AMD has had a good run with it’s 6000 series cards, but the show must go on and in that vein the company has been working on manufacturing their next generation of graphics cards. The new cards will be of the 7000 series variety and will be broken into the same two architecture model for the upper tier/performance parts and the budget and small form factor fitting parts with the Tahiti and Pitcairn GPUs respectively. As the launch window for the new graphics cards gets closer tidbits of information is starting to leak out. In fact, popular news and rumor site Fudzilla recently got their hands on a few leaked 7000 Series details!
Included in the leaks are information on the performance parts as well as the mid-range GPUs. On the Tahiti front, a photo of two AMD Radeon HD 7900 series cards in CrossfireX has emerged, showing the underside of the PCB, crossfire connectors, PCI-E power connectors and a possible opportunity for a math wiz to approximate the size of the card based on the known dimensions of that particular PSU (heh). Because there are 12 memory chips on the card, the site claims that the rumored 384-bit memory bus is all but confirmed. Further, the cards require both an 8 pin and 6 pin PCI-E PSU connector for power. These cars are engineering samples and things could change between now and release; however, the speculations seem reasonable. The Tahiti based graphics cards will allegedly be priced at $399 and $499 for the 7950 and 7970 respectively.
The Pitcairn GPU based cards will represent the mid-range of AMD’s 7000 series lineup. According to un-named sources, Fudzilla believes that AMD may be releasing the mid-range graphics cards around February 20th, 2012 or about a month after the Chinese New Year. The cards will be carrying similar naming conventions to their predecessor, including the Radeon HD 7850 and Radeon HD 7870. Due to Tahiti pricing, it’s likely that the mid-range 7000 series graphics cards will be priced at $199 USD for the 7850 and $299 USD for the Radeon 7870, at least until Nvidia’s Kepler arrives to shake up the pricing.
Personally, I’m excited for the 7000 series, and am anxious to see what kind of F@H and gaming performance I can wring out of it! Are you planning an upgrade next year, or will you skip this generation?
I want to upgrade from my
I want to upgrade from my 4870, but I tend to stay a few years behind the curve. That and I want to see how well the reviews are for the thing. And yes. F@H should be incredible with the 7900 series
Maybe I can finally climb to
Maybe I can finally climb to the top of my F@H team (well at least of my friends) with it, I came darn close to highest PPD with my overclocked 860 and unlocked 6950 😉
Its probably most effiecent
Its probably most effiecent to skip 2 gens of upgrade. I do not see an upgrade viable if it only increases preformance by 50%-60%.
You can keep a video card for a long time…But only possible if you got the high end version of the video card like the 4870 1 gig(i have the 512 meg but it still works).
You can still do alot of gaming with the 4870.
Same thing will happen with 7970. it will be decent and last a long time. 3 gigs of v-ram!
Feb 20 2011? You mean
Feb 20 2011? You mean 2012.
And the New Years for 2012 is January 23rd.
Thanks for the catch, fixed.
Thanks for the catch, fixed.
right now running running two
right now running running two 5770. I skipped the 6xxx cards, so will be upgrading to 7xxx card. Look forward to the benchmarks
I’ll skip this gen because I
I’ll skip this gen because I just got a 6870 and it plays games beautifully, and I would like to taste a GCN-architecture card, not the same old VLIW4 in the 7870
I’m waiting for the nVidia
I’m waiting for the nVidia 6xx series of cards, unless OpenCL sees similar implementation in CGI/3D modeling suites as CUDA and has similar/better performance by the time I’m ready to upgrade, I’m sticking to nVidia. Broader compatibility and higher performance. Plus it’s not like the high end AMD cards are going to save me any money, judging by these leaked prices.
Yeah I’m hoping OpenCL starts
Yeah I’m hoping OpenCL starts to catch on more, I’m tired of Nvidia’s CUDA always getting the glory 😉
I totally agree with you
I totally agree with you both.
Blender, opensource 3D package is developing GPU accelerated rendering with new “Cycles” engine. Problem.. CUDA. OpenCL is being developed, but AMD/ATI seems to have issues in its Drivers that they are currently working on to fix so that the Blender team can actually continue development.
But I have a feeling that OpenCL will end up like all other Open initatives. OpenGL, OpenAL, OpenML and OpenMP. They are all there but simply they are used less and less. 🙁
I also work with Blender,
I also work with Blender, using the Cycles GPU based renderer. I recently purchased a EVGA 560ti 2GB instead of an HD6970 because of the lack of support for OpenCL. I hate being limited to only Nvidia, especially when next gen cards are coming out.
Maybe when i replace my two
Maybe when i replace my two CrossFiredX HD6950, Battlefield 3 will go more fluent on Eyefinity resolution 5760x1080p, becouse now I feel little strange @50-55 FPS. Stutter is massive if it really is stutter, altho new patch and drivers improved game performance so much! Not in FPS way, but game feel/quality for player.
PS. What’s intresting, in my configuration i don’t see ANY performance differentcies between graphics profile Low to High. Only change i see is when I go to Ultra, me think MSAA kicks in.
Green team FTW! I’ll pass,
Green team FTW! I’ll pass, I’m running dual GTX 580’s right now, playing BF3 on Ultra settings.
AMD hardware is awsome, AMD
AMD hardware is awsome, AMD drivers arn’t. AMD needs a more robust agile driver team.
Amen to that…
Amen to that…
i agree the hardware is great
i agree the hardware is great i run crossfire 4870 1gb cards nad i can run most games max the only issues i ever have are driver related
I will try to get the fastest
I will try to get the fastest core speed in a mid range but I want the latest PCIe 3.0 – no rebrand for me. so – i have to study up.
on my 2500k system with a
on my 2500k system with a 5770 i run bf3 on ultra (1680×1050) with no AA @ around 30-40 fps… now don’t get me wrong i would love to crank up everything, but with that kind of performance it is hard to justify an upgrade. i was thinking about the 560 ti, however due to what im able to do now it seems like a pointless upgrade