD is doing here is unprecedented. At no point has one of these GPU makers ever asked for flagship prices with so little improvement over the last-gen flagships when using a new process node/GPU architecture.
If you are a reasonable person who is deserving of respect, I think you will find truth and reason in what I've written here, fanboyism and lack of respect aside.
Find me anywhere I called you an idiot or a stupid or anything, the worse I said is that ultimate knowledge is crazyness, never called you crazy or ANYTHING, while you did it again., sad to see you have to resolve to those strategy as arguments....
The lowest price I can find right now of the 7970 is 520$ and lowest I can find for 6950 is 240$, a little more than double as I said.
I said I trolled and I know it inflammatory comments and lack of respect is different, I was poking your ''facts'' and the way you react and still lack of respect toward me just shows even more...
''who is deserving of respect''
EVERYONE deserves respect and I will still respect you even if you don't for me because respect can't be bought, it is acquired or applied...
''If you are a reasonable person who is deserving of respect''
I just still can't beleive you said that... ''who is deserving respect'' it's deceiving to see such lack of respect in a conversation about gpus,
I understand what you mean, Nvidia as always been about giving double the performance of last gen but they are hitting a wall where it won't be possible until they change the limit of the max TDP which is 300w, they are very close to it, I guess they left some space for double chip cards, but nvidia which isn't their strenght of watt/performance will probably have to change things if they want to squeeze double the gtx580 in their gtx680 in 300w TDP...
Considering ATI are the best at watts/performance and they only squeezed that kind of performance in 250w.....
6950 was as cheap as $180-$200 in some sales and the 7970 is $550-$600, so yes at times it was 3x.
But the point remains, the 7970 does a worst job at upholding your standard than the GTX 280.
Also, it was a full 2x framebuffer, 8800GT was only 512MB, same as the 9800GX2 which was a massive amount of VRAM at the time. It was also more than the 512MB on the original 4870 with a full 512-bit bus.
Once again, the 280 was a flagship card by every metric, if you want to argue honestly over the facts, at least try to be honest about it.
Yes you're right the 8800gt was 512mb, wasn'T there a 1gb version? I can'T remember... 4870 was cheating, it used the first ddr5 memory so it doubled the bandwidth without adding die size, which helped ALOT to it'S great performance, I still like my 4870 which can almost still run everything very well...
ok you want to go in the ''as cheap as'' well my friend got right after me a rebate with special and had a 8800gt for 150$ after everything, I was using regular price for my 8800gt at 180$, so consider a 8800gt at 150$ times 4.33 = 650$, wow, 4 times and a third....
IT WAS A FLAGSHIP CARD LOL the radeon 4870 got so close to it with a die half as big and that was what, a month and a half later... speak about flagship at 650$
worse than that, the radeon 4870 wasn't even meant to compete with the high end, AMD had left that market for single GPU but still it came SO CLOSE... speak about Flagshipn amzingness that doubles the previous generation.....
If you find something to say against my last comment I'm over with you, your closed mind will be the strognest I have ever seen. He will find a reason of the gtx 280 selling so high because of the Nvidia's CEO not having enough food on the table so they had to adjust the price....
Typical, resort to histrionics instead of facts and reasoning when arguing.
Like I said, the value in the mid-range is there every single generation, not just with the 8800GT. There's a reason why AnandTech and many other sites proclaimed that launch "The Only Card that Matters" and since then any similar card that offers that same price:performance metric relative to the high end is affectionately referred to as "the next 8800GT" like the GTX 460/560 etc.
Still you won't take any arguments that will justify paying triple the price of a card for not even double the performance, or paying more for a card that offer less performance than a last gen x2 card NEVER.
That gtx280 was really mispriced and Nvidia took people for dummies by pricing it so high for the performance you gained. The most performance you saw out of those was due to the first over 1gb memory in high resolution like 2560 which applied to not even .5% of the gaming population back then
I don'T care about the titles, titles mean nothing to me that ''only card that matters'' doesn'T change the fact that paying triple the price for a video card for not even double the performance is tanking people for dummies.
We should be happy that Ati doesn't use such pricing technique because it competes against last gen refreshed video cards and justify to pay a higher % price than the % of performance you gain.
They offer linear scaling of price and performance instead of offering better performance at the same prices which you would expect from a next-gen chip.
Why would I take any of your arguments when they are CLEARLY flawed.
Its funny why don't you try using those arguments to justify the 7970's pricing? LMAO. Triple? Its not even DOUBLE the performance of previous mid-range cards.
Or previous x2 cards? The 7970 isn't even in the same discussion as the 6990 or GTX 590.
And of course, we've already covered how it falls completely short with regard to previous generation single-GPU flagship cards. Yet AMD somehow thinks it was worth a 10% increase in prices, something not even Nvidia has done since the 8800GTX.
What's REALLY funny though is how you seem to think the GTX 280 was priced for dummies given it actually meets the standards for next-gen GPUs and deserved its price, yet see NOTHING wrong at all with the pricing of the 7970.
Now what does that say about you and those defending it??? :(
It's not double the performance but not double the price either still 7950 performance of gtx580 for cheaper price, convinces me enough to say it isn't taking people for dummies...
LOL I'm not even looking at changing video card but I can say bad things about ATI but you'Re definitely 1: a hardcore Nvidia fanboy or 2: they pay you to say things about standard justifying stupid prices... lol standard, what an argument, next tie I'll buy a video card, I'll try to forget a little about perfromance and look at the standard...
mets the standard, now chizow is our standard expert, point is I look at numbers, not standard, triple the price not double the performance, I don'T care abbout the standard when I game with it on my computer.
Oh wait my game stopped playing, it tells me, this video card doesn'T meet the standard for it'S price... OMG I should of cared more....
I'm not saying at ANY time that the pricing is super right, that it is the right thing to do, I'm just saying from the beginning that it isn'T the worse that ever happened while you're making a freaking case of it.
And btw, the freaking card is around 75-90% faster than a 6950 which isn't bad. Nothing amazing but... That gtx 280 was around 65% to 100% faster than a 8800gt(2 gen below gtx2xx series).
You keep writing like AMD couldn't adjust their prices after Kepler's launch. Also, you do realise that AMD isn't competing with nvidia's 580 from a year ago right? They are competing with it *right now*.
Well done if you bought the 580 a year ago but which card is better value today if you're a buyer? Right now the 7970 looks to be a better price performance proposition. If AMD's pricing makes the 580 look poor, nvidia are free to adjust their pricing but I'd go for the 7950 personally as it is right now.
And no point pre-judging AMD pricing based on a for 'after the Kepler launch' argmument. Just because nvidia haven't adjusted pricing downwards, doesn't mean AMD won't.
I'm not an AMD fan (I buy both camps) but your arguments don't make sense.
I'm not ignoring that possibility at all, I've actually alluded to the possibility on numerous occasions with my "when Kepler launches" comments. It hinges greatly on what Nvidia does of course and how Kepler performs but I don't think ANYONE expects Nvidia to introduce "next-gen" parts at last-gen performance levels because that's the ONLY way AMD's current pricing on these Tahiti parts will make sense. Why? Because they're basing next-gen pricing on last-gen performance.
Instead, what's most likely to happen based on historical pricing and performance metrics, Nvidia will release a new line-up that will completely shift the current market that effectively makes last-gen price/performance obsolete and establishing a new metric that will offer roughly +50% performance at the same price points. Again, mountains of historical evidence from both Nvidia and AMD back my point. This is what is expected from "Next-Gen" architectures on "Next-Gen" fabrication processes.
What AMD is doing here is cashing in short-term profits but ignoring long-term repercussions. As I stated in another comment, the people most likely to buy this product are AMD's most devout and loyal fans. IF they have to drop the pricing on these Tahiti parts because they were forced to so shortly after launch as a result of Nvidia's Kepler price/performance, how do you think these early adopters are going to feel? Their biggest fans are going to feel the biggest burn.
There is precedence for this with the GTX 280 launch. Nvidia did right by their customers by issuing rebate checks for $100-150 per card. Do you think AMD is willing to do the same? Just something to consider.
Are you listening to your self? did you just say that a overclocked 7970 (current gen card) is JUST NOW competitive with a last gen card? And you think that AMD has done well with this accomplishment?
So you want to wag your finger at AMD for trying to make money when Nvidia has decided not to show up for a few months? Everyone knows that competition drives lower prices and right now AMD doesn't have any at the truly high end. If you want the parts now, you can pay up or wait. It's that simple.
I am actually glad AMD is competing at the truly high end again because it shows confidence in their products. Confident products = bolder designs in the long term.
Actually I've been saying for years AMD missed an opportunity to profit by mispricing their RV770 badly. Ever since that time they've been trying to dig themselves out of the pricing mistake they caused, because as a direct result, Nvidia dropped their flagship single-GPU prices to $350-400 for the 2nd tier and $500 for the top single gpu. Since AMD's subsequent parts have always trailed Nvidia's same-gen parts, they were obviously forced to price their cards according to Nvidia's performance, which generally meant $400 or less.
The problem is that SI offers none of the performance and value you would expect from a next-gen part, nor does it raise the bar for price/performance. It only manages to keep the status quo using last-gen metrics and the 7950 is direct proof of this. Its roughly the same price and performance as the GTX 580, which would've been great if this were 2010 when the GTX 580 launched, but its 2012 now.
But honestly, as an ATI fan take a look at the 6970 results compared to the 7950 and then ask yourself if you really think the 7950 is worth the price at $450-500 compared to the $300-350 for a 6970....
I mean if you thought the 6970 was a great deal compared to the GTX 580 how on earth could you think the 7950 is some amazing bargain some 14 months later?
OMG and you just realized that? Welcome in 2012, you hav ebeen sleeping for the last 20 years?!?
Video card manufacturers have done that a thousand times before... Nvidia and Ati with their rebranding and next gen higher priced than last gen for the same performance... The top segment was never meant to be performance/price top of the chart.... OMG.
So by listening to what you said from the beginning, anything below gtx 580 is useless, because you can find last gen video card lower priced for more or same performance, because of the next-gen price premium... HELLO!?! wake up...
You can find gtx 480's at a way lower price than gtx 570's on the bay for about the same performance...
You can find radeon 4870 about half the price of 6770's for about the same performance....
I don't think you understand that in your attempt to discredit my point, you've actually completely validated it.
Yes, historically when a new part releases it compresses prices and forces older last-gen parts to drop in price as the new price:performance metrics dictate a drop in price with the next-gen level of performance.
None of this is occurring with SI because AMD has priced this part exactly where its performance lies because they are basing this on last-gen metrics. If anything, lower tier parts are probably UNDER priced relative to performance compared to SI and have no reason to drop in price.
Well then everything you said is nothing new, and is quite useless, that's what I meant. What's the point mentioning that it always has been like that and say it like if it's totally shocking like if it's new.
''In other words, if you wanted this level of performance, you could've gotten it a year ago with the GTX 580 for almost the same price....over a year ago....
And that's why AMD's pricing of these parts fails.''
Than marketting the way is done nowadays is a big FAIL but everyone knows it, ALWAYS has been like that... Car manufacturer makes new cars every year and sometimes it's worse than last year's, and higher priced....
But this ISN'T how it usually goes, its unprecedented which is why many observers are pointing out the inconsistency. Look at history and even your own examples to show how this is out of the norm.
I will leave you with one final question and you try to answer it with a straight face.
If Nvidia launched their new "next-gen" architecture on a new process node like 15nm in 12-13 months and it was only 15-25% faster than the 7970 but cost 10% more, would you be happy with it and consider it some great victory???
I don't know, I mean every way you possibly look at this, it just isn't right.
I would poo my pants because Nvidia actually did a process shrink ahead of schedule. BY THE WAY 14nm is 2 shrinks from now, and will be about 5 years down the road.
Following your conversation, you clearly don't know the reason behind pricing scheme. There is 0 competition with the 7900 series right now, and it is still better price/performace at its high price. Price will go down in time, but cards are always more expensive on release.... welcome to the real world.
You could get the 580 last year for $50 more than the 7950, while using 30-80W more power (idle-game), running 10-25C hotter under load, making more noise, and slightly less performance (even with fairly new drivers for 7950).
Uh, no I understand perfectly why they're pricing it this way.
They're trying to make money and capitalize on the brief period of time they can actually charge a premium for holding the performance crown.
But that's not going to stop keen observers like myself for calling them on it, especially when they're pricing last-gen performance at next-gen prices. They might swindle a few of their unwitting fans this time around but this will only hurt them in the long run. And by long, I mean as soon as Kepler launches.
Too bad your "keen" observations prevented you from noticing that Nvidia is also pricing their 14 month old technology at premium prices? Wait maybe it is because you are a Nvidia fanboy! I won't ever get swindled by AMD, I will only be swindled by Nvidia, says the retard.
No, Nvidia priced their last-gen performance based on last-gen premiums, you would expect the next-gen to shift these parts to obsolescence but obviously AMD doesn't feel their users possess the acumen to understand this paradigm.
As for retards being swindled by Nvidia, lmao, the difference is, they would've been reveling in their ignorant bliss with this level of performance, 14 months ago. For the same price.
Its truly amazing though, because you're falling into the exact trap AMD expects you to fall for with the pricing of this card. Honestly how can anyone defend the price and performance metric of this card 14 months later?
AMD doesn't give a shit whether you fall for anything, neither does Nvidia. If enough people buy their cards at X price to support their billion dollar companies, then the price stays. If not, the price goes down. If more people than not refuse to buy the product, then price goes....up.... Whether its this metric or that metric or not fair or super clever AMD trap its all bullshit people make up who hold little educational knowledge in economics or business.
AMD should care actually, because the only people who would even entertain buying one of these cards are their biggest fans, the ones who are going to feel the burn the worst when the floor drops on the pricing of these products.
Again, there is precedent for this, AMD did it to Nvidia in 2008 and Nvidia was cutting rebate checks. Do you think AMD is willing to do the same?
I think it's you that has been sleeping. You're comparing EBay prices for god sakes. We are talking about new releases.
The 5870 released 2 1/2 years ago at 379$. It was 2x as fast as the 4870.
When the 4870 released it cost what, 300$ in mid 2008. It was over 2x as fast as the 3870.
How about the amazing 9700pro at around 400$, In some cases being 4X faster then the 4600TI.
This is perhaps a step up from the to the likes of the 2900XT or 5800ultra. But both of those had some rocking competition to deal with. Like the 8800GTX and the 9700pro.
If you think this 30% better performance is worth 580$ then you have no concept of value.
Its not better performance for the same price. This time the price has scaled with performance.
Normally when a new GPU gen releases its much better performance at the same price as the previous kings release.
Look at the 9700pro, 8800GTX, 5870. Those were great cards for the time. The 7970 is just, Eh. Not bad enough to be considered a 2900XT or a 5800 Ultra. But at least those 2 cards had much better competition.
Actually, AMD's prices for these cards are SO bad, most people will just wait or buy older tech. Hell at least Intel's Sandy Bridge i5-2500K came out at a reasonable $215 which really isn't that high for the performance you get from it... in fact, there is no other CPU at the same price that even comes close, nor was there a CPU last year for the same price that even comes close. Here, AMD is pricing themselves out of the market.
Right, and their egregious pricing mistake is why all their cards are selling out since launch. Because all of AMD's business MBA's and experts are no match for your idea of "a good deal"
Maybe you've noticed that things are usually more expensive at launch because of hype, and the fact that you have the fastest card makes pricing irrelevant. Well hell whatever, you didn't even notice that Sandy bridge 2500k opened up at $260-270 dollars at launch, what's the point in taking this further.
I noticed that when the 5870 and 5850 came out they blew away the competition and were relatively cheap. What was the 5850 price when it came out - about half of the 7950? Yet the performance leap over previous gen for 5850 was much larger then for 7950. That's why everyone is a bit disappointed.
Yeah and then they took out a 8800gt priced so low that they did cut their own leg themselves, lol it was ridiculous, everyone that bought a 8800gts and 8800gtx felt they had been fooled once more by the green goblin :/
First time for ATI mispricing their video card higher and look the green goblin fans are all mad...
Cards always cost more on release as there is built up demand and stock is low. You could have gotten almost as good of performance a year ago... if you don't care about using nearly 100W more power under load, and run 10-25C hotter. There are still 580s selling well over $500 BTW. The Sapphire card has a distinct performance advantage, uses little power, runs 27C under load cooler, near silent, and is cheaper than the average price of the 580.
Newegg prices its $20 cheaper than cheapest 580, is faster on average (still fairly new drivers), uses a _LOT_ less power (load and idle), Zerocore power, and a lot cooler all around.. Yeah I would say that is competitive.
Price will surely go down, especially when Nvidia finally gets off its butt and releases its next generation 3 months from now, but it won't make AMD look bad, they will just adjust prices.
AMD is likely charging a premium while it can. Why would it want to significantly undercut NVIDIA pricing which will force NVIDIA to lower their prices as well. It's all about margin, hopefully.
Well that's because it's Nvidia's job usually to price their video card higher than they perform, so the green goblin fans are mad because for the first time, AMD fans and rich kidz will buy overpriced video card from the competitor.
LOL amd fanboys are still whining about price, 8 months later, after nVidia drove down their crapship $170 and 3 free games. Let's face it, amd fanboys are the price whiners. Then after extensive whining, they claim, after the huge 33%+ discounts and free games, that's it's still too high so they will pinch $10 and get the slower amd card, or spend $30 more and get the slower amd card....LOL YES that's what they do.
either you have a very distorted perception of reality, or you're an Nvidia fanboy. AMD is selling the 7950 at the same price of Nvidia's 580, with the difference that the 7950 has lower power consumption (and noise, and temperature ...) and a plethora of extras. If you have any clue about what marketing is, you would know that it would be very stupid to lower the price further. They already offer more for the same price: no need to make it any more attractive.
And seriously: do you think that Nvidia, or any other company, in that position, would drop the card prices by $100? Seriously? If and when Kepler arrives, and if the performance is where it needs to be, then Nvidia will be welcome to lower the prices, and AMD will be forced to follow. It is called competition: that's why it is good to have two (or more) player in a market, not a monopoly.
Again, what don't you understand in my 'distorted view of reality'? I've already laid it out and many others have agreed. What AMD is doing here is unprecedented by pricing their next-gen parts according to last-gen performance.
I asked someone else this, but what do you think the reaction would be if Nvidia took 14 months to respond to SI with a "next-gen" part that was only 15-25% faster than the 7970 but cost 10% more, or launched a 7950 equivalent for the same price? There's no progress there....
I mean at that point, even the Nvidia fanboys would declare epic failure don't you think? It makes you wonder why the ATI fanboys don't see it the same way.
As for marketing and competition and all that, you don't seem to get it. At the current prices, AMD makes it very hard for even their own users to justify the cost of these parts. The performance just is NOT there relative to the price when compared to last-gen parts. If they priced these cards more reasonably and similar to their last-gen parts, it would be a no-brainer. But the fact of the matter is, this level of performance was available at this price over a year ago.
Chizow, what you said the 1st time was clear. No point on repeating it. You're convinced that AMD should lower the price: frankly, I don't care to explain you why you're wrong. I already said it: the 7950 uses lower power, is less noisy and has more features than the 580, and it offers a (little) higher performance. ANYONE today buying a 580 would be stupid as they would be getting less for the same price. So, today, AMD has no reason, whatsoever to lower the price of 7950. AMD is not in business for charity, nor is Nvidia, so if you expect miracles (price-wise) you're in for a surprise.
Right, there's no point in anyone buying a 580 now, just as no one has any reason to buy a 7950 today. If they wanted that level of performance, they could've gotten it any time in the last 14 months for the same price. If they were willing to pay for it, they already have a 580.
If they felt the price for that level of performance was too high, they most likely have something in their rig already that fits that price performance metric, and the 7950 does NOTHING to shift their position. There is no incentive for someone who has a 6970 who is getting 85-90% of the 7950's performance to pay 50% more to "upgrade" when they obviously didn't feel that was worth it 14 months ago.
Similarly, do you think it is worth it to "upgrade" to a 7950 if you already own a GTX 580? Of course not! There's simply not enough incentive, and this is why AMD's pricing of this part fails (amongst many other reasons). Does that make sense?
What I want to know is where you got this idea that new GPU releases are 'answers' to the other guy's last release? Each new iteration of GPU tech from either side is an improvement or shrink of their own last release putting out more performance. The generation after is already half way thru design phase when the competition unveils their new card, the FASTEST an 'answer' could be developed is 2 generations, and more likely 3.
The mistake your making is that assuming that the 580 was the bar AMD was shooting for. It wasnt. They were looking to introduce their new architecture without loosing ground. Looks like nVidias failure with Kepler will enable just that, time to tweak the new design to get the kind of performance numbers you expect to see from a 'next generation' product.
Sorry, but this is incorrect. Nvidia and AMD are direct competitors when it comes to GPUs so relative performance directly influences price.
