AMD Cayman info (or rumor)

[saaya]

That's not how the software side of things gets developed, unless AMD is really that bad with their development. Again, these things don't get rewritten with just 3 weeks to go, when the product has been in development for over a year. This isn't some phone application...

yeah but its quite possible that there was a delay in their driver work...

it actually would make sense if the driver isnt showing the full 4d potential yet, but the performance of the 6800 cards was good enough already, so they went ahead with the launch, but the perf of the 6900 isnt where it should be just yet, so they delayed it...

that WOULD mean that once the 6900 launches, 6800 cards will actually see a notable boost as well, probably 5-10% i guess?

its just a theory...

[-Boris-]

yeah but its quite possible that there was a delay in their driver work...

it actually would make sense if the driver isnt showing the full 4d potential yet, but the performance of the 6800 cards was good enough already, so they went ahead with the launch, but the perf of the 6900 isnt where it should be just yet, so they delayed it...

that WOULD mean that once the 6900 launches, 6800 cards will actually see a notable boost as well, probably 5-10% i guess?

its just a theory...

No, 6800 is a 5d design. If drivers would be optimized for 4d then 6800 would see no benefit.

[Kimofil]

The 5970 minimum frame rate is still on par with the 580GTX. The 5970 is still the best single slot card out there. The 580GTX is last year's news. For those of that have had the 5970 for a full year the 580GTX is too little too late. You can make a 5970 run at 5870 speeds no problem with a clock and voltage bump.

Absolutely agree. 5970 owners need to wait until Anthilles/595 come out, in the next year. 580 is good choice for single-gpu owners (5870/480).

[tajoh111]

Absolutely agree. 5970 owners need to wait until Anthilles/595 come out, in the next year. 580 is good choice for single-gpu owners (5870/480).

Forget that, 5970 owners need to wait until 28nm or 7xxx or gtx 6xx cards before they want to upgrade.

The 5970 is underutilized in most games and is overkill for anything that is not an eyefinity setup.

But if your making a new card purchase now, most if not all reviewers are giving the nod to the gtx 580 over the 5970(even with a 500 dollar price) because future support is going to be much better and their are still erratic games as f1 2010 demonstrate in the hardwareheaven and Hardocp review show. This should be extremely embarrassing considering this is an AMD branded game and the game has been out for 3 months.

The gtx 580 is not that crazy good. Its good enough for this generation and so is the level of performance offered by the 5970. Cards that are alot faster are not needed for anything other than eyefinity and maybe crysis 2.

[Lanek]

erratic ? F1 2010 ? No problem with CFX support there.. 2x 5870 1920x1080 8xAA - DX11 fully enabled and max settings..... 97fps average min 86fps ... work with 10.10>10.10e and 10.11 driver ( last CAP ofc).
Never got any problem with CFX + F1 2010 .. I don't have any visible bug due to GPU /driver( ofc with the patch DX11, before, by modding the registry to DX11, they was the light+texture in some race, nothing to do with driver, just the game was not ready ).
The only thing i can suggest to them and to all peoples who have got problem after have use a modded config file for DX11 settings ( and a lot have got this problem ) the fix is easy.... Delete the config files, launch the game, let the game create a new one, reapply the patch DX11.

CFX was even working before the DX11 patch, in DX9 or with DX11 modded files, the bugs was come from Codemaster who have not finish to debug completely the DX11 ( it's why the game was not released with DX11 enabled )

[safan80]

Forget that, 5970 owners need to wait until 28nm or 7xxx or gtx 6xx cards before they want to upgrade.

The 5970 is underutilized in most games and is overkill for anything that is not an eyefinity setup.

But if your making a new card purchase now, most if not all reviewers are giving the nod to the gtx 580 over the 5970(even with a 500 dollar price) because future support is going to be much better and their are still erratic games as f1 2010 demonstrate in the hardwareheaven and Hardocp review show. This should be extremely embarrassing considering this is an AMD branded game and the game has been out for 3 months.

The gtx 580 is not that crazy good. Its good enough for this generation and so is the level of performance offered by the 5970. Cards that are alot faster are not needed for anything other than eyefinity and maybe crysis 2.

While I agree that 5970 owners can wait (at least those running 1920x1200), I disagree about faster cards not being needed. 1920x1200 is cpu limited in most cases these days, but 2560x1600 is not. Check the performance of BF2:BC and Metro at 2560x1600, in most reviews the frame rates are a joke even with SLI 580s. Not only do we still need faster cards, but we also need more video memory. At my res (2560x1600) 1GB or 1.5GB per gpu just is not enough we need 2GB of video memory. Games at 2560x1600 in a lot cases minus direct console ports are fully loading the 5970 no problem, even playing the new Need for speed: HP I've experienced the Need for more video memory and it runs both gpus at 98-99%. For the 5970 user the GTX580 is a lateral move not an upgrade.


edit: As for F1 2010 it's made by Codemasters, not known for testing everything out before they ship. However, they do make patches.

[Solus Corvus]

This 5970 has served me well for about a year now and I am ready to play with something even better. "Need" hardly factors into the equation. If it did an honest appraisal of my needs I would conclude that I don't even need a desktop computer. But what I WANT to do is some serious 3d image z-stack deconvolution, fold some proteins, and murder lots of virtual people in as much gory detail as possible - and I want to do it on the best hardware I can afford.

[hurrdurr]

I had 5970 for a couple of months. Honestly I must say that CF/SLI setups' FPS numbers shouldn't be compared to single card FPS numbers. In a lot of games I couldn't believe the FPS FRAPS was showing me. It felt like 30 FPS but it said 50-60 FPS. This happens much less frequently with single card setups. I guess it has to do with frame time synchronization between two GPUs. So, between 5970 and 580, I'd take a 580 ANY day over 5970 unless the latter is substantially cheaper.

