Information on ATI 7xxx Series Dec. 5th!

[BinaryMage]

That is quite impressive, though I doubt the ~2x speed boost will entirely translate to mining. Many of the benchmarks from the review showed more like a 50% increase, anyways. Cost-wise, at a MSRP of $550, so $450-$500 at Newegg, it still would not be as good a deal as older cards in MH/s per dollar. Electricity costs could be cut, certainly, but if electricity is your main hindrance to profitability, FPGAs will still be way more efficient in MH/s per joule.

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[mc_lovin]

With the 28nm core I expect we will be able to overclock higher and run them cooler which should yield better results.

Like the rest of you, I'm waiting impatiently for someone to get some hashing numbers.  Exciting stuff, though!  Why not release it last week so sell them for xmas?  If I was in charge of this world, that's what I would have done.

[ZPK]

http://www.3dnews.ru/news/621750/

[ZPK]

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-hd-7970-benchmark-tahiti-gcn,3104.html

[h4gb4s3]

No way. See the efficiency.

http://www.tomshardware.de/AMD-GCN-Tahiti-Graphics_Core_Next-HD_7970,testberichte-240931-14.html

HD7970: 414 Mh/s @ 254 W
HD5870: 375 Mh/s @ 190 W

[P4man]

No way. Look @ efficiency.

http://www.tomshardware.de/AMD-GCN-Tahiti-Graphics_Core_Next-HD_7970,testberichte-240931-14.html

HD7970: 414 Mh/s @ 254 W
HD5870: 375 Mh/s @ 190 W

Ah, excellent news. Cant wait to buy some cheap 58x0 cards from gamers upgrading to this.

[spiccioli]

No way. See the efficiency.

http://www.tomshardware.de/AMD-GCN-Tahiti-Graphics_Core_Next-HD_7970,testberichte-240931-14.html

in English

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/radeon-hd-7970-benchmark-tahiti-gcn,review-32344-14.html

spiccioli.

[AniceInovation]

Too soon to see mining performance, mining software still has to be optimized.
More: http://www.anandtech.com/show/5261/amd-radeon-hd-7970-review/22

[bulanula]

Got a nice stock of 5870s. Happy right now. ATI = fail yet again.

IMHO they are still pretty damn smart and they want to compete with Nvidia. Nvidia blows ATI for things like weather forecasting, folding and other important scientific, real world changing stuff. The catch ? Bitcoin is integer and folding ( GPGPU computing in general ) is based on floating point and DP ( double precision ). The 58xx were EPIC for integer but crap at floating point. The CGN crap is bringing more FP to the table to compete with Nvidia. We have to face it : Bitcoin / integer / bruteforcing is still a tiny share of the market ATM.

[DeathAndTaxes]

I wouldn't call it "ATI = fail yet again".

The 5000 & 6000 series cards are based on a concept of LOTS of simple shaders.  The issue is that a 7000 cards based on the same architecture would likely have way MORE but relatively inefficient shaders than a mainstream video game can use.  Pixel count isn't rising as fast as it was in the past.  The number of effects isn't rising either but gamers are expecting more complex and immersive effects.  The more to more complex shaders was inevitable.  If it wasn't the 7000 series it would be the 8000 or 9000 series.  

It just is bad news for miners as SHA-256 is pretty damn simple.  It only takes in the hundred millionth of a second range to complete a hash.  Other than Bitcoin nothing needs that much hashing power.  Other integer performance seems to be doing fine.  NQueen is a classic non-cryptograpy integer based problem and the 7970 is roughly 2x as powerful as 5970.     AES even got a nice boost, it will be nice to use GPGPU to open encrypted files 20x faster.  

AMD never intended for Bitcoin to be fast with their videocards.  It was more like a very lucky coincidence we got as good of performance as we did.  Now the trend is towards more powerful shaders and that is likely going to break that beneficial happenstance. 

Makes me glad I am sitting on 16 5970s though.  


On edit:  I wonder how much L1 cache the GPU have.  Would be beyond funny if these cards did great a so called "GPU unfriendly chains". 

[DeathAndTaxes]

That is quite impressive, though I doubt the ~2x speed boost will entirely translate to mining. Many of the benchmarks from the review showed more like a 50% increase, anyways. Cost-wise, at a MSRP of $550, so $450-$500 at Newegg, it still would not be as good a deal as older cards in MH/s per dollar. Electricity costs could be cut, certainly, but if electricity is your main hindrance to profitability, FPGAs will still be way more efficient in MH/s per joule.

Not sure why he included that chart.  It is FLOATING point performance.  It has nothing to do with Bitcoin mining.

[DeathAndTaxes]

With the 28nm core I expect we will be able to overclock higher and run them cooler which should yield better results.

Well there is no guarantee.  AMD may be pushing these cards harder than 40nm models.  Remember 40nm is pretty mature now so getting yields high is almost trivial which means you have lots of very good chips (more than you can use in the best cards).  Sometimes after a die shrink overclocking hits a brickwall until they work the kinks out. 

I remember one Intel CPU after a dieshrink that couldn't be overclocked more than 2% without crashing.  Intel was selling the chip at almost redline because they didn't have good enough yields to use a better quality chip for that part/pricepoint.