This is why AMD cannot sell CPUs for more than $200. They don't have anything faster than Intel's 10th+ fastest processors (spread over 2-3 generations, its pretty sad actually), so they can't just price Bulldozer at $1000 by slapping an X on it and expect to sell any.
There is a ceiling on the prices they can charge however due to economic and external factors like price elasticity of demand, disposable income, GDP, competing products (consoles etc) so within that construct, AMD and Nvidia have to price their products to make them most attractive to prospective buyers.
They know exactly what % of the market will bite at each price and performance tier using their own gathered market research as well as independent firms like Peddie etc. $400+ is high-end enthusiast, in order to price here, you have to be the top dog, or the 2nd tier. The top dog sets the table for every other GPU, it doesn't matter who makes it.
Historically, this next-gen top dog has shifted the price and performance metric for all next-gen GPUs because the market expects and demands it. That's just progress. Tahiti brings nothing to the table in this regard, its performance is incremental but its pricing just maintains the status quo.
The problem is Tahiti's pricing indicates the GTX 580 was the target it was shooting for, the problem is, they should've been taking aim at Kepler.
Consumer electronics are supposed to get cheaper AND faster at tremendous rates. In failing to improve their price/performance ratio over a couple of generations, AMD has failed. NVidia is failing pretty badly right now, too, but since this is an AMD release, AMD is getting the flack at the moment. If you apply AMD's pricing model to any other consumer electronics product, it becomes very evident that things are very broken. Would you pay $4k for a Ivy Bridge CPU, because IB > SB > Core2 > Core > P4 > P3 > P2 > Pentium > 486 > etc, and a better chip must always command a price premium? Doh, of course you wouldn't.
Pricing is determined and adjusted based on the law of efficient markets. the 580 is 500 dollars only because people are still willing to pay for it, not because of Chizow's ridiculous theory that companies conspire these fabulous schemes to trick people out of their money. So based on this existing market of people willing to pay 500 dollars for gtx580 performance benefits, AMD is going to TAKE those customers away by giving more for less, or more for more in a linear price/performance scale. It's just how markets work, prices don't revolve around these God-like rules of tier1, tier2, tier3. Guess what, AMD is right, because these cards right now are selling higher than the $550 retail price. They should have priced it at $650!
And there is no flawed pricing model to AMD that would end up with a slippery slope of $4k for an Ivy bridge. Prices = aggregate buying desire of the market. All markets usually hit a ceiling price for an item, no matter what it is. Some people have a high ceiling, some people have a low ceiling, its not anyone's fault, its just the fact of life. Any company, AMD or NVIDIA, or INTEL, will price to sell to people with higher ceilings, and when demand is met, lower price to increase adoption from folks with lower ceilings.
If you think this is OK, there would never be any progress in the semiconductor market. Its not like we're talking cars here where a new model year means a few minor upgrades.
With GPUs, CPUs and any other semiconductor, you expect FASTER performance at the SAME prices or CHEAPER prices. That's called progress.
The law of efficient markets would tell you if you bought a GTX 580 14 months ago, you made the right call. Buying today, you're setting yourself up for some heartache, but more probably, you're kicking yourself for waiting.
I'm really disappointed with 7950 too, it's a little bit better than 580 but not enough to justify a such a long wait, it's performance is well short of expectation in BF3.
While I'm not in favor of the prices AMD has set for the new cards, you do realize that Nvidia has never prices their cards low right? A quick price check history will show you since the FX day Nvidia has priced their card to sell your kidney. It was the tnt days that Nvidia did a price favor vs their competitors. I bet you my right kidney(i sold my left one for a 8800gtx for $650 day 1 of lunch) that Kepler will be no different, regardless of what its performance will be.
I never got the fanboy aspect of things, you see gamers that can calculate min-max fps better than most math majors yet somehow only see red or green when the numbers are laid out right in front of them. I'm shame to say i'm old enough to been around from the voodoo days, i went to Voodoo, Nvidia, Ati, Nvidia, Ati, Nvidia, and now name AMD for more than i can remember. Go for what's best at the time you need an upgrade. Stop making yourself colored hulk when your team doesn't have a product to be competitive.
Yea and the 8800GTX kicked stomped the crap out of the competition. This is just a bump up, and kick stomp prices.
Plus this is AMD not Nvidia. Where is the 5870, the 9700pro. This is closer to a 5800Ultra or a 2900XT. Of course those cards at least had some real competition in the form of a 8800GTX and 9700pro.
If the 8800GTX and 9700pro would have only increased performance as much as say the 6970 or 580GTX ( compared to their previous cards 5870/480) then the analogy would truly work and the 7970 would basicly be the 2900XT/5800Ultra of its day.
Actually if you look at recent pricing history, you'd see Nvidia has kept their flagship pricing in-line and much lower than what we are seeing here with SI, despite the fact Nvidia had the leading part for that generation in both cases with the GTX 480 and GTX 580.
Both of those parts launched at $500 and were faster than AMD's competing same-generation part. If Nvidia did the same as AMD, the 580 would've been priced at $550-600 for that 10-15% performance bump over the 480, but they kept their pricing constant while increasing performance. As I stated earlier, AMD definitely had a hand in this when they undercut the GTX 280 so badly in 2008, but Nvidia did learn their mistake and has not raised the pricing metric since.
Now Nvidia does have a decision to make. If they beat SI with Kepler as expected, they can go with AMD's pricing which will again, make no sense. Or they can stick to their historical price/performance model and make AMD look really bad just as AMD did to them 3 1/2 years ago.
Well some of us do care about noise and power consumption. That sapphire card runs very cool and quiet, nearly silent in fact. It uses 30 less watts at typical idle and nearly 100 watts less than a 580 while gaming. That's about a penny per hour of gaming. Power savings could easily reach $40 over two years of gaming, plus another $30 if you leave your pc on 24/7, for a total of $70 saved over two years.
Thats is about what one year of technological advancement is worth.
Because in part the 480/580 are dogs in regards to power consumption. My 5870 idles at nearly the same and only uses a bit more under load. It is also 2 1/2 years older.
Actually I think these parts will make up an overwhelming % of the company's income given their graphics division is one of the few within AMD that consistently turns a profit. But I guess I actually know what "income" is and how its calculated. Given these parts sell for 50% higher price than any single-ASIC SKU (CPU or GPU) in the last 5 years, I think there's a good chance these parts will make up the bulk of their profit for the quarter.
You really think AMD is turning some amazing profit on their free AR Bulldozer promos or happy meal priced APUs when they struggle to make a profit on a quarterly basis? There's break-even (90-95% of their revenue) and then there's parts like this that actually sell for a profit. They don't need to sell high volume on these parts when the ASP and margins are so healthy.
The graphics division only accounted for 8.4% of AMD's operating income for fiscal 2011, if you ignore the accounting monkey business regarding GloFo.
Of that 8.4%, about half is likely attributable to FirePro because the gross margins for professional and compute solutions are easily double that of consumer GPUs.
While the ASP's and gross margins on enthusiast cards are great compared to the high volume consumer stuff, they still represent a niche market, and realistically less than 3% of AMD's 2011 operating income.
I have read it and it obviously doesn't include any significant Tahiti or 28nm parts, since they only started to ship the first few units for revenue for that Jan 7th 7970 launch.
As stated in the article: "while the first true 7000 series part (Tahiti) did not launch until 2012 and only started shipping for revenue very late into 2011. Still, it was enough to have a significant impact on AMD’s GPU ASP, increasing it over 2010’s ASP even with the limited number of new products."
Obviously projected revenue will be much higher with a full quarter at these prices.
But yes the rest of your post confirms my point, if you want to point to FirePro I can already guarantee you they will sell more 7970 consumer desktop parts than any FirePro parts using the same ASIC, we're not talking about Quadro here lol.
At $450-600, that's already a HUGE markup and increase in their gross margins compared to any previous single-ASIC desktop SKU, so its obviously going to result in a huge increase in profits.
And no you can't just discount that "GloFo" business, if the rest of the company loses money because of poor supplier/pricing decisions and selling prices and the other consistently makes money and represents the bulk of the company's income.
Have you ever looked at the relative prices of consumer desktop parts vs. FirePro parts based on the same chip? Yes, they will sell a lot more of the consumer parts, and yet they will still make more profit on the fewer FirePro parts sold. So when AMD wholesales chips to partners so the partners can produce cards that end up retailing for $450-600, you believe their gross margins are higher than when they sell a FirePro V9800 directly to a retailer who turns around and sells it for $2800?
Why are you so convinced that the difference in retail release prices for the 7 series and 6 series is solely attributable to AMD expanding their gross margin? The 7 series is being offered for 50% more than the 6 series was, and yet the transistor count increased by over 62%. Not to mention that these are the first parts produced on the new 28nm node, so yields are probably less than stellar at this point, despite what TSMC might have us believe.
Furthermore, the GloFo business is germane to both the CPU and GPU divisions. Graphics accounted for less than a quarter of AMD's overall revenue for 2011 and only 8.4% of their income, no matter how you want to look at it. All I omitted was the one time charges that AMD took for the decrease in value of their stake in GloFo and the costs associated with their corporate restructuring.
No matter what you believe, 8.4 is a larger number than 91.6. Hang it up, you're flat out wrong.
You're using past performance to define FUTURE revenue forecasts, which is what my statement was about. That's the whole point, the GPU division WAS disappointing in 2011, but ASP and profit increased year over year in Q4 based on the high ASP of the few Tahiti parts that shipped in December.
Obviously Tahiti parts will have a bigger impact on both numbers in Q1 '12 with a full 3 quarters and volume shipment at these high ASPs which is exactly what I stated.
As for why I think the difference in 7 and 6 series pricing was the difference in segment margins? Because I know how to read financial statements and MD&A. 11/12 months with DECLINING revenue and margins selling only 6 series and specifically cited by AMD caused by declining sales and ASP on their desktop and shortages of their Llano mobile parts. Then in Q4, despite declining revenue sequentially and y2y, their ASP, margins and profit increases. Do you think this is a result of their 6 series which spent the whole year declining in sales and margin, or the 7 series that sell for 50-100% more than their previous products? Hmmm.....
Now what do you think is going to happen with a full 3 quarters at the same prices for the graphics division? What do you think is going to happen to the company's financials given they are predicting a gloomy outlook with predicted 8% decrease in revenue sequentially? I can already guarantee you the graphics division will be profitable, maybe ~$100M, but the CPU division will at best break even if they don't post a loss. Which brings us full circle to the comment you and others apparently had issue with:
Actually I think these parts will make up an overwhelming % of the company's income given their graphics division is one of the few within AMD that consistently turns a profit.
i would easily buy the HD7950 over the old tech - outdated - hot - power hungry - loud GTX580 junk. The HD7950 is same price, new tech, uses 72 watts less, is cooler, is silent, is 28nm, is faster, has compute, has pcie3, has x3 monitors, has audio over each channel, also slaps the 590 if thats what you want lol.
its a win-win, you would have to be an idiot to buy anything nvidia has currently in the high end.
You keep repeating it, and you keep being wrong. There are a million reasons for someone to upgrade their system now. Maybe they got a better monitor for christmas and need the graphics card upgrade but waited a month until AMD revealed their new tech? Maybe it's someones birthday and he can get a big card. Or someone got a new job and wants a new card today? Not everyone who has the money and need for such a card now had it in the months before it.
In that case, they should probably wait for the real next-gen, since that's what most anyone was doing prior to the disappointing Tahiti reveal.
Or go ahead and pick up a 6970/570 for much better price/performance return. Although we may actually see the prices go back up now that its obvious Tahiti did nothing to force downward pricing pressure.
Just look at the review from Tomshardware. Based on performance, they were expecting the 7950 to be prices around $480. Then they were informed about the MSRP of $450 and took it extremely well. Just sayin'
Unfortunately you gave yourself away as a bit of an idiot as soon as you failed to address anything about the product other than its raw performance.
Precisely what makes you think that AMD /has/ to price their products at this level? They have a smaller chip that performs better for less power. As soon as nVidia releases competing products they'll drop trou on the price and everyone can be happy. Right now they're price-gouging the performance-obsessed, just like nVidia have been for as long as they've had the top product.
Personally, I'm disappointed that they've abandoned the 3/4/5000 series approach of providing fantastic value for money, but apparently that wasn't earning them any money. Big shame, don't care, move on. I'll be waiting for Kepler to show before I make any buying decisions.
If the only thing AMD is able to bring to the table from a full node process shrink is a reduction in power consumption, they've already failed.
What compounds their failure however, is the fact they're trying to price this card that doesn't even significantly outperform last-gen parts at existing prices.
If they actually priced this where it should be ~$380-$400, it'd be a completely different story. Because they'd actually be offering you all of those fringe benefits you listed as well as either high-end performance at a much lower price OR significantly higher performance at the same price.
These are the kinds of metrics people look at when deciding to upgrade, or not. Pricing a product that performs the same as a part that's been available for 14 months already just doesn't make any sense, sorry.
after all the conversation you have given i came to only one conclusion you all guys created as much hype for the kepler. Nvidia will be much delighted for this.after reading all these I would be not surprised if Nvidia print a link to these website page on their kepler card boxes as part of their advertisement.
I don't think Nvidia cares about what's written here tbh, I don't think it took more than looking at the benchmarks for them to get excited.
What they care about:
-AMD's top 28nm = only 15-25% faster than their last-gen top 40nm -AMD's 2nd 28nm = only 0-5% faster than their last-gen top 40nm
The result is the rumors and indirect quotes attributed to Nvidia personnel at CES amounting to:
"We expected more from AMD's HD7900 series."
But really, this quote could and should be attributed to anyone, especially at the asking price. It seems most people feel this way, makes you wonder why AMD fans don't.
it's fun to see comparison of parts only by the size of the transistor..... the thing is the 40nm parts from nvidia from last gen are BIG gpus, you gotta compare the quantity of transistor to transistor to understand the % increase in performance....
AMD's smaller gpus smaller power enveloppe that maxes performance/die size vs Nvidia's maximum die size/max performance attainable with good yields...
Well I'm not one to totally dismiss metrics like power consumption, thermals, noise but really those types of considerations are tertiary for anyone looking in this segment, especially when its very clear relative pricing is based on performance and performance only.
Performance is primary, secondary considerations would be actual features (API, multi-mon, 3D, compute, etc.) and these fringe considerations like power, noise, heat a distant 3rd for anyone interested in this segment. It is more important for some people, but generally, performance is not the primary consideration for those people. Generally those who shop in this segment look at performance without compromise.
In any case, Nvidia's strategy for their flagship ASICs have always been big die since the G80 and from that they've generally derived their top two desktop SKUs and X2 parts. But on top of that, they also put these ASICs in their highly lucrative professional parts like Tesla and Quadro. This is not unlike Intel's strategy with their highest-end CPUs (Westmere, SB-E) where the highest-end parts are shared between their high-end server and enthusiast desktop platform.
AMD's strategy used to be "small die" after the R600 fiasco, where they would release a much smaller chip and still remain competitive through smaller process node and higher clock speeds with a halo X2 part made easier because of these smaller die sizes. But if you look at the die comparisons over the years, you can clearly see this small die strategy is getting away from them as well, as their chips have grown in size and power consumption through each generation.
There was always internal conflict over this "small die" decision though, but it looks to me like the "big die" folks are back in favor at AMD GPU as they realize they will never be able to beat Nvidia with a smaller die and higher clocks alone and aren't going to fetch a higher asking price based on just good looks and more attractive thermals.
I was looking forward to 7950 but the perf jump from my 580 is negligible so I'm going to pass, was expecting more from AMD, loved their 6950 in cfx which was awesome value. If I was still running those there would be even less reason to buy 79xx. I agree with Chizow's point: Nothing new or exciting here, now looking at Kepler to shakeup 2012's high end graphics scene.
Thanks, I knew there were reasonable minds out there that felt similarly. Reading through the comments there are definitely more who feel the same way, which is assuring, because I really don't want to see a $750 flagship card from Nvidia.
It just seems there's a few unreasonable folks out there who just want to ignore the obvious along with mountains of historical data points that tells us what AMD has done here with Tahiti pricing is unprecedented and frankly, quite shocking.
"If GK110 beats the 7970 by 20-25% and costs only $500, AMD execs will be jumping out of windows."
GK104 $500 ended up losing the performance and price/performance crown to the HD7970 OC on air and on water. Looks like your prediction didn't come true this round.
page 4 states that the clocks of the OC 7950 are the same as the shipping clocks of the 7970 (so the cards only differ by the shader units) which isn't true as the reference core clock of the 7970 is 925Mhz, not 900Mhz. Now that's only a 3% difference but given the performance difference from those OC 7950 to 7970 often ends up only being ~5% this definitely is significant.
When will the actual cards be available for sale? I've just checked Newegg, Tiger Direct, Micro Center, Fry's, and Amazon, none of them have the 7950 listed.
Thanks for the review. Looking at the Sapphire card, it's a 30%+ speed bump over the 6950 for just 13 watts more power. I look forward to the 78xx and the GTX 6xx this spring and more reasonably priced mid-ranged gaming cards.
That's why the 7950 is so absurdly expensive. The 5850 was miles ahead of anything nVidia had when it launched, and remained miles ahead throughout the entire first Fermi generation, yet it was launched at a very affordable and acceptable $259 price point.
I'm not sure what kind of fantasy land you are living in, but the 7950 beats the 580 in everything. It's priced at $450, which ~$17 is cheaper than tier 3 PNY 580 cards. Most 580 cards sit around $500. Why should AMD price the 7950 at $250 and make zero or likely lose money? AMD has better cards. They are actually charging what they should be charging. It was a complete blunder to launch the 5850 and 5870 cards at the prices they did. The only saving grace is they likely converted a lot of Nvidia buyers. The 5850 was my first AMD card and I'm not likely to go back to Nvidia with my bad experiences with their card makers.
Is it true that you did not update the BIOS on the XFX card as per emailed instructions from AMD? According to Hardwarecanucks.com retail versions of the card have an updated BIOS that review samples sent out did not.
"Basically, XFX emailed all media days before launch stating that their retail cards had revised fan speed profiles that allowed for slightly increased temperatures but kept the fans MUCH quieter. They sent us all a the retail BIOS file with the proper speeds. What you see above are the differences between the beta and the final release BIOS"
There is 0 chance these retarded prices will remain past Nvidia's next gen launch. At that point the 7950 will drop below $300 to be competitive. So if you pay $450 now, you are a chump.
NO....maybe its because you just want the best card. just like all the other "chumps" were paying 500 for a gtx580 or still are, which is a completely disproportionately unfavorable price/performance ratio compared to the 560ti/6950 unlocked.
I was hoping for $300-350 price tag for 7950. Right now it´s much better to get 2x second hand 6970 running in crossfire, you will get better performances than even 7970 or even 6990.
But we all know the price will drops like stones once Kepler hits the market.
The original Fermi could most definitely count as a fail, hot loud, power hungry, big, expensive for only 20% more power than a 5870, and LATE, it was fun to watch :). It wasn't until the 460 and the release of the 500 series that Nvidia got that mess worked out.
While the performance is impressive, the pricing is just ridiculous and leaves a bittter taste in the mouth. One could get similar performance from 2 x 6850 /2 x gtx460's for $320-360.
For my next upgrade I was looking for slightly more horsepower than a single gtx580 combined with Ivy bridge. Ofcourse 1st prize for me is a single powerful gpu as opposed to sli/crossfire but at $450 for a reference card it's just pointless. We'll see what happens with Kepler but it seems AMD is setting a recurring trend of increased base cost for every architectural generation which means the costs just keep escalating. What was once a small caliber hole in my pocket seems to have become a 12-gauge crater. Arrrghhhh.........
"While the performance is impressive, the pricing is just ridiculous and leaves a bittter taste in the mouth." That's why you don't put your GPUs in the mouth and chew on them...
Why do you post this nonsense on a 7900 discussion? Does anyone who owns a top tier video card give a rats behind about undervolting? No. That's why you spend 30 dollars and buy a hd6770.
can you please use resolutions that the avg user uses? whats thsi 1980x1200 nonsense? who games at that resolution? by far the most popular resolutions are 1650x1050 & 1920 x1080. why not just post figures for those instead of having us guessing?
Not to mention that if you game at 1680x1050, you don't need a high-end card anyway, and so have no reason to care how they benchmark at your Cro-magnon resolution. If you get a real monitor (1920x1200 or higher), you can come back for the performance numbers already provided in the article.
I don't think Anandtech is read by the "average user"... I would assume mostly gamers, enthusiasts, and IT pros here. Besides who buys 1920x1080 monitors? If the monitor isn't 1920x1200 or higher its not worth buying.
When drawing out the tests for the current GPU benchmark suite we debated between 1920x1200 and 1920x1080. Ultimately it was decided that 1920x1200 would be more useful for our needs and that 1920x1080 would be unnecessary; 1920x1080 is only slightly lower in resolution, so our 1920x1200 numbers are only slightly worse in performance than they would be with 1920x1080. The two should be treated as the same, as there's generally not nearly enough of a difference to matter.
