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I want to be able to run BF3 in Ultra settings across 3 screens at 200fps!  When do these things come out???

And how much will it cost?

Double the price of 7970? Ouch!

this is in german: http://www.golem.de/news/grafikkarten-radeon-hd-7870-kommt-zur-cebit-dual-gpu-7990-spaeter-1202-89478.html

According to this article, AMD has the 7990 scheduled for a TBD release date. It's quite sure according to them however that this will be after the CEBIT event.

The list price is $849.

From the article (translated), CeBIT starts 6th of March, 2012.  I guess that gives me more time to save up :)

Thanks D&T. I have to start filling up my piggy bank then.

If a undervolted 7970 does 550 MH/s, a dialed-back 7990 should probably hit 1.1 GH/s and be even more efficient.  That would put it into 5970 territory for MH/$ :o

Well the double GPU are never double performance.  They are scaled back in VRM, chip quality, and clock speeds. 

5870 aggressively clocked can hit 430 MH/W.
5970 aggressively clocked can hit 760 MH/W.

Still even at 1.0GH/s for $850 is $0.85 per MH which isn't comparable.  Granted 7970/7990 have higher MH/W but 5970 still reigns (as long as you can still find them ) on the MH/$.

760 MH/S @ $400 = $0.52 per MH.
760 MH/S @ $300 (used) = $0.39 per MH. :)

Oh wrd, aggressively clocked, the 5970 is still king of the MH/$ title.  I was thinking more about how I run my 5970 during the day, at 550 MH/s (887mv, 605/200MHz).  So comparing that to a theoretical 7990 doing 1.1GH/s, the MH/$ are more similar, especially given the current market price of a new 5970.

I gotcha although I doubt many people will be dropping $850 to undervolt the 7990.  Undervolting IMHO makes sense to extend the life of old cards.

I run my 5970s flat out.  In a couple years if the network is more efficient (lower price /difficulty) rather than turn them off I will undervolt them and eeke the last bit of profit out of them.

DAT don't try and hide your true feelings towards the 7990 you know it will do 1.2gh/s slightly oc'ed at near the same watts as 5970 aggressively oc'ed to 800mh/s. Why do you think we see youchdog dumping 5970's  ;)

Your right.  The 5970 sucks. Everyone should them as quickly as possible before they become worthless.

Being a generous guy I will extend an open offer for $300 ea if in good condition.  I am collecting them because I think they might be wanted by museums in the near future. 

I'd hate to imagine what the price would be in GBP.HD7970 already cost around ~£440 in UK.I'd think these are like ~£800 for HD7990 in UK.Maybe this will push some people to FPGAs if these prices keep up for GPUS.I'm already considering a small FPGA (The one I saw gave 3x performance of my HD4670 which will be cashed in for that purpose) to complement my HD6950 as the prices are simply unaffordable for bitcoin mining hobbyists like myself (I'm not a serious miner,I just do it for the money. A project idea for me is the 'ultimate silent miner' where it's nothing but 3 FPGAS connected with a giant passive heatsink,which would use my case as a heatsink with 1 silent 120mm fan to keep things cool/cheap/energy efficient)

"I'm not a serious miner,I just do it for the money"

This just struck me as funny.  I think the serious miner's do it for the money too. :)
Not sure what the cutoff is for serious miner.    Is it in GH/s or is it in what you have done?

Like:
You might be a serious miner if you watercooled 4 x5970 so you could keep one rig in the office during the winter.
You might be a serious miner if you installed a 30AMP 240V circuit to a NEMA L6-30R outlet to power your rigs.
You might be a serious miner if that made sense.

And for P4Man....
You might be a serious miner if you are planning to submerge your rigs in oil so you can dump the waste heat into your private cooling pond.

ouch.. I just got done putting in a 60 amp sub-panel in the utility room data center ... does that count?

double ouch is that actually made sense  :'(

Siggy

Hmm i guess I'm one of those miners lol got 4 systems running off 240 in the basement

What I meant DeathandTaxes by that comment is the fact that I don't have the time/means to invest in multiple GPU systems (and multiple computers with several GPUs each) so I figured out,that anything that lets me add to 1 system like more FPGAs would be a good thing (keeps clutter to a minimum and it's much easier to maintain 1 PC than multiple PCs).

