AMD Cayman info (or rumor)

[Lightman]

i will wait for the 15th so that we can figure out exactly what this whole power tune AM/FM radio switch power saving maybe turbo boost stuff is. because for AMD to have the card set to a TDP and raise or lower clocks to stay within that limit would be nothing short of pure stupidity. considering most people who buy this card have no interest in OCing and know little more then how to plug in a stick of RAM let alone do research to find out that to get the most performance out of their brand new $400+ video card they need to hit some stupid switch. I appreciate AMD trying to make the card as efficient as possible but at the cost of performance like that is way to far over the line...

So why you're not complaining about GTX580 throttling in Furmark then? Apparently it is limiting performance in that excellent game by quite a margin.

Look at this feature from different angle -> Perlin noise from Vantage takes the HD5870 almost as high as Furmark does. This new Power Tune undoubtedly will affect games performance very slightly in very specific conditions only or not at all. I have not come across a game which would put similar load on GPU as Perlin Noise or Furmark at all (be assured I've tested quite a lot of them when my HD5870 was fresh).
The good thing about this tech is that it is microcontroller based and not dependant on profiles.
I can set my card power to be -20% and when playing older/less demanding games my card will take care of staying at reasonable power use while still delivering outstanding performance.
Imagine a situation where you have card X with sustained gaming power 200W and card Y with variable power of 100-200W. Now you start Quake III TA with no vSync so you can fragg better. Card X will draw 200W and give you 2500FPS and on card Y while might reach 2500FPS @200W you prefer to save 100W and be happy with only 1500FPS. The side effect of that power saving will of course be lower noise as well.

So instead of spinning new power features as bad thing try to look at them from different angle

[hurrdurr]

Which makes sense again... like I said, the earlier bench results that put the card at 5870 like levels could be because of the default TDP limit...

once the limit was increased to 250W (or whatever), we got the real performance of the card which is slightly below GTX 580.

Although, secretly I am wishing that the current scores we have ARE with the default TDP limit, and if we remove the limit, GTX 580's butt will be kicked... that'd be:

1. Awesome
2. My next card

[Oliverda]

Here is the Nvidia dual-GPU Monster to kick AMD HD 6990 but:

That is Galaxy's dual GTX 470.

[safan80]

Which makes sense again... like I said, the earlier bench results that put the card at 5870 like levels could be because of the default TDP limit...

once the limit was increased to 250W (or whatever), we got the real performance of the card which is slightly below GTX 580.

Although, secretly I am wishing that the current scores we have ARE with the default TDP limit, and if we remove the limit, GTX 580's butt will be kicked... that'd be:

1. Awesome
2. My next card

That is my hope, the last thing we need is ATI not competing with Nvidia and to be stuck at last year's graphics speeds.

[SpuTnicK]

That is Galaxy's dual GTX 470.

Thanks

[Zer0th]

[...] considering most people who buy this card have no interest in OCing and know little more then how to plug in a stick of RAM let alone do research to find out that to get the most performance out of their brand new $400+ video card they need to hit some stupid switch.

As someone whose interest in this thread is purely for tech curiosity* and the inner-world of graphics whores -- a breed that would confound an international symposium of psychiatry -- I just love the image of you all tossing and turning through sleepless nights fretting vicariously on behalf of the Neanderthal Sixpack. Oh Noes!!11, NVIDIA have re-branded again... Oh Noes!!11 there's a switch on the card. Think of the children (sixpack), ban this sick filth now!

Fortunately windows aren't taxed these days because glass is less transparent.

Anyway, do carry on... not you specifically, the breed. /research

[*] my pc won't even run Aero

[Tha Last Meal]

Here is the Nvidia dual-GPU Monster to kick AMD HD 6990 but:

yo boy..... no no no no this is not nvidia card this is from GALAXY and this card not use GF110 core this card use GF100 (2xGTX 470)

look here



and look here this is from nvidia dual-GPU (GF110)

[zerazax]

Both are 2 x 8 pin so they wont go retail in that config. They're probably ES's or I guess in Galaxy's case, a "special edition" card

[Solus Corvus]

I'd prefer if I could make it a TDP floor.

