7970M related article at Tom's, Enduro issues not mentioned

Quote Originally Posted by mahalsk View Post

"hey guys, just found a new article bout 7970m in sager on tomshardware
They say that xotic pc is offering the 7970m as a best price performance ratio, but nobody mentioned about enduro performance cripple.. I think it could use a few comments

Xotic PC NP9150: Striking Back At Kepler With Radeon HD 7970M : Can Xotic PC Provide More Value? "

We (7970M users) need your support and comments! Please support the cause and help us create same kind of awareness as with the Anandtech article.

Ps: Thanks for mahalsk for posting the article.

 

Nice catch! I just ordered from Xotic and got a 7970.. didnt go Sager tho cuz of enduro issues. Went Alienware for me and wife liked the MSI GT70 w/675m for 1400.

 

i dont get it, how did they run the 9150 with 7970m without enduro? it seems like the frame rates they posted are without enduro

 

The BF3 fps is most likely from single player, which runs ok. And they only give us MAX fps. Its the MIN fps that would give away the issues. Please post comments on the article.

 

Just posted link to the Anandtech article.

 

Un-f*cking-believable. Whoever commented negatively about Enduro issues were down-voted by the Tom's Hardware AMD-nuthugging trolls.

 

Overwhelm the nay-sayers

 

Of course, I posted. I'm waiting for the author of that article or someone else to chime in.

 

what a shame....ill try to comment as well to keep the audience focused on the Enduro issue, everybody has to know about it

 

well i went and canceled out the AMD leg humpers, but who knows how long that will last for. We need more votes...

 

I can't vote for some reason. It says my email is in use but when I log in it says my email is not found. I can post, but not vote.

 

We need more comments as well. Otherwise it will seem like a few people whining about their problems.

 

Had the same. You need to join Tom's first. Had to use a second email address to register for real (it also said my address was in use since I had given it to post my first message).

 

Can also comment on this marketing video from AMD.

AMD Notebook Power Management Technologies - YouTube

 

Disliked and commented. Also disliked the fanboy comments.

 

Thands for making this thread Montage, and still mentioning me as a "founder" Nice to see fair people like you..will give you rep as soon as i can

Also nice find halwafu, already commented and disliked ..

 

I like how the YouTube video is quickly put in its place. I'm sure we're not all going to that video to make AMD look bad but rather to put pressure on them to deliver something that's way overdue... like MONTHS overdue. I don't know how often their video uploader peon check for comments, since I'm sure they get way too many, but at least there are more people aware of the situation.

 

Do people really expect a review site putting a hour or 2 into a review can find the issue? And the review is kind of saying xotic not offering 680m which sound like...

 

Yeah, that knocked Tom's Hardware's reputation down a few notches for me. That just showed lack of researching skills.

 

Their research must have consisted of checking out one benchmark site...

 

Not all sites are aware of the Enduro problems. And far from every review have written about it. Its not the end of the world.

Tomshardware does mainly non mobile reviews and write about news about desktops, so who knows, maybe they haven`t paid attention to what have happend in the mobile scene.

 

Lol afaik they have the same rep as thier p4 days.

 

It seems we got their attention too:


"cangelini 09/18/2012 7:39 PM
All,
I have an email out to AMD about the Enduro issues you've pointed us to. Up until this point, I've seen a lot of data, but no answers as to what's going on with the situation. Hopefully we can update this story shortly to provide some of that.
Thanks,
Chris"

(Chris Angelini
Worldwide Editor-in-Chief, Tom's Hardware US)

 

That's what I'm talking about. AnandTech and now Tom's Hardware. All our nagging seems to be paying off. I just want this to be as difficult as possible for AMD to sweep under the rug. They make millions and we spend it for them to make all that. Ignoring us is not cool.

 

Glad you guys are getting some results!

 

Not yet. We're just half way there. We just got their attention so far.

 

Don't go over board guys. Disliking the AMD video is kind of disrespectful, and when you comment on tomshardware, be calm and respectful. AMD has been working on this and already knows about the issue. Remember that the driver team consists of PEOPLE. Showing this passive aggressiveness, even hatred, towards AMD makes REAL people who already are trying to help feel very bad.