There are 2 options I'm considering for my system:
1.Keep HD6950 and add 2 mid range GPUs (cost effective option) as my mobo has max of 3 PCI-E slots and don't have time/means for a PCI-E extender as I like to keep everything self contained.(This requires a PSU upgrade if this option is followed)
2.Keep HD6950 gpu and add a low range FPGA (as that would beat my old gpu HD4670 by at least 2x.The GPU would be cashed in to part fund FPGA) to keep heat and energy use under control (spares me having to upgrade my PSU)

I'm not sure which of these 2 options would be cost effective in my situation for mining kit.So I want advice on this if possible,thanks.

I just put up $150 or so for a 240V conversion on 3 rigs. Although it was a bit of a dumb purchase because I went to the brick and mortar store one night and started picking parts of the shelf. I could have spent half that by buying online. Oh well, I always forget something when I order online, easier to browse the shelves. ;D

To people with 30 or 60A 240V circuits... not sure if I understood but does that mean you can draw up to 7.2kW or 14.4kW from one socket or from all sockets in one room (same circuit)..?

I can draw max. 15A*230V from each of my sockets (=3.45kW) but not sure if it was all right if I loaded all sockets in my room (or at home) like that.
Not really a problem with 2.2GH/s now (~1.3kW I think), maybe up to 3GH/s by the end of the month.

circuit =/= outlet

you may have 3, 4, 8 outlets all on the same circuit.  If it is a 15 amp circuit then all combined load of all outlets on the same circuit is limited to 15A.

Generally circuits shouldn't be loaded more than 80% for continual loads.

So a 30A 240V circuit is good for 30*240*0.8 = 5.76KW.

Thanks for clarifying but I'm still not sure how much load can my circuit sustain, saw 16A labels on my sockets, I'll have to ask the owner of the house :)
btw. made a mistake, 16A not 15A

The CIRCUIT is 16A.  Go to the circuit breaker turn off one 16A breaker.  Every outlet that stops working is on THAT CIRCUIT.  The Circuit can't have more than 16 amps.  It doesn't care if you put 16A in one outlet or 5 amps in 3 outlets and 1 amp in a 4th.  When the entire circuit >16A the breaker will trip and everything (which may be a half dozen outlets) connected to that circuit turns off.

Is there still no word on the release date? Hopefully the fan design looks more like the 5970, I still don't even see any pictures released yet.

Why? The better design is the 6990, which  doesn't cook the second GPU by blowing hot air over it.

That's debatable.  Dumping hot air back into the intake path of other cards so same hot air can be recycled over and over and over.

Would be nice to see AMD use a out the back design but a split air path where air is split half passing over each core.

I guess I get stuck in the thinking of open frame miners, and keep forgetting that there are people that used enclosed cases ;D

Ideally the GPUs and their heatsinks would be offset so that the air would blow over them in parallel. But that is difficult is such a small space.

EDIT: I just saw that you already said that. Great minds think alike? :P

Yeah but I doubt they will do that.  Most "sane" people buy 1 or less 7990 so the recirculation isn't that much of an issue.

I think ATX standard needs to be updated.  Nobody really needs 8 expansion slots but they could use 5 expansion slots spaced wider apart.

I think ATX standard needs to be updated.  Nobody really needs 8 expansion slots but they could use 5 expansion slots spaced wider apart.
[/quote]

Amen for that! :D

No way a 7990 gets 1350 mh/s. We can dream though.

5970 does about ~1.7x a 5870.  A 6990 does about ~1.7x a 6970.  Thinking you will get 2.0x performance from a dual board is unrealistic.  The last two dual boards (5970 & 6990) used 3 phase power instead of 4 phase power.  The VRMs, power connectors and cooling systems were not designed to handle 200% of single card performance.  Sure you can overclock & overvolt a 5970 but you can overclock and overvolt a 5870 higher.  

675 MH/s * 1.7 = 1150 MH/s and even that is likely pushing it.  I think 1 to 1.1 GH/s is more likely for stable 24/7 operation.

Still the first "gigahash" class board is pretty cool in its own respect.

They was someone on this board claiming that they were getting 800 mh/s from a 7970 that was watercooled. If you can cool the card effectivtly I think you may be able to get to 1.3 gh/s. But it will hit at least 1.0 gh/s. Though the power used is going to be huge though.

