Incoming: AMD 9970M

In my experience, Enduro is still very much a problem with the 7970m. Maybe it's just the games I play, who knows, but I am inclined to say that it still is not fixed to its full capacity. I own a p150em and my brother owns a p150hm with 7970 and I can say for a fact that he gets at least 20 more fps in bf3 at the same settings as an example. The card simply performs significantly better (and to its full potential) in this and other games. This is something that I have seen myself and makes me somewhat disappointed that it is still the case after so much time.

There's also the fact that in the early days AMD was absolutely silent about the problem for a good 3-4 months and provided no support or acknowledgment whatsoever. Threads were started on various sites to raise awareness of the issue, including NBR, however that particular thread was closed at the request of AMD. Yes that's right, they knew about the problem and instead of attempting to fix it, they tried to sweep it under the rug and pretend as if nothing was wrong.

I apologise if this post rubs any of you the wrong way but this has been my personal experience with the Enduro fiasco and safe to say it has left a bad taste in my mouth.

Back on topic though, I am very *curious* to see performance numbers for the 9970 and the improvements they have made since their last two offerings.

 

I don't want AMD to collapse and disappear.
I LIKE healthy competition in any business model, because it makes EVERYONE benefit from it.
I want AMD to thrive and succeed, and become very prosperous in every way.
In the end, EVERYONE benefits from strong companies who go toe to toe with each other when they are successful.

Please don't misunderstand my comments here on this, because that wasn't my point.

What I want to see, is AMD come out with better and faster FIXES to it's GCN offerings, so that they can really BE the card of choice for anyone and everyone who wants a good gaming laptop, and compete with Nvidia on more than just price-point.

But since Enduro is STILL NOT FIXED after nearly 16 months of it being out, then the Clevo product line is to be avoided, until it is. As I said, the Alienware machines aren't hurt by the Enduro problems, because they have an "off switch", which is what I said earlier, and that makes it a better deal as opposed to Clevo-designed and built machines.
Anyone can SEE for themselves how much of an negative impact that it has on non-AW machines, and there is NO DISPUTING it either on less than Enthusiast settings on most games. Some test results Jared Walton did were STAGGERING- with it being almost 30-40 FPS differences in some games.
I own now, and have owned quite a few AMD and Nvidia GPU laptops in the past (about 10 in the last several years), so I am aware of the shortcomings of both of them in terms of price, drivers and support, gaming performance, etc.
In the last 13 years that I have owned both GPUs, I can say that Nvidia has better drivers and they come out faster than AMDs.
That is not debatable, either.
I have a friend who is runs MTech Laptops- a major Laptop reseller, and he told me on several occasions, to NOT get any AMD-based components years ago because of driver issues, but I didn't listen and bought one anyways because it "was cheaper", and I saw why he told me this. They are slow in coming out, buggy, and many people have complained about how poor they were overall.
It's no secret that this is so.
I won't make that same mistake again.
Nvidia has far better driver support staff, and whom are very good at what they do, in my opinion, and are far better than those at AMD. The Nvidia GPUs offer more bang for the buck. Everyone knows that they are FASTER, offer PhysX, 3D, along with better drivers and support.
Sure, the AMDs are cheaper in price, but as the saying goes- you get what you pay for.
Is it worth the extra $200 dollars in price?
I think so, but that is something that only the individual buyer can make for themselves. What's good for one, is not necessarily good for someone else. To each his own.
I am HOPING that next week's supposed MAJOR AMD driver release will address and fix these issues that were promised in June, and that there will be MAJOR improvements in Memory Management, FPS scores, etc.
I want to see AMD come out with a bold statement that they want to be a major player in Gaming, and making their many disgruntled customers happy, and for it to stay that way from now on.
We shall see what they do a week from today, and they will be judged accordingly to what they show us then.

That is my point here in this 9970m thread, but instead of commenting on the important and lingering Enduro issues, the AMD fanboy children here on this site choose to attack posters who are aren't worshipping at the AMD altar, as is usual.

