AMD Cayman info (or rumor)

[tajoh111]

sure, but that doesnt mean they are not selling. 5970 is still marginally faster.
three weeks is nothing of a delay in terms of an entire production schedule, but it is a lot of time for sales and stock clearance for these kinds of products.

Your forgetting one thing, during the next three weeks black friday is happening and if they launch it Dec 9, more than half of the christmas buying season will be over. Its one of the best times to have a product for sale because people will be buying at the most frenetic pace and people are also willing to pay extra during christmas. If it launches on Dec 9, your going to miss alot of the christmas sales and even if you sell out of your first batch, your going to go through hell get the second shipment going because both sides(the distribution and sellers) are going to be bottlenecked because of the business of the christmas season.

In addition, if AMD is trying to clear out the 5970 at 499. It doing a lousy job at making that price official because only newegg.com has it at 499 for a single brand and pretty much everywhere else in canada and the usa is still 600 plus.

[Iconyu]

You know what? I think there's something about Cayman we haven't even guessed at. With the HD4k's it was the shader count, HD5k's it was Eyefinity, with Cayman it could be shader count again, but it would have to be above 1920 to be a real shock that number has been floating around for ages.

You guys think AMD added another feature they are trying to shock us with?

[Motiv]

You know what? I think there's something about Cayman we haven't even guessed at. With the HD4k's it was the shader count, HD5k's it was Eyefinity, with Cayman it could be shader count again, but it would have to be above 1920 to be a real shock that number has been floating around for ages.

You guys think AMD added another feature they are trying to shock us with?

no.

[zerazax]

Your forgetting one thing, during the next three weeks black friday is happening and if they launch it Dec 9, more than half of the christmas buying season will be over. Its one of the best times to have a product for sale because people will be buying at the most frenetic pace and people are also willing to pay extra during christmas. If it launches on Dec 9, your going to miss alot of the christmas sales and even if you sell out of your first batch, your going to go through hell get the second shipment going because both sides(the distribution and sellers) are going to be bottlenecked because of the business of the christmas season.

In addition, if AMD is trying to clear out the 5970 at 499. It doing a lousy job at making that price official because only newegg.com has it at 499 for a single brand and pretty much everywhere else in canada and the usa is still 600 plus.

First of all, buyers of $400+ GPUs aren't the majority of Christmas shoppers... second, most of them buy regardless of the season (when people aren't buying anything in January for example, high end GPUs can still come out and be sold out) since they are enthusiasts, and third... why would AMD sell a high-end GPU on Black Friday? They're not going to sell it at a discount anyways, so why bother dealing with all the expectations of a discount?

Everyone knows high end GPUs are a niche in itself, and aren't going to be bought by your typical Christmas shopper - Barts on the other hand, will do so. I think you're reaching wayyyy too far with the Christmas analogy

And the 5970 is already out of stock for the $700 models (sans XFX) on Newegg, and will probably be pulled

More importantly though is that the 5870's can be bought in the mid $200's w/ rebate now...now that's clearing stock

[LordEC911]

no.

Most definitely yes. This was hinted at just over a week ago by someone at B3d.
http://forum.beyond3d.com/showpost.p...postcount=4444

[trinibwoy]

You guys think AMD added another feature they are trying to shock us with?

Yes. And I dont meant temperature

[tajoh111]

First of all, buyers of $400+ GPUs aren't the majority of Christmas shoppers... second, most of them buy regardless of the season (when people aren't buying anything in January for example, high end GPUs can still come out and be sold out) since they are enthusiasts, and third... why would AMD sell a high-end GPU on Black Friday? They're not going to sell it at a discount anyways, so why bother dealing with all the expectations of a discount?

Everyone knows high end GPUs are a niche in itself, and aren't going to be bought by your typical Christmas shopper - Barts on the other hand, will do so. I think you're reaching wayyyy too far with the Christmas analogy

And the 5970 is already out of stock for the $700 models (sans XFX) on Newegg, and will probably be pulled

More importantly though is that the 5870's can be bought in the mid $200's w/ rebate now...now that's clearing stock

I think your ignoring a lot of evidence. the 300-500 dollar price card range is larger than you think. The amount of 58xx series card out there, which have spent most of their life between 280 and 4xx price range, are pretty much the same amount according to steam hardware survey as the 57xx series. Both carry around a 33% market share of the direct x 11 market. The Antilles price range is definitely niche though and I think that word is overused.

Additionally black friday is not just about buying stuff on sale, its about people buying stuff for themselves and for Christmas, even when it is not necessarily on sale. People will pay stupid markup on christmas unlike any other season. Most companies gives those blockbuster deals just to get people in the store to shop as much of these discounted items are priced at or below cost. Also for november, look at pretty much every major videogame console hardware release, PS3, PS2, xbox, xbox 360, gamecube, wii, all mid to late november release. I would definitely say videocards relate to gaming.