Yeah I was able to reach 825 MH/s on a full EK waterblock at about 1300 MHz core.  The voltage needs to be around +1.1V for stability, and artifacts begin to  appear significantly at that speed, anything higher than 1350 MHz crashes fast on 1.1V (1375 MHz = 50% overclock, crashes in an instant, unless doing max overvolt, but not feasible for many obvious reasons) on watercooling.  On air cooling artifacts appear around 1225 MHz (~70 C), watercooling around 1300 MHz (~32 C); temperature appears to be factor in this, but I won't get away with this for long since winter is ending, and no more freezing outside air will be chilling my 200mm radiator.

Without a doubt the 7990 will reach over 1 GH/s, but whether a 7990 could attain close to double the hashing rate of what I reach on my 7970 I would not be easily convinced, unless someone can accomplish it through trial (even if any modding is needed to be stable).  The major issues to consider is the amount of heat a single 7970 can produce just through its own vrm; one could speculate that a 7990 would draw close to 500 watts on a single board.  Thus the amount of electrical current needed is extremely high, and cooling would  probably be the top concern for an overclocked hashing 7990; besides when you begin to overclock, the current also rises up to a point, until which the voltage will need to be raised.  I am just wondering how a  significantly overclocked 7990 would stand on air cooling: temperature-wise, power consumption-wise, and then noise-wise.  I guess all we can do is wait and see how this upcoming video card performs once it is released.

Hopefully they will put 3x 8 pins on the 7990. There are cards out with 3x 8 pins, I would think it could reach 7970 speeds if it was built that way. I can't get any more hashing power out of my 6970's then my 6990. They both run at 440hashs, if I raise them above 950mhz they because unstable for things like gaming. At higher clocks like the 7990 should be able to do, max power draw should be a issue with 2x 8 pins.

I heard a rumor that March 6th is the release date. Anybody know if this is true?

Yeah. That is what I heard too.

I still think getting 1.3 ghash/s out of a 7990 will be pretty easy.

After all, getting 440 on a 5870 = easy and getting 800 mhash/s ( not quite double 440 but a 7970 gets 700 easily ) on a 5970 = easy as well so ...

Are you guys kidding? This is the release date of the 78xx series.

It's really unclear right now, no one even knows what they look like yet. Even if the card can only gets 1.1 it will be a better mining card then the 7970. I don't see anything
about march 6th online anywhere. Seems like they would have announced something if it was going to be that soon.

Exact specs haven't even been "leaked" (although companies now have timelines for their "leaks") yet.  No way it is March 6th. Gamers need time to commit to $850 and specs, and early previews, websites talking about they have one but are NDA until March XX, etc.  None of that has happened and usually all that occurs weeks (plural) prior to release date.

Roger that. What we may expect is the release date to be announced at CeBIT. I expect that date to be a few months away, though.

Damn it.

I was getting excited about the 6 March date :-\

They are supposedly releasing the Pitcairn chips so that may be good as well for better $/MH ratio ???

Some piktures leaked.

http://www.chiphell.com/thread-333027-1-1.html

Fucking sweet. Two 8-pin connectors mean I smell POWER POWER POWER draw like never before. End mounted fan means no air barfing back into a case, if that's your thing, but 2nd GPU will be hotter.

I wonder if the red accents really light up.

It may be how it will look, but that looks like CGI so they can just as well be fake.

The 6990 has 2x 8 pins.... These pictures look correct to me though. I was hoping for 3x 8 pins but didn't expect it to happen. The  fan looks a little larger, or it may just be more open. Hard to tell.
The 6990 fan design sucks. Not sure why anyone defends that design. Can't control the heat, if its just blowing out both ends.

Woah... That is one sexy card!  :o
I may have to pick me up one of those when they drop...
Glad to see the fan back on the front end of the card, as I was never a fan of the 6990 central fan layout. There really was no advantage gained from that design...

pictures are apparently fake.

i hope so, those lights would piss me off

They would also be a waste of precious wattage...

Radeon HD 7990 delayed
According to ORB-Hardware Radeon HD 7990 may be delayed because AMD cannot produce sufficient cooler for this card (which requires lots of power – far more than Radeon HD 6990). Card is not planned for first and second quarter of this year.

http://videocardz.com/30786/amd-radeon-hd-8970-speculation-radeon-hd-7990-delayed (http://videocardz.com/30786/amd-radeon-hd-8970-speculation-radeon-hd-7990-delayed)