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You choose to be disgruntled by sticking on the "enduro still sucks" point when you have been repeatedly told that it is good enough to make games playable. Look - here is a review. The 7970m is barely behind the 680m. Last year this time, it was terrible on the 170EM. If you want to try and win an argument then keep posting. If you want to learn something, then here it is - Enduro works just fine. Those that think that $200-300 are worth upgrade to nv's flagship, they can purchase it. For me, the 5 odd % win over 7970m was not enough. Had it been dramatically higher, I would have purchased the 680m. But there is no reason to keep spreading misinformation by saying Enduro is still terrible. It was. It is not anymore. Again, if you want to keep arguing, go right ahead. I doubt anyone else is going to tell you what the reality is. Secondly, your posts are too long and not worth the time for most. Keep them short. We don't need your opinions. We need FACTS. You want to disprove a point? Cite a reputable website or magazine.

 

I'm skipping his posts. I wont even bother to waste my time adding him to the ignore list. Keep the good on-topic info coming, guys

 

As I have said, the fault here is with Clevo, not just with AMD. Until Clevo creates an 'off-switch' for Enduro on their machines, the same issues are going to exist with ANY machine that Clevo makes. Alienware has no problems with Enduro, because it can be turned off when you want to.
I never said that the 9970m is "going to be a flop" (your words, not mine), but it is going to be limited in what it can do because Enduro still exists, and AMD isn't going to back away from it. On Clevo machines, it's STILL a BIG problem in many games.
In Alienware machines, the 7970m does fairly well in overall tests with Enduro OFF.
If (big IF) Clevo can make the "off switch" available in future machines, then any AMD GPU then becomes a viable alternative to the higher priced Nvidia competitor.
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Um, no. It's not with clevo at all. Nvidia is running on the exact same system without these utilization problems.
Want to know why? Because their drivers are more developed, due to going through the same switching ordeal a few years back...

They managed to fix it, with revised hardware components and software. But it did take them some time as well...
Amd will go through the same process, and will get it working soon.

ffs, we know it can be turned off, you don't have to drive that into our heads.


http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/graph7096/55777.png
This graph gives us a some what better representation, as the gpu is not being stressed by items such as hbao and msaax8, like the enthusiast settings.

As you can see the alienware also does pretty well with enduro turned ON. It only lags behind at 10%-13%.

Due to the higher fps, there is a larger amount of data being sent from the cpu to the 7970m, when compared to enthusiast settings.
Along with 'not perfect' transfer coding, this is what causes the utilization issue.

Enduro is not as bad as you say it is. sure it might drop into the 50's in specific locations, but it's not the worst thing in the world.

The 7970m can push out 60fps on most games, on any settings, and that's what we try to aim for.
Though, where enduro starts to get iffy, is going beyond those 60's and up to the 70's-120's.

Tbh, there no reason to go over 60fps anyway..

 

Great news though im getting rid of my MSI GE40 and dumping laptops for a Mini ITX system .

Hopefully the 9970m will be better priced than the 780m and offer greater performance so you GPU nerds will be happy :thumbsup:.

 

Oh my word, I was silent up until now but I have to say you sir are the one with a reading comprehension problem, those "amd fanboys" as you so call them have proven and backed up everything they have said so far with links and articles, all you have done is say Jared Walton from Anandtech bla bla bla said... all anyone here has told you is come back with facts maybe a link or 2 to support what you are saying, because right now all you have stated is opinion and we couldn't care less ...
That said Enduro is not perfect but Optimus was not either at first (and still isn't for that matter), I will even add that considering how young Enduro is they have come a long ways and much faster than Nvidia Optimus has, this is just my personal opinion .
Now please back up what you are saying if you want other here to take you seriously, because right now nobody does, especially when you start calling people children/teen's/kid's/fanboy's etc let me remind you that this isn't the school yard and calling people names only makes you look like what you are calling those people ...

 

On topic = ranting repeatedly about enduro issues which are no longer a big problem and telling all to avoid AMD GPU's. Very on topic! Cracks me up haha

 

I'm willing to bet anything that the 9970M doesn't come until 2014.

 

And you would probably be right, I also do not see them releasing before next year, heck we are barely seeing any 8970m's on the shelves as of right now ...

