AMD's HD7970 is ready for action! The most effiency and fastest card on earth.

[leeenux]

With that price? Hell yeah I expected that.

I wonder who you work for sometimes...

I breaks down like this:

Uber-gaming rig

1 x Intel EE CPU: $1000

32GB of DDR3 2133: $300

Overpriced Intel motherboard: $300

Uber power supply: $300

Uber case: $200

2 x 7970 in Crossfire: $1100

Uber gaming peripherals: $300

2 x Uber monitors: $700



So, for the kind of person who would want this sort of rig, if they are going to spend $4100 on the entire setup, is it going to kill them to have to spend an extra $100?

By the same token, anybody who would use a 7970 in a build where the GPU costs more than the rest of the build put together is a complete dumb-ass anyways, so we shouldn't really be concerned about saving them $50. This card is not made for the poor or the practical anymore than a Ferrari is, that's what Toyota (aka, the 7850 and below) is for.

[PreferLinux]

I wonder who you work for sometimes...

I breaks down like this:

Uber-gaming rig

1 x Intel EE CPU: $1000

32GB of DDR3 2133: $300

Overpriced Intel motherboard: $300

Uber power supply: $300

Uber case: $200

2 x 7970 in Crossfire: $1100

Uber gaming peripherals: $300

2 x Uber monitors: $700



So, for the kind of person who would want this sort of rig, if they are going to spend $4100 on the entire setup, is it going to kill them to have to spend an extra $100?

By the same token, anybody who would use a 7970 in a build where the GPU costs more than the rest of the build put together is a complete dumb-ass anyways, so we shouldn't really be concerned about saving them $50. This card is not made for the poor or the practical anymore than a Ferrari is, that's what Toyota (aka, the 7850 and below) is for.

No, you do a slightly more sensible build. More like a i5 2500K (overclocked) with 8 GB RAM, a fairly cheap motherboard, a decent PSU that isn't super-expensive, a cheap case that is still good, keep your graphics cards, get reasonably-priced peripherals, and three reasonably-priced monitors (which would be about that for the three, instead of two, probably). So you'd decrease the price significantly.

[leeenux]

No, you do a slightly more sensible build. More like a i5 2500K (overclocked) with 8 GB RAM, a fairly cheap motherboard, a decent PSU that isn't super-expensive, a cheap case that is still good, keep your graphics cards, get reasonably-priced peripherals, and three reasonably-priced monitors (which would be about that for the three, instead of two, probably). So you'd decrease the price significantly.

OK, we'll do it your way:

Core i5 2500K $220

8GB DDR3 1600 $45

Less expensive Intel mobo suitable for this application: $130

Minimum power supply a sane person would pair with this GPU: $130

No frills full-ATX case that can fit the GPU: $60

Cheapest 1TB hard drive on Newegg: $120

3 x Basic monitor: $450

Basic keyboard and mouse: $40


So, before we've even bought the GPU, the rest of the rig already comes out to $1195. I guess RealNC's point was that $1755 for the full rig is totally unacceptable, but $1705 is reasonable(or $2305 and $2205 for 2 GPUs in Crossfire, respectively).

[RealNC]

Well, all I'm saying is that the price is unreasonable for this card. Sure, I do expect it to drop in a few months. But on the other hand, I don't remember seeing any single GPU card ever produced by NVidia or AMD/ATI being that expensive. I have been buying flagship cards for a long time. I've *only* been buying flagship cards, actually. Back in the day when the Radeon 9800XT was the beast, I bought that. Then later I got a Radeon X1950XTX. Later a Radeon HD4870. All of them when they first came out. The logic behind this is that the flagship cards last much longer (which they did.)

So now the 7970 is out with a price that doesn't compare to what I paid for any of the above when they were the coolest new gear around. Am I the only one seeing that the price of this card simply doesn't fit with how ATI has been handling this in the past?

[Kano]

AMD my have got fast cards, but even on WIN they are stupid as hell to deliver drivers that work out of the box with Philips tvs. I did not search long for a solution of inverted colors from time to time and put in a nv card instead in that box. Also nv does not use underscan by default on full hd tvs (most likely 1080p+audio), but AMD always does that. I really hate those presets...

[Qaridarium]

Am I the only one seeing that the price of this card simply doesn't fit with how ATI has been handling this in the past?

the price doesn't matter because the piece is only high because of the limited pieces.
later if they do have many cards in stock then they drop the price hard to sell the cards in stock,
high price only mean low in stock.

[efikkan]

nVidia is still superior in terms for performance and features for GNU/Linux platforms, and will remain this way until AMD seriously improves their drivers.

And don't forget, Kepler will arrive soon with full GNU/Linux support.

[AlbertP]

It's perhaps expensive because the card is still brand new, and kind of exotic right now. When it has appeared in computer stores all over the world in a few months, you'll surely get (web)shops selling it cheaper to attract customers.

[AlbertP]

nVidia is indeed superior on Linux but for Windows users the HD 7970 isn't that bad.

Do you know how much power the HD 7970 uses compared to the GTX 580 and 590?
HD 7970: TDP 250 W
GTX 580: TDP 244 W
GTX 590: TDP 365 W
It uses as much power as a GTX 580 but isn't the HD 7970 faster?
The GTX 590 is burning through 50% more power but is not 50% faster. The HD 7970 is more power efficient.

[efikkan]

Of course, for Windows users HD 7970 isn't bad. But GTX 580 still offers better value, with 90% of the performance of HD 7970 (1920x1200, Techpowerup's review), with a far lower price and good availability of third party coolers. The reference cooler for HD 7970 is also noisy, but does still draw acceptable power considering the performance.

Keep in mind retail availability of HD 7970 is after January 9th, and stocks will be limited.