AMD Radeon 6970M - ETA from Resellers?

Epsilon748 - I don't understand why you would compare DLNA streaming to Intel's WiDi. It's a wireless way to display what is on your laptop onto any HDMI-equipped display. DLNA is a way to stream video to compatible players (be it your Win7 box, your TV, Boxee Box, etc.). I look at WiDi from a gamer's perspective as a quick/easy way to play games on an external display. Or, to display content via WiDi while I continue to use my laptop for other things (i.e. watch Blu-Ray). Yes, in that scenario DLNA would work - but that assumes you have a compatible DLNA player and it has enough CPU horsepower so it can transcode the x264 video and it will be the same quality. WiDi just re-beams the signal and it looks like there's little quality loss.

EDIT: and if certain resellers *COUGH* would outline the 6970M plans upcoming...

 

Thanks for the update. You're right, I had only been testing the first gen stuff at the time. The "some protected content" is still an issue to me though. At the time it was none, I'm sure now it's still not 100% of stuff and it is probably arbitrary. I imagine the DRM protections built in to Sandy Bridge allowed for the change. For me the input lag was the big killer. I still expected it to be similar to say, having a second monitor. Not carrying tons of input lag. It's not ideal for much more than video streams at that rate.

I've been sold on Play To stuff since I don't have to buy anything new. My Xbox and all my Win7 computers and WP7 have made it seamless to do that same stuff.

 

I hadn't been referring to the gaming over WiDi. At the time that I used it (WiDi 1.0) this was not possible. All that content was blocked. But the input lag is still present. You're going to have an annoying amount of lag while playing any game on a WiDi connection compared to just wiring in directly. It's comparable in annoyance to the Kinect input lag if you're familiar with it

 

Depends on where you're selling. On forums like NBR or [H], people know the name well, and snatch the machines up quickly as long as there's still warrant coverage.

Once the 6970M comes out, the media coverage will guarantee that any machine which houses one will have high resale value.

hey sk3tch, I'm K.Jack, btw

 

Amazing pricing from AMD, 2 6970 cards are 38 euro cheaper than a single 485m. (According to eurocom)
Way to go nvidia.
No one IN THEIR RIGHT MINDS will ever buy the 485m.

 

Hey we aren't hiding anything, if we had some solid dates we would tell people Remember some of the times we all learn at the same time you guys do about new things lol. Its not like I have a case of 6970m's chillin in the shop and we're just sandbagging you.

/me goes back to playing on 18" IPS LCD, SNB quad core, 6970m crossfire-x, 32GB ram, backlit keyboard clevo.....

wait what..

 

Interesting. I have not used the Kinect nor have I tried WiDi. I am intimately familiar with DLNA, however. Media Center, Xbox 360, PS3, Roku, and Synology all playing together in my home.

If I can save $300 and *not* get WiDi with the M17x R3, I would definitely do it.

I knew it!

Seriously though, I appreciate the comment. I am sure everything will be fleshed out a lot more in the next 2 weeks.

 

Except that this is eurocom. They have the wonkiest pricing of anyone. They were called out on it in a Hot Hardware bench test by Nvidia who was being priced way out of the arena in the Eurocom models.

I'm going to wait until respectable resellers start listing prices before I get too excited.

 

The 6970m should be available in the Lotus P150HM and Satori P170HM sometime in May.

 

The 6970M is ~$275 (give or take $25) cheaper than the 485M. Eurocom's $1k+ price is ridiculously wrong.

In all honesty, if the 6970M forced Nvidia to drop the price, so it'd be like a $150 difference, I'd choose the GTX 485M. At a difference of $200 plus though, I have to take the 6970M.

Hopefully Nvidia wises up, before I have to order my machine.

 

I can confirm that the current price of the 6970m (engineering samples) is in the 500-570$ range.

 

And the 485M is in the $725-775 range. That's a significant price difference.

 

Considering the 6970 is about 10-15% slower than a 485m, and taking into account the "top-dog tax", +/-$550 vs. +/-$740 sounds about right.

 

We don't have benchmarks for the final product yet, just the engineering samples running with possibly questionable drivers.

 

Any links supporting this statement? Don't confuse the price while configuring the system with a separate card purchase. The 485M costs ~900$ to buy separately, AFAIK.

That is yet to be verified. If I had to guess the final performance difference, I'd say a close tie.

 

I don't have any links to back it up but I am sure there are a few that can speak up and perhaps provide that info. I didn't pull it out of thin air.