I found the new AMD video quite interesting. The speaker points out certain applications will use a lower amount of cores without sacrificing performance to save energy. This shows that the theory that the "core balancing" is likely the issue here. AMD just needs to fine tune core balancing to maintain good performance and scaling, and maybe even allow and option to use all cores to 100% potential in 3D applications. Let the user decide AMD, and we will be happy.

 

well...
for me they just should include a mode where there is no usage of fewer cores... as long as i'm not on battery i want all cores to be used at full power..

 

They better take notice and fix the problems or they will further alienate their consumer base. The stock has already lost a third of its value year to date. Not to mention its CFO resigned just a few days ago... sinking ship if you ask me...

 

cangelini 09/18/2012 10:57 PM

"All,
Update is posted (last page of the story is all-new). Hopefully we've presented some new information re: an anticipated fix and an official acknowledgement/explanation of the issue.
A sincere thank-you to the folks who brought this to our attention, and I hope you find the follow-up timely, accurate, and informative.
As always, we'll work diligently to get you answers to your questions as quickly as possible!
Best,
Chris Angelini"

 

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-57514643-92/amd-cfo-thomas-seifert-resigns-sending-stock-down-8-percent/

YIKES

 

Finally some solid information regarding the under utilization issue!

"According to the company, it has a hotfix that will go live first—purportedly in October. I’m working to get readers access to an early build earlier than that, but AMD is naturally apprehensive about the potential support ramifications of this. Representatives claim that the fixed driver will alleviate the bottleneck entirely, and the only performance hit you’ll be able to measure will be the expected 1 to 5% attributable to going through integrated graphics."

1-5%, I can live with that :thumbsup:

 

What's "disrespectful" is selling the product then trying to ignore/play dumb. The amount of effort it took by some of the members here, not even including the little things I've done on my part, just to get it noticed and pushed up higher on their list of priorities is disrespectful. If you want to go there, then let's start with the company that took the money and under-delivered.

 

1-5% is nothing. I certainly can work with that. 60% on the other hand, the extreme end some of us are experiencing, is not. IF AMD does fix this, I'll once again consider their products in the future as long as they stay competitive on the performance end.

 

"On a phone call with company representatives earlier today, AMD admitted that its current implementation is indeed affected by a driver bug that prevents the hardware from being fed data fast enough, causing it to go underutilized, particularly at high frame rates." Quoted from the new updated page.

*EDIT* I just thought about that some more and just realized...this sounds just like the problem solved by Nvidia's Optimus Copy Engine, which passes display data while simultaneously rendering. The 7970m performs well when settings are maxed because FPS will be lower, and thus not as much display information needs to be passed. If more display info (more frames per second) needs to be passed, the renderer will have to wait before it can push out more frames due to a bug/bottleneck. This totally sounds like the 7970m has a hardware issue, but if AMD says it is driver related, well, then I believe them. Still, they said there would be a 1%-5% performance loss as a result of the muxless configuration. This still reveals that there is a hardware limitation some where, whether it be the 7970m, PCI bus, or Intel HD 4000. It is possible the overall added latency of using this kind of configuration (AMD card through PCi express through HD 4000 THEN through output to monitor) will cause the 1%-5% performance loss. The data does have to go through a bunch of more crap, and that process itself seemingly would cause some loss. It was stated the bottleneck within the 7970m will be completely eliminated with the new fix, which then makes me believe that while we will stop seeing utilization issues, we will still see slightly higher FPS on the HM series over the EM series with the 7970m.

At this moment guys, we need to stick together, but like I said, do not go over board. Yes, AMD made a mistake, and we did really well spreading the news and testing, but now we know a fix is coming. Thank you to every one who consistently shared this news; it feels good to make a difference.

AMD is apparently taking massive stock hits. I know I shouldn't feel guilty, but I do because I honestly like AMD. I want what is best for AMD, but they also need to want what is the best for its customers as well. I hope this event will help AMD bring it's standard up a notch, but I also hope that we can keep our personal standards high as well. We can calm down at this point. Let us continue to benchmark, look for news, and stay active on the facebook page and on forums, but please do not hate on AMD any more. I will always be looking foreward to future support and future GPU generations, and I don't want this to be the end of them. If a lesson needed to be learned, it has been learned.

