Amd Volcanic Islands details

[kuroikenshi]

^^, well for the average user a vanilla sapphire is about the right price point.

average users wont torture cards like OC'ers would.

TBH I would like to see what a lighting version of the 290x will do (cherry-picking chips + high end components)

[BababooeyHTJ]

They earn a ton of money with cuda. You forgot about that workstation market.

They reason that Nvidia can get away with charging more than AMD is since people are willing to pay more. Thats it. I'll flat out say it, on average they have better software support. When I say better software support I'm talking more AA modes (SGSSAA, working transparency aa that doesn't come at a massive performance hit, better msaa compatibility), fewer compatibility issues (I've had a lot of issues with artifacts on AMD cards and I'm not talking bad hardware, all known repeatable issues), and less microstutter. Then there is the fact that if you need support you can get a hold of someone on their forums. AMD doesn't respond or monitor their own forums. As where I've gotten quite a bit of info off of Nvidia's forum.

Nvidia has provided me any many other people more consistent support over the years. They have earned a better reputation. I'm sure that the years of TWIMTBP helped too. Marketing works, it seems like AMD has only started recently. Its going to take time.

AMD has come a long way imo. Their gaming evolved program is going to pay off in the long run. I think that Mantle could be huge for AMD. I would still like to see them work on some of their other areas though. Mostly RGSSAA support and better TRSSAA.

Most people aren't willing to buy an AMD card at a similar price to a similar performing Nvidia card and its not hard to see why.

[i found nemo]

Ok, I found it..... So why, after having 3 Sapphire cards that consistently clock horribly...would I buy another. Obviously they are getting low binned chips or their Q.C. is not so top notch. Now, every PowerColor I have bought was awesome. if company A takes shortcuts with their Q.C. or say makes a deal to get low binned chips for cheap...then it really don't matter how good the card is on paper....it is unfortunately destined to .....be a bad clocker.
Or, maybe I got the only three cards that were bad clockers...still don't change the fact that once I bought another brand I started getting better performing cards...so I'm going with my theory because it is working out a-lot better...for me.
And yes, a-lot of people don't realize how hot the VRMs are getting. That's why I used an arctic Acellero on my 7950 and a Huge piece of copper I milled myself for the VRMs. That is why I moved over to water cooling now so that I can now water-cool my VGA's VRMs.

Personal Attack? who is the one having to defend everything they say? I think I'm the one being attacked here. And if you can't handle a little sarcasm in a post, then there is something stuck up your.

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...-Vapor-X-7950s

maybe not bad quality caps pwm vrm ect ect.. but as u can see in that thread most sapphire cards will clock badly because of vrm temps. and no, nothing is stuck up my period. although i did miss my last two months... :p i'm a guy so that is all sarcasm. so i would say sapphire has bad heatsinks on vrm's, not low quality amd gpus.

[tajoh111]

They earn a ton of money with cuda. You forgot about that workstation market.

They reason that Nvidia can get away with charging more than AMD is since people are willing to pay more. Thats it. I'll flat out say it, on average they have better software support. When I say better software support I'm talking more AA modes (SGSSAA, working transparency aa that doesn't come at a massive performance hit, better msaa compatibility), fewer compatibility issues (I've had a lot of issues with artifacts on AMD cards and I'm not talking bad hardware, all known repeatable issues), and less microstutter. Then there is the fact that if you need support you can get a hold of someone on their forums. AMD doesn't respond or monitor their own forums. As where I've gotten quite a bit of info off of Nvidia's forum.

Nvidia has provided me any many other people more consistent support over the years. They have earned a better reputation. I'm sure that the years of TWIMTBP helped too. Marketing works, it seems like AMD has only started recently. Its going to take time.

AMD has come a long way imo. Their gaming evolved program is going to pay off in the long run. I think that Mantle could be huge for AMD. I would still like to see them work on some of their other areas though. Mostly RGSSAA support and better TRSSAA.