It seems there's two choices for 7950, either a 450€+ custom OC card or a "v2" reference cheapo-PCB cards that go for 400€ in Europe. It would certainly be interesting to get a detailed look at how much of a difference that makes. To me those "v2" cards look a bit too nerfed in terms of VRM and cooling.
IMO 7950 is priced accordingly and is no question better than a GTX 580 by any metric really. That's enough to justify a similar price. It's up to Nvidia to drop the GTX 580 price to compete, but I doubt they'll do that, and instead wait for GK104 to save the day. If it is a success we could see prices drop fast in the high end, but Nvidia isn't known for its low pricing, and neither does it have any need to try grab market share by undercutting its profits. There's a good cap between 7800 and 7900 and they could just occupy it with a GK104 and call it a day, until they get their big chip ready.
That Sapphire cooler looks pretty much like their Dirt3 Edition 6950s one. A slightly different plastic shroud but fan's and underlay seem mostly the same.. atleast in the picture views I've seen.
I found that, in IE 9, I have to click on the "Back" button on the browser six to seven times to actually go back to the main page. Taking a closer look at it, I noticed there are a bunch of "Share this Page" history item between this page (Ryan's HD7950 Review) and the main page that took place without my knowledge. Would this be a site bug or a advertisement bug?
To the best of my knowledge (please keep in mind that I'm not responsible for site development), that's not something the site should be doing. In which case it could very well be an ad bug. If it continues to happen you should be able to use the IE9 developer tools (built-in, F12), to try to narrow down what exactly it is you're seeing.
Without spending too much time on it, I can see that there were a bunch of frame navigation caused by sharethis.com, which I think is the likely culprit. I am able to reproduce this issue on two separate Win7 SP1 machines; one of them is clean with almost installed except for the usual PDF reader and some benchmarking tools.
This is a wonderful but too expensive product for the targeted market niche...It will not gain user base by April to attract software developers away from Kepler...Unless NVidia really executes bad /which they will not-internal source/, AMD will be positioned worthlessly by price/performance. Anyway, I admire AMD and I use their products, just their strategy has been lost recently.
It seems quite pointless to me to benchmark an OC 7950 vs a stock clocked 7970. Anyone who OCs a 7950 would OC his 7970 too. The interesting question is how these 2 OCed Cards perform against each other - this decides whether the the price difference is worth it or not.
and sort by "Video Card Value". Using this chart, I bought an HD6850 today, to replace my HD4890 (which is also near the top of the chart). It has enogh performance for me. The performance per dollar is dominated by AMD at the moment.
Now all that I wish for is direct comparison between Sapphire card and PowerColor PCS+ version.. Based on techPowerUp's review PowerColor could actually have even better cooling solution (noise/heat) which would really be amazing since Sapphire is already awesome. Make my wish come true Anand! :) And thanks for great review guys and showing off what a nice job AMD & Sapphire did with their new products...
What GCN is able to do in the future is yet to been seen. They need a software ecosystem to support it, like what CUDA is having. In terms of gaming, aside from lower power consumption, the price isn't very attractive. I can see 7970 command a hefty premium, but the price of 7950 would fail AMD to capture some market share. The price they're trying to undercut is a single-GPU flagship part, which also carries a premium over 570, yet 7950 isn't a flagship part.
In terms of gaming performance, 7950 is close to 580, which is close to 6970, yet it costs so much higher than 6970. It would be interesting to see how AMD is going to price their VLIW4 7800 and lower parts, because from the specs, they aren't much faster than 6000 series. This time, we probably won't see good performance jump with similar price points even after a major die shrink (remember they even skipped 32 nm). And I think the unnamed NVIDIA source said they was expecting more from 7970, which I think isn't a bluff, considered their Fermi debacle.
At the end of the day the 7970 and 7950 are great cards. They are like going from a 65nm pentium 4 to a 45nm core 2 duo in terms of performance per watt. Yes AMD may have not cranked the power consumption like amd do but performance per watt or gflops per watt it is basically double or even better then the last generation 40nm cards.
Imagine 10000 40nm gtx 580 running in the world or 10000 7950 running in the world. Saving 160w more each person with similar person. 160w is a lot of power enough to run nearly an m17x r3 with 6970m.
160w multiplied by 10000 people = 1600000 watt difference for same performance of a gtx 580 and 7950. Thats 1.6m watts in simple terms more to game. If process and architecture changes of cpus and graphics cards didn't happen we would still have pentium 4's running at 3.8ghz with 6800 utras taking nearly as much power to run as an i7 3960x and 7970. Also idle watts usage go down every die shrink.
Sapphire did do their homework. I find it astonishing that they were the only ones to consider undervolting, while also overclocking their product. Hats off!
No, Tahiti is competing with the expectations of a new generation of hardware, expectations they clearly failed to meet. You don't ask for flagship prices when all you bring to the table is refresh performance of 14 month old last-gen parts. If you don't think so, but hey np, I have a copy of Madden 2010 you can buy for $60.
How are my expectations too high? More like your expectations are too low if you were impressed with Tahiti. 15-25% faster than the last-gen flagship? Is that a joke? Once again, next-gen expectations commanding flagship prices should be AT LEAST 50% before anyone considers buying. Y'know, the same speed bump that "clusterfk" Fermi was over the last-gen parts...... Once again low expectations of AMD fans just used to being mediocre I suppose....
And to disprove your nonsense again with historical fact, Nvidia did have the fastest card in 2010 with GTX 480, but instead of raising the prices, they kept it the same with the GTX 580. They've done this in the past as well with the GTX 280 > GTX 285. They don't raise prices on refreshes, they also don't raise prices on flagships on new generations because they learned their lesson with GTX 280 after the original pricing fiasco.
The rebates were funded by Nvidia for price protected "exclusive" partners in NA and EU markets. At the time, that was EVGA, BFG and XFX.
The partners only sent out the rebate because they received the bulk of payment after shipping to retailers, but only with Nvidia's green light. Nvidia also directly funded/reimbursed or promised more inventory using the credited difference for any existing stock in the channel when they officially dropped the price of the GTX 280 from $650 to $500 and the GTX 260 from $450 to $350. Prices on the top two cards have stayed virtually the same since.
But yes, AMD is setting themselves up for a similar fall. If they priced the 7970 the same as the previous flagships, $500. No one would care that much. If they priced the 7950 the same as their previous 2nd tier, $380-400. No one would care that much.
But they got greedy. For what? 15-25% improvement on a new architecture, full node, and 14 months? History is due to repeat itself, and not in AMD's favor. At least in Nvidia's case, the GTX 280 actually warranted its pricetag relative to last-gen parts. You can't even say that about the 7970.
Well if a $300 card is priced where it should be and performs the same as AMD's $450 card something will certainly have to budge.
Unless Nvidia decides to just refresh their old parts on 28nm and prices everything the same for a 5-10% increase in performance.
In that case, we can all just not buy video cards this generation because nothing will be worth buying and we can stop pretending these new cards are some awesome new innovation.
They're still $500 because demand is still strong, its close to EOL, and people still find value in Nvidia parts over AMD.
They'll drop the prices to sell off the last few in the channel when they replace the part with something better, but in the meantime, AMD hasn't given any reason for them to slash the prices due to their greedy pricing on the 7950.
Again, this is a departure from past launches where AMD did price their parts sensibly and forced Nvidia to lower prices on its flagship cards (GTX 285 etc).
4 of 11 out of stock is good? After 4 days on the market? I don't think so. I think the market has spoken given every other major launch in the last few years on a high-end SKU like this has resulted in OOS for about a month.
Demand for this part is soft, and at its price/performance that's no surprise and really shouldn't be.
Really? So being the highest-end SKU that AMD produced and within 10-15% of the fastest single-GPU on the planet, it wasn't a high-end card? And I guess AMD didn't have any high-end cards that generation?
And "pricing ALWAYS based on performance relative to the competition". So the RV770 coming within 10-15% of the GTX 280 which already launched for $650 and was selling briskly because it deserved that pricing relative to last-gen (9800GX2, 8800GTX) and AMD pricing this part for $299 made sense based on performance relative to the competition? Really?
You're wrong. Stop posting LMAO. RV770 was a price mistake on AMD's part, a mistake they've been trying to correct ever since. Now Nvidia has a chance to return the favor because the 7970/7950 are going to be in a similar position due to the fact they're mispriced based on last-gen metrics.
And that's exactly what's wrong with their pricing, an error that will be obvious once its competing against the products its supposed to be competing with.
By your same flawed logic, graphics cards would be thousands of dollars as every incremental increase would incur an increase in price without limits.
Nonsense, we already covered this. GTX 280 was almost 2x faster than the 8800GTX and about the same performance as the 9800GX2. A true flagship card.
ATI exceeded everyone's expectations with the RV770 but grossly underpriced their card, which is the only reason Nvidia was forced to drop their price.
The difference this time around, is that the 7970 does NOT deserve the premium pricing relative to last-gen. The only way AMD will get off the hook is if Nvidia makes the same mistake and prices based on last-gen performance as well and prices their flagship at like $750 lol. It may happen, but I doubt it.
Rofl, except I have mountains of historical evidence that back my points, while your nonsensical pricing schemes would have us deciding between new cars or new GPUs.
Also back to that running a business part. Its obvious you have no clue what it takes to run a business.
AMD is basically stealing from Peter to pay Paul, they're trading short-term gains for long-term profit by risking the relationship of their most loyal customers. In this business as in any other, customer satisfaction and brand loyalty is paramount.
Unlike their fanboys, it would be criminally negligent of AMD not to consider the pricing of upcoming products from their main competitor: Nvidia. To that end, 28nm parts from Nvidia are imminent, ignoring this fact is just bad business.
We'll see how this shakes out, but honestly I can't see AMD getting off unscathed here unless Nvidia prices Kepler outrageously.
LOL he's fun, while Nvidia made the worse pricing decision in the world like 9800gx2 priced 150$ less than a GTX 280 that performed LESS is so much funny, last gen part vs new gen part comparison here you come....
What's fun is you can get 2x last-gen parts for cheaper than 1x next-gen parts anytime you want it.
Would you buy 2xGTX 460 today instead of a GTX 580 or 7970? Most people would say no, but for those who want it, 2xold is cheaper and faster than 1xnew.
Well if you can do it anytime, what's new with 7970? Ahh it should of driven the prices down, unlike Nvidia's coming up with new gpus to drive the price up. Nvidia up the prices and ATI makes them go down here's your history of things... well things can change, we don'T live in a stable world.
Lotsa people already answering to you saying that you make no sense. My philosophy teacher once tole me: If someone come up to you and tells you: ''Hey you are a horse'' you can doubt, a second one comes to you and says the same thing, well you gotta start thinking a little bit, and if a third one comes and tells you the same thing, you should start thinking about buying a saddle.
And to base buying decisions without acknowledging the 800lb gorilla in the room (Kepler) while simultaneously ignoring the 6 ton elephant in the room (history) would be a monumental mistake.
AMD doesn't know what Nvidia's performance will be with Kepler.
But they've priced their new product with the assumption Kepler offers no gain, no increase in performance over Fermi.
That's the only possible way they could justify basing their new next-gen, next-process part using old part prices.
This is a massive error in calculation, because unless you're completely oblivious it should be clearly obvious Kepler could beat Tahiti if it were nothing more than a die-shrink of Fermi with higher clocks. 15-25% is NOTHING when looking at a new process node and new architecture, its more of what you would expect from a refresh.
But its OK, despite your claims you have no idea how this industry works, if you did you'd immediately acknowledge the prices AMD is asking for simply aren't justified with all things considered.
Because that is what people who are interested in these parts base their buying decisions on. There's not enough incentive otherwise, its not like GPUs expire every 2 years.
There wouldn't be a problem if the 7950 launched 14 months ago, today its might as well be an exhibit at Jurassic Park.
And the 580 for $500? Anyone who has a 580 has put a lot of mileage on those treads and gotten their money's worth. It'll get retired soon enough though, right next to that 7950.
No the prices haven't dropped because there's no need to when the 7950 is about the same performance for the same price.
As for basic economics, again, you're wrong.
Prices do fall without competition, look at the CPU industry. AMD STILL doesn't have a CPU that competes with the CPUs Intel was putting out 3 years ago.
Yet prices continue to fall, Intel continues to produce faster CPUs.
Why? Because Intel is competing with itself and its consumers need incentive to buy a new CPU. People will not pay the same price for the same speed processor, they demand innovation, progress. They also won't pay significantly more for marginal increases.
They expect more performance at the same prices, which is the same expectation as in the GPU market. Unless you're AMD and their fans I guess.
I didn't say anything about the 7970's stock levels, because unlike the 7950, it did actually sell out the 1st day. But there is actually a reason for someone to upgrade to it.
The 7950? Not so much, not at that price anyways. If anyone wanted that performance it was there 14 months ago for the same price.
But yeah if you want to compare to past launches, you never saw stock of 5850/5870, 470/480, 570/580 for more than a few minutes at Newegg. Why? Because the performance was there for the asking price.
With these Tahiti cards at the prices and performance, its just lukewarm reception.
Nice try deflecting. Please retract your stupid statement about "price always reflecting performance", thanks. RV770 was obviously a price mistake that AMD has clearly tried to correct over the last 3-4 generations since evident by their ever-increasing prices. Either way, you're wrong.
Not to mention the 3870 wasn't even the same generation. But yes that card wasn't high end because of its lackluster performance and the fact it was late. It was a refresh of the 2900 and was up against the 8800GT, another refresh part. Regardless, it was still AMD's highest performance single-ASIC SKU, so if it wasn't high-end that just means AMD had nothing worthy of high-end that generation.
Same may happen this round if this is all SI has to offer on 28nm. :(
Sure it is, because in this price range, the only people who would be interested in buying it are the people looking to upgrade who have already spent this amount.
Sure there's going to be a few first time buyers who may pick this card up and it makes some sense, but this card isn't going to be a worthwhile upgrade for the vast majority of buyers who already have something from the last few generations.
Sure they can, its called projecting or forecasting. It would be negligent of them to ignore what Nvidia has to offer, and similar for Nvidia. Given they share the same fab its obvious neither have a technology advantage, so you have to target your competitor's product using that same technology. Anything less would be irresponsible.
Rarson, maybe we need to take a step back. You keep insisting I don't understand how this market works, or how pricing is supposed to work. Maybe you can explain how YOU think it works.
Let's start off with the basics:
What do you think drives price in the GPU market?
What do you think dictates a particular price:performance metric?
Do you think these two variables continue to scale linearly to infinity as one or the other increases?
What do you think resets this price:performance metric, if at all?
If you can start by answering these questions, and then go back and try to reconcile historical price:performance data points going back to say, the 8800GTX that'd be great.
CHizzo you talk about a pricing error from AMD but you know what was a the absolute least flattering act in history of the gpu?
When AMD released their Radeon 9700 pro the 5800 ultra from nv stumbled caused by an error making it incapable of running aa correctly...after that the ultimate chaos ever shown in history of hardware was spread by your beloved green hope crew. They had a communication crisis resulting in 3 different versions of their nv40 on different departments without knowing this from each other...in other words the cooperation with their own green colleagues died for a moment and time stood still. Ever since that shameful fact Nvidia is passing AMD..A lot of time they only clzaim they will be fatser in the future like they do now...thank you nv for the green hope in these dark times.....
chizzo take your shizzle talk and stop making a fool of urself please
But when a new product is released, the most obviouse thing to do is to price it at the same level as the highest product from the competitor. Thus AMD should have priced the 7970 around the same amount as the 580.
By doing this you put the pressure on the competitor. You also make sure people choose your product because it is the same price as that of the competitor, but faster, beter, etc.
It's the same what happend just before the release of the Core architecture by Intel. AMD knew that the Core CPU's where much faster, and didn't have anything to compete. Instead of cutting the prices early and gain market share, they waited untill after the last posiible moment to lower their prices.
Sure, the made a dollar or 2, but at what price ?
Once you have the advantage on your competitor, you should use it anyway possible to harm your competitor.
And AMD has the advantage, but they fail to make any use of it at the moment.
Which gives the impresion they don't care about there market share, or if Nvidia would be forced to lower the prices of their products before they wanted to, or if Nvidia will be forced to release there products before they are ready.
I purchased a second hand 4850 and put a nice custom cooler on it about 3.5 years ago. It runs near silent and performs more than adequately in all the games I play. I honestly don't see the excitement in GPU announcements unless they really are game changers (59XX, 9800XT --> 6800, X800 type leaps). I realise I'm not a bleeding edge gamer & some of you are and thats great - It means second hand high end GPUs available regularly for the same price as low end offerings less than a year later.
The only thing that tempts me about the new architectures is the compute performance. I actually use this for some computational chemistry work and the upgrade looks well worth it if I do more of this type of work.
The improving performance / power ratio is also of interest since I don't like loud fans, hot computers or excessive electricity consumption.
Don't worry, chizow is a fanboy, there's nothing to do against greenies, they have a closed mind :P
He never said anything wrong about nvidia but sure has a ton of things to say about AMD. He speaks of overclockability of GTX 580, get an answer about how overclockable the 7970 and then changes his mind and says he cares about OC but not much about stock cards OC(which the 7970 seems to do VERY well).
Makes no sense when you say things and then right after what you say has no value for the other team.....
No, I said it makes no sense to compare one stock part to one that's overclocked. If you want to compare apples to apples, you overclock both, I have no problem with that and I think you'll find that both parts overclock similarly so the original difference in stock performance holds true.
Only a fanboy would try to compare stock to OC results as you and others apparently tried to do.
I never tried to compare any video card, I'm a proud owner of both camps video card, from geforce 2 gts all the way up to 6850 in crossfire and gtx 560 ti in other rig... thing is you never said anything wrong about Nvidia and I can say wrong things and good things about both camps being an owner of MULTIPLE of their cards...
Someone with only one side of a story shouldn't be used as a reference for righteousness in judgement... Like taking a judge for an affair of murder while the judge himself is in the family of the murdered one.....
If you never tried to compare any video card, why are you defending someone who did then?
As usual with these kinds of threads arguing with ignorant fanboys, I'm simply keeping things honest and correcting erroneous flaws in facts or logic.
Does it make sense to you to make a comparison about one overclocked part compared to another stock part, then declare the OC'd part the winner based on those results?
Of course not!
As for your two cents, keep them, you will need to save every penny to make the jump from 6850 or GTX 560ti to 7950s at these prices.
There was bad things about AMD and Nvidia in history and thing is you can only mention bad things from one side. I'd never listen to someone that already has a choosen side to speak about ANYTHING in my whole life, simply because you won't be able to hear the absolute truth from the defender of only one side...
No, but you were talking about me. So, please explain what you think determines pricing in this market since you insist I have no clue, or YOU shut up.
Yes of course, because it would be negligent not to from any perspective.
Anyone who buys something at any point needs to project the market, needs to weigh the potential for obsolescence. That's a large reason why companies do NOT disclose unannounced products as not to erode their own sales before a product goes EOL.
Similarly, it would be negligent if AMD didn't project Nvidia's next-gen parts given they use the same fab and process. And right now, AMD is basically telling you with this price that they either 1) are ignoring Nvidia's 28nm partsor 2) think Nvidia's 28nm parts perform the same as their 40nm parts or 3) don't think their customers are smart enough to realize 1 or 2.
Either way, they're going to look the fool once Nvidia does release their 40nm parts.
You mean the super-OC'd Classified 3GB versions that perform within a few % points of the 7970? Yeah of course there are. You'd be a moron not to realize the difference, or you're just being dishonest. With you it could be either.
Most 580s are in the same price range as the 7950, $440-500, because once again, they deserved that price tag when they launched 14 months ago and the release of the 7950 has done nothing to make Nvidia drop the price on them.
But as I said, this price and performance level will be retired soon, but obviously not as a result of the "next-gen" Tahiti parts. We'll most likely have to wait for the real "next-gen" parts with Kepler to shift this stagnant price:performance metric.
No, only a moron would blow $500 on another card a year later that performs the *SAME* as the card they paid $500 for a year earlier. And that's why the 7950's pricing sucks.
There's light at the end of the tunnel, you may finally be getting it lol.
I have explained this. Because the market expects there to be a shift in the price:performance metrics when a new generation or new architecture of GPUs launches. This is the driving factor of progress, more performance at the same prices.
Tahiti offers none of this, so once again, AMD is either ignoring the fact Nvidia 28nm parts are imminent and may very well invalidate their entire product line a few months after launch. Or they think Nvidia's 28nm parts aren't any faster than their 40nm parts. Or they think their customers are stupid.
In all 3 cases, I can't see this ending well for them. Unless Nvidia prices their new parts to the moon like $750+, and then no one wins (or has any reason to upgrade for that matter). The only people who would have any incentive to upgrade will be the ones who need to have the absolute fastest, then they'll have to decide if $750/1500/2250/3000 is worth it for a minor bump in performance over what they had with $500 flagship parts.
