Talking Head for Nvidia Reportedly Disses AMD Radeon HD 7900 Series
Talking Head for Nvidia Reportedly Disses AMD Radeon HD 7900 Series
Posted 01/25/2012 at 9:56am
| by Paul Lilly
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Multiple reports up to this point suggest Nvidia will steal back the performance crown from AMD when Kepler arrives, a notion that was highlighted when longtime Nvidia critic, Charlie Demerjian, sang high praise for Kepler at SemiAccurate. But what might be most telling is Nvidia's willingness to talk a little smack before Kepler comes to town, as has been reported.
According to NordicHardware, a "high up representative" with Nvidia waxed surprised with AMD's Radeon 7900 series launch, which has fallen short of Nvidia's performance estimate that it had in its mind to beat.
"Honestly, we expected more from our competitor's new architecture," an un-named spokesperson reportedly told NordicHardware.
That same spokesperson insinuated to NordicHardware that Nvidia's 28nm Kepler could launch by the end of March, but could also just as easily slip into the second quarter, giving AMD plenty of time to wear the GPU performance crown.
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Cooketh
January 28, 2012 at 4:45pm
Still rocking X-fire 6870s. Honestly, going to wait another GPU generation for an upgrade.
Devs aren't pushing High Tier visuals thanks to consolitis, and I'm not paying 500 dollars for a 10%-25% performance gain. And DX11.1 and + isn't critical for another year at best.Honestly, performance isn't something that's a strong selling point for me now like it was 8 years ago. It's all about the price, headroom, and drivers.
Frankly AMD/ATI drivers have been abysmal the last few years, and that's being generous.However, I'm also disappointed at how poorly AMD, and developers in part, support Crossfire.
AMD needs to get their drivers in order and their driver installation process in order. Installing and updating AMD drivers on Windows 7 is painful. I'd say one out of three driver updates I do for my ATI setup goes funky and doesn't take right, even with a total uninstall and driver sweep.
dethduck
January 26, 2012 at 3:28am
All these high end cards are so damn fast these days who can honestly tell the difference outside of benchmarks? It's like trying to tell is you're going 110 mph or 115 mph in a sports car without looking at the speedometer. Speed isn't the issue anymore as much as power drain and temperature is.
Insula Gilliganis
January 25, 2012 at 9:30pm
There was a rumor earlier in January (can read about it at pcper.com/news/Graphics-Cards/Does-AMD-have-2304-stream-processor-GPU-waiting) that claims AMD has some faster cards available with higher clock speeds and more stream processors to be released once Kepler arrives. Quoting PCPer.com "The Toxic ZX, if it exists, would run with 2304 stream processors at 1225 MHz! The performance of this card could easily beat out the Radeon HD 7970 3GB card by 35-45% with the shader and clock speed differences." Perhaps AMD is holding back for the moment and this is why NVIDIA expected the 7970 to be faster. Maybe it is what Admiral Ackbar would say "It's a trap!"
biggiebob12345
January 26, 2012 at 12:51am
AMD has no strategic advantage to "holding back". They probably jumped Nvidia with their Tahiti release since they know that they only have a 3 month window where people are going to buy (because there's nothing else to look at on the shelves). 80% or something already use Nvidia products. If Kepler performs even at the same level as Tahiti then that's where everyone is going to go.
Papaspud
January 25, 2012 at 12:14pm
Plan on building the new rig after intel releases IB and Nvidia releases kepler, hope it will be sooner rather than late.
JohnP
January 25, 2012 at 5:42pm
Yep, that is me also. Ivy Bridge and Kepler would make a new build worthwhile (IF the specs are 10% better than what I have- my minimum for upgrading). Otherwise, I just have to stick to my 4.4GHz i7-2600K Sandy Bridge and GTX 580.
Note: mind you that the 7970 is about 5-30% faster than my GTX580 but I will wait until NVidia's release as it could be a good one. The 7970 specs is just not that compelling to me as it should have been so much more with the upgrades that it had.