Most people aren't willing to buy an AMD card at a similar price to a similar performing Nvidia card and its not hard to see why.

I think a problem with AMD not being able to charge a premium is the branding itself. This mistake was self inflicted when they killed the ATI brand. ATI back in its hey day was more respected than Nvidia. But AMD killed the brand to put everything under the AMD brand. I think this might have been a mistake because the AMD brand itself, particularly when they killed it was generally disrespected.

The AMD brand for close to a decade has been all about value and lower performance. The spectacular failure of the fx-9590 and the subsequent price drops just show that AMD cannot carry the premium brand flag. Particularly the giant step it tried to make with that mistake.

Nvidia has done alot better to foster a community too, particularly EVGA. I don't think there is any other videocard hardware maker with as big a community and supported as EVGA. I have never owned an EVGA card, but I have stumbled across the forum. And looking at it, its a pretty big community. I haven't seen a strictly xfx or sapphire forum.

[tbone8ty]

any indications on thermals or acoustics? compared to the 7970 stock card?

[SKYMTL]

Anyone want to make a $200 deposit? http://www.centrecom.com.au/gigabyte...ld-4-pre-order

Russian Roulette FTW!

[hurleybird]

Limit of one per customer, lol.

This is pretty low.

[Sparky]

Anyone want to make a $200 deposit? http://www.centrecom.com.au/gigabyte...ld-4-pre-order

Russian Roulette FTW!

$200 deposit, and if they jack the price and you say no they keep $50 of it. Yeah.... how about NO lol.

[STEvil]

if it was ncix, sure. but no.

[To(V)bo Co(V)bo]

Any news about compute performance? I wonder if they had to cut down on the compute features to beef up the gaming performance. It has been speculated, but no confirmation yet.

Also wondering about their Firepro lineup, what's gonna get released. I really want a workstation card, since nvidias pro cards are priced ridiculously. Even worse than Titan.

[Ace123]

you know.... Im wondering if the binning of the chip has as much to do with the overclocking limit of the GPU as say... the solder connection between it, and the board. one weak link... one solder ball that did not flow as well, or a dry solder, stressed joint....

[Kiske]

I worked as an repair engineer at a big international company and worked with motherboard sized circuit boards that has up to 16 layers (normal motherboards has 4-6).

Bad solder balls generally dont really impact the working performance gradually but more like a on/off switch. It either works or not.
I can also say that bad solderballs is by far the most common problems on modern circuit boards.

[kuroikenshi]

I worked as an repair engineer at a big international company and worked with motherboard sized circuit boards that has up to 16 layers (normal motherboards has 4-6).

Bad solder balls generally dont really impact the working performance gradually but more like a on/off switch. It either works or not.
I can also say that bad solderballs is by far the most common problems on modern circuit boards.

16 layers? that sounds like it would have to be both "very specific" and very complex to design.

[Lanek]

16 layers? that sounds like it would have to be both "very specific" and very complex to design.

Server and Blade motherboard..

[Kiske]

Server and Blade motherboard..

Almost, blades for mobile telecommunications system racks.

[N19h7m4r3]

Anyone know if these Cards support OpenGL 4.1 and higher?
I keep seeing the 7950's list OpenGL 3.2 support.

NVIDIA support 4.4 from the 4xxx onwards.

The KronosGroup also just confirmed that AMD does not conform to their standards for OpenGL at the moment.

[Maxforces]

Almost, blades for mobile telecommunications system racks.

hd7970/50 support opengl 4.3 since 13.2 driver

[zalbard]

Anyone know if these Cards support OpenGL 4.1 and higher?

Depends on what you need...

In general, Nvidia has better OpenGL support.

[N19h7m4r3]

Depends on what you need...

In general, Nvidia has better OpenGL support.

True, although I also need good OpenCL performance. Which is where AMD seems to excel, especially in my price range and in OS X.