 

Yes yes yes looking forward to this!!!!!!!! Finally, a worthy successor to the 7970m. Always wait for the tocks > ticks

As for Enduro, I think its the fault of both AMD and OEMs implementing the hardware. Dell/Alienware got it right. There should ALWAYS be a killswitch to disable integrated or dedicated graphics, just like there is a killswitch for other peripheral devices. It doesn't cost much to implement a muxless switch design, as alienware does with the m17x r4 (NOT THE M17x R3 and m18X, they use a superior mux switch which is more costly). Give people the choice to control their hardware, that should be an absolute given at the price point of laptops with the highest end graphics cards.

 

Just being curious, how pricy is mux switch?

Beside switching on the fly, a mux also has the benefit of driving a 10-bit display without disabling iGPU output on workstations. Since Dell (and Clevo as well) builds both gaming notebooks and mobile workstations, it's relevant.

 

8970M can hardly be called a tick. I mean it literally is just a slightly overclocked 7970M!

But yes, I understand what you are saying. Although I think Ivy Bridge was quite the improvement on Sandy Bridge.

 

Very good fact sharing and well thought out post. Brilliant.

 

Ha. Another well thought out post. Please keep them coming, they seem so relevant. Really backed up all your well thought out assumptions there. Good job :thumbup:

 

Since Clevo and Alienware 18 owners which happen to have SLI as well doesn`t have any problems, you don`t think the problem may be Toshiba related?

Also, 9800M GTS SLI? Is that from the stone age?

 

Haha, was about to ask the same thing.

 

nVidia Fanboy ... ha! Dare I link my at least half dozen high view count posts related entirely to AMD products? Oh wait, that might make you wrong.

Same here.

 

Although you have yo give it to nv there. That dual gpu would probably play Crysis 3 on low if it came with Dx9. I had a single 9800m GTS until last year and I remember playing Crysis Warhead on medium low. Pretty amazing series that was.

 

Surprised you played medium low on Warhead. The 8800mgtx could play medium all day. Medium high was the sweet spot and I would imagine the 8800mGTX was weaker than the 9800m GTS unless it was indeed weaker than the older card....

My 8800mgtx in my m15x served me a good 3 years until I upgraded to the m17xR2.

 

The 9800M GTS has 33% less shaders than the 8800M GTX, 64 vs 96.

 

Heck, I played Crysis and Warhead on an overclocked 8600M GT on my Vostro 1500. Loved that laptop.

 

only thing i dont like about amd gpu's is their drivers. Kinda slow on making em better....

 

Categorically incorrect. After owning 20+ gaming notebooks (lost count really) with both nV and ATI/AMD cards, nV has consistantly had far better mobile driver support. That's not to discount the bad experience with drivers you may be having, but it's not my experience.

AMD has improved in the space, but they have a long way to catch up. I won't even mention (but I'm gonna) AMD's Enduro fiasco, Crossfire frame smoothing issues and worse, ATI's "laptop manufactuer's are responsible for mobility drivers" BS policy pre-2009 -- all these issues I suffered through first hand.

 

Correct. I could never play Crysis Warhead on anything higher than medium from what I remember on my Gateway 7808fx (with a 9800 GTS).

But let's not forget the 9800 GT was an 8800M GTX direct rebrand (that Dell was selling for $100 more at the time). Don't you love nV's renaming shenanagens and vendors "get on that bandwagon" mentality?

 

It all comes down to anecdotal evidence in the end I have only had 5 AMD laptops and like 10 nvidia laptops. Nvidia has more market and products in more brands.

It is also true that I have had more problems with nvidia GPUs, but it's also worth noting I have had many more nvidia gpus too. The 5 AMD GPUs were brilliant in their time, top performance, great value and great support at least from the community. From both sides I enjoyed either laptopvideo2go or the omegadrivers until 5870m and 680m, where I started getting official releases.

AMD is not as big nor as developed as nVidia, so naturally their drivers seem inferior. For the most part they do their job well, but the truth is, nVidia is on better standing driverwise. That's not to say AMD doesn't make fantastic products and I prefer them to nVidia most of the time

 

More to the point. Anyone with anything even remotely solid about a 9970m release?
All I can find is chatter on a desktop 9970.