 

I bet "Final" 6970 will end up faster than 485m.
It's just a sensation i can feel in my urine (when im drinking it)

 

Yeah but it won't be out in time for me to get it...

 

I doubt it. It probably won't be in any meaningful way. You have to remember, Nvidia hasn't released reference drivers for the 485m yet either. They're only available on the disk the laptop ships with, not from the website. And from experience, Nvidia driver updates have always been more impressive in adding performance than ATI/AMD ever was. I bet at the most, they end up tied, but I have a suspicion that Nvidia will still squeak out a head by a few percent. AMD drivers have never done much for performance, but have usually just increased overall stability (from my past experiences this is what I've noticed)

I'm not worried about it. I don't mind paying more for that guaranteed performance. It's not terribly expensive to pay $2k for say, the 8150 with a 485m and 2720qm. It's still the fastest out there. Alienware and many other gaming laptops are far more money for less performance. (and I have 3D vision, so that's my best reason to be happy with Nvidia )

 

Yeah, for you I can afford the 485, treat myself once in a while, but now I have to get my wife something on the same level, and then thats a lot of money... (hers will probably be jewelry or something though...)

 

I am a little bit confused. because as a few of you know, I already own a X7200 with CF 6970m...
I ordered it from HawkForce - Hawkforce has a good reputation in Germany, other than Eurocom seems to have here...
Anyway, hawkforce got the X7200 from Eurocom, today I asked him again that I read here that there are only "ES" right now for sale and that I would look sooner or later by myself at the cards to see what I got, and he assured me that I don´t have Engineering samples - Eurocom has some kind of a deal with AMD and worked together with them to fit them in the X7200. Other resellers will get the cards in may, and right then there will be another card available for Eurocom, the 6990m...
I don´t say that this is the truth, I can only tell you what I was told.
I filled out a contact form at AMD just a few minutes ago and asked them about that topic, because someone´s got to say who´s right or wrong...
Maybe I will get an answer, but I don´t know of course if they will say anything about it.
Now it would be interesting for me: How can I see if my 6970´s are ES? I think from GPU-Z there is no info about it, must be on the cards themselves?
I posted the screenshot earlier, but here it is again...

 

When you open up the card, and remove the heatsink,

engineering samples have ENG on the GPU die.

 

Thanks! Any source where I can read that "officially"- just in case it IS the case when I open it so that I can proof it for Hawkforce...?

 

I'm having serious questions regarding the bolded. Every site which reviewed a 6970M, provided by Eurocom, said they were giving out engineering samples.

If you could take a direct look at your GPUs, we can lay this mystery to bed.

 

yah......as we can see the eurocom logo on the 6970.....
why a reseller appear on the card? even havent see sager on a card

"Eurocom has some kind of a deal with AMD and worked together with them to fit them in the X7200" make good sense
open your machine and see if its eurocom logo

btw i orderd 485m from babyhemi $1549 for 2 nVidia 485M's with 2 Heatsinks, and the SLI Cable in the kit............bcz i want to play crysis 2 with 3dvision, unfortunately theres no more nano edition
& rjtech says $800 per 485m and sli cable $30

 

Is that really on there though? It looks photoshopped. Regardless, it clearly says ENG, so they're pushing out E.S. either way we look at it. I smell something shady.

Confirmed. Like I've said, the 485M is ~$750, give or take.

 

putting these on may be a 6990m? lol

 

Hm, that may be... where do you read the ENG - maybe I am blind, can not see it?

Will look at my cards next week, right now I am on the road... then I will know for sure. Would love to have a source about the "ENG" on AMD, though...

 

Here's a better picture:



You can see the ENG directly on the silver die, right under the AMD logo.

 

Thanks again! "I was blind, but now I see"
In case my cards are or one of them is an ES - what can I do? Is that scam? Have I to live with it?

 

the 6970m works one our w860cu??its official?

 

Well, if the ENG is there (and I'll bet the farm on it being there), you've been flat lied to, about the entire situation. Typical Eurocom shady practices.

I'm not sure ehat you should do about it. It depends on how you feel about having (possibly) unreliable GPUs, and a seller who tried to get over on you.

But let's not jump the gun, because maybe they're telling the truth.

btw, how much did the crossfire cost you?

 

I'm smelling a scandal. Of all the resellers, why would Eurocom have a special deal with AMD to release the card early? They're already known to be shady, I wouldn't put it past them to be selling the card early to make extra on them.

Who knows, maybe unicorns do exist and eurocom does have some special agreement to get them before they officially exist though.