Now, we will wait until the fix is out !

 

Hopefully this will work. I'm really looking forward to this. My faith in AMD might be restored
Good News!

 

Chris Angelini mentioned that 64 player BF3 performance is due to the cpu which is totally off base when comparing the 7970m to the 680m. Why can't they get the reseller to give them two identically configured laptops, but one with the 7970m and 680m and go online together and get their readings. That way he won't say that our processors are "probably" the weak point. Coming from a highly visible tech site, I can't believe they can't do this simple test to see the numbers for themselves in real time.

 

wrong, u don tneed to compare 680M to 7970M to reveal the performance loss due to under-utilization, but instead u have to compare 2 systems as similar as possible, exept that one supports Enduto and the other doesn t...... (ie Alienware or Clevo HM with exactly the same hardware and software installed and no bios tweaks)

 

............

 

Why don't people with BF3 record their CPU usage in a 64-player map with utilization issues, and show the results to us and tomshwardware? Don't keep saying "that is stupid" and actually prove it to them.

 

That's my point in this issue. AMD has to fix it. It's been written on the walls for years, desktop sales are continuously going down and majority of people don't want them. Even if they only use their computer at the desk, in their office/home office and never transport it, they still prefer to have a laptop.

It's very curious why AMD continues to demonstrate nearly all their technological advances on the desktop? Even when presenting the new GCN core with all the power efficiencies with power gating and zero core, they still emphasize $500, 300 watt monster desktop GPU and monster 8 core Bulldozer.

Intel already has a chip in mobile phones, the Atom continues to be a priority for Ultrabooks, and are on the road to making ARM obselete on tablets. They have the best research & development, fabrication and resolve to conquer the mobile market. AMD is lagging behind, it's pitiful and really confusing as to why AMD's management doesn't seem to care.

Of course Intel's dominance and leap in GPGPU power in Haswell spells doom for Nvidia, and the Tegra is joke, an absolute joke. It may be in the future, there will only be ARM and Intel.

 

How is the Tegra a joke? o.0 Physics on that chip are pretty decent. There really isn't much else out there that rivals it for mobile at the moment.

This post is dumb. If the CPU is the supposed bottleneck, another machine with a 680 but the same CPU would see the same loss in performance.

 

that s why ur post is senseless dude, the CPU clearly isn t the problem here, cause evrry1 with a 680M isn t encountering problems in BF3 multiplayer.

 

My post is senseless? Lol? Did you even attempt to read the comment in the article as to what we are even talking about? Here, let me make it clear for you since clicking links doesn't seem to be one of your strong points.

 

Ha! Except the problem vanishes with the Alienware or MSI with Enduro turned off.

 

Precisely right. Why is it another laptop with the SAME 7970m with Enduro OFF gets stable performance? Does disabling Enduro make the processor faster? I didn't think so. There is no CPU bottleneck.

 

Folks, I want to say THANK YOU for everyone who posted their feedback on Toms Hardware thread. As a P150EM 7970m owner, when I read that thread it made me want to puke. Without a doubt the biggest sell out review I have ever seen.

I am not trying to be overly dramatic, but to post a review about 7970m EM series laptop without mentioning the Enduro issues is just plain corrupt. Without a doubt 90% of EM 7970 owners would pay 300 bux to instantly upgrade to a 680m without thinking twice.

The 7970m had potential to be the best bang for buck video card period. Yet that is very much NOT the case. I am now stuck with a $2000+ laptop with quite mediocre performance and stability while gaming. Expected to sit and pray that "one day" AMD will acknowledge let alone fix the issue.

I will conclude this rant by saying...... Shame on AMD, Shame on Toms Hardware Review, and Shame on all the Re-sellers who sold a defective product and refuse to take responsibility!

 

Makes me wonder, did Xoticpc purposely send a 7970m to Tom's for review knowing full well the wrath that NBR would bring on to them regarding the Enduro issue? If so, whether intentionally or not, kudos to the guys at Xotic as well. Could've taken the easy way out and sent a 680m unit I guess. /shrug

 

Hmm... they replied...:

Update: Taking AMD To Task On Enduro : Xotic PC NP9150: Striking Back At Kepler With Radeon HD 7970M

 

ermahgerrd... old news.