Well, you'd be stupid not to verify and fact check what I've stated by referencing the financials before opening your mouth. Its all right there, links and everything.
Given your other comments on the topic however, ignorantly commenting seems par for the course with you.
I'm well aware of that. I'm also well aware that top-end performance from 3 years ago doesn't command $1000 prices anymore, it fetches $300 max. That's what we call progress.
Its also why AMD can only charge $200 for their top-end CPU, because what they have today still doesn't compete with what Intel has at $300 today and what they asked $1000 for 3-years ago.
But its OK, you've made it abundantly clear you see nothing wrong with charging the same price for the same performance as last-gen parts some 14 months later.
Oh yeah, if the pricing is so stupid, why is it out of stock everywhere after a week?
Oh right, supply and demand is a market thing but the only thing you understand is history of pricing and ATI being a company that doesn't know what they do, maybe you should become marketting master, seems like you'Re right about everything in the damn world...
And apparently this is the same mistake AMD has made by shoving in their head in the sand trying to ignore that ominous cloud called Kepler.
Its fine, buy these cards today, regret the decision tomorrow, a month from now, two months from now.
I know the AMD fanboys probably hate me today for pointing this out and shoving it in their faces, but I can guarantee you anyone who buys one of these cards today won't be mad at me when Kepler cuts their price at the knees, they'll be pissed off at AMD.
How is it a bad thing when Apple can't meet demand on iPhone? Or Nintendo can't meet demand on Wii? Or Amazon can't meet demand on Kindle? Or Nvidia can't meet demand on Fermi? Or AMD can't meet demand on Cypress?
Demand oustripping supply is any economist or business owner's dream situation lol, if you don't under this YOU have no understanding of very basic economic principles.
Everyone is against you but still after all that, you continue to beleive in whatever nonsense you say from the beginning. Not even one person in here supported your opinions, whatever the market is, it just means one thing, you are a selfish nvidia HARDCORE fanboy who gets paid by the green goblin to speak your nonsense.....
AMD fanboys are intense at times, but you clearly are a madman, the world would say you're wrong that you'd still beleive you're better than everyone else, but if you were, you'd be rich and not spending your time speaking on forums like this one.
You're kidding right rarson. What metric do you think we should use to determine value if not through precedence.
If you're questioning using precedent as a metering stick for value. Hell even the legal system uses precedents to try and determine law, but to you it's not good enough for video cards.
Hey chizow, your comments kept me eventually away from buying the 7950. I use 12 years gaming PCs and always I had Nvidia. This time would be the first that I'd go to AMD's camp.
Although, I already had too many concerns ( especially the high price ), I could't keep myself. But finally, I did. I'll wait for Kepler. If the 7950's price currently was 320-330€ and not 410€, right now I'd have already the card.
Traditionally Nvidia's hardware has smashed AMD's for Folding, but it looks like PROBABLY the 7970 and 7950 should be respectable with the new architecture...
I can't actually find ANYONE talking about the issue though or benchmarking...
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chizow - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
Now it starts to become obvious why people shouldn't be doing cartwheels in the streets over Southern Islands. Its a nice chip, it really is. But the problem with its pricing just became even more obvious with the 7950 as AMD is selling you yesterday's performance at next-gen prices. In other words, if you wanted this level of performance, you could've gotten it a year ago with the GTX 580 for almost the same price....over a year ago....And that's why AMD's pricing of these parts fails. With the 7950 it all comes into focus and if it wasn't clear before, it will become crystal once Kepler drives the nail home when it launches at its expected prices and performance levels. What's left for AMD to launch? A 7870 that's as fast as the 6970 but costs $50 more? A 7850 that's as fast as the 6950 but costs $75 more? Do we really think Nvidia is going to launch a 580 equivalent at 28nm and price it at $450? See how it all comes into focus?
But Nvidia really has a chance to return the favor to AMD here with a pricing debacle of GTX 260/280-esque proportions. If GK104 comes within spitting distance of the 7970 or even 7950 at $300, AMD is going to look really bad. If GK110 beats the 7970 by 20-25% and costs only $500, AMD execs will be jumping out of windows. We're talking about issuing rebate checks that AMD can't afford to write on every 7950/7970 sold at these ridiculous prices for however many months it takes until Nvidia releases Kepler.
Goty - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
1) I believe you mean "consistently faster than last-gen performance for the same price", which is how it will remain until NVIDIA gets a card out that can compete.and
2) Keep dreaming.
chizow - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
1) Well the good news is Nvidia decided to compete over a year ago when they launched the GTX 580. At these prices AMD has set, Nvidia is still amazingly competing with their 14 month old last-gen parts.and
2) The better news is AMD has set the bar extremely low for Nvidia. Should be easy pickings for Kepler.
halo37253 - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
Yet a overclocked 7970 is about as fast as a gtx590, yeah... nvidia sure is competing. lolReally there is no reason to get a nvidia card right now, with the gtx580 and its continuing high costs not even able to hold its own again even a 7950. Once the 7xx series launches I can see AMD launching the hd89xx series no to long after with XDR2 memory and higher clocked cores.
For overall performance per watt it seems AMD cant be touched right now.
kashifme21 - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
The real question is, Do we really need these upgrades anymore. I mean todays games barely push tech. Most of my friends are happy with their 5870's and GTX 480's we bought about 2 years backThing is games are designed with consoles in mind and with next gen console hardware rumors to be around the level of 6670 GPUs, why would anyone upgrade anymore, unless they intend to be running multiple screens.
I personally run GTX 580 SLI. I think i personally wont be upgrading until i see a game that actually stresses my system in eyefinity settings.
Its a sad state but many games recently released dont even support freatures like AA or even any pc options, games are rather straight console ports, with PC as an after thought. Why buy such expensive hardware for ports?
jleach1 - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
I agree. Even my 5850 hasn't stressed much in recent games...and I bought it for 280 USD a couple years ago.Performance per dollars, and temp per dollar, AMD is on target, more often than not....now, if only we could get the FX sorted out...
I used to buy nvidia cards, but haven't since the 5000 series, and it looks to continue this way.
The moral is, competition is ultimately what brings prices down and motivation to up the performance.
I hope AMD can throw out something cool soon on the CPU side, because while I always have, and likely will continue to buy Intel, I love the competition. Sorry, I sorta gave up on AMD after the i7-930 came out. But that doesn't mean I'm not rooting for them...even if it is only for the sake of competition.
TerdFerguson - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
On the other hand, upgrading the 5850 that you've had for several years is going to require you to jump to a /higher/ price tier. That's insanity. If that kind of pricing structure existed for ANY other consumer electronics product, people would be vocally antagonistic. AMD deserves some antagonism.JonnyDough - Wednesday, February 1, 2012 - link
I disagree. Supply and demand. They don't have the supply and there's a big enough demand to keep prices inflated. Nobody can be upset at all about the prices. If you don't like them, don't buy the product. It's that simple. Capitalism fails us often, but here's a case where it works just fine. :)TerdFerguson - Wednesday, February 1, 2012 - link
By your foolish reasoning, AMD would be in top form if it produced and sold just a couple of hand-crafted units each quarter. That they can't meet volume demand is a failing, not a benefit.artk2219 - Wednesday, February 1, 2012 - link
I've got to say that I agree with JohnnyDough, in the short term keeping prices high and making a killing off of each card sold is a good thing for AMD, not so great for us consumers but again, its not like anyone is forcing you to buy it. However you are correct in that in the long term that is a failing strategy for a company like AMD, its not like they're making luxury sports cars :). Either way it makes no difference to me and it puts them in a great position for a coming price war with Nvidia and Kepler which will inevitably be faster, I just hope Nvidia does something about their power profile.chizow - Wednesday, February 1, 2012 - link
Perhaps, but judging by Newegg's current stock of 7950, supply is exceptionally good or demand is exceptionally soft for this product at its current price. Maybe somewhere in the middle?But as you said, if you don't like it, don't buy it and it seems in this case, capitalism works just fine. ;)
Gamer23 - Wednesday, May 2, 2012 - link
I was drooling when I first read about the Sapphire 7950 and the XFX 7950 DD, but now until AMD developes better drivers, I am still on the fence, and holding on to my 5850 Toxic. I believe most people are like me, $500? I'll sit back and wait, till I see better driver support, and a $300 dollar price tag! I believe you are right also about demand being soft, as I believe most purchases are fresh builds not upgrades.Gamer23 - Wednesday, May 2, 2012 - link
I totally agree with you, I am running a i7 940 with a 5850 Toxic, and even with all of the latest games that have recently come out, I am not even pushing this rig yet. Since games are now being locked at 60 fps, what's the sense of spending $500 for the latest and greatest and only getting 60 fps? Until game developers pull off the 60 fps govenor, (catering to console ported games) it will be a while yet before I am ready to let go of this Video card.xeridea - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
I totally agree. I have a 6850 I got at a very good price. It runs any game on the market reasonably well. I run Crysis 2 with DX11 patch and texture patch @ 2048x1152 with reasonable framerates (I think my dual core is my bottleneck, usually I only get ~70% GPU utilization). I used to get cards slightly higher in generation performance, but these days it doesn't really matter with mostly crappy console ports.chizow - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
I agree for the most part, but there are at least 3 major influences pushing game technology:1) Increases in VRAM usage in current games. Whether its due to MSAA, higher-res textures and texture mods, games like Skyrim, BF3, Metro 2033, Crysis 2 are really chewing up VRAM budgets on cards. These games will use 1.5GB no problem at 1080p, so just imagine higher resolutions or muti-display set-ups.
2) As mentioned, multi-display set-ups like EyeFinity or Nvidia Surround. They'll use up ~3x the VRAM as a single monitor and with increased AA requirements, that quickly adds up. In these instances, a 7950/7970 would shine over last-gen parts with less VRAM and bandwidth.
3) 3D. 1080p isn't that demanding anymore, but 1080p in 3D is roughly double the rendering requirements but puts an even greater emphasis on maintaining 60FPS minimums. Its really quite demanding and an area more GPU horsepower is always welcome, even with SLI/CF configs.
But yes, other than these niche areas there's probably not too much reason to upgrade at this point, especially when these offerings don't really shift the price/performance/value bar at all.
kashifme21 - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
Well from personal experience i have GTX 580 in SLI. Both the cards have 1.5gb memory.I game at a resolution of 5760*1080. Unless i shift the AA to some crazy setting like 8x AA, my VRAM generally isnt a bottleneck.
I am currently playing a game like Skyrim at 5760*1080. Maxed out settings with 4X AA, FXAA & 4xTRAA
My game is mostly running locked at 60fps, sometimes in towns it does drop down to 45fps, however otherwise the experience is quite smooth.
Hence i would disagree that VRAM really is a limitation even at insanely high resolutions, 1.5GB Vram is pretty dam good.
Now with the next consoles only expected to be sporting GPUS like 6670, i wonder how Nvidia and AMD intend to keep both markets alive.
At one hand they support console gaming which doesnt really bring them too many chips a year and it will eventually cause PC gamers to stop upgrading. The business model looks like its going to axe their own feet.
chizow - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
You must not run any texture mods at all, because Skyrim will use 1.5GB at only 1080p with only 2xMSAA+2xTSAA.Same for BF3, Crysis 2, Metro 2033 and quite a few other games with just highest-res official textures and 4xMSAA+2-4xTSAA.
JarredWalton - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
I have a single 1.5GB GTX 580, and at 2560x1600 I definitely feel the lack of VRAM. If he doesn't notice lack of RAM at 5760x1080, I don't trust his judgement. (Hint: it's the minimum frame rates and stutters that come from the lack of memory; averages can be fine, but minimums often tank.)Sabresiberian - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
Thanks Jarred for talking about performance where it counts, minimum frame rates and stutters.;)
chizow - Wednesday, February 1, 2012 - link
Yeah I completely agree about "feeling" the lack of VRAM, because it literally feels like I've submerged my mouse/monitor in oil or molasses. Idk the input lag and stutters from deferred AA just gets really unbearable once you start exceeding VRAM.But yeah I dropped a note in Ryan's 7970 closer look about PCIe bandwidth, VRAM and memory bandwidth. It'd be interesting to see how much of an impact PCIe bandwidth plays a role on cards with less VRAM, since that's when you'd expect more paging to system RAM over the PCIe bus. Also for memory bandwidth, although that's more between the GPU and RAM modules.
Anyways would be interesting to see something like that done using 1.5/3GB variants maybe a 580 and the 7950 when the 1.5GB arrives?
MattM_Super - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
Yes I would enjoy more performance (esp at a lower power draw). I like to get ~60fps minimum @1080p. In games with fancy lighting effects, 4xAA, high res textures, like Witcher 2, metro 2033, crysis 2 dx11 current cards cant deliver that. Its a luxury sure, but one I am willing to pay for.I also think there is still plenty of room for improvement in graphics.
sleepeeg3 - Wednesday, February 15, 2012 - link
Bingo. The fanboys are too focused on bickering to realize these GPUs are blowing past 100fps on popular games. Who cares? Game companies stopped pushing the limits years ago.chizow - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
Its funny because next-gen single-GPU performance *USED* to be measured against previous gen x2 GPU card or CF/SLI where we would expect 50+% increase over last-gen single-GPU.But yes its easy to ignore the fact the 580 also overclocks quite well. I don't know what would be worst though for a new 7950 or 7970 owner. Kepler launching and make these prices look like tragic comedy, or AMD releasing the HD89xx not too long after to make them feel even worst about their purchase.
Either way, you make a compelling argument against buying one of these cards today.
Master_shake_ - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
you are obviously a fanboy,obviously you missed the part where the 7970 can oc to 1125 on the cvore and max out the vram clock with STOCK voltiage, and when you do so it beats BEATS the gtx 590 a current gen dual gpu card.
chizow - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
While I value OC'ability, I don't consider OC to stock comparisons relevant because frankly, it makes no sense.Every card can OC to some degree so an apples-to-apples comparison should be the primary comparison with overclockability secondary.
Tchamber - Wednesday, February 1, 2012 - link
Rather than call you a fanboy, I would ask for an example of a high end card going against the previous gen x2 card...and bear in mind that ONCE does NOT consitute a trend. I think evolution of performance is always incremental, at least is has been since gtx200 and radeon 4000 series.chizow - Wednesday, February 1, 2012 - link
-GTX 280 was very close to as fast as 9800GX2Filter prevented a link for this, but google computerbase GTX 280 review and look at performance rating summary.
-GTX 480/580 was faster than GTX 295
Same deal, google 480 review for that site.
-GTX 680 should be very close to GTX 590 performance
What makes this easier on the next-gen GPU flagship is the last-gen X2 parts generally have to make sacrifices in either bandwidth, functional units, or clockspeeds to stay within TDP envelopes along with imperfect multi-GPU scaling, so you generally see only 50-75% scaling over the top single-GPU of that generation.
So you can look at it two ways, either next-gen should be ~50% faster than the top last-gen GPU, or it is very close to the last-gen X2 GPU card.
I'm trying not to take any shots at AMD fans, but their reactions to these Tahiti parts in light of historical price and performance leads me to believe they either have very low standards/expectations or they just haven't been paying attention to the industry.
Galidou - Saturday, February 4, 2012 - link
''they just haven't been paying attention to the industry''Wait, if I buy a GPU now, and I want the top single gpu for multiple screens, whatever the people in the world think about what I WANT, I realize that I have more power for my money by buying a 7970 and I go with it, it turns out that because I have done that, I'm an AMD fanboy because I haven'T been paying attention to the industry?
OMG I'm such a tard, I forgot I haven'T paid attention to the industry so I should of paid more for a less performing card..... darn that's how stupid I am.....
chizow - Saturday, February 4, 2012 - link
If you absolutely had to have a new card today, sure you'd have some reason to buy a 7970, but still not at these prices imo.If you wanted to maximize your return on the dollar however, you'd be much better off waiting for Kepler because even if the 7970 still suits your needs better at that point, Kepler will almost assuredly force downward pressure on all Tahiti AND Fermi parts and force AMD and Nvidia to adjust prices accordingly. In the past AMD has done this when they launched a next-gen part first (See: 5850/5870 launch), but not this time.
This actually reminds me a lot of the X1950XTX launch. Great performance when it launched and price perfectly justified compared to Nvidia's last-gen G70/G71 designs like 7900GTX and 7950GT. But as soon as G80/8800GTX launched a few months later, it made that buy decision look horrible in retrospect.
So yes, while a X1950XTX today, er I mean 7970 today looks perfectly justified, it would be a mistake to ignore what the future holds and what the past has told us when making a buying decision.
Galidou - Sunday, February 5, 2012 - link
What about the pricing of gtx 280 at launch vs the price of 8800gt were selling? There's always an example about Ati making bad pricing decisions, but nvidia... not out of your mouth?I'm no ATI fanboy, I'm just waiting for you to show us you see the other side of the medal...
Those GTX 280 650$ at launch while the 8800gt was about 55-65% of the performance of that card but HEY it was three times cheaper... No you haven't heard of? Oh I forgot, Nvidia makes no mistakes, it's ATI that did with the 4870 pricing it so low, but Nvidia... they make no mistake.
But hey the price of the 7970 accordingly to it'S performance is SO BAD compared to the triple price of that GTX 280 for not even double the performance over that nice 8800gt...
Galidou - Sunday, February 5, 2012 - link
Oh wait, wait, the 9800gx2 was priced 150$ lower than the GTX 280 and was performing more than gtx 280!! LOL speak about mispricing.... LOL OMG THAT'S RIDICULOUSGalidou - Sunday, February 5, 2012 - link
LOL that 7970 story pricing like it was the worst decision a Video card manufacturer ever made is so ridiculous chizow, it'S not a good decision either, we would all like to see lower prices considering we know the size of the die under the hood and we know it can be priced lower.But that GTX 280 thingy because Nvidia was thinking they had no competition was a little like taking people for DUMMIES. The radeon 4870 wasn't so mispriced, it was the gtx 280 that WAS. The GTX was uber big but didn'T justify over triple the price of 8800gt or higher price than a 9800gx2 considering the performance of those parts..... HELL NO.
In the end, I prefer a pricing according to performance than being taken for a DUMMY by a company leading the technology with a little more performance...
chizow - Sunday, February 5, 2012 - link
Like I said Galidou, the GTX 280 absolutely earned the original MSRP. It was a true flagship card in every respect and maintained the price:performance increase you would expect from a new next-gen GPU over its predecessor.You still haven't refuted this because again, the data is all out there. It was over 1.5x faster than the 8800GTX/9800GTX and roughly the same speed as the 9800GX2, the minimum baseline expectations anyone should have for a new flagship card on a new arch/gen/process.
AMD was the one who mispriced their card at the time they could least afford to do so. Some like myself argued they just didn't know how to make money. They could've easily priced it at $400 and STILL forced Nvidia to drop prices on the GTX 280 and especially the GTX 260.
But yes, Nvidia looked horrible after that decision but did right by their customers by issuing rebates. Now AMD is in the exact same position and stands to look badly with this pricing. Do you really think they will do the same if Nvidia forces them to cut prices on these parts? Its OK, you can say a bad thing about AMD too. ;)
chizow - Sunday, February 5, 2012 - link
We've already covered this, because with the exception of very rare and extraordinary increases like the 8800GTX or 9700pro, 2x increases over last-gen flagships are NOT normal.The GTX 280 was easily 2x faster than the 8800GT, but the 8800GT was a refresh mid-range performance product. Whatever price:performance discount it carried already existed compared to the high-end parts of the time like the 9800GTX and 9800GX2, where it cost significantly less for excellent performance.
Similarly, in these last few generations of cards mid-range cards like the GTX 460 and GTX 560 can be had for less than half of what a GTX 480 or GTX 580 cost but they perform much better than the cost would indicate. Obviously the top Kepler does not need to be 3x faster than the GTX 560 in order to command a $500 price tag commensurate with the flagship slot.
In summary, the top cards do command a premium and determine the pricing for all cards that follow, but their merit for commanding that top price is judged against previous cards and generations.
Its already become obvious that 15-25% increase from Tahiti over Fermi doesn't carry enough mustard to push the stack, since its momentum wasn't enough to even shift the metric at the second stop, the 7950.
Galidou - Sunday, February 5, 2012 - link
It was the same performance than a 9800gx2 when it was in 2560* resolution because of memory, for the rest(99.5% of the people with 1080p or less back then) the 9800gx2 was truncating the gtx280 for 150$ less.chizow - Sunday, February 5, 2012 - link
No it was trading blows with the 9800GX2 and beating it at the highest resolutions and AA settings that mattered for people looking to upgrade.This is going to happen with any new flagship part because of the overall increased pipeline. High-end cards are meant to push high-end settings and resolutions because what you have is usually enough at lower end settings. This is why we "upgrade".