Danthrax66
January 25, 2012 at 9:16pm
Based on the numbers I have seen the 580 is still faster in most games and it is better at folding.
biggiebob12345
January 25, 2012 at 7:21pm
There's no point in upgrading if you already have SB and a 580; buy a SSD or another SSD instead. I'm upgrading to IB + Kepler from an Athlon II X3 and 5850.
Keith E. Whisman
January 25, 2012 at 12:07pm
I wonder if Nvidia is slow to release it's new card to help AMD stay alive. If AMD went out of business nobody would win.
dgrmouse
January 25, 2012 at 12:15pm
This is a popular sentiment in support of AMD that, frankly, makes no sense whatsoever. If they can't produce competitive products for any given target market, then they will not be missed if they go under.
Supall
January 25, 2012 at 12:41pm
I don't know about you, but everyone else would miss competitive pricing and competitive-driven innovation.
Who would fill in that void if AMD went under? Intel? Sure.
dgrmouse
January 25, 2012 at 12:57pm
I chose my words carefully. I said, essentially, that if AMD couldn't be competitive that they would not be missed if they went under. You retorted that you would miss them because they would be competitive. I think you missed the point.
dakishimesan
January 25, 2012 at 4:20pm
i think he was saying that regardless of top-spot hardware, pricing remains competitive due to architectural innovation and marketing.
and what's with all this 7900 bashing? It's an incredible card which completely flipped the performance crown for gpu compute, as well as games. and higher-clocked versions are reaching new heights with a lot of headroom.
biggiebob12345
January 25, 2012 at 7:24pm
It's only an "incredible card" compared to Nvidia's year old card. Big deal. Rumors and leaks all over the place saying Kepler will destroy it. Even if Kepler is only 90% of Tahiti, I'll go Nvidia. Better drivers and better OEM's.
borise
January 25, 2012 at 12:06pm
I'm sorry but nobody should listen to a word that Charlie Demerjian from SemiAccurate says. Most of the stuff he writes are either rumours or just completely wrong. The name SemiAccurate is pretty Accurate as in everything he types is half right. You need to ask someone in the CPU/GPU industry rather than someone who works at a networking company.
Keith E. Whisman
January 25, 2012 at 12:03pm
Nvidia also talked a lot of smack back when it released the 5800 $500 dollar leaf blower snail GPU. Because it was slow and loud.
nsvander
January 25, 2012 at 10:56am
I am a Nvidia user, (2 GTX570s) but I have to wonder if Nvidia is taking its time because they know their part was not on par with AMDs and they had to tweak a few things so they would come out of the gates on top.
dgrmouse
January 25, 2012 at 12:10pm
Not possible. They could've tweaked their existing architecture enough to match the new AMD cards. Both companies are moving slowly enough now, however, that even an upstart (or Intel) could catch up and blindside them.
Peanut Fox
January 25, 2012 at 1:46pm
I think hardware wise it would be possible. But I think that in the driver department especially with multicard scaling this new company would have an issue maintaining performance. Just look at AMD's issues from the last slew of games that released toward the end of the year.
Danthrax66
January 25, 2012 at 9:19pm
Intel most likely wouldn't have an issue doing it if they really cared to try... right now though there is no need for them to do it because they already make a shit ton from CPUs and any additional expansion would be a loss right now and they don't want to make themselves look weak in the current economic landscape.
Neufeldt2002
January 25, 2012 at 12:50pm
I wish someone else would come to market with a comparable or better GPU. The more competition the better.
JohnP
January 25, 2012 at 10:21am
I kinda feel the same way. With all of the changes, a major die shrink, 30% increase in memory, 30% increase in memory bus width, 20% increase in the clocks, AND a new architecture, a 5%-30% boost in frames rates is far short of what I expected. Damit, AMD NEEDED this to be groundbreaking as it is still losing money.
I am glad the 7970 got a kick-ass award as it may be the last for a few more years...
leorick
January 29, 2012 at 5:04am
If i remember correctly, the 7900 series was introduce to catch up on what their products are lacking - compute.
Supall
January 25, 2012 at 10:05am
Well, I'm cash strapped so I guess I'll hold out for Kepler's release and hope it will drive down the costs of the HD 7970.
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