There's a big aperture in amid AMD's $450 Radeon HD 7950 and its $160 Radeon HD 7700. Today, the aggregation introduces Radeon HD 7850 and 7870 to ample that gap, and they advance a lot added achievement than we expected. But are they absolutely accessible for prime time?
If you chase the cartoon industry, you apparently already knew today’s AMD Radeon HD 7800-series barrage was happening. The aggregation told us to apprehend this aback in December back it alien Radeon HD 7970. It reminded us in January back the Radeon HD 7950 debuted, and afresh in February during the Radeon HD 7770 and 7750 briefings.
Consequently, we’re additionally not afraid that, as the Radeon HD 7870 and 7850 became accessible knowledge, accumulation of the Radeon HD 6970 and 6950 broiled up. After all, it’s adamantine to acclaim aftermost generation’s card, still priced competitively, back it’s no best for sale. The fresh models alter those earlier cards with agnate appropriate prices of $349 for the 7870 and $249 for the 7850.
Another Paper Preview Launch
Unfortunately, although we’re able to allocution about the achievement of Radeon HD 7870 and 7850, you won’t be able to shop for the agenda until at atomic March 19th, AMD tells us. The aggregation says that, because CeBIT and the Game Developers Conference abatement so abutting to the official launch, it’d be difficult to accumulate advice about the cards beneath wraps. Regardless of the explanation, it sucks to delay addition two weeks for artery appraisement and a more good feel for availability.
Cynicism aside, we’re still technology geeks at heart, and we’re badly analytical to apperceive how the 7800-series cards admeasurement up to the Radeon HD 6900s, which becoming our angel in the accomplished for their bourgeois ability use, accomplished CrossFire scaling, and affluent affectation connectivity compared to Nvidia’s GPUs with two absolute pipelines.
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This is the third audible Cartoon Core Next-based ASIC from AMD in as abounding months. Code-named Pitcairn, we assuredly accept a band-aid in amid the flagship Tahiti and the entry-level Cape Verde. The cartoon processor is composed of 2.8 billion transistors in a 212 mm2 die bogus on TSMC’s 28 nm lithography node. That’s about alert as ample as the GPU at the affection of Radeon HD 7770, but about two-thirds of Tahiti, which drives the Radeon HD 7970.
Pitcairn hosts 20 compute units, anniversary with four agent units fabricated up of 16 beck processors and a distinct arrangement unit. In an uncut GPU, those numbers accumulate out to 1280 absolute shaders and 80 arrangement units. AMD shears off four compute units from Pitcairn to actualize the Radeon HD 7850, consistent in 1024 shaders 64 arrangement units.
The GPU’s back-end is fabricated up of eight cede partitions, anniversary with four full-color ROPs, accretion 32 ROPs. Four 64-bit anamnesis controllers crop an accumulated 256-bit anamnesis bus. AMD doesn’t accomplish any changes to this allotment of the chip; both the Radeon HD 7870 and 7850 sports identical back-ends.
In general, AMD’s Radeon HD 6900 ancestors appearance added shaders and arrangement units, while the 7800s accomplish at college alarm rates. Remember additionally that both line-ups additionally apply altered architectures optimized for altered things. VLIW4 was the artefact of abundant evolution, and appropriately absolutely mature. Meanwhile, GCN is abundant newer. We’ve apparent it absolutely catchbasin in DirectX 9-class applications, and again bear arch achievement in added avant-garde titles.
All of the cards in the aloft blueprint affection 256-bit anamnesis interfaces agriculture 32 ROPs, but the 6900 series’ college anamnesis alarm ante facilitate a little added bandwidth.
Interestingly, the Radeon HD 6950 alone proffers about 10% beneath shaders than the Radeon HD 6970. In contrast, the Radeon HD 7850 comes armed with a almost 25% arrears compared to Radeon HD 7870. AMD seems to accept absitively that it bare to advance its mid-range cards added afar from anniversary other. I’ve generally wondered if the Radeon HD 6950 cannibalized Radeon HD 6970 sales because they were so agnate (surely it didn’t advice that 6950s were accepting adapted via firmware to attending alike added like 6970s) That could be what AMD is aggravating to abstain this time around.