Regardless, X2 parts are always going to carry some performance advantage at cheaper prices but that's because single-GPU always carries a premium that goes with being the top single-GPU flagship.
You can look at any forum and you see this decision making process all the time with both last-gen GPUs and newer ones.
But back to the point. Flagship next-gen GPUs do generally tend to compete with last-gen X2 in performance, not always a convincing win across the board, but enough to effectively retire those cards. That's clearly not the case with the 7970.
Galidou - Sunday, February 5, 2012 - link
Nope you still can,T say something wrong about Nvidia you corrected them by saying they issued rebates to their customers, and AMD is not in the same position, they did not price it for dummies, it'S accordingly to it'S performance... wow when will you realize triple the price and according to it'S performance is different? that's all I wan you to say lol!chizow - Sunday, February 5, 2012 - link
Is the 7970 triple the performance of the 6950? So then how does it justify 3x the price?Its amazing how you want to try to hold Nvidia to this flawed logic and dismiss it when the 7970 fails even WORST at meeting it.
Again, this just makes you look incredibly stupid or incredibly dishonest, neither of which are flattering.
Galidou - Sunday, February 5, 2012 - link
it'S not triple the price of 6950 it's a LITTLE more than double, fi you have to lie this discussion is over..... when I said triple the price of the 8800gt I was gentle, 650$ for gtx 280 while 8800gt were selling for I remember I got one for 180$ so that's in fact three times and a half, plus we're comparing a 1gb video card price to a 3gb while GTX 280 and 8800gt had 256mb difference.... Now that I see you have to lie I don't want to continue this, I may be not right in EVERYTHING I say but I ain't lying big time....I prefer to be honest in my opinion than being dishonest in a certitude.....
Ati radeon 3870 sucked big time, they never offered as good a competition to Nvidia after the X1xxx products in my opinion and Nvidia have(most of the time) got better drivers, I prefer their interface, I dislike catalyst. Here's what I have to say about ATI and I have not much wrong about Nvidia but at least I can say I see both side of the medal.
Good luck in the future, peace out.
Galidou - Sunday, February 5, 2012 - link
I was offering you my perception ok I played the troll but I never lacked respect to you, I'm not saying you are stupid or anything while you did, respect is something you can't buy.I may be poking your opinions because you see them as fact but thing is perception is different for everyone. I do not see anything SO wrong in the pricing of the 7970 while you obviously see something very bad in it. I can'T make you see my point of view so I guess you and I are right, depends for who reads us.
respect.
chizow - Sunday, February 5, 2012 - link
You want to talk about respect while throwing out inflammatory comments like fanboy every reply while ignoring the actual facts and logic of an argument? Respect is given where its due.Anyways, like I said, just draw out the pricing history on these high-end parts for the last 5-6 years and you will see what AMD is doing here is unprecedented. At no point has one of these GPU makers ever asked for flagship prices with so little improvement over the last-gen flagships when using a new process node/GPU architecture.
If you are a reasonable person who is deserving of respect, I think you will find truth and reason in what I've written here, fanboyism and lack of respect aside.
Galidou - Sunday, February 5, 2012 - link
Find me anywhere I called you an idiot or a stupid or anything, the worse I said is that ultimate knowledge is crazyness, never called you crazy or ANYTHING, while you did it again., sad to see you have to resolve to those strategy as arguments....The lowest price I can find right now of the 7970 is 520$ and lowest I can find for 6950 is 240$, a little more than double as I said.
I said I trolled and I know it inflammatory comments and lack of respect is different, I was poking your ''facts'' and the way you react and still lack of respect toward me just shows even more...
''who is deserving of respect''
EVERYONE deserves respect and I will still respect you even if you don't for me because respect can't be bought, it is acquired or applied...
Galidou - Sunday, February 5, 2012 - link
And btw you still forgot to input the amount of memory which is 3gb that you forget everytime in your comments....Galidou - Sunday, February 5, 2012 - link
''If you are a reasonable person who is deserving of respect''I just still can't beleive you said that... ''who is deserving respect'' it's deceiving to see such lack of respect in a conversation about gpus,
I understand what you mean, Nvidia as always been about giving double the performance of last gen but they are hitting a wall where it won't be possible until they change the limit of the max TDP which is 300w, they are very close to it, I guess they left some space for double chip cards, but nvidia which isn't their strenght of watt/performance will probably have to change things if they want to squeeze double the gtx580 in their gtx680 in 300w TDP...
Considering ATI are the best at watts/performance and they only squeezed that kind of performance in 250w.....
chizow - Sunday, February 5, 2012 - link
6950 was as cheap as $180-$200 in some sales and the 7970 is $550-$600, so yes at times it was 3x.But the point remains, the 7970 does a worst job at upholding your standard than the GTX 280.
Also, it was a full 2x framebuffer, 8800GT was only 512MB, same as the 9800GX2 which was a massive amount of VRAM at the time. It was also more than the 512MB on the original 4870 with a full 512-bit bus.
Once again, the 280 was a flagship card by every metric, if you want to argue honestly over the facts, at least try to be honest about it.
Galidou - Sunday, February 5, 2012 - link
Yes you're right the 8800gt was 512mb, wasn'T there a 1gb version? I can'T remember...4870 was cheating, it used the first ddr5 memory so it doubled the bandwidth without adding die size, which helped ALOT to it'S great performance, I still like my 4870 which can almost still run everything very well...
Galidou - Sunday, February 5, 2012 - link
ok you want to go in the ''as cheap as'' well my friend got right after me a rebate with special and had a 8800gt for 150$ after everything, I was using regular price for my 8800gt at 180$, so consider a 8800gt at 150$ times 4.33 = 650$, wow, 4 times and a third....Galidou - Sunday, February 5, 2012 - link
IT WAS A FLAGSHIP CARD LOL the radeon 4870 got so close to it with a die half as big and that was what, a month and a half later... speak about flagship at 650$Galidou - Sunday, February 5, 2012 - link
worse than that, the radeon 4870 wasn't even meant to compete with the high end, AMD had left that market for single GPU but still it came SO CLOSE... speak about Flagshipn amzingness that doubles the previous generation.....Galidou - Sunday, February 5, 2012 - link
If you find something to say against my last comment I'm over with you, your closed mind will be the strognest I have ever seen. He will find a reason of the gtx 280 selling so high because of the Nvidia's CEO not having enough food on the table so they had to adjust the price....Poor them, send them food, they're starving!!
chizow - Sunday, February 5, 2012 - link
Typical, resort to histrionics instead of facts and reasoning when arguing.Like I said, the value in the mid-range is there every single generation, not just with the 8800GT. There's a reason why AnandTech and many other sites proclaimed that launch "The Only Card that Matters" and since then any similar card that offers that same price:performance metric relative to the high end is affectionately referred to as "the next 8800GT" like the GTX 460/560 etc.
Galidou - Sunday, February 5, 2012 - link
Still you won't take any arguments that will justify paying triple the price of a card for not even double the performance, or paying more for a card that offer less performance than a last gen x2 card NEVER.That gtx280 was really mispriced and Nvidia took people for dummies by pricing it so high for the performance you gained. The most performance you saw out of those was due to the first over 1gb memory in high resolution like 2560 which applied to not even .5% of the gaming population back then
I don'T care about the titles, titles mean nothing to me that ''only card that matters'' doesn'T change the fact that paying triple the price for a video card for not even double the performance is tanking people for dummies.
Galidou - Sunday, February 5, 2012 - link
We should be happy that Ati doesn't use such pricing technique because it competes against last gen refreshed video cards and justify to pay a higher % price than the % of performance you gain.chizow - Sunday, February 5, 2012 - link
Yeah they use far worst, at least this time.They offer linear scaling of price and performance instead of offering better performance at the same prices which you would expect from a next-gen chip.
chizow - Sunday, February 5, 2012 - link
Why would I take any of your arguments when they are CLEARLY flawed.Its funny why don't you try using those arguments to justify the 7970's pricing? LMAO. Triple? Its not even DOUBLE the performance of previous mid-range cards.
Or previous x2 cards? The 7970 isn't even in the same discussion as the 6990 or GTX 590.
And of course, we've already covered how it falls completely short with regard to previous generation single-GPU flagship cards. Yet AMD somehow thinks it was worth a 10% increase in prices, something not even Nvidia has done since the 8800GTX.
What's REALLY funny though is how you seem to think the GTX 280 was priced for dummies given it actually meets the standards for next-gen GPUs and deserved its price, yet see NOTHING wrong at all with the pricing of the 7970.
Now what does that say about you and those defending it??? :(
Galidou - Sunday, February 5, 2012 - link
It's not double the performance but not double the price either still 7950 performance of gtx580 for cheaper price, convinces me enough to say it isn't taking people for dummies...chizow - Sunday, February 5, 2012 - link
Yeah once again, selective application of flawed logic.Like I said, Tahiti meets none of the established standards you'd expect from a flagship part while the GTX 280.
Yet you think the GTX 280 was priced for dummies and the 7970/7950's pricing is perfectly justified?
Honestly that just makes you look dishonest.
Or the exact type of customer AMD is looking to entice maybe! :D
Galidou - Sunday, February 5, 2012 - link
LOL I'm not even looking at changing video card but I can say bad things about ATI but you'Re definitely 1: a hardcore Nvidia fanboy or 2: they pay you to say things about standard justifying stupid prices... lol standard, what an argument, next tie I'll buy a video card, I'll try to forget a little about perfromance and look at the standard...chizow - Sunday, February 5, 2012 - link
and galidou goes off the deepend folks.Galidou - Sunday, February 5, 2012 - link
mets the standard, now chizow is our standard expert, point is I look at numbers, not standard, triple the price not double the performance, I don'T care abbout the standard when I game with it on my computer.Oh wait my game stopped playing, it tells me, this video card doesn'T meet the standard for it'S price... OMG I should of cared more....
chizow - Sunday, February 5, 2012 - link
No its not my standard, its the standard for what the market will bear using historical data points as my evidence.Buts its fine, its clear illogical and irrational people such as yourself don't have any standard to determine buy decisions, which is fine too.
Ignorance is bliss.
Galidou - Sunday, February 5, 2012 - link
LOL ultimate knowledge is crazyness...Galidou - Sunday, February 5, 2012 - link
I'm not saying at ANY time that the pricing is super right, that it is the right thing to do, I'm just saying from the beginning that it isn'T the worse that ever happened while you're making a freaking case of it.Galidou - Sunday, February 5, 2012 - link
And btw, the freaking card is around 75-90% faster than a 6950 which isn't bad. Nothing amazing but... That gtx 280 was around 65% to 100% faster than a 8800gt(2 gen below gtx2xx series).Galidou - Sunday, February 5, 2012 - link
Whenever any card came out there was already a part that was an x2 card more powerful and cheaper that what was actually out there, what'S new today?JNo - Thursday, February 2, 2012 - link
@chizow,You keep writing like AMD couldn't adjust their prices after Kepler's launch. Also, you do realise that AMD isn't competing with nvidia's 580 from a year ago right? They are competing with it *right now*.
Well done if you bought the 580 a year ago but which card is better value today if you're a buyer? Right now the 7970 looks to be a better price performance proposition. If AMD's pricing makes the 580 look poor, nvidia are free to adjust their pricing but I'd go for the 7950 personally as it is right now.
And no point pre-judging AMD pricing based on a for 'after the Kepler launch' argmument. Just because nvidia haven't adjusted pricing downwards, doesn't mean AMD won't.
I'm not an AMD fan (I buy both camps) but your arguments don't make sense.
chizow - Thursday, February 2, 2012 - link
@JNoI'm not ignoring that possibility at all, I've actually alluded to the possibility on numerous occasions with my "when Kepler launches" comments. It hinges greatly on what Nvidia does of course and how Kepler performs but I don't think ANYONE expects Nvidia to introduce "next-gen" parts at last-gen performance levels because that's the ONLY way AMD's current pricing on these Tahiti parts will make sense. Why? Because they're basing next-gen pricing on last-gen performance.
Instead, what's most likely to happen based on historical pricing and performance metrics, Nvidia will release a new line-up that will completely shift the current market that effectively makes last-gen price/performance obsolete and establishing a new metric that will offer roughly +50% performance at the same price points. Again, mountains of historical evidence from both Nvidia and AMD back my point. This is what is expected from "Next-Gen" architectures on "Next-Gen" fabrication processes.
What AMD is doing here is cashing in short-term profits but ignoring long-term repercussions. As I stated in another comment, the people most likely to buy this product are AMD's most devout and loyal fans. IF they have to drop the pricing on these Tahiti parts because they were forced to so shortly after launch as a result of Nvidia's Kepler price/performance, how do you think these early adopters are going to feel? Their biggest fans are going to feel the biggest burn.
There is precedence for this with the GTX 280 launch. Nvidia did right by their customers by issuing rebate checks for $100-150 per card. Do you think AMD is willing to do the same? Just something to consider.
Sabresiberian - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
People like you love to look at benchmark results that support their statements, and ignore the rest of them.Your statement is no more accurate than the statements of those that say the 7970 is barely faster than the GTX 580.
;)
swx2 - Thursday, February 2, 2012 - link
Are you listening to your self? did you just say that a overclocked 7970 (current gen card) is JUST NOW competitive with a last gen card? And you think that AMD has done well with this accomplishment?...what-is-this-i-don't-even...
Iketh - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
Ladies and gentlemen, drugs are bad for you.xeridea - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
Tru Datxeridea - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
But not as bad as the Obamination we are in today.bji - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
Which is better than the Bush clusterf** we were in yesterday ...Sabresiberian - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
Too bad we can't actually blame stupidity on some drug that we can prevent people from smoking.;)
dagamer34 - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
So you want to wag your finger at AMD for trying to make money when Nvidia has decided not to show up for a few months? Everyone knows that competition drives lower prices and right now AMD doesn't have any at the truly high end. If you want the parts now, you can pay up or wait. It's that simple.I am actually glad AMD is competing at the truly high end again because it shows confidence in their products. Confident products = bolder designs in the long term.
chizow - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
Actually I've been saying for years AMD missed an opportunity to profit by mispricing their RV770 badly. Ever since that time they've been trying to dig themselves out of the pricing mistake they caused, because as a direct result, Nvidia dropped their flagship single-GPU prices to $350-400 for the 2nd tier and $500 for the top single gpu. Since AMD's subsequent parts have always trailed Nvidia's same-gen parts, they were obviously forced to price their cards according to Nvidia's performance, which generally meant $400 or less.The problem is that SI offers none of the performance and value you would expect from a next-gen part, nor does it raise the bar for price/performance. It only manages to keep the status quo using last-gen metrics and the 7950 is direct proof of this. Its roughly the same price and performance as the GTX 580, which would've been great if this were 2010 when the GTX 580 launched, but its 2012 now.
arjuna1 - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
leave it to an nvidia fanboy to twist facts around as needed to put nvidia on top.chizow - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
I didn't say Nvidia was on top...But honestly, as an ATI fan take a look at the 6970 results compared to the 7950 and then ask yourself if you really think the 7950 is worth the price at $450-500 compared to the $300-350 for a 6970....
I mean if you thought the 6970 was a great deal compared to the GTX 580 how on earth could you think the 7950 is some amazing bargain some 14 months later?
Galidou - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
OMG and you just realized that? Welcome in 2012, you hav ebeen sleeping for the last 20 years?!?Video card manufacturers have done that a thousand times before... Nvidia and Ati with their rebranding and next gen higher priced than last gen for the same performance... The top segment was never meant to be performance/price top of the chart.... OMG.
So by listening to what you said from the beginning, anything below gtx 580 is useless, because you can find last gen video card lower priced for more or same performance, because of the next-gen price premium... HELLO!?! wake up...
You can find gtx 480's at a way lower price than gtx 570's on the bay for about the same performance...
You can find radeon 4870 about half the price of 6770's for about the same performance....
And so on....
chizow - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
I don't think you understand that in your attempt to discredit my point, you've actually completely validated it.Yes, historically when a new part releases it compresses prices and forces older last-gen parts to drop in price as the new price:performance metrics dictate a drop in price with the next-gen level of performance.
None of this is occurring with SI because AMD has priced this part exactly where its performance lies because they are basing this on last-gen metrics. If anything, lower tier parts are probably UNDER priced relative to performance compared to SI and have no reason to drop in price.
Galidou - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
Well then everything you said is nothing new, and is quite useless, that's what I meant. What's the point mentioning that it always has been like that and say it like if it's totally shocking like if it's new.''In other words, if you wanted this level of performance, you could've gotten it a year ago with the GTX 580 for almost the same price....over a year ago....
And that's why AMD's pricing of these parts fails.''
Than marketting the way is done nowadays is a big FAIL but everyone knows it, ALWAYS has been like that... Car manufacturer makes new cars every year and sometimes it's worse than last year's, and higher priced....
Ever heard of programmed obsolescence??
chizow - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
But this ISN'T how it usually goes, its unprecedented which is why many observers are pointing out the inconsistency. Look at history and even your own examples to show how this is out of the norm.I will leave you with one final question and you try to answer it with a straight face.
If Nvidia launched their new "next-gen" architecture on a new process node like 15nm in 12-13 months and it was only 15-25% faster than the 7970 but cost 10% more, would you be happy with it and consider it some great victory???
I don't know, I mean every way you possibly look at this, it just isn't right.
xeridea - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
I would poo my pants because Nvidia actually did a process shrink ahead of schedule. BY THE WAY 14nm is 2 shrinks from now, and will be about 5 years down the road.Following your conversation, you clearly don't know the reason behind pricing scheme. There is 0 competition with the 7900 series right now, and it is still better price/performace at its high price. Price will go down in time, but cards are always more expensive on release.... welcome to the real world.
You could get the 580 last year for $50 more than the 7950, while using 30-80W more power (idle-game), running 10-25C hotter under load, making more noise, and slightly less performance (even with fairly new drivers for 7950).
chizow - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
Uh, no I understand perfectly why they're pricing it this way.They're trying to make money and capitalize on the brief period of time they can actually charge a premium for holding the performance crown.
But that's not going to stop keen observers like myself for calling them on it, especially when they're pricing last-gen performance at next-gen prices. They might swindle a few of their unwitting fans this time around but this will only hurt them in the long run. And by long, I mean as soon as Kepler launches.
mdlam - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
Too bad your "keen" observations prevented you from noticing that Nvidia is also pricing their 14 month old technology at premium prices? Wait maybe it is because you are a Nvidia fanboy! I won't ever get swindled by AMD, I will only be swindled by Nvidia, says the retard.SlyNine - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
Then go back and look at other launches. Get the facts and stop using Adhominem attacks and showing your ignorance.chizow - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
No, Nvidia priced their last-gen performance based on last-gen premiums, you would expect the next-gen to shift these parts to obsolescence but obviously AMD doesn't feel their users possess the acumen to understand this paradigm.As for retards being swindled by Nvidia, lmao, the difference is, they would've been reveling in their ignorant bliss with this level of performance, 14 months ago. For the same price.
Its truly amazing though, because you're falling into the exact trap AMD expects you to fall for with the pricing of this card. Honestly how can anyone defend the price and performance metric of this card 14 months later?
mdlam - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
AMD doesn't give a shit whether you fall for anything, neither does Nvidia. If enough people buy their cards at X price to support their billion dollar companies, then the price stays. If not, the price goes down. If more people than not refuse to buy the product, then price goes....up.... Whether its this metric or that metric or not fair or super clever AMD trap its all bullshit people make up who hold little educational knowledge in economics or business.mdlam - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
People like you btw.chizow - Wednesday, February 1, 2012 - link
Sounds like someone missed their nap.AMD should care actually, because the only people who would even entertain buying one of these cards are their biggest fans, the ones who are going to feel the burn the worst when the floor drops on the pricing of these products.
Again, there is precedent for this, AMD did it to Nvidia in 2008 and Nvidia was cutting rebate checks. Do you think AMD is willing to do the same?
SlyNine - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
I think it's you that has been sleeping. You're comparing EBay prices for god sakes. We are talking about new releases.The 5870 released 2 1/2 years ago at 379$. It was 2x as fast as the 4870.
When the 4870 released it cost what, 300$ in mid 2008. It was over 2x as fast as the 3870.
How about the amazing 9700pro at around 400$, In some cases being 4X faster then the 4600TI.
This is perhaps a step up from the to the likes of the 2900XT or 5800ultra. But both of those had some rocking competition to deal with. Like the 8800GTX and the 9700pro.
If you think this 30% better performance is worth 580$ then you have no concept of value.
Phate- - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
It took you long enough to notice. Better to go and have this discussion in the comments of the HD6970 review.Galidou - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
Because it's next gen, performs better for the same price and overclocks probably WAY better plus maybe a chance to mod it to 7970? Is that enough?SlyNine - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
Its not better performance for the same price. This time the price has scaled with performance.Normally when a new GPU gen releases its much better performance at the same price as the previous kings release.