 

Which card would we expect to see released first? I really hope, just for the sake of competition, that the 9970 and 9970M blows 780/780M away if only to encourage more performance in the gtx 800 series.

 

Heh, we are really getting off-topic here, reason being there is no info out there on the 9970m yet I think we can consider this thread a placeholder for the next couple months.

 

There's a lot of "ifs", some more probably, some simply guesses based on trends.

If the new GPUs do come out in October, then they are going to be in 28nm.

Going by the last two laptop flagship releases (not the 8970m which is just a rebrand but the 7970m and the 6990m), both were the exact same as the desktop x870 counterparts. The mobility 5000 series' flagship was a lower clocked desktop 5770. The numbers are different going back three generations but there is one similarity - all laptop flagships were based on the second tier desktop cores. The 7970m was based on the Pitcairn arch, the 6990m was based on Barts while the 5870 was juniper. AMD's press releases for GCN 2.0 or whatever reveal two architectures, the Curacao and the Hainan. Initial rumors were that they would release this as the 8000 series but those were quickly proven to be incorrect as the 8000 series was revealed and quickly deduced to be a rebrand. Either some team/s at AMD were too slow to finish their designs or had some other problems or AMD never wanted to release GCN two so far before Maxwell. I don't see any other possible reason. There could be one.

Anwyays, the Curacao looks like the upper tier core with over 2300 cores while the Hainan is second. The laptop 9970m will most likely be based on this with 1792 cores. If all these assumptions are correct, we are looking at about a 20% performance increase at the most, given the availability of good drivers (which is a mentionworthy "if" for AMD).

 

New version of HWinfo have revealed the upcoming mobile codenames from the 9xxxM series.

GPU Codename Series Positioning
Maui Crystal Series High-End
Topaz Crystal Series Performance
Amethyst Crystal Series Mainstream

So most likely,
9970M = Maui
9870M = Topaz
9770M? = Amethyst

Its pretty much confirmed now. They are coming.

Sweclockers said their sources say the first Volcanic Islands GPUs will arrive already in September. But AMD plan on releasing GPGPU cards first, FirePro. The rest will arrive around October.

Be sure to keep an eye out for these new GPUs. Rumors say the new cards will be "Titan killers". Beating the greatest Kepler card by a large margin.


The fact that AMD have dumped the 7990 (with 8 games included!) price from $999 to $699 is a huge tell that something powerful will arrive soon. AMD Radeon HD 7990 Gets A Massive Price Cut - Now Available At $699

I cant wait to see these new cards

 

"Titan killer" huh? That would put the biggest smile on my face. $1000 and $649.99 priced video cards are an insult. I'd love to see AMD lay a smackdown this round on nVIDIA.

 

October? I've just bought a GTX 780M Clevo. Come on AMD, allow me to feel good about my purchase a little bit longer!

 

I take the rumors about beating Titan by a large margin, with a huge truckload of salt.
But its really interesting to see them dumping the 7990 prices. Almost like they trying to remove stocks to make room for a new card...

About the 9970M beating the 780M, I have difficulty to see where the 9970M is landing in terms of performance.

Is it 20nm? If yes, prepare for some major spanking.
Is it still GCN but an improved GCN? Meh, probably beat 780M by small margin.
Is it a brand new architecture? That will be very interesting. Most likely beating 780M by some greater margin.

 

Volcanic Islands are AMD’s codename for next-gen GPUs, but the next-next-gen parts may end up with a more colourful codename – Pirate Islands. Of course, this is just a rumour at this point, so take it with a grain of salt. According to 3Dcenter.org, the new names are indeed legit and they include three GPUs, Bermuna, Fiji and Treasure Island. All three appear to be 20nm parts, which means they’re not coming anytime soon.
As for Volcanic Islands, the codenames are New Zealand (again), Hawaii, Maui, Iceland and Tonga. They should appear in late 2013, but details are still sketchy. Let's just hope they're more Captain Sparrow than Capitan Morgan.
TSMC’s 20nm node won’t be ready for mass production as soon as GPU makers would like, hence it should take at least six months before we see the first 20nm Radeons and Geforces.