Like the rest of you, I'm waiting impatiently for someone to get some hashing numbers.  Exciting stuff, though!  Why not release it last week so sell them for xmas?  If I was in charge of this world, that's what I would have done.

AMD wanted to have it in stores 2 weeks ago.  The chips are made by TMSC and they had delays.  Nothing AMD could do but watch and see Christmas shopping season vanish.

[Gabi]

Got a nice stock of 5870s. Happy right now. ATI = fail yet again.

IMHO they are still pretty damn smart and they want to compete with Nvidia. Nvidia blows ATI for things like weather forecasting, folding and other important scientific, real world changing stuff. The catch ? Bitcoin is integer and folding ( GPGPU computing in general ) is based on floating point and DP ( double precision ). The 58xx were EPIC for integer but crap at floating point. The CGN crap is bringing more FP to the table to compete with Nvidia. We have to face it : Bitcoin / integer / bruteforcing is still a tiny share of the market ATM.

Pffft, bullshit.

Try projects like Milkyway@Home (that's a DOUBLE PRECISION one), Collatz Conjecture or Moo! Wrapper. Nvidia sucks there.

[bulanula]

Got a nice stock of 5870s. Happy right now. ATI = fail yet again.

IMHO they are still pretty damn smart and they want to compete with Nvidia. Nvidia blows ATI for things like weather forecasting, folding and other important scientific, real world changing stuff. The catch ? Bitcoin is integer and folding ( GPGPU computing in general ) is based on floating point and DP ( double precision ). The 58xx were EPIC for integer but crap at floating point. The CGN crap is bringing more FP to the table to compete with Nvidia. We have to face it : Bitcoin / integer / bruteforcing is still a tiny share of the market ATM.

Pffft, bullshit.

Try projects like Milkyway@Home (that's a DOUBLE PRECISION one), Collatz Conjecture or Moo! Wrapper. Nvidia sucks there.

Yes but what is the difference between those examples / Bitcoin and something like Folding@Home or WCG ?

The marketshare. F@H and WCG etc. are big while those examples and Bitcoin is relatively small in terms of penetration.

[jjiimm_64]

 We have to face it : Bitcoin / integer / bruteforcing is still a tiny share of the market ATM.

May be a tiny share, but we ARE on the radar.  We have the 5th bullet on the main overview page.

http://www.amd.com/us/products/desktop/graphics/7000/7970/Pages/radeon-7970.aspx#1

Fold and mine faster than ever with AMD App Acceleration powered by the unprecedented 28nm GCN Architecture.7

[Gabi]

Wow, the fact that they speak about mining on their website is a great thing

WCG is cpu-only so far.

And Folding well... check the statistics now, ATI contribute most to their computing power, then nvidia then cpu. Ok i know, this is only because a tons of bitcoin miners started folding, and 1 nvidia still kickass tons of ati on folding
But maybe with GCN things will change

[DeathAndTaxes]

 We have to face it : Bitcoin / integer / bruteforcing is still a tiny share of the market ATM.

May be a tiny share, but we ARE on the radar.  We have the 5th bullet on the main overview page.

http://www.amd.com/us/products/desktop/graphics/7000/7970/Pages/radeon-7970.aspx#1

Fold and mine faster than ever with AMD App Acceleration powered by the unprecedented 28nm GCN Architecture.7

Mining faster than ever?  I like the way that sounds!!!!

1% faster than 6990 would be "faster than ever". 

[sadpandatech]

 We have to face it : Bitcoin / integer / bruteforcing is still a tiny share of the market ATM.

May be a tiny share, but we ARE on the radar.  We have the 5th bullet on the main overview page.

http://www.amd.com/us/products/desktop/graphics/7000/7970/Pages/radeon-7970.aspx#1

Fold and mine faster than ever with AMD App Acceleration powered by the unprecedented 28nm GCN Architecture.7

Mining faster than ever?  I like the way that sounds!!!!

1% faster than 6990 would be "faster than ever". 

  That is fuggin insane that AMD even mentions mining....  Maybe we could just freakin ask them if CGN or other new 7x tech will mine better than 5x/6x and if they have more data to share on it.......?? Someone? ;p

[DeathAndTaxes]

 We have to face it : Bitcoin / integer / bruteforcing is still a tiny share of the market ATM.

May be a tiny share, but we ARE on the radar.  We have the 5th bullet on the main overview page.

http://www.amd.com/us/products/desktop/graphics/7000/7970/Pages/radeon-7970.aspx#1

Fold and mine faster than ever with AMD App Acceleration powered by the unprecedented 28nm GCN Architecture.7

Mining faster than ever?  I like the way that sounds!!!!

1% faster than 6990 would be "faster than ever".  

  That is fuggin insane that AMD even mentions mining....  Maybe we could just freakin ask them if CGN or other new 7x tech will mine better than 5x/6x and if they have more data to share on it.......?? Someone? ;p

Multiple websites have already reviewed the 7970 and one published Bitcoin mining.

Posted upthread:
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/radeon-hd-7970-benchmark-tahiti-gcn,review-32344-14.html



So roughly 5% faster.  Given it is a die shrink one would expect a shrunk and doubled 6970 to be 70% to 80% faster.  CGN uses fewer more complex shaders and just like NVidia that results in lackluster mining performance.

[mc_lovin]

1% faster than 6990 would be "faster than ever". 

^ ^ Video ^ ^ (so funny)