Look at the 9700pro, 8800GTX, 5870. Those were great cards for the time. The 7970 is just, Eh. Not bad enough to be considered a 2900XT or a 5800 Ultra. But at least those 2 cards had much better competition.
bhima - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
Actually, AMD's prices for these cards are SO bad, most people will just wait or buy older tech. Hell at least Intel's Sandy Bridge i5-2500K came out at a reasonable $215 which really isn't that high for the performance you get from it... in fact, there is no other CPU at the same price that even comes close, nor was there a CPU last year for the same price that even comes close. Here, AMD is pricing themselves out of the market.mdlam - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
Right, and their egregious pricing mistake is why all their cards are selling out since launch. Because all of AMD's business MBA's and experts are no match for your idea of "a good deal"Maybe you've noticed that things are usually more expensive at launch because of hype, and the fact that you have the fastest card makes pricing irrelevant. Well hell whatever, you didn't even notice that Sandy bridge 2500k opened up at $260-270 dollars at launch, what's the point in taking this further.
Dribble - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
I noticed that when the 5870 and 5850 came out they blew away the competition and were relatively cheap. What was the 5850 price when it came out - about half of the 7950? Yet the performance leap over previous gen for 5850 was much larger then for 7950. That's why everyone is a bit disappointed.gibsnium - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
The 2500k launched that the same price it is today; bought one from newegg at 219$ at launch.
Master_shake_ - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
doesn't anyone else remember when the 8800 ultra was released and Nvidia threw a thousand dollar price tag on it???how short are your memories??
mdlam - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
I remember it can barely run crysisGalidou - Sunday, February 5, 2012 - link
Yeah and then they took out a 8800gt priced so low that they did cut their own leg themselves, lol it was ridiculous, everyone that bought a 8800gts and 8800gtx felt they had been fooled once more by the green goblin :/First time for ATI mispricing their video card higher and look the green goblin fans are all mad...
xeridea - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
Cards always cost more on release as there is built up demand and stock is low. You could have gotten almost as good of performance a year ago... if you don't care about using nearly 100W more power under load, and run 10-25C hotter. There are still 580s selling well over $500 BTW. The Sapphire card has a distinct performance advantage, uses little power, runs 27C under load cooler, near silent, and is cheaper than the average price of the 580.Newegg prices its $20 cheaper than cheapest 580, is faster on average (still fairly new drivers), uses a _LOT_ less power (load and idle), Zerocore power, and a lot cooler all around.. Yeah I would say that is competitive.
Price will surely go down, especially when Nvidia finally gets off its butt and releases its next generation 3 months from now, but it won't make AMD look bad, they will just adjust prices.
OCedHrt - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
AMD is likely charging a premium while it can. Why would it want to significantly undercut NVIDIA pricing which will force NVIDIA to lower their prices as well. It's all about margin, hopefully.Galidou - Sunday, February 5, 2012 - link
Well that's because it's Nvidia's job usually to price their video card higher than they perform, so the green goblin fans are mad because for the first time, AMD fans and rich kidz will buy overpriced video card from the competitor.CeriseCogburn - Sunday, August 26, 2012 - link
LOLamd fanboys are still whining about price, 8 months later, after nVidia drove down their crapship $170 and 3 free games.
Let's face it, amd fanboys are the price whiners. Then after extensive whining, they claim, after the huge 33%+ discounts and free games, that's it's still too high so they will pinch $10 and get the slower amd card, or spend $30 more and get the slower amd card....LOL YES that's what they do.
yankeeDDL - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
Chizow,either you have a very distorted perception of reality, or you're an Nvidia fanboy.
AMD is selling the 7950 at the same price of Nvidia's 580, with the difference that the 7950 has lower power consumption (and noise, and temperature ...) and a plethora of extras.
If you have any clue about what marketing is, you would know that it would be very stupid to lower the price further. They already offer more for the same price: no need to make it any more attractive.
And seriously: do you think that Nvidia, or any other company, in that position, would drop the card prices by $100? Seriously?
If and when Kepler arrives, and if the performance is where it needs to be, then Nvidia will be welcome to lower the prices, and AMD will be forced to follow. It is called competition: that's why it is good to have two (or more) player in a market, not a monopoly.
chizow - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
Again, what don't you understand in my 'distorted view of reality'? I've already laid it out and many others have agreed. What AMD is doing here is unprecedented by pricing their next-gen parts according to last-gen performance.I asked someone else this, but what do you think the reaction would be if Nvidia took 14 months to respond to SI with a "next-gen" part that was only 15-25% faster than the 7970 but cost 10% more, or launched a 7950 equivalent for the same price? There's no progress there....
I mean at that point, even the Nvidia fanboys would declare epic failure don't you think? It makes you wonder why the ATI fanboys don't see it the same way.
As for marketing and competition and all that, you don't seem to get it. At the current prices, AMD makes it very hard for even their own users to justify the cost of these parts. The performance just is NOT there relative to the price when compared to last-gen parts. If they priced these cards more reasonably and similar to their last-gen parts, it would be a no-brainer. But the fact of the matter is, this level of performance was available at this price over a year ago.
yankeeDDL - Wednesday, February 1, 2012 - link
Chizow,what you said the 1st time was clear. No point on repeating it.
You're convinced that AMD should lower the price: frankly, I don't care to explain you why you're wrong. I already said it: the 7950 uses lower power, is less noisy and has more features than the 580, and it offers a (little) higher performance.
ANYONE today buying a 580 would be stupid as they would be getting less for the same price.
So, today, AMD has no reason, whatsoever to lower the price of 7950. AMD is not in business for charity, nor is Nvidia, so if you expect miracles (price-wise) you're in for a surprise.
chizow - Wednesday, February 1, 2012 - link
Right, there's no point in anyone buying a 580 now, just as no one has any reason to buy a 7950 today. If they wanted that level of performance, they could've gotten it any time in the last 14 months for the same price. If they were willing to pay for it, they already have a 580.If they felt the price for that level of performance was too high, they most likely have something in their rig already that fits that price performance metric, and the 7950 does NOTHING to shift their position. There is no incentive for someone who has a 6970 who is getting 85-90% of the 7950's performance to pay 50% more to "upgrade" when they obviously didn't feel that was worth it 14 months ago.
Similarly, do you think it is worth it to "upgrade" to a 7950 if you already own a GTX 580? Of course not! There's simply not enough incentive, and this is why AMD's pricing of this part fails (amongst many other reasons). Does that make sense?
B-Unit1701 - Wednesday, February 1, 2012 - link
What I want to know is where you got this idea that new GPU releases are 'answers' to the other guy's last release? Each new iteration of GPU tech from either side is an improvement or shrink of their own last release putting out more performance. The generation after is already half way thru design phase when the competition unveils their new card, the FASTEST an 'answer' could be developed is 2 generations, and more likely 3.The mistake your making is that assuming that the 580 was the bar AMD was shooting for. It wasnt. They were looking to introduce their new architecture without loosing ground. Looks like nVidias failure with Kepler will enable just that, time to tweak the new design to get the kind of performance numbers you expect to see from a 'next generation' product.
chizow - Wednesday, February 1, 2012 - link
Sorry, but this is incorrect. Nvidia and AMD are direct competitors when it comes to GPUs so relative performance directly influences price.This is why AMD cannot sell CPUs for more than $200. They don't have anything faster than Intel's 10th+ fastest processors (spread over 2-3 generations, its pretty sad actually), so they can't just price Bulldozer at $1000 by slapping an X on it and expect to sell any.
There is a ceiling on the prices they can charge however due to economic and external factors like price elasticity of demand, disposable income, GDP, competing products (consoles etc) so within that construct, AMD and Nvidia have to price their products to make them most attractive to prospective buyers.
They know exactly what % of the market will bite at each price and performance tier using their own gathered market research as well as independent firms like Peddie etc. $400+ is high-end enthusiast, in order to price here, you have to be the top dog, or the 2nd tier. The top dog sets the table for every other GPU, it doesn't matter who makes it.
Historically, this next-gen top dog has shifted the price and performance metric for all next-gen GPUs because the market expects and demands it. That's just progress. Tahiti brings nothing to the table in this regard, its performance is incremental but its pricing just maintains the status quo.
The problem is Tahiti's pricing indicates the GTX 580 was the target it was shooting for, the problem is, they should've been taking aim at Kepler.
JNo - Thursday, February 2, 2012 - link
chizow - the new pirks?TerdFerguson - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
Chizow is right, you guys are wrong. Get over it.Consumer electronics are supposed to get cheaper AND faster at tremendous rates. In failing to improve their price/performance ratio over a couple of generations, AMD has failed. NVidia is failing pretty badly right now, too, but since this is an AMD release, AMD is getting the flack at the moment. If you apply AMD's pricing model to any other consumer electronics product, it becomes very evident that things are very broken. Would you pay $4k for a Ivy Bridge CPU, because IB > SB > Core2 > Core > P4 > P3 > P2 > Pentium > 486 > etc, and a better chip must always command a price premium? Doh, of course you wouldn't.
mdlam - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
Pricing is determined and adjusted based on the law of efficient markets. the 580 is 500 dollars only because people are still willing to pay for it, not because of Chizow's ridiculous theory that companies conspire these fabulous schemes to trick people out of their money. So based on this existing market of people willing to pay 500 dollars for gtx580 performance benefits, AMD is going to TAKE those customers away by giving more for less, or more for more in a linear price/performance scale. It's just how markets work, prices don't revolve around these God-like rules of tier1, tier2, tier3. Guess what, AMD is right, because these cards right now are selling higher than the $550 retail price. They should have priced it at $650!mdlam - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
And there is no flawed pricing model to AMD that would end up with a slippery slope of $4k for an Ivy bridge. Prices = aggregate buying desire of the market. All markets usually hit a ceiling price for an item, no matter what it is. Some people have a high ceiling, some people have a low ceiling, its not anyone's fault, its just the fact of life. Any company, AMD or NVIDIA, or INTEL, will price to sell to people with higher ceilings, and when demand is met, lower price to increase adoption from folks with lower ceilings.chizow - Wednesday, February 1, 2012 - link
Sorry, not in this market.If you think this is OK, there would never be any progress in the semiconductor market. Its not like we're talking cars here where a new model year means a few minor upgrades.
With GPUs, CPUs and any other semiconductor, you expect FASTER performance at the SAME prices or CHEAPER prices. That's called progress.
The law of efficient markets would tell you if you bought a GTX 580 14 months ago, you made the right call. Buying today, you're setting yourself up for some heartache, but more probably, you're kicking yourself for waiting.
Arnir69 - Friday, February 3, 2012 - link
I'm really disappointed with 7950 too, it's a little bit better than 580 but not enough to justify a such a long wait, it's performance is well short of expectation in BF3.hyperdoggy - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
While I'm not in favor of the prices AMD has set for the new cards, you do realize that Nvidia has never prices their cards low right? A quick price check history will show you since the FX day Nvidia has priced their card to sell your kidney. It was the tnt days that Nvidia did a price favor vs their competitors. I bet you my right kidney(i sold my left one for a 8800gtx for $650 day 1 of lunch) that Kepler will be no different, regardless of what its performance will be.I never got the fanboy aspect of things, you see gamers that can calculate min-max fps better than most math majors yet somehow only see red or green when the numbers are laid out right in front of them. I'm shame to say i'm old enough to been around from the voodoo days, i went to Voodoo, Nvidia, Ati, Nvidia, Ati, Nvidia, and now name AMD for more than i can remember. Go for what's best at the time you need an upgrade. Stop making yourself colored hulk when your team doesn't have a product to be competitive.
SlyNine - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
Yea and the 8800GTX kicked stomped the crap out of the competition. This is just a bump up, and kick stomp prices.Plus this is AMD not Nvidia. Where is the 5870, the 9700pro. This is closer to a 5800Ultra or a 2900XT. Of course those cards at least had some real competition in the form of a 8800GTX and 9700pro.
If the 8800GTX and 9700pro would have only increased performance as much as say the 6970 or 580GTX ( compared to their previous cards 5870/480) then the analogy would truly work and the 7970 would basicly be the 2900XT/5800Ultra of its day.
chizow - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
Actually if you look at recent pricing history, you'd see Nvidia has kept their flagship pricing in-line and much lower than what we are seeing here with SI, despite the fact Nvidia had the leading part for that generation in both cases with the GTX 480 and GTX 580.Both of those parts launched at $500 and were faster than AMD's competing same-generation part. If Nvidia did the same as AMD, the 580 would've been priced at $550-600 for that 10-15% performance bump over the 480, but they kept their pricing constant while increasing performance. As I stated earlier, AMD definitely had a hand in this when they undercut the GTX 280 so badly in 2008, but Nvidia did learn their mistake and has not raised the pricing metric since.
Now Nvidia does have a decision to make. If they beat SI with Kepler as expected, they can go with AMD's pricing which will again, make no sense. Or they can stick to their historical price/performance model and make AMD look really bad just as AMD did to them 3 1/2 years ago.
Shadowmaster625 - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
Well some of us do care about noise and power consumption. That sapphire card runs very cool and quiet, nearly silent in fact. It uses 30 less watts at typical idle and nearly 100 watts less than a 580 while gaming. That's about a penny per hour of gaming. Power savings could easily reach $40 over two years of gaming, plus another $30 if you leave your pc on 24/7, for a total of $70 saved over two years.Thats is about what one year of technological advancement is worth.
SlyNine - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
Because in part the 480/580 are dogs in regards to power consumption. My 5870 idles at nearly the same and only uses a bit more under load. It is also 2 1/2 years older.AssBall - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
You do realize that the parts you have "execs jumping out of windows" about account for maybe 1/200th of the companies income? Guess not.chizow - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
Actually I think these parts will make up an overwhelming % of the company's income given their graphics division is one of the few within AMD that consistently turns a profit. But I guess I actually know what "income" is and how its calculated. Given these parts sell for 50% higher price than any single-ASIC SKU (CPU or GPU) in the last 5 years, I think there's a good chance these parts will make up the bulk of their profit for the quarter.You really think AMD is turning some amazing profit on their free AR Bulldozer promos or happy meal priced APUs when they struggle to make a profit on a quarterly basis? There's break-even (90-95% of their revenue) and then there's parts like this that actually sell for a profit. They don't need to sell high volume on these parts when the ASP and margins are so healthy.
repoman27 - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
Actually, you should try reading AMD's Q4 earnings report which was just posted here: http://www.anandtech.com/show/5465/amd-q411-fy-201...The graphics division only accounted for 8.4% of AMD's operating income for fiscal 2011, if you ignore the accounting monkey business regarding GloFo.
Of that 8.4%, about half is likely attributable to FirePro because the gross margins for professional and compute solutions are easily double that of consumer GPUs.
While the ASP's and gross margins on enthusiast cards are great compared to the high volume consumer stuff, they still represent a niche market, and realistically less than 3% of AMD's 2011 operating income.
chizow - Wednesday, February 1, 2012 - link
I have read it and it obviously doesn't include any significant Tahiti or 28nm parts, since they only started to ship the first few units for revenue for that Jan 7th 7970 launch.As stated in the article:
"while the first true 7000 series part (Tahiti) did not launch until 2012 and only started shipping for revenue very late into 2011. Still, it was enough to have a significant impact on AMD’s GPU ASP, increasing it over 2010’s ASP even with the limited number of new products."
Obviously projected revenue will be much higher with a full quarter at these prices.
But yes the rest of your post confirms my point, if you want to point to FirePro I can already guarantee you they will sell more 7970 consumer desktop parts than any FirePro parts using the same ASIC, we're not talking about Quadro here lol.
At $450-600, that's already a HUGE markup and increase in their gross margins compared to any previous single-ASIC desktop SKU, so its obviously going to result in a huge increase in profits.
And no you can't just discount that "GloFo" business, if the rest of the company loses money because of poor supplier/pricing decisions and selling prices and the other consistently makes money and represents the bulk of the company's income.
repoman27 - Wednesday, February 1, 2012 - link
Seriously, put down the crack pipe.Have you ever looked at the relative prices of consumer desktop parts vs. FirePro parts based on the same chip? Yes, they will sell a lot more of the consumer parts, and yet they will still make more profit on the fewer FirePro parts sold. So when AMD wholesales chips to partners so the partners can produce cards that end up retailing for $450-600, you believe their gross margins are higher than when they sell a FirePro V9800 directly to a retailer who turns around and sells it for $2800?
Why are you so convinced that the difference in retail release prices for the 7 series and 6 series is solely attributable to AMD expanding their gross margin? The 7 series is being offered for 50% more than the 6 series was, and yet the transistor count increased by over 62%. Not to mention that these are the first parts produced on the new 28nm node, so yields are probably less than stellar at this point, despite what TSMC might have us believe.
Furthermore, the GloFo business is germane to both the CPU and GPU divisions. Graphics accounted for less than a quarter of AMD's overall revenue for 2011 and only 8.4% of their income, no matter how you want to look at it. All I omitted was the one time charges that AMD took for the decrease in value of their stake in GloFo and the costs associated with their corporate restructuring.
No matter what you believe, 8.4 is a larger number than 91.6. Hang it up, you're flat out wrong.
chizow - Thursday, February 2, 2012 - link
No, you need to put down the "crack pipe."You're using past performance to define FUTURE revenue forecasts, which is what my statement was about. That's the whole point, the GPU division WAS disappointing in 2011, but ASP and profit increased year over year in Q4 based on the high ASP of the few Tahiti parts that shipped in December.
Obviously Tahiti parts will have a bigger impact on both numbers in Q1 '12 with a full 3 quarters and volume shipment at these high ASPs which is exactly what I stated.
As for why I think the difference in 7 and 6 series pricing was the difference in segment margins? Because I know how to read financial statements and MD&A. 11/12 months with DECLINING revenue and margins selling only 6 series and specifically cited by AMD caused by declining sales and ASP on their desktop and shortages of their Llano mobile parts. Then in Q4, despite declining revenue sequentially and y2y, their ASP, margins and profit increases. Do you think this is a result of their 6 series which spent the whole year declining in sales and margin, or the 7 series that sell for 50-100% more than their previous products? Hmmm.....
Now what do you think is going to happen with a full 3 quarters at the same prices for the graphics division? What do you think is going to happen to the company's financials given they are predicting a gloomy outlook with predicted 8% decrease in revenue sequentially? I can already guarantee you the graphics division will be profitable, maybe ~$100M, but the CPU division will at best break even if they don't post a loss. Which brings us full circle to the comment you and others apparently had issue with:
Actually I think these parts will make up an overwhelming % of the company's income given their graphics division is one of the few within AMD that consistently turns a profit.
repoman27 - Wednesday, February 1, 2012 - link
And clearly I meant to say that 8.4 is NOT a larger number than 91.6.Sunburn74 - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
I think the power.consumption reductions are quite significant and eventually may be passed onto the mobile space.mak360 - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
i would easily buy the HD7950 over the old tech - outdated - hot - power hungry - loud GTX580 junk. The HD7950 is same price, new tech, uses 72 watts less, is cooler, is silent, is 28nm, is faster, has compute, has pcie3, has x3 monitors, has audio over each channel, also slaps the 590 if thats what you want lol.its a win-win, you would have to be an idiot to buy anything nvidia has currently in the high end.
chizow - Wednesday, February 1, 2012 - link
Anyone interested in high-end already owns Nvidia and is hitting the snooze button on this launch until Kepler.There's only a 15-25% reason to buy a 7970, 0-5% reason to buy a 7950.
Death666Angel - Wednesday, February 1, 2012 - link
You keep repeating it, and you keep being wrong. There are a million reasons for someone to upgrade their system now. Maybe they got a better monitor for christmas and need the graphics card upgrade but waited a month until AMD revealed their new tech? Maybe it's someones birthday and he can get a big card. Or someone got a new job and wants a new card today? Not everyone who has the money and need for such a card now had it in the months before it.chizow - Wednesday, February 1, 2012 - link
In that case, they should probably wait for the real next-gen, since that's what most anyone was doing prior to the disappointing Tahiti reveal.Or go ahead and pick up a 6970/570 for much better price/performance return. Although we may actually see the prices go back up now that its obvious Tahiti did nothing to force downward pricing pressure.
yankeeDDL - Wednesday, February 1, 2012 - link
Just look at the review from Tomshardware.Based on performance, they were expecting the 7950 to be prices around $480. Then they were informed about the MSRP of $450 and took it extremely well.
Just sayin'
Spunjji - Wednesday, February 1, 2012 - link
Unfortunately you gave yourself away as a bit of an idiot as soon as you failed to address anything about the product other than its raw performance.Precisely what makes you think that AMD /has/ to price their products at this level? They have a smaller chip that performs better for less power. As soon as nVidia releases competing products they'll drop trou on the price and everyone can be happy. Right now they're price-gouging the performance-obsessed, just like nVidia have been for as long as they've had the top product.