 

Hawkforce configuration page:
Single 6970m: 349 Euro (~$480)
Single GTX 485: 499 Euro (~$690)
CF 6970m: 749 Euro (~$1035) (that was my deal)
SLI GTX 485: 1199 Euro (~$1655)

One more question about "ENG" -> if it is NOT an ES - is the "ENG" just "not there" or does it say something different?

 

There are many companies who received ES 6970M's for testing purposes.

 

i am bidding that Eurocom is photoshopped on those pics.

it should be AMDs logo in place of where Eurocom is.

take a look at the pics of this review.

EUROCOM Panther 2.0 Notebook with Radeon HD6970M CrossFireX : Press Releases

 

Since I wrote to AMD today - do you think they would care, if Eurocom really is selling ES?

 

i think that depends if your email gets to the right department / person. and that your email don't just get disregarded when the wrong person picked it up.

 

AMD certainly shouldn't be happy, with Eurocom selling their test chips at retail, for full price. How EC got their hands on a preverbial cache of these chips is my next question. They obviously seem to have more than would be required for testing.

There's liabilities involved. What if the E.S. proves unstable, or dies quickly? They want no part of a consumer calling them to complain about that, when the chip wasn't meant to be sold in the first place.

And if AMD did authorize the sale of engineering samples, I can't mess with them, ever.

 

One more confusing thing for me:
GPU-Z says the subvendor is "CLEVO/KAPOK".
Don´t know if you can change it as a reseller - but:
a) if it´s clevo, it couldn´t be a "deal" with AMD/ Eurocom - Clevo must at least be involved?
b) Would an engineering sample have a subvendor like clevo?

 

i think the subvendor string is controled by the bios used, so since clevo are testing these cards. so there is a chance that the code is already embedded in the system or video bios, just it isnt' the final version.

also another thing i want to point out is that if AMD / Eurocom does have a special deal, don't you think that AMD would be making some sort of PR event on this as well. but if you go to amd.com and in their search box and try to search eurocom you get a no result found......

 

Subvendor probably comes from vBIOS and could (and should) well be Clevo.
At this point I'd simply remove the fan+heatsink on one of the cards to reveal the die and get a snapshot.

BTW, how cool do the cards run during load/games? What's the max temp? Have you tried Furmark?

 

The only thing that is good (if my cards are ES, still unsure) is my warranty; if the cards will become unstable or something, Hawkforce would have to deal with that... maybe THEN I would get no ES no more
After 24 months it would be my problem, then...
Just curious if ES will be running with other vBios and so on... and will have the same performance then as the "right" cards...

 

It's a preposterous notion. Made a direct deal with AMD? Eurocom could not circumvent Clevo on such a scale.

I'm almost upset by this claim. Eurocom might be crossing a serious line, one not of ethics, but legality.

 

Had furmark running for some minutes, 85° was the top... even cooler if I turned on full fan speed with "FN+1". (I think 77°).
In idle, the temperatures are not so good as the GTX 470m- about 50°.

 

Yep, it´s all about legality, I think. As a customer, I have to trust the seller/ reseller, and since it is nothing common that ES are sold, I would never think of getting them. If Eurocom would say something like "we sell ES, get them cheaper", then at least the customer has the choice (what AMD would be thinking is another thing).
But being told I didn´t get ES after asking and then get the story about Eurocom/ AMD´s corporation and it turns out this is NOT the truth (at this point I can only speculate) it´s clearly some kind of scam...

 

Precisely, but Eurocom is selling them to customers. The engineering sample chips are not for resale from what I know. This just seems seriously shady. They're possibly putting out non-production chips to people who wouldn't necessarily know that.

 

Yeah, the selling of engineering samples by a notebook vendor is bothersome and Eurocom should be contacted and questioned about it.

That being said, I don't think that the final revision will be any different from these engineering samples. Why? because the die its based off of has been out for 5 months now (Desktop HD6850) and from the looks of it, this would be the second cycle of the same die (1037U was the first cycle). The only area that could be buggy about these samples would be what's on the VBIOS, which could probably be reflashed to newer/more updated versions (as demonstrated by Dell and Clevo).

I'd make sure that whatever company provided you with these samples offer full warranty/coverage for them as if they were final releases.

Edit: I misunderstood what the die numbers meant. Apparently, 10 37 means that the die was made on the 37th week of year 2010. So, that would mean that the samples pictures were made I week later. Don't think it would matter much though...

 

BTW: If I would be a reseller and would know that another company is selling ES - what means they take away customers from me with that - I would think about taking some legal steps...

 

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