[Pantsu]

Which makes sense again... like I said, the earlier bench results that put the card at 5870 like levels could be because of the default TDP limit...

once the limit was increased to 250W (or whatever), we got the real performance of the card which is slightly below GTX 580.

Although, secretly I am wishing that the current scores we have ARE with the default TDP limit, and if we remove the limit, GTX 580's butt will be kicked... that'd be:

1. Awesome
2. My next card

I doubt AMD would set the TDP throttle at a level that would hinder game performance at default clocks. That's the performance we get at 880MHz and that's it. If you want more you'll have to oc and up the throttling limit to 250W. Some people seem to have gotten the idea that upping the limit is somehow different from normal overclocking, but it isn't. Of course the benefit of having a slider that goes to 250W is that it might be higher than what AMD would otherwise set as the max TDP. Of course there's always the risk of bricking your card too.

[flyck]

Which makes sense again... like I said, the earlier bench results that put the card at 5870 like levels could be because of the default TDP limit...

once the limit was increased to 250W (or whatever), we got the real performance of the card which is slightly below GTX 580.

Although, secretly I am wishing that the current scores we have ARE with the default TDP limit, and if we remove the limit, GTX 580's butt will be kicked... that'd be:

1. Awesome
2. My next card

well, the latest results where the 6970 beat gtx570 by 25% was apparently with the 190W CAP... still have to wait 36hours or so to know for sure

[[XC] hipno650]

Most people who buy a $400 card have no interest in OC'ing?

I'd say it's the other way around..

Also, the switch seems to be some sort of BIOS reset mechanism. I don't think it's related.

not at XS but you need to think about the majority of the market here. out of most of the people I have ever met who call themselves computer enthusiasts and fully build there own systems and have a decent amount of knowledge about computers and hardware only two of them besides myself overlclock there systems CPU let alone there GPU. most of the time I end up doing all of the overclocking for them anyways because they don't have the knowledge or interest. the same applies to the majority of guys who work in the local hardware shops. most of them buy parts assemble them and call it a day. so lets say overall out of people I have met that would be in the market for a 6970 only 10% of them will overclock it (thats being very generous) and it's not like i don't have a great deal of exposure to this crowd either custom built computers are my hobby and my job so they take up a good amount of my life. theres more to the custom built and gaming seen then what is on XS however i would have a hard time calling anything but XS "enthusiasts"

@Lightman i guess it would have to do with a difference in view points. for example I could care less about using an extra 100 watts to play old games (i own a 480 after all haha) also I have noticed that when monitoring my GPU usage in games old and even some newer ones it is very rare that I am using 100% of my GPU while gaming most older games on use 30% of my GPU thus my temps are much lower then when i am at 100% and same with my power usage anyways. the issue I have is that out of the box when you need all of the possible power you GPU has (playing Crysis for example) your GPU could potentially be down clocking itself for the sake of power consumption, which begs the question why did you buy such a high end GPU in the first place when in demanding games it will slow itself down at stock settings. now granted i doubt it will be that drastic but we will never know till the 15th comes around.

as to why I have not complained about the 580/570 in furmark, i tend to think that any 3dmark test is much closer to real game play then furmark. furmark is made for three reasons, stability testing, heat testing and power consumption testing. 3dmark is at least made to provide some level of game performance representation (even though it fails to do so more often then not) i have yet to see the power throttling on the GTX 580 come into play in games because if I remember correctly it is driver based not hardware based... and for the record I am not a fan of what Nvidia did there which was deliberately to make the gains in power consumption look better then they really are. however power consumption is at the BOTTOM of my concerns when buying a new video card or when recommending a new card to someone

who knows maybe there will be no games that trip the downclocking on the 6970 but if AMD does limit game performance then I will have a problem with it.

[Lightman]

@[XC] hipno650

I see from where you coming

I could make a car analogy but I will refrain
Let's wait for official benches to judge this new power saving tech.