Although it’s appetizing to attending at raw blueprint and draw comparisons, you absolutely can’t, on annual of the antithetical architectures. We can, however, point out that all of AMD’s GCN-based cards put a appropriate accent on advancement aberrant achievement at lower best power. The Radeon HD 7750 doesn’t alike charge a committed PCIe ability connector, and yet its achievement is generally commensurable to the Radeon HD 5770/6770. With best TDPs at 175 and 130 W, the Radeon HD 7870 and 7850 action ability ceilings that are 75 and 70 W lower than their predecessors, respectively. The Radeon HD 7870 requires two six-pin PCIe ability connectors, and the Radeon HD 7850 alone needs one. Lower ability agency beneath heat. Beneath calefaction translates to added bourgeois cooling. And that leaves the aperture accessible for gaming enthusiasts to get pleasure quieter systems that go easier on the ability bill. These cards ability not alike necessitate a ability accumulation upgrade, if your apparatus is analytic modern.
We’re analytical about the amplitude amid AMD’s $250 Radeon HD 7850 and its $160 Radeon HD 7770. Like it or not, the Radeon HD 6800s are gone for good. AMD isn’t demography orders on the 6870, 6850, or 6790. The aggregation won’t animadversion on approaching products, but we acquisition it adamantine to accept it’d carelessness the $180-$230 bazaar currently inhabited by the GeForce GTX 560, 560 Ti, and Radeon HD 6870. That leaves two acceptable possibilities for the future: a cheaper 1 GB adaptation of the Radeon HD 7850, or conceivably a bedridden adaptation of the 7850 that ability abide a lower position in the hierarchy.
Radeon HD 7870 and 7850
Officially, AMD gives its Radeon HD 7870 the aforementioned GHz Edition suffix as the Radeon HD 7770, advertence alone that the amount break the absolutely approximate gigahertz barrier.
As far as appearances go, the Radeon HD 7870 is absolutely agnate to the Radeon HD 6870. It’s 9.5” continued with two six-pin abetting ability inputs. The better anatomic aberration amid old and fresh is the accident of a DVI affectation connector. As with the flagship Radeon HD 7970, AMD says it got rid of the added DVI achievement to advance bankrupt airflow. Two mini-DisplayPort connectors and a distinct HDMI anchorage abide intact. Of course, the card’s appearance is a little different, adhering to the cone-shaped end we’ve apparent from added 7000-series models.
Keep in apperception that the Radeon HD 7870 absolutely replaces the 6970, though, and not the 6870. The higher-end 6970 is an inch longer, and it requires eight- and six-pin ability inputs to augment an added 75 W.
We like the 7870’s added bunched dimensions, but enthusiasts will be aghast to apprentice about two notable omissions: a BIOS selector about-face and bifold CrossFire connectors. Unlike the Radeon HD 6900s, which scaled up to four cards in a CrossFire array, the Radeon HD 7870 and 7850 can alone be acclimated in pairs. Moreover, the abridgement of a advancement firmware makes aflame the BIOS riskier.
The advertence Radeon HD 7850 seems identical to the 7870 with one exception: a distinct six-pin ability ascribe (rather than two), absorption the 7850’s lower 130 W archetypal lath ability rating.
But the advertence agenda isn’t necessarily adumbrative of what you’ll see at retail, and some of the models AMD showed us are absolutely absolutely a bit smaller.
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Almost all of the accomplice boards allotment the aforementioned aggregate of one DVI-D output, a distinct HDMI connector, and accompanying mini-DisplayPorts. Based on the pictures AMD provided, the abandoned barring is XFX’s archetypal with two DVI-D outputs.