Personally, I'm disappointed that they've abandoned the 3/4/5000 series approach of providing fantastic value for money, but apparently that wasn't earning them any money. Big shame, don't care, move on. I'll be waiting for Kepler to show before I make any buying decisions.
chizow - Wednesday, February 1, 2012 - link
If the only thing AMD is able to bring to the table from a full node process shrink is a reduction in power consumption, they've already failed.What compounds their failure however, is the fact they're trying to price this card that doesn't even significantly outperform last-gen parts at existing prices.
If they actually priced this where it should be ~$380-$400, it'd be a completely different story. Because they'd actually be offering you all of those fringe benefits you listed as well as either high-end performance at a much lower price OR significantly higher performance at the same price.
These are the kinds of metrics people look at when deciding to upgrade, or not. Pricing a product that performs the same as a part that's been available for 14 months already just doesn't make any sense, sorry.
ven - Thursday, February 2, 2012 - link
after all the conversation you have given i came to only one conclusion you all guys created as much hype for the kepler. Nvidia will be much delighted for this.after reading all these I would be not surprised if Nvidia print a link to these website page on their kepler card boxes as part of their advertisement.chizow - Thursday, February 2, 2012 - link
I don't think Nvidia cares about what's written here tbh, I don't think it took more than looking at the benchmarks for them to get excited.What they care about:
-AMD's top 28nm = only 15-25% faster than their last-gen top 40nm
-AMD's 2nd 28nm = only 0-5% faster than their last-gen top 40nm
The result is the rumors and indirect quotes attributed to Nvidia personnel at CES amounting to:
"We expected more from AMD's HD7900 series."
But really, this quote could and should be attributed to anyone, especially at the asking price. It seems most people feel this way, makes you wonder why AMD fans don't.
Galidou - Saturday, February 4, 2012 - link
it's fun to see comparison of parts only by the size of the transistor..... the thing is the 40nm parts from nvidia from last gen are BIG gpus, you gotta compare the quantity of transistor to transistor to understand the % increase in performance....AMD's smaller gpus smaller power enveloppe that maxes performance/die size vs Nvidia's maximum die size/max performance attainable with good yields...
chizow - Saturday, February 4, 2012 - link
Well I'm not one to totally dismiss metrics like power consumption, thermals, noise but really those types of considerations are tertiary for anyone looking in this segment, especially when its very clear relative pricing is based on performance and performance only.Performance is primary, secondary considerations would be actual features (API, multi-mon, 3D, compute, etc.) and these fringe considerations like power, noise, heat a distant 3rd for anyone interested in this segment. It is more important for some people, but generally, performance is not the primary consideration for those people. Generally those who shop in this segment look at performance without compromise.
In any case, Nvidia's strategy for their flagship ASICs have always been big die since the G80 and from that they've generally derived their top two desktop SKUs and X2 parts. But on top of that, they also put these ASICs in their highly lucrative professional parts like Tesla and Quadro. This is not unlike Intel's strategy with their highest-end CPUs (Westmere, SB-E) where the highest-end parts are shared between their high-end server and enthusiast desktop platform.
AMD's strategy used to be "small die" after the R600 fiasco, where they would release a much smaller chip and still remain competitive through smaller process node and higher clock speeds with a halo X2 part made easier because of these smaller die sizes. But if you look at the die comparisons over the years, you can clearly see this small die strategy is getting away from them as well, as their chips have grown in size and power consumption through each generation.
There was always internal conflict over this "small die" decision though, but it looks to me like the "big die" folks are back in favor at AMD GPU as they realize they will never be able to beat Nvidia with a smaller die and higher clocks alone and aren't going to fetch a higher asking price based on just good looks and more attractive thermals.
Arnir69 - Saturday, February 4, 2012 - link
I was looking forward to 7950 but the perf jump from my 580 is negligible so I'm going to pass, was expecting more from AMD, loved their 6950 in cfx which was awesome value. If I was still running those there would be even less reason to buy 79xx. I agree with Chizow's point: Nothing new or exciting here, now looking at Kepler to shakeup 2012's high end graphics scene.chizow - Saturday, February 4, 2012 - link
Thanks, I knew there were reasonable minds out there that felt similarly. Reading through the comments there are definitely more who feel the same way, which is assuring, because I really don't want to see a $750 flagship card from Nvidia.It just seems there's a few unreasonable folks out there who just want to ignore the obvious along with mountains of historical data points that tells us what AMD has done here with Tahiti pricing is unprecedented and frankly, quite shocking.
RussianSensation - Saturday, September 8, 2012 - link
"If GK110 beats the 7970 by 20-25% and costs only $500, AMD execs will be jumping out of windows."GK104 $500 ended up losing the performance and price/performance crown to the HD7970 OC on air and on water. Looks like your prediction didn't come true this round.
HaydenOscar - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
"[partner cards]"In the middle of the first page. :)
prime2515103 - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
"On January 20st..."Paragraph one, line two, sentence two.
jjj - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
with the 6970 starting at 300$,this one is a tough sellcasteve - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
looks like a cut/paste error creeped in. :)casteve - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
sapphire pricing in the table needs to be updated, too.Ryan Smith - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
Please reload. It should already be fixed.mczak - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
page 4 states that the clocks of the OC 7950 are the same as the shipping clocks of the 7970 (so the cards only differ by the shader units) which isn't true as the reference core clock of the 7970 is 925Mhz, not 900Mhz.Now that's only a 3% difference but given the performance difference from those OC 7950 to 7970 often ends up only being ~5% this definitely is significant.
carage - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
When will the actual cards be available for sale?I've just checked Newegg, Tiger Direct, Micro Center, Fry's, and Amazon, none of them have the 7950 listed.
antef - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
I feel like I'll be waiting forever for a $250 28 nm part (whatever that may be...)casteve - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
Thanks for the review. Looking at the Sapphire card, it's a 30%+ speed bump over the 6950 for just 13 watts more power. I look forward to the 78xx and the GTX 6xx this spring and more reasonably priced mid-ranged gaming cards.Articuno - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
That's why the 7950 is so absurdly expensive. The 5850 was miles ahead of anything nVidia had when it launched, and remained miles ahead throughout the entire first Fermi generation, yet it was launched at a very affordable and acceptable $259 price point.Despoiler - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
I'm not sure what kind of fantasy land you are living in, but the 7950 beats the 580 in everything. It's priced at $450, which ~$17 is cheaper than tier 3 PNY 580 cards. Most 580 cards sit around $500. Why should AMD price the 7950 at $250 and make zero or likely lose money? AMD has better cards. They are actually charging what they should be charging. It was a complete blunder to launch the 5850 and 5870 cards at the prices they did. The only saving grace is they likely converted a lot of Nvidia buyers. The 5850 was my first AMD card and I'm not likely to go back to Nvidia with my bad experiences with their card makers.AnandThenMan - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
Is it true that you did not update the BIOS on the XFX card as per emailed instructions from AMD? According to Hardwarecanucks.com retail versions of the card have an updated BIOS that review samples sent out did not.Ryan Smith - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
We're using the latest BIOS from XFX, 015.013.000.010.000705.http://images.anandtech.com/doci/5476/XFX.gif
AnandThenMan - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
Thanks. It looks like the XFX is just too damn loud, I'm finding their stuff is quite sub par lately.AnandThenMan - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
Page 3 of this thread, no BIOS version is given however.http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php...
"Basically, XFX emailed all media days before launch stating that their retail cards had revised fan speed profiles that allowed for slightly increased temperatures but kept the fans MUCH quieter. They sent us all a the retail BIOS file with the proper speeds. What you see above are the differences between the beta and the final release BIOS"
Ryan Smith - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
Correct. That's BIOS 015.013.000.010.000705Ryan Smith - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
I should add that this is also the build number of the BIOS on Sapphire's card.AnandThenMan - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
Thanks for the info, appreciated.Sttm - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
There is 0 chance these retarded prices will remain past Nvidia's next gen launch. At that point the 7950 will drop below $300 to be competitive. So if you pay $450 now, you are a chump.mdlam - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
NO....maybe its because you just want the best card. just like all the other "chumps" were paying 500 for a gtx580 or still are, which is a completely disproportionately unfavorable price/performance ratio compared to the 560ti/6950 unlocked.rronald1 - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
I was hoping for $300-350 price tag for 7950.Right now it´s much better to get 2x second hand 6970 running in crossfire, you will get better performances than even 7970 or even 6990.
But we all know the price will drops like stones once Kepler hits the market.
mdlam - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
Only if Kepler isn't a total fail like FermiEugene86 - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
Except Fermi wasn't a fail...artk2219 - Wednesday, February 1, 2012 - link
The original Fermi could most definitely count as a fail, hot loud, power hungry, big, expensive for only 20% more power than a 5870, and LATE, it was fun to watch :). It wasn't until the 460 and the release of the 500 series that Nvidia got that mess worked out.Veroxious - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
While the performance is impressive, the pricing is just ridiculous and leaves a bittter taste in the mouth. One could get similar performance from 2 x 6850 /2 x gtx460's for $320-360.For my next upgrade I was looking for slightly more horsepower than a single gtx580 combined with Ivy bridge. Ofcourse 1st prize for me is a single powerful gpu as opposed to sli/crossfire but at $450 for a reference card it's just pointless. We'll see what happens with Kepler but it seems AMD is setting a recurring trend of increased base cost for every architectural generation which means the costs just keep escalating. What was once a small caliber hole in my pocket seems to have become a 12-gauge crater. Arrrghhhh.........
Finally - Monday, February 6, 2012 - link
"While the performance is impressive, the pricing is just ridiculous and leaves a bittter taste in the mouth."That's why you don't put your GPUs in the mouth and chew on them...
kallogan - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
Lamest pricing policy ever. AMD has apparently decided to stop selling gpus. Fine.Love the undervolted/Oced Sapphire. Undervolting is my way of life.
mdlam - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
Why do you post this nonsense on a 7900 discussion? Does anyone who owns a top tier video card give a rats behind about undervolting? No. That's why you spend 30 dollars and buy a hd6770.kallogan - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
You must have been hurt in some ways by my comment cause you're being agressive kitty.Look at the power consumption and noise levels. The sapphire despite a 100mhz OC blows every other card.
You can't say it's useless.
Ryan1981 - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
The website of sapphire is listing a stock clocked version of the 7950:http://www.sapphiretech.com/presentation/product/?...
Just thought I'd include it.
Ryan1981 - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
Ok after closer examination, almost stock, 810 Mhz Core clock.poohbear - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
can you please use resolutions that the avg user uses? whats thsi 1980x1200 nonsense? who games at that resolution? by far the most popular resolutions are 1650x1050 & 1920 x1080. why not just post figures for those instead of having us guessing?UMADBRO - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
HERP!1920x1080 is 16:9, 1920x1200 is 16:10.
DERP!
Black Obsidian - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
Not to mention that if you game at 1680x1050, you don't need a high-end card anyway, and so have no reason to care how they benchmark at your Cro-magnon resolution. If you get a real monitor (1920x1200 or higher), you can come back for the performance numbers already provided in the article.piroroadkill - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
My machines basically all use 16:10 screens. I have two laptops with 15" 1920x1200 screens, my main monitor is a U2410.. 1920x1200..MrBungle123 - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
I don't think Anandtech is read by the "average user"... I would assume mostly gamers, enthusiasts, and IT pros here. Besides who buys 1920x1080 monitors? If the monitor isn't 1920x1200 or higher its not worth buying.Ryan Smith - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
Hi poohbear;When drawing out the tests for the current GPU benchmark suite we debated between 1920x1200 and 1920x1080. Ultimately it was decided that 1920x1200 would be more useful for our needs and that 1920x1080 would be unnecessary; 1920x1080 is only slightly lower in resolution, so our 1920x1200 numbers are only slightly worse in performance than they would be with 1920x1080. The two should be treated as the same, as there's generally not nearly enough of a difference to matter.
-Thanks
Ryan Smith
Pantsu - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
It seems there's two choices for 7950, either a 450€+ custom OC card or a "v2" reference cheapo-PCB cards that go for 400€ in Europe. It would certainly be interesting to get a detailed look at how much of a difference that makes. To me those "v2" cards look a bit too nerfed in terms of VRM and cooling.IMO 7950 is priced accordingly and is no question better than a GTX 580 by any metric really. That's enough to justify a similar price. It's up to Nvidia to drop the GTX 580 price to compete, but I doubt they'll do that, and instead wait for GK104 to save the day. If it is a success we could see prices drop fast in the high end, but Nvidia isn't known for its low pricing, and neither does it have any need to try grab market share by undercutting its profits. There's a good cap between 7800 and 7900 and they could just occupy it with a GK104 and call it a day, until they get their big chip ready.
marc1000 - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
Any word on 7870 from amd?UMADBRO - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
Feb 15marc1000 - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
Ty!just4U - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
That Sapphire cooler looks pretty much like their Dirt3 Edition 6950s one. A slightly different plastic shroud but fan's and underlay seem mostly the same.. atleast in the picture views I've seen.gamoniac - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
I found that, in IE 9, I have to click on the "Back" button on the browser six to seven times to actually go back to the main page. Taking a closer look at it, I noticed there are a bunch of "Share this Page" history item between this page (Ryan's HD7950 Review) and the main page that took place without my knowledge. Would this be a site bug or a advertisement bug?Ryan Smith - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
To the best of my knowledge (please keep in mind that I'm not responsible for site development), that's not something the site should be doing. In which case it could very well be an ad bug. If it continues to happen you should be able to use the IE9 developer tools (built-in, F12), to try to narrow down what exactly it is you're seeing.gamoniac - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
Without spending too much time on it, I can see that there were a bunch of frame navigation caused by sharethis.com, which I think is the likely culprit. I am able to reproduce this issue on two separate Win7 SP1 machines; one of them is clean with almost installed except for the usual PDF reader and some benchmarking tools.Check out these three images I uploaded:
In the beginning:
http://i43.tinypic.com/nqwgti.jpg
Problem captured:
http://i44.tinypic.com/jai5gk.jpg
IE9 F12 screen shot showing frame navigation:
http://i44.tinypic.com/14y226q.jpg
Good luck.
Ryan Smith - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
Thanks. It looks like the culprit is the ShareThis widget we use. I'll have our developers look at it in the morning.Ananke - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
This is a wonderful but too expensive product for the targeted market niche...It will not gain user base by April to attract software developers away from Kepler...Unless NVidia really executes bad /which they will not-internal source/, AMD will be positioned worthlessly by price/performance. Anyway, I admire AMD and I use their products, just their strategy has been lost recently.gnorgel - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
It seems quite pointless to me to benchmark an OC 7950 vs a stock clocked 7970.Anyone who OCs a 7950 would OC his 7970 too. The interesting question is how these 2 OCed Cards perform against each other - this decides whether the the price difference is worth it or not.
kmmatney - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
The best way to get performance per dollar is at this website:http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu_list.php
and sort by "Video Card Value". Using this chart, I bought an HD6850 today, to replace my HD4890 (which is also near the top of the chart). It has enogh performance for me. The performance per dollar is dominated by AMD at the moment.
kmmatney - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
My comment was supposed to be a response to another comment...LuxZg - Wednesday, February 1, 2012 - link
Now all that I wish for is direct comparison between Sapphire card and PowerColor PCS+ version.. Based on techPowerUp's review PowerColor could actually have even better cooling solution (noise/heat) which would really be amazing since Sapphire is already awesome. Make my wish come true Anand! :)And thanks for great review guys and showing off what a nice job AMD & Sapphire did with their new products...
ChosenOne - Wednesday, February 1, 2012 - link
Here is the link for the comparison chart between PowerColor and Sapphire.ChosenOne - Wednesday, February 1, 2012 - link
forgot the linkLuxZg - Thursday, February 2, 2012 - link
Thanks a lot! Seems that Sapphire has the upper hand after all, in both temperatures and noise..Th-z - Wednesday, February 1, 2012 - link
What GCN is able to do in the future is yet to been seen. They need a software ecosystem to support it, like what CUDA is having. In terms of gaming, aside from lower power consumption, the price isn't very attractive. I can see 7970 command a hefty premium, but the price of 7950 would fail AMD to capture some market share. The price they're trying to undercut is a single-GPU flagship part, which also carries a premium over 570, yet 7950 isn't a flagship part.In terms of gaming performance, 7950 is close to 580, which is close to 6970, yet it costs so much higher than 6970. It would be interesting to see how AMD is going to price their VLIW4 7800 and lower parts, because from the specs, they aren't much faster than 6000 series. This time, we probably won't see good performance jump with similar price points even after a major die shrink (remember they even skipped 32 nm). And I think the unnamed NVIDIA source said they was expecting more from 7970, which I think isn't a bluff, considered their Fermi debacle.
nissangtr786 - Wednesday, February 1, 2012 - link
At the end of the day the 7970 and 7950 are great cards. They are like going from a 65nm pentium 4 to a 45nm core 2 duo in terms of performance per watt. Yes AMD may have not cranked the power consumption like amd do but performance per watt or gflops per watt it is basically double or even better then the last generation 40nm cards.Imagine 10000 40nm gtx 580 running in the world or 10000 7950 running in the world. Saving 160w more each person with similar person. 160w is a lot of power enough to run nearly an m17x r3 with 6970m.
160w multiplied by 10000 people = 1600000 watt difference for same performance of a gtx 580 and 7950. Thats 1.6m watts in simple terms more to game. If process and architecture changes of cpus and graphics cards didn't happen we would still have pentium 4's running at 3.8ghz with 6800 utras taking nearly as much power to run as an i7 3960x and 7970. Also idle watts usage go down every die shrink.
JNo - Thursday, February 2, 2012 - link
I'm surprised you didn't give the Sapphire a Gold Editor's choice award.It is pretty much awesome in every respect and I don't see any drawbacks.
No I don't work for Sapphire but this is the card I'd buy tomorrow (if I really needed it/had more money!)
Finally - Thursday, February 2, 2012 - link
Sapphire did do their homework. I find it astonishing that they were the only ones to consider undervolting, while also overclocking their product. Hats off!chizow - Thursday, February 2, 2012 - link
No, Tahiti is competing with the expectations of a new generation of hardware, expectations they clearly failed to meet. You don't ask for flagship prices when all you bring to the table is refresh performance of 14 month old last-gen parts. If you don't think so, but hey np, I have a copy of Madden 2010 you can buy for $60.How are my expectations too high? More like your expectations are too low if you were impressed with Tahiti. 15-25% faster than the last-gen flagship? Is that a joke? Once again, next-gen expectations commanding flagship prices should be AT LEAST 50% before anyone considers buying. Y'know, the same speed bump that "clusterfk" Fermi was over the last-gen parts...... Once again low expectations of AMD fans just used to being mediocre I suppose....
And to disprove your nonsense again with historical fact, Nvidia did have the fastest card in 2010 with GTX 480, but instead of raising the prices, they kept it the same with the GTX 580. They've done this in the past as well with the GTX 280 > GTX 285. They don't raise prices on refreshes, they also don't raise prices on flagships on new generations because they learned their lesson with GTX 280 after the original pricing fiasco.
chizow - Thursday, February 2, 2012 - link
Wrong again.The rebates were funded by Nvidia for price protected "exclusive" partners in NA and EU markets. At the time, that was EVGA, BFG and XFX.
The partners only sent out the rebate because they received the bulk of payment after shipping to retailers, but only with Nvidia's green light. Nvidia also directly funded/reimbursed or promised more inventory using the credited difference for any existing stock in the channel when they officially dropped the price of the GTX 280 from $650 to $500 and the GTX 260 from $450 to $350. Prices on the top two cards have stayed virtually the same since.
But yes, AMD is setting themselves up for a similar fall. If they priced the 7970 the same as the previous flagships, $500. No one would care that much. If they priced the 7950 the same as their previous 2nd tier, $380-400. No one would care that much.
But they got greedy. For what? 15-25% improvement on a new architecture, full node, and 14 months? History is due to repeat itself, and not in AMD's favor. At least in Nvidia's case, the GTX 280 actually warranted its pricetag relative to last-gen parts. You can't even say that about the 7970.
chizow - Thursday, February 2, 2012 - link
Well if a $300 card is priced where it should be and performs the same as AMD's $450 card something will certainly have to budge.Unless Nvidia decides to just refresh their old parts on 28nm and prices everything the same for a 5-10% increase in performance.
In that case, we can all just not buy video cards this generation because nothing will be worth buying and we can stop pretending these new cards are some awesome new innovation.
chizow - Thursday, February 2, 2012 - link
They're still $500 because demand is still strong, its close to EOL, and people still find value in Nvidia parts over AMD.They'll drop the prices to sell off the last few in the channel when they replace the part with something better, but in the meantime, AMD hasn't given any reason for them to slash the prices due to their greedy pricing on the 7950.
Again, this is a departure from past launches where AMD did price their parts sensibly and forced Nvidia to lower prices on its flagship cards (GTX 285 etc).
4 of 11 out of stock is good? After 4 days on the market? I don't think so. I think the market has spoken given every other major launch in the last few years on a high-end SKU like this has resulted in OOS for about a month.