You would be surprised at how many people will gift their special someone with hardware or with a computer, electronics etc. People will buy themselves more stuff during christmas because they feel more liberal to spending. Most things besides maybe houses, have epic sales during the november- december months.

There are still lots of 5970s out there and not at 500 dollars, go to pricegrabber. Companies like tigerdirect and mwave still have 5970s for 700 dollars.

[bamtan2]

any discrete graphics card price range is a niche of a niche, whether you're talking $100 or $500, because they're all uncommon compared to total computer sales

[tbone8ty]

yeah Christmas analogy is going way to far its kinda ridiculous.

just got myself a HIS 6870 to hold me over until cayman is released,got tired of waiting

[zerazax]

I think your ignoring a lot of evidence. the 300-500 dollar price card range is larger than you think. The amount of 58xx series card out there, which have spent most of their life between 280 and 4xx price range, are pretty much the same amount according to steam hardware survey as the 57xx series. Both carry around a 33% market share of the direct x 11 market. The Antilles price range is definitely niche though and I think that word is overused.

Additionally black friday is not just about buying stuff on sale, its about people buying stuff for themselves and for Christmas, even when it is not necessarily on sale. People will pay stupid markup on christmas unlike any other season. Most companies gives those blockbuster deals just to get people in the store to shop as much of these discounted items are priced at or below cost. Also for november, look at pretty much every major videogame console hardware release, PS3, PS2, xbox, xbox 360, gamecube, wii, all mid to late november release. I would definitely say videocards relate to gaming.

You would be surprised at how many people will gift their special someone with hardware or with a computer, electronics etc. People will buy themselves more stuff during christmas because they feel more liberal to spending. Most things besides maybe houses, have epic sales during the november- december months.

There are still lots of 5970s out there and not at 500 dollars, go to pricegrabber. Companies like tigerdirect and mwave still have 5970s for 700 dollars.

Again, you're overstating graphics cards and the holidays. People most often buy gifts that are common general electronics - TV's, gaming consoles, blu-ray players, etc. and they are reflected in Black Friday ads. In fact, the # of TV's, gaming consoles, and other general electronics pushed out there are in volumes many orders of magnitude greater than any GPU sales.

How many Black Friday ads discount enthusiast cards? For that matter, how many even discount performance class cards?

Most GPU ads on Black Friday are often cheap giveaways of low end cards, esp. since it's a quick way to get rid of bad cards to to unsuspecting buyers.

The vast majority of GPU buyers, especially when we start talking about the $300+ range, are people who know a thing or two about GPUs, and most often buy from etailers such as Newegg.

And again, that's why Black Friday and Christmas sales almost never discount recently released cards - for the same reason recently released cards often rise in price in the first few months - because they know the buyers of these cards tend to be a niche within a niche.

You're much more likely to see the 5800's get put on big discounts for Black Friday this year because they're EOL - my bet is you won't see any 6800's or 580's get put on big discounts of any kind, and for those same reasons, there's no reason AMD needs Cayman to be pushed out for Black Friday - because they know their buyers will buy a new high end card regardless of whether it falls on a holiday or not.

I hate car analogies but this is an apt one: it's the same reason you don't see Porsches or high end BMWs etc. get put on sales, until they're EOL. Because they know their higher end cards are a small market relative to the rest of the automotive industry, but their buyers will buy whenever new models that fit their criteria are out, and thus there is almost never a need to discount a car - and often, they get marked up because of demand.

[mAJORD]

10-15% maybe to a gtx 480 and even then it still probably in a best case scenario is 20%

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4008/n...rce-gtx-580/15

This is the very best the 6870 does against the gtx 480 and this situation is particularly CPU limited because it is an old game(e.g SLI 580 performs more or less the same as a gtx 580). Most of the time it is closer to 50%. In 3 out of the 10 games in anandtech's review, it was 70%(battleforge, hawx and dirt 2).

When the 6870 is losing to the gtx 580 in a game that loves AMD cards like battlefield bad company 2 by 48%, 30-50% doesn't look too good.

580 is 40% faster in that game..

Anyway, so much mindless arguing.. it's been pretty clear Cayman XT is going to be around GTX580 performance for some time. be it + or - a few % come review time doesn't really matter.. AMDs own slides ahve positioned it Faster than a 480, Slower than a 5970.. do the maths !

To me, it's going to come down to power consumption, OCing, and price

I do think single card Eyefinity might sway people. The counter argument a single card isn't powerful enough for EF won't really hold for some time.. (till games pull it to its knees)

[Nintendork]

You can accomodate the slides to your own convenience.

-Ordered by price
-Ordered by level (Cayman is not an ultrahigh gpu, Hemlock was, Antilles will be)

[mAJORD]

You can accomodate the slides to your own convenience.

-Ordered by price
-Ordered by level (Cayman is not an ultrahigh gpu, Hemlock was, Antilles will be)

Except when the slides are labeled Performance

[kuroikenshi]

you also got to remember the disclaimer, posted a couple of pages back as those slides only being a representation, it does not depict factual performance, and the Brissie weather is muggy as hell

[eric66]

those slides don't mean anything especially when you think that in real life barts xt is on par with gtx 470

[mAJORD]

I'm not naive enough to think the slides represent exact performance, but clearly Cayman is positioned above GTX480 , yet below HD5970.. that is all.