Since the new r9 cards are on the horizon I'm holding off buying anything at the moment, but stocks seem to be disappearing quickly. I hope I don't get stuck where I can't get what I need, especially for a good while.

[DefStar]

You know, I really thought the MSRP of the 780 was $750 (because of the EVGA water-block edition) this whole time...and I really thought the R9 290x would be $600. I...I'm, just...I'm going to have a hard time choosing between the 780 and R9 if...the R9 don't over-clock. If AMD already pushed it to it's limits and there is no overclock headroom....it better be as fast as the Titan for $700. Or I will buy a 780 for $750 (because I want the water block) and overclock it to Titan levels. I truly only want the best deal I can get, I owe neither AMD or Nvidia my allegiance. And, I really like the LightBoost 2D. I can kind of do the same thing with my Samsung monitor (Frame Sequential 3D mode) and an AMD card...but its a $600 monitor (I got a C grade refurb. for $300) and only Samsung monitors can do it. Any LightBoost monitor is only like $200.

[Lanek]

True, although I also need good OpenCL performance. Which is where AMD seems to excel, especially in my price range and in OS X.

Since the new r9 cards are on the horizon I'm holding off buying anything at the moment, but stocks seem to be disappearing quickly. I hope I don't get stuck where I can't get what I need, especially for a good while.

Why will you use OsX and OpenCL .. you ask the moon there .. OSx is absolutely not made for professional use.... OpenCL make his road on professionnal computing system / software since a good times, but forget OSx for it... Not because of OpenCL, but because of OSx, and relation with softwares developpers .. half of what you need is closed to Apple... if one day they change their politics we will maybe be able to do something professional for them..

[N19h7m4r3]

Why will you use OsX and OpenCL .. you ask the moon there .. OSx is absolutely not made for professional use.... OpenCL make his road on professionnal computing system / software since a good times, but forget OSx for it... Not because of OpenCL, but because of OSx, and relation with softwares developpers .. half of what you need is closed to Apple... if one day they change their politics we will maybe be able to do something professional for them..

I'll use it because the software I use is on OSX, and takes advantage of OpenCL.

Apple and AMD are also working closely for the next Mac Pro to bring dual workstation cards and support to their platform. If that's the case my system will last longer and AMD is the way for me to go.

If AMD can't deliver I'll go to NVIDIA where any of their Quadro and GTX6xxx cards are supported natively in OSX, and further with drivers from NVIDIA directly.

[DefStar]

I'm convinced, AMD and Nvidia are price fixing just like ATI and Nvidia did. Staggering releases, Nvidia ups the price, AMD responds with...oh now we need more $ for our flagship card to...... and price fixing. On a mature process to. They've been making 28nm GPU for going on two years now.....its getting more expensive to manufacture cards at 28nm now....must be so many defective cards coming out huh? And it is just a revamp of an existing card with a wider memory bus.

You know what? I'm going to buy the 7990 for $610 and a water block for ~$140. The only thing the R9's $700 price tag did was make a card that I guarantee cost 1.5x more $ for AMD to manufacture...look 1.5x better and I guarantee it will perform 1.5x better. Well, I guess I waited all this time for the 7990's price to drop. Heh, I feel better already.

[zalbard]

You know what? I'm going to buy the 7990 for $610 and a water block for ~$140. The only thing the R9's $700 price tag did was make a card that I guarantee cost 1.5x more $ for AMD to manufacture...look 1.5x better and I guarantee it will perform 1.5x better. Well, I guess I waited all this time for the 7990's price to drop. Heh, I feel better already.

Better yet, buy used. Some people are bound to sell theirs due to release of R9.

[Greg83]

supply and demand, and costs associated with initial line switch and programming of a short run.
plus bf4 limited edition package etc.

price will be $650 w/o bf4. for near 7990 w/o crossfire perf.

in the new year we'll see nvidia slower 780GTX price to ~500's and the 290X will be in the ~450 shortly after. when large production runs of the line can occur.