[flopper]

While I agree that 5970 owners can wait (at least those running 1920x1200), I disagree about faster cards not being needed. 1920x1200 is cpu limited in most cases these days, but 2560x1600 is not. Check the performance of BF2:BC and Metro at 2560x1600, in most reviews the frame rates are a joke even with SLI 580s. Not only do we still need faster cards, but we also need more video memory. At my res (2560x1600) 1GB or 1.5GB per gpu just is not enough we need 2GB of video memory. Games at 2560x1600 in a lot cases minus direct console ports are fully loading the 5970 no problem, even playing the new Need for speed: HP I've experienced the Need for more video memory and it runs both gpus at 98-99%. For the 5970 user the GTX580 is a lateral move not an upgrade.

I am cpu limited at 3.2ghz in BC2, I gain 30fps at average going to 4.2ghz.
Playing at 5760x1080.

[generics_user]

I am cpu limited at 3.2ghz in BC2, I gain 30fps at average going to 4.2ghz.
Playing at 5760x1080.

i highly doubt this, 5870 doesn't show any difference at all between a phenom II 1055T and Core i7 980X in almost every review out there...

i also fail to see a significant difference between my overclocked CPU (4050core/3000nb) vs a stock 1055t (2800/2000)

BF:BC2 is highly multi-threaded and supports up to 8 threads AFAIK (one side effect of being a console ports, PS3 has 6 SPEs + PPC core and 360 supports 6 threads!

[cegras]

Yes.... OVER their driver releases. Meaning, this is often over many many months + working with developers to optimize their code

Not a three week project

3 weeks is almost a month, and in time for perhaps an incremental driver upgrade.

[Levish]

must not be a lot of mmo players here, quite a few cards choke with the eye candy turned up even at 1920x1200 with 0x-4x AA and 8x AF, and they are fairly sensitive to processor speed.

[Olivon]

I am cpu limited at 3.2ghz in BC2, I gain 30fps at average going to 4.2ghz.
Playing at 5760x1080.

You play on 5760X1080 with a HD6850 1 GB ?

[Particle]

BC2 does like fast cores, but it's not the end of the story. 12 cores at 2.4 GHz did fine for me, but 6 cores at 4.4 GHz did a LOT better in terms of responsiveness when I played under dry ice. Video card wise, I found eyefinity unplayable at 4800x1200 even with two 5850s and a 1090T at 4.1 GHz.

[eric66]

few days left and still no info god damn it what kinda nda is this anyway

[xVeinx]

... what kinda nda is this anyway

The normal type?

[Loque]

amd nda is serious business

[Heinz68]

amd nda is serious business

Way too serious, not many leaks. The only good news is that we wont have many people in China jumping from the windows. j/k

[generics_user]

amd nda is serious business

yeah, despite the fact that we're 2 weeks over the original launch date all we know for sure is that it's going to have a 256bit bus and a 4d shader design...

[rintamarotta]

No, 6800 is a 5d design. If drivers would be optimized for 4d then 6800 would see no benefit.

Yeah but its still modifyed arch compared to HD5 series.

Compared to HD5870, HD6870 is about same in tesselation due it can do more per-clock than HD5870 with lower stream processor amount due its tweaked arch, this benefit is clearly seen in tesselation.

Turn Tesselation off and HD6870 will only see HD5870's tail lights.

Soon coming HD69xx is 4d desing.

[tbone8ty]

i keep clicking on the "last page" hoping it would be the "last rumor"

[Gilgamesh]

http://translate.google.it/translate...n&hl=&ie=UTF-8

AMD has had a fine year on the graphics card market but in autumn it has lost some of its moments, not least by far more competitive solutions from rival NVIDIA. Now, the new performance series Radeon HD 6900 just around the corner, but according to sources at NordicHardware, it is slow.

AMD has already delayed the launch on one occasion , on 21 November was dumped in favor of some time during week 50. The reason for the somewhat vague release date is according to our sources to be the top model Radeon H 6970th AMD has just not been sure when to get the card ready for launch, and as recently as today - 1 December - there is no recognized launch date for the two graphics cards to be launched within two weeks.

The positive news we have reached is that the little brother, the Radeon HD 6950, started to find out from AMD and shipped to its partners. Which means that at least the entry model in the manufacturer's new series looks to be on the right track.

Big Brother Radeon HD 6970 is said, however, be a more uncertain short-and according to credible sources, we will immediately be excited about the launch actually takes place this year - and be prepared to wait until next year to see the cards in some form of reasonable availability. Radeon HD 6950 is said therefore to be in slightly better shape, but AMD will not carry any at the launch of the Cayman series until the Radeon HD 6970 is ready for the limelight.

While NVIDIA December 7 will launch its second performance card for this fall - the GeForce GTX 570th Although AMD has a broad and stable supply of graphics card you can see out to get a heavy end of the year in which, at worst, not getting any new performance cards on store shelves before Christmas. We follow the course development and will provide more information as soon as we receive it.

[Solus Corvus]

Disappointing if true. But remember that Nordichardware thought that Barts would have 960 shaders too. They could have some details right and some details wrong, just as with Barts.

[marten_larsson]

To be completely honest, NH hasn't been on top of things for a long while. I also have a hard time believing that 6950 would be ready but not 6970, what would cause such issues? If it is the chips then it would have to be a yield issue which would take a lot longer to sort out. The boards should have been ready quite some time ago plus wouldn't have to take that much time to alter if they could use the already manufactured boards... Well, time will tell, only a week or so left.

[thebanik]

If it doesnt match a 580 or better it in some benchmarks then why were they even bothering to launch a new product considering 580 is only around 20% faster than a 480,