[gamervivek]

i guess it would have to do with a difference in view points. for example I could care less about using an extra 100 watts to play old games (i own a 480 after all haha) also I have noticed that when monitoring my GPU usage in games old and even some newer ones it is very rare that I am using 100% of my GPU while gaming most older games on use 30% of my GPU thus my temps are much lower then when i am at 100% and same with my power usage anyways.

gpu usage is a useless metric to correlate to power consumption. Far Cry 2 used to show 100% constant usage, while crysis jumped around 70-95 percent while temps playing crysis were much higher.

[Nintendork]

Moving this to the extreme:




¿UK prices? (Gibbo @overclockes.co.uk forum) found on b3d forums.
6950 2048MB = £215-£230
6970 2048MB = £280 - £320

[[XC] hipno650]

@[XC] hipno650

I see from where you coming

I could make a car analogy but I will refrain
Let's wait for official benches to judge this new power saving tech.

I just hope the wait does not kill all of us

gpu usage is a useless metric to correlate to power consumption. Far Cry 2 used to show 100% constant usage, while crysis jumped around 70-95 percent while temps playing crysis were much higher.

in my experience I have seen usage while playing games to be directly related to temps experienced while playing games across a wide range of games. granted there with be differences and yes Crysis does seem to get the cards hotter and make them use power then most but usage it is still shows a certain level of GPU power consumption. a GPU running at 50% uses less power then one at 100% thats pretty common sense for the most part...

just like when I run WCG on my CPU it uses more power then when I surfing the web...

I have also noticed that most modern cards will auto downclock when the GPU gets below a certain level of usage which is fine for the most part because you don't need the extra power anyways... this however up until now has been driver based not hardware based.

[flippin_waffles]

So this switch is like AMD saying: 'this is what we can do if we use the same TDP as the competition'.

[Heinz68]

Gibbo post at OverclockersUK Forum.

NVIDIA's & ATI's Latest Pricing as of end of this week
GTX 460 768MB = £105 - £115
5830 1024MB = £115-£130 **EOL** ***Practically 5850 performance - BARGAIN***
6850 1024MB = £130-£140
GTX 460 1024MB = £140-£160
5850 1024MB = £130-£150 **EOL** ***Stock None Existent***
6870 1024MB = £170-£190
5870 1024MB = £180-£200 **EOL** ***Nothing sub £200 beats this***
GTX 470 1280MB = £190-£220 **EOL**
6950 2048MB = £220-£230 ***Expect £10 price increase in January***
GTX 480 1536MB = £250-£270 **EOL**
GTX 570 1280MB = £250-£290
6970 2048MB = £285 - £320 ***Expect £20 price increase in January***
GTX 580 1536MB = £350-£450 **Supply & Demand will keep this high**
6990 4096MB = £450-£500

[Oztopher]

Things are starting to get interesting for sure. We're starting to see the big picture now, as well as the intentions.

If the 6950 comes in at just above £200, i'll buy it at launch

[zerazax]

Great pricing for 2GB cards

FWIW those would be close to 58xx launch prices it looks like

[Heinz68]

Great pricing for 2GB cards

FWIW those would be close to 58xx launch prices it looks like

Right on.

Same goes for the 4GB GDDR5 HD 6990

[Roadhog]

If they are anything like the 5870 launch prices, I am pretty sure I will end up with 3 6970's.

[Lightman]

Great pricing for 2GB cards

FWIW those would be close to 58xx launch prices it looks like

Yes, I've paid for my HD5870 £287+£5 shipping on launch!
These prices are better than I've expected!
My dilemma now: one HD6970 or two HD6950?
But the concious is saying one HD6970 is plenty enough for 1920x1200

[zerazax]

I bet one 6970 is overkill for 1920x1200. 2GB on those guys is asking for 2560x1600 or multi-monitor!

[Oztopher]

I only game at 1680x1050, so a 2GB 6950 WILL probably be overkill. But at least i can increase those AA and AF levels indefinitely