AMD Radeon HD 8970M Unveiled

8990M have been added to the TechPowerUp database. Not much information there other than:

AMD Radeon HD 8990M | techPowerUp GPU Database

 

I'm sure it will be on par with whatever NVIDIA has, that's what competition is there for, to compete. Don't start another twenty page war, please... I hate sifting through it all for information only to find bickering.

Question: if AMD releases two cards at this level, wouldn't NVIDIA be inclined to do the same? 780 vs 8970, then maybe 790 vs 8990? Seems unlikely but plausible. I suppose it depends on how the 8990 performs.

 

Personally. I don't see the logic in either AMD or Nvidia releasing TWO gpu's at the same time. Surely if the 8970m hasn't even been officially released, it makes little financial sense to release a better card from the same manufacturer at the same time. Sales of one would be non-existent, unless there was a huge price gap like 675m>680m which was a rebadge vs. a new card. If AMD do the same, and assuming 8970m is a rebadge of a 7970m, then that's the only plausible reason for doing so.

Apologies to anyone if I mentioned Nvidia - I did so only as a comparative example of gpu hierarchy.

 

I agree, but then again, from what we see (unofficially), the 8970M is basically a rebadge with less than 8% performance increase over the 7970M and the 780M appears to be at least 20%, so they may release two with a price gap to compete.

I've also read AMD is getting into gaming consoles. So, maybe by some chance one of them is going to be in a console? I don't know.

 

Yeah, with the "reported" performance difference between 8970m and 780m, it's plausible that the 8990m would be released at the same time as 8970m - with a premium. I reckon it wouldn't have been AMD's plan to do so, but as the alleged performance difference is quite large, they might be bringing their "big guns" to the table earlier than intended to capitlize on sales . Of course, assuming the 8990m is gonna batter the 780m and be a fair bit cheaper......

Speculation, speculation......don't ya just love it.....

 

Consoles are using APU designs.

 

7970M w/A10 vs 8970M w/A10 apparently a 10% boost. 8% boost over the 680M.

The biggest unknown is whether or not the A10 is a proper bottleneck to either GPU. If the 7970M was already almost bottlenecked than the 8970M can't exactly spread it's wings!
Perhaps AMD are doing so this on purpose to fuel a speculation war and then surprise most once it gets tested with a proper intel CPU lol, then again the A10 w/8970M is newer...

Then AMD did announce I believe months back that were pretty much happy with the 7970M and will mainly work to improve driver support and power efficiency. For those coming from a 6xxx series card the 8970M would be a great card in this sense. For current gen owners perhaps best to wait. It all depends on the final specs and in game tests. Care about benchmarks.

 

And it's 1.84TFLOPs, even slower than 7970M.

 

Even the upcoming Xbox and PS4? I read an article stating AMD hardware will be in these systems, at least the Xbox.

If NVIDIA can put a 680MX in an iMac, AMD can surely stuff a mobile GPU (or some variation of it) in a console, correct? Or do you think the article was referring to other hardware (e.g. CPU)?

I don't know much about consoles, so, I could be way wrong on this. Please correct me if I am.

 

It's not about technically possible or not, it's about price. Consoles are cheap devices.

680MX iMac: $2150+

PS4 Console: ~$500?

 

yes, the Wii is, the PS4 is announced using and the next xbox is all but confirmed as well as using AMD APU/Radeon units. the PS4 is a bit customized on the GPU side but WILL support NVidia PhysX. we have no confirmation on any of the customizations for the Xbox yet.

 

PhysX on AMD hardware? Did they port it to OpenCL?

 

I belive the PhysX will run on the CPU like any other setup that involves AMD GPU. Nvidia only supply PhysX SDK to let the developers create PhysX content in their games.

Sony ran a demo during PS4 presentation using the Havok Engine. It runs on OpenCL so that is actually capable of running on the GPU.
Havok Engine Demo (PS4) - YouTube

So to summarize:
PS4 games using PhysX - CPU
PS4 games using Havok - GPU

 

Back to the 8970M. If the new card is simply the 7970M with 900/1250 clockspeeds. I wonder if we can flash our old cards and turn them into the 8970M?

Nice way to refresh the value of old hardware lol

 

I`m pretty sure that will be 100% possible

 

it will then depend on the system bios compatibility, if the newly flashed "8970m" is properly recognized by non-officially supported machines.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

 

and of course the 8970m is a 4gb card where the 7970m is a 2gb, we have to count this fact as well...

 

Nothing to see here.

 

Consoles are using modified Jaguar based APUs, with their GPU around the performance of a HD7850 desktop, at least in terms of core count.

AMD CPU is indeed a bottleneck for the HD7970m and will be so for the HD8970m. Regardless if it's an overclocked version of the GPU, it won't shine with an APU for the best performance.

 

...Or just OC your card to 900/1250. That works too

On a side note, this refresh is exactly how many of us knew it would play out last year. It was apparent 7970m was at the ceiling of what Pitcairn could offer, and Southern Islands was just too power hungry, even with a cut-down chip, to be mobile (I'm VERY skeptical we will see a 7870 LE/"7950 nerfed" in a laptop). So here we are... with the same chip we've been using for the past 1+ years with increased clocks speeds we've all been getting by just OC-ing. I'm not saying the increased OTB speeds are not nice, just very disappointing considering what the competition will be offering very soon.

 

You mean the same chip with the primary change being clock speeds

Both companies are doing the same thing.

 

Yeah. New architectures are supposed to hit until next year. Besides, a properly OC'd pitcairn is still quite powerful on its own.

 

Well, one machine less per season for you

 

it's me again :thumbsup:

Spoiler

<iframe width='1280' height="720" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/7ySfLzC2xLk?rel=0" frameborder='0' allowfullscreen></iframe>

 

How can anyone be impressed by the recent slides? AMD better step up with a faster GPU or else it won`t be pretty since the GTX 780M is a beast.





Source: Richland

 

Haha - well, that bottom graph boasts a whopping 7.5% increase .......not exactly awe inspiring.

 

We have been deceived. Check out my other thread
http://forum.notebookreview.com/gaming-software-graphics-cards/718028-hd-8970m-not-rebrand-may-up-par-gtx-780m.html

 

Thought as much......just like Nvidia running benches with PhysX enabled....not an ideal method for comparison.

 

PhysX and now Boost 2.0 enabled...

 

Forgot about the new boost technology too......

 

Was not AMD but someone trying to release high benchmarks.

 

True enough.....