Demand for this part is soft, and at its price/performance that's no surprise and really shouldn't be.
chizow - Thursday, February 2, 2012 - link
Really? So being the highest-end SKU that AMD produced and within 10-15% of the fastest single-GPU on the planet, it wasn't a high-end card? And I guess AMD didn't have any high-end cards that generation?And "pricing ALWAYS based on performance relative to the competition". So the RV770 coming within 10-15% of the GTX 280 which already launched for $650 and was selling briskly because it deserved that pricing relative to last-gen (9800GX2, 8800GTX) and AMD pricing this part for $299 made sense based on performance relative to the competition? Really?
You're wrong. Stop posting LMAO. RV770 was a price mistake on AMD's part, a mistake they've been trying to correct ever since. Now Nvidia has a chance to return the favor because the 7970/7950 are going to be in a similar position due to the fact they're mispriced based on last-gen metrics.
chizow - Thursday, February 2, 2012 - link
Newsflash: if you want the newer part, you actually expect better performance for the same price compared to parts that have been out for over a year.Welcome to my used car lot where I sell old cars for brand new prices.
chizow - Thursday, February 2, 2012 - link
And that's exactly what's wrong with their pricing, an error that will be obvious once its competing against the products its supposed to be competing with.By your same flawed logic, graphics cards would be thousands of dollars as every incremental increase would incur an increase in price without limits.
chizow - Thursday, February 2, 2012 - link
Nonsense, we already covered this. GTX 280 was almost 2x faster than the 8800GTX and about the same performance as the 9800GX2. A true flagship card.ATI exceeded everyone's expectations with the RV770 but grossly underpriced their card, which is the only reason Nvidia was forced to drop their price.
The difference this time around, is that the 7970 does NOT deserve the premium pricing relative to last-gen. The only way AMD will get off the hook is if Nvidia makes the same mistake and prices based on last-gen performance as well and prices their flagship at like $750 lol. It may happen, but I doubt it.
chizow - Thursday, February 2, 2012 - link
Rofl, except I have mountains of historical evidence that back my points, while your nonsensical pricing schemes would have us deciding between new cars or new GPUs.Also back to that running a business part. Its obvious you have no clue what it takes to run a business.
AMD is basically stealing from Peter to pay Paul, they're trading short-term gains for long-term profit by risking the relationship of their most loyal customers. In this business as in any other, customer satisfaction and brand loyalty is paramount.
Unlike their fanboys, it would be criminally negligent of AMD not to consider the pricing of upcoming products from their main competitor: Nvidia. To that end, 28nm parts from Nvidia are imminent, ignoring this fact is just bad business.
We'll see how this shakes out, but honestly I can't see AMD getting off unscathed here unless Nvidia prices Kepler outrageously.
Galidou - Sunday, February 5, 2012 - link
LOL he's fun, while Nvidia made the worse pricing decision in the world like 9800gx2 priced 150$ less than a GTX 280 that performed LESS is so much funny, last gen part vs new gen part comparison here you come....chizow - Sunday, February 5, 2012 - link
What's fun is you can get 2x last-gen parts for cheaper than 1x next-gen parts anytime you want it.Would you buy 2xGTX 460 today instead of a GTX 580 or 7970? Most people would say no, but for those who want it, 2xold is cheaper and faster than 1xnew.
Galidou - Sunday, February 5, 2012 - link
Well if you can do it anytime, what's new with 7970? Ahh it should of driven the prices down, unlike Nvidia's coming up with new gpus to drive the price up. Nvidia up the prices and ATI makes them go down here's your history of things... well things can change, we don'T live in a stable world.Galidou - Sunday, February 5, 2012 - link
Lotsa people already answering to you saying that you make no sense. My philosophy teacher once tole me: If someone come up to you and tells you: ''Hey you are a horse'' you can doubt, a second one comes to you and says the same thing, well you gotta start thinking a little bit, and if a third one comes and tells you the same thing, you should start thinking about buying a saddle.chizow - Thursday, February 2, 2012 - link
And to base buying decisions without acknowledging the 800lb gorilla in the room (Kepler) while simultaneously ignoring the 6 ton elephant in the room (history) would be a monumental mistake.Congrats at successfully trying to manage both!
chizow - Thursday, February 2, 2012 - link
LMAO.See here's the exact flaw in your argument.
AMD doesn't know what Nvidia's performance will be with Kepler.
But they've priced their new product with the assumption Kepler offers no gain, no increase in performance over Fermi.
That's the only possible way they could justify basing their new next-gen, next-process part using old part prices.
This is a massive error in calculation, because unless you're completely oblivious it should be clearly obvious Kepler could beat Tahiti if it were nothing more than a die-shrink of Fermi with higher clocks. 15-25% is NOTHING when looking at a new process node and new architecture, its more of what you would expect from a refresh.
But its OK, despite your claims you have no idea how this industry works, if you did you'd immediately acknowledge the prices AMD is asking for simply aren't justified with all things considered.
chizow - Thursday, February 2, 2012 - link
Because that is what people who are interested in these parts base their buying decisions on. There's not enough incentive otherwise, its not like GPUs expire every 2 years.chizow - Thursday, February 2, 2012 - link
There wouldn't be a problem if the 7950 launched 14 months ago, today its might as well be an exhibit at Jurassic Park.And the 580 for $500? Anyone who has a 580 has put a lot of mileage on those treads and gotten their money's worth. It'll get retired soon enough though, right next to that 7950.
chizow - Thursday, February 2, 2012 - link
No the prices haven't dropped because there's no need to when the 7950 is about the same performance for the same price.As for basic economics, again, you're wrong.
Prices do fall without competition, look at the CPU industry. AMD STILL doesn't have a CPU that competes with the CPUs Intel was putting out 3 years ago.
Yet prices continue to fall, Intel continues to produce faster CPUs.
Why? Because Intel is competing with itself and its consumers need incentive to buy a new CPU. People will not pay the same price for the same speed processor, they demand innovation, progress. They also won't pay significantly more for marginal increases.
They expect more performance at the same prices, which is the same expectation as in the GPU market. Unless you're AMD and their fans I guess.
chizow - Thursday, February 2, 2012 - link
I didn't say anything about the 7970's stock levels, because unlike the 7950, it did actually sell out the 1st day. But there is actually a reason for someone to upgrade to it.The 7950? Not so much, not at that price anyways. If anyone wanted that performance it was there 14 months ago for the same price.
But yeah if you want to compare to past launches, you never saw stock of 5850/5870, 470/480, 570/580 for more than a few minutes at Newegg. Why? Because the performance was there for the asking price.
With these Tahiti cards at the prices and performance, its just lukewarm reception.
chizow - Thursday, February 2, 2012 - link
Nice try deflecting. Please retract your stupid statement about "price always reflecting performance", thanks. RV770 was obviously a price mistake that AMD has clearly tried to correct over the last 3-4 generations since evident by their ever-increasing prices. Either way, you're wrong.Not to mention the 3870 wasn't even the same generation. But yes that card wasn't high end because of its lackluster performance and the fact it was late. It was a refresh of the 2900 and was up against the 8800GT, another refresh part. Regardless, it was still AMD's highest performance single-ASIC SKU, so if it wasn't high-end that just means AMD had nothing worthy of high-end that generation.
Same may happen this round if this is all SI has to offer on 28nm. :(
chizow - Thursday, February 2, 2012 - link
Sure it is, because in this price range, the only people who would be interested in buying it are the people looking to upgrade who have already spent this amount.Sure there's going to be a few first time buyers who may pick this card up and it makes some sense, but this card isn't going to be a worthwhile upgrade for the vast majority of buyers who already have something from the last few generations.
They expect more, simply put.
chizow - Thursday, February 2, 2012 - link
Sure they can, its called projecting or forecasting. It would be negligent of them to ignore what Nvidia has to offer, and similar for Nvidia. Given they share the same fab its obvious neither have a technology advantage, so you have to target your competitor's product using that same technology. Anything less would be irresponsible.chizow - Thursday, February 2, 2012 - link
Rarson, maybe we need to take a step back. You keep insisting I don't understand how this market works, or how pricing is supposed to work. Maybe you can explain how YOU think it works.Let's start off with the basics:
What do you think drives price in the GPU market?
What do you think dictates a particular price:performance metric?
Do you think these two variables continue to scale linearly to infinity as one or the other increases?
What do you think resets this price:performance metric, if at all?
If you can start by answering these questions, and then go back and try to reconcile historical price:performance data points going back to say, the 8800GTX that'd be great.
Thanks!
chizow - Thursday, February 2, 2012 - link
Translation: "I have really low expectations when it comes to GPUs on a new process/technology/architecture"So Sick - Friday, February 3, 2012 - link
CHizzo you talk about a pricing error from AMD but you know what was a the absolute least flattering act in history of the gpu?
When AMD released their Radeon 9700 pro the 5800 ultra from nv stumbled caused by an error making it incapable of running aa correctly...after that the ultimate chaos ever shown in history of hardware was spread by your beloved green hope crew. They had a communication crisis resulting in 3 different versions of their nv40 on different departments without knowing this from each other...in other words the cooperation with their own green colleagues died for a moment and time stood still. Ever since that shameful fact Nvidia is passing AMD..A lot of time they only clzaim they will be fatser in the future like they do now...thank you nv for the green hope in these dark times.....
chizzo take your shizzle talk and stop making a fool of urself please
So Sick - Friday, February 3, 2012 - link
http://nl.hardware.info/reviews/2528/22/amd-radeon...in the vid you see how 3d11 has these results:
7950oc P11392
580oc: P7500? at most...
Boushh - Friday, February 3, 2012 - link
I don't mean to rain on your parade.But when a new product is released, the most obviouse thing to do is to price it at the same level as the highest product from the competitor. Thus AMD should have priced the 7970 around the same amount as the 580.
By doing this you put the pressure on the competitor. You also make sure people choose your product because it is the same price as that of the competitor, but faster, beter, etc.
It's the same what happend just before the release of the Core architecture by Intel. AMD knew that the Core CPU's where much faster, and didn't have anything to compete. Instead of cutting the prices early and gain market share, they waited untill after the last posiible moment to lower their prices.
Sure, the made a dollar or 2, but at what price ?
Once you have the advantage on your competitor, you should use it anyway possible to harm your competitor.
And AMD has the advantage, but they fail to make any use of it at the moment.
Which gives the impresion they don't care about there market share, or if Nvidia would be forced to lower the prices of their products before they wanted to, or if Nvidia will be forced to release there products before they are ready.
But obviously you don't care about that..
Prosthetic Head - Friday, February 3, 2012 - link
I purchased a second hand 4850 and put a nice custom cooler on it about 3.5 years ago. It runs near silent and performs more than adequately in all the games I play. I honestly don't see the excitement in GPU announcements unless they really are game changers (59XX, 9800XT --> 6800, X800 type leaps). I realise I'm not a bleeding edge gamer & some of you are and thats great - It means second hand high end GPUs available regularly for the same price as low end offerings less than a year later.The only thing that tempts me about the new architectures is the compute performance. I actually use this for some computational chemistry work and the upgrade looks well worth it if I do more of this type of work.
The improving performance / power ratio is also of interest since I don't like loud fans, hot computers or excessive electricity consumption.
Galidou - Saturday, February 4, 2012 - link
Don't worry, chizow is a fanboy, there's nothing to do against greenies, they have a closed mind :PHe never said anything wrong about nvidia but sure has a ton of things to say about AMD. He speaks of overclockability of GTX 580, get an answer about how overclockable the 7970 and then changes his mind and says he cares about OC but not much about stock cards OC(which the 7970 seems to do VERY well).
Makes no sense when you say things and then right after what you say has no value for the other team.....
chizow - Saturday, February 4, 2012 - link
No, I said it makes no sense to compare one stock part to one that's overclocked. If you want to compare apples to apples, you overclock both, I have no problem with that and I think you'll find that both parts overclock similarly so the original difference in stock performance holds true.Only a fanboy would try to compare stock to OC results as you and others apparently tried to do.
Galidou - Sunday, February 5, 2012 - link
I never tried to compare any video card, I'm a proud owner of both camps video card, from geforce 2 gts all the way up to 6850 in crossfire and gtx 560 ti in other rig... thing is you never said anything wrong about Nvidia and I can say wrong things and good things about both camps being an owner of MULTIPLE of their cards...Someone with only one side of a story shouldn't be used as a reference for righteousness in judgement... Like taking a judge for an affair of murder while the judge himself is in the family of the murdered one.....
Anyway just my two cents...
chizow - Sunday, February 5, 2012 - link
If you never tried to compare any video card, why are you defending someone who did then?As usual with these kinds of threads arguing with ignorant fanboys, I'm simply keeping things honest and correcting erroneous flaws in facts or logic.
Does it make sense to you to make a comparison about one overclocked part compared to another stock part, then declare the OC'd part the winner based on those results?
Of course not!
As for your two cents, keep them, you will need to save every penny to make the jump from 6850 or GTX 560ti to 7950s at these prices.
Galidou - Sunday, February 5, 2012 - link
There was bad things about AMD and Nvidia in history and thing is you can only mention bad things from one side. I'd never listen to someone that already has a choosen side to speak about ANYTHING in my whole life, simply because you won't be able to hear the absolute truth from the defender of only one side...chizow - Saturday, February 4, 2012 - link
No, but you were talking about me. So, please explain what you think determines pricing in this market since you insist I have no clue, or YOU shut up.Thanks!
chizow - Saturday, February 4, 2012 - link
Yes of course, because it would be negligent not to from any perspective.Anyone who buys something at any point needs to project the market, needs to weigh the potential for obsolescence. That's a large reason why companies do NOT disclose unannounced products as not to erode their own sales before a product goes EOL.
Similarly, it would be negligent if AMD didn't project Nvidia's next-gen parts given they use the same fab and process. And right now, AMD is basically telling you with this price that they either 1) are ignoring Nvidia's 28nm partsor 2) think Nvidia's 28nm parts perform the same as their 40nm parts or 3) don't think their customers are smart enough to realize 1 or 2.
Either way, they're going to look the fool once Nvidia does release their 40nm parts.
chizow - Saturday, February 4, 2012 - link
You mean the super-OC'd Classified 3GB versions that perform within a few % points of the 7970? Yeah of course there are. You'd be a moron not to realize the difference, or you're just being dishonest. With you it could be either.Most 580s are in the same price range as the 7950, $440-500, because once again, they deserved that price tag when they launched 14 months ago and the release of the 7950 has done nothing to make Nvidia drop the price on them.
But as I said, this price and performance level will be retired soon, but obviously not as a result of the "next-gen" Tahiti parts. We'll most likely have to wait for the real "next-gen" parts with Kepler to shift this stagnant price:performance metric.
chizow - Saturday, February 4, 2012 - link
No, only a moron would blow $500 on another card a year later that performs the *SAME* as the card they paid $500 for a year earlier. And that's why the 7950's pricing sucks.There's light at the end of the tunnel, you may finally be getting it lol.
chizow - Saturday, February 4, 2012 - link
I have explained this. Because the market expects there to be a shift in the price:performance metrics when a new generation or new architecture of GPUs launches. This is the driving factor of progress, more performance at the same prices.Tahiti offers none of this, so once again, AMD is either ignoring the fact Nvidia 28nm parts are imminent and may very well invalidate their entire product line a few months after launch. Or they think Nvidia's 28nm parts aren't any faster than their 40nm parts. Or they think their customers are stupid.
In all 3 cases, I can't see this ending well for them. Unless Nvidia prices their new parts to the moon like $750+, and then no one wins (or has any reason to upgrade for that matter). The only people who would have any incentive to upgrade will be the ones who need to have the absolute fastest, then they'll have to decide if $750/1500/2250/3000 is worth it for a minor bump in performance over what they had with $500 flagship parts.
chizow - Saturday, February 4, 2012 - link
Well, you'd be stupid not to verify and fact check what I've stated by referencing the financials before opening your mouth. Its all right there, links and everything.Given your other comments on the topic however, ignorantly commenting seems par for the course with you.
chizow - Saturday, February 4, 2012 - link
I'm well aware of that. I'm also well aware that top-end performance from 3 years ago doesn't command $1000 prices anymore, it fetches $300 max. That's what we call progress.Its also why AMD can only charge $200 for their top-end CPU, because what they have today still doesn't compete with what Intel has at $300 today and what they asked $1000 for 3-years ago.
But its OK, you've made it abundantly clear you see nothing wrong with charging the same price for the same performance as last-gen parts some 14 months later.
chizow - Saturday, February 4, 2012 - link
Is it nice for you? Because you're clearly out of your league in this discussion.chizow - Saturday, February 4, 2012 - link
CYA!Galidou - Sunday, February 5, 2012 - link
Oh yeah, if the pricing is so stupid, why is it out of stock everywhere after a week?Oh right, supply and demand is a market thing but the only thing you understand is history of pricing and ATI being a company that doesn't know what they do, maybe you should become marketting master, seems like you'Re right about everything in the damn world...
Galidou - Sunday, February 5, 2012 - link
They freaking knew what they were doing FFS.And from the beginning I knew nothing was SO wrong with it because if it was the case, they wouldn't of sold EVERYTHING in a damn week...
Prices will go down soon, they just knew the initial stock would sell like hotcakes and when it starts to slow down, price it accordingly.
Supply and demand...
chizow - Saturday, February 4, 2012 - link
And apparently this is the same mistake AMD has made by shoving in their head in the sand trying to ignore that ominous cloud called Kepler.Its fine, buy these cards today, regret the decision tomorrow, a month from now, two months from now.
I know the AMD fanboys probably hate me today for pointing this out and shoving it in their faces, but I can guarantee you anyone who buys one of these cards today won't be mad at me when Kepler cuts their price at the knees, they'll be pissed off at AMD.
chizow - Saturday, February 4, 2012 - link
This is the online equivalent of holding your hands over year ears and shouting "lalala I can't hear you lalala".Your arguments were pretty weak to begin with but now they've just devolved into childish nonsense.
chizow - Saturday, February 4, 2012 - link
Um, no you're wrong.How is it a bad thing when Apple can't meet demand on iPhone? Or Nintendo can't meet demand on Wii? Or Amazon can't meet demand on Kindle? Or Nvidia can't meet demand on Fermi? Or AMD can't meet demand on Cypress?
Demand oustripping supply is any economist or business owner's dream situation lol, if you don't under this YOU have no understanding of very basic economic principles.
Galidou - Sunday, February 5, 2012 - link
Everyone is against you but still after all that, you continue to beleive in whatever nonsense you say from the beginning. Not even one person in here supported your opinions, whatever the market is, it just means one thing, you are a selfish nvidia HARDCORE fanboy who gets paid by the green goblin to speak your nonsense.....AMD fanboys are intense at times, but you clearly are a madman, the world would say you're wrong that you'd still beleive you're better than everyone else, but if you were, you'd be rich and not spending your time speaking on forums like this one.
SlyNine - Sunday, February 5, 2012 - link
You're kidding right rarson.What metric do you think we should use to determine value if not through precedence.
If you're questioning using precedent as a metering stick for value. Hell even the legal system uses precedents to try and determine law, but to you it's not good enough for video cards.
SlyNine - Sunday, February 5, 2012 - link
yea based on old nods. new nods bring cheaper parts with better performence. THATS WHAT THIS IS ALL ABOUT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!SlyNine - Sunday, February 5, 2012 - link
So the 5870 was priced according to the competition.No you're full of shit because new cards always bring better performence for the price.
SlyNine - Sunday, February 5, 2012 - link
Actually you fail to use logic plenty of times in your arguments. Also I call your consistency in to question.Like for instance, the simple fact that new nods= cheaper performence, not better performence that scales with price.
Not sure why you cannot get that simple bit of logic figured out.
Deo Domuique - Wednesday, February 8, 2012 - link
Hey chizow, your comments kept me eventually away from buying the 7950. I use 12 years gaming PCs and always I had Nvidia. This time would be the first that I'd go to AMD's camp.Although, I already had too many concerns ( especially the high price ), I could't keep myself. But finally, I did. I'll wait for Kepler. If the 7950's price currently was 320-330€ and not 410€, right now I'd have already the card.
Apis - Sunday, April 22, 2012 - link
They are currently dropping the prices for the 7xxx series, I'm found one sapphire 7950 3gb for 360€ when looking right now.Apis - Sunday, April 22, 2012 - link
In this "Compute: Civilization V" benchmark Radeon HD 5870 got 154.9 FPSIn the 6970 review, http://www.anandtech.com/show/4061/amds-radeon-hd-... the 5870 got 181.9 FPS.
Why the regression?
Wolfpup - Friday, July 20, 2012 - link
Traditionally Nvidia's hardware has smashed AMD's for Folding, but it looks like PROBABLY the 7970 and 7950 should be respectable with the new architecture...I can't actually find ANYONE talking about the issue though or benchmarking...