 

We're talking about 28nm to 20nm here. It doesn't matter whether it's AMD or NV doing it (they are both doing it anyway), it's supposed to be faster.

GK110 is a huge chip though. It remains to be seen how big AMD wants its flagship die to be this time.

 

I will like to see what AMD will come with...!

 

I don't think it is going to be in the 20nm process. For it to be 20nm, GlobalFoundaries would have had to develop, test and prepare commercial libraries for the 20nm IP blocks before AMD could start designing their new GPUs. If AMD is looking to release GPUs in October, they had better be testing them right now. For that to happen, they would have had to design the last year, at which point GF did not have the 20nm process commercially available.

 

AMD has flat out said it's an architectural change, on the 28nm process.

 

I really don't understand why AMD has not released anything since the 780m is over preforming the 7970m by a long shot, and the rebadge 8970m.

 

Different story then.

 

I have a feeling the jump from the 7970(8970) to the 9970m is going to be massive. It will probably be similar to the 5870m to the 6990m or the 6990m to the 7970, about 60 percent faster than the previous generation. The 8970m wasn't a true upgrade, so I assume the 9970 will probably be in the ballpark of a 9500-10000 GPU score in 3dmark 11.

And then probably 7-8 months later nvidia will leapfrog AMD again and the cycle will continue, and during this entire time, many laptops and laptop gpus will be purchased.

 

maybe thee getting there act together? since Nvidias main guy just jumped ship to google?

 

With the same 28nm fab, the only way to make the boost massive is to create a large die, like GK110, which is not cheap.

If the market is willing to pay for that, that's fine. But is it?

 

So it looks like the Unveiling is September 25th, at some event. With cards shipping early October.

 

AMD to Announce GPU Codenamed Hawaii in Hawaii Sept 25 - Bright Side Of News*

 

Desktop GPUs by October this year. Mobile variants by January next year. NVIDIA Maxwell in summer next year.

That's my super non-scientific predictions!

 

Not a bad prediction but I think AMD needs to put out a better mobile GPU this year to catch up with the 780M sales since its alone there on the top. Giving Nvidia the top end market for 6 months if they release 9970M in January sounds like a really strange strategy. Unless they think 8970M will do the job to steal some of the marketshare from 780M..

Its not GloFo that is manucaturing the AMD GPUs but TSMC. According to the latest rumors the new GPUs will indeed be 20nm, but like you I am sceptical because it does take some time for the 20nm wafer production to come up to the point that AMD can use them on mass producing an entire 900 line of GPUs. But since they have dump the price on the best 7000 series card, 7990, could they perhaps use the little production there is of 20nm chips and concentrate on whatever card is replacing the 7990? And maybe the highest performing mobile GPU and start from there and make more once 20mm production have increased?

http://www.eteknix.com/new-amd-volcanic-islands-and-pirate-islands-gpus-revealed/
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Btw, production of Apple's A8 CPUs that is going inside iPads is under production right now at TSMC, so I dont think 20nm GPUs is so far fetched really. The equipment is already there, the process have matured and the production for an OEM is already happening.


http://www.ubergizmo.com/2013/06/tsmc-20nm-production-of-apple-a8-processor-begins-next-month-rumor/


Xilinx too

Xilinx Tapes Out 20nm FPGA
http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1318826

 

I think they're trying to rely on the fact that the 8970M is considerably cheaper than the 780M to tide them over for now. They always seem to be more keen to be competitive on price than NVIDIA.

I'm skeptical that the 20nm process is ready for such mass scale production yet. Thus I predict that they will release the high profit margin, top-end desktop GPUs first this year, and wait until production is high enough for the mobile versions. This would fall in line with their strategies with previous generations of GPUs:

Desktop 5870 - October 2009, mobile 5870 - January 2010 = ~4 months
Desktop 6970 - December 2010, mobile 6970M - January 2011 = ~1 month
Desktop 7970 - January 2012, mobile 7970M - June 2012 = ~6 months
Desktop 8970 - about same time but both higher clocked OEM rebrands

In each case, excluding maybe the 8000 series, desktop have always launched before mobile counterparts.