There's not a lot of room between those two cards.

The right hand slide is the most recent (November) So if we concentrate on that, It's a Given Cayman XT would ship faster than GTX480, but it also clearly positions it below HD5970, There's no getting away from that..

and the Brissie weather is muggy as hell

Tell me about it!, I like it like this though

[kuroikenshi]

Tell me about it!, I like it like this though

ghey pseudo-summer weather :p

[Vipeax]

I do think single card Eyefinity might sway people. The counter argument a single card isn't powerful enough for EF won't really hold for some time.. (till games pull it to its knees)

Buying 2 cards for Eyefinity will make a lot more sense than before as well. With 2 cards you would be necked by the 1GB limit faster than that you would be able to use the full power of 2.

With Cayman having 2GB you could just get 1 card and get a second one later when you need one, or just throw 1K on the table right now to get 2 GTX580s cause they still haven't added hardware support for surround.

[kuroikenshi]

Buying 2 cards for Eyefinity will make a lot more sense than before as well. With 2 cards you would be necked by the 1GB limit faster than that you would be able to use the full power of 2.

With Cayman having 2GB you could just get 1 card and get a second one later when you need one, or just throw 1K on the table right now to get 2 GTX580s cause they still haven't added hardware support for surround.

It is rater disappointing that they did not manage to add any more features, although its the same mArch, hence why Cayman will be a good contender, plenty more features, eyefinity, stereo-tropic sound, and many more

[RaZz!]

It is rater disappointing that they did not manage to add any more features, although its the same mArch, hence why Cayman will be a good contender, plenty more features, eyefinity, stereo-tropic sound, and many more

i don't know, but amd's implementation of stereoscopic 3d looks more like beta testing grounds... doesn't really work that well yet.

didn't test it myself, but the guy over at 3dvision-blog.com really had a hard time getting everything to work, and even if he got the drivers to work the results often weren't as intended/expected.

[zalbard]

i don't know, but amd's implementation of stereoscopic 3d looks more like beta testing grounds... doesn't really work that well yet.

didn't test it myself, but the guy over at 3dvision-blog.com really had a hard time getting everything to work, and even if he got the drivers to work the results often weren't as intended/expected.

Reminds me of OpenCL. Not enough support and too much relying on 3rd parties.

[Lanek]

i don't know, but amd's implementation of stereoscopic 3d looks more like beta testing grounds... doesn't really work that well yet.

didn't test it myself, but the guy over at 3dvision-blog.com really had a hard time getting everything to work, and even if he got the drivers to work the results often weren't as intended/expected.

Actually it's rather new, and for what i know they take a different approach ... ( need say, the monitor and TV used by 3Dvision was just show problem of compatibility, the experience is totally different when you have a "fully " hardware compatible )

As all the visual industry is moving to the 3D, they just ensure their drivers and UVD are compatible and work with any system from Samsung, Sony, Asus etc etc for the 3D BlueRay things ..
Now for the 3D in games, the problem come more it's really the start, D3D and IZD have annonce now only focus on drivers solutions and stop the production of hardware..... let them a little bit of time for this ...
I think AMD is on the right way with it... you can use any hardware, monitor, glasses, TV 3D compatible and use it with any gpu's...
Asus, Dell, HP, or any other Laptop, PC builder, don't want to get the need to use a "Nvidia GPU's brand only" if they want to bring 3D games on their systems, when specially they have their own systems for 3D....
3D is becoming a "standard" and industry want a large public to acquire it .... Time will tell how it will turn....

@Zallbard, OpenCL have nothing to do by an exclusivity of AMD, there's around 30 IT entreprise working on it, including AMD, Nvidia, Microsoft, Apple, IBM, Intel etc etc...
OpenCL is a standard, like HTML5, or anything like this, it take times to finalise it... It's not a "software " and API like CUDA...

[cegras]

3D is ridiculous and it's a surefire way to get crosseyed. It should've remained in the shadows like the stillborn it was supposed to be.

a) Looking at slightly offset images is bad for your eyes for prolonged periods of time

b) Glasses, active shutter or not, are usually uncomfortable

c) The depth is forward projected, and in the end seems very fake. Contrasts between different layers of focus are way too sharp. It's like looking at those magic pictures where you had to cross your eyes to see dolphins on a background of noise.

[Dalten]

Someone posts a rumor that the 6970 will fall short of the GTX 580 and the thread falls to page 2? Wierd!

I see the GTX 580 is getting sold out more and more on Newegg. I'm pondering picking up the Asus once they get more in... but I'd hate to get one before I know what the 6970 can do... choices choices.

[HelixPC]

So whats the latest and greatest on our dear friend Cayman? i havnt been following the thread lately? thanks