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Sapphire overclocks the HD7950

Subject: Graphics Cards | February 20, 2012 - 02:48 PM |
Tagged: sapphire, hd 7950, hd 7950 OC, factory overclocked, cape verde, amd

There are a lot of custom Cape Verde boards to chose from, with varying clock speeds and custom coolers which is great for those who like something unique out of the box.  X-bit Labs received an overclocked HD7950 board from Sapphire which sports both a 100MHz overclock on the GPU and a custom low noise cooler.  The back of the card is fairly normal, with a dual-link DVI-I port, one HDMI 1.4a connector and two DisplayPort 1.2 ports available.  Overclocking potential on the card was impressive, with a final 1.15 volts allowing stable performance at 1100MHz GPU and 7360 MHz effective on the memory and a temperature of 74C at full load thanks to the cooler.  Even better is the fact that the cooler operates relatively quietly even at that high overclock.

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"Today we are going to review a graphics accelerator with phenomenally efficient cooling system with very low noise, high performance and superb overclocking potential, which even some Radeon HD 7970 graphics cards could wish for."

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Source: X-bit Labs

MSI Graphics Card Division Interview: Alex Chang Takes our Q's

Author:
Date: February 17, 2012
Subject: Graphics Cards
Manufacturer: MSI Computer
Tagged: xtreme edition, video cards, Twin Frozr, nvidia, msi, military class, Lightning, amd, Alex Chang

MSI's Alex Chang Speaks Up

MSI was founded in 1986 and started producing motherboards and video cards for the quickly growing PC market.  Throughout the life of the company they have further diversified their offerings to include barebones systems, notebooks, networking/communication devices, and industrial products.  While MSI has a nice base of products, they are still primarily a motherboard and video card company.  In the past 10 years MSI has become one of the top brands in North America for video cards, and they have taken a very aggressive approach to design with these products.

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I had the chance to send MSI quite a few questions concerning their video card business and how they develop their products.

What is your name, title, and how long have you worked at MSI?

My name is Bob, and I’m…. actually, I’m just Alex Chang. I’m the Associate Marketing Manager. I’ve been with the company for 2 years.

Typically how long does it take from the original reference design card release to when we can first expect to see a Twin Frozr III based card hit retail?  How much longer does it take to create the “Lightning” based products?

Historically, we’ve seen the introduction of a non-reference thermal solution within 2-4 weeks of product launch. As an example, GTX580 was launched in November 2010, and by December there was already a reference PCB GTX580 w/ the Twin Frozr II cooler.

In the case of Lightning cards, the development timeframe is longer due to more R&D, validation, and procurement of components. With GTX580, the timeframe was around 6 months, but moving forward MSI is pulling in the launch timeframe of our flagship products.

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Continue reading our interview with MSI's Alex Chang!!

Meet the new mid-range; AMD's HD7770 and HD7750

Subject: Graphics Cards | February 15, 2012 - 02:33 PM |
Tagged: xfx, southern islands, hd 7770, hd 7750, cape verde, amd, radeon, factory overclocked

The days of the HD 6870 are numbered as today we see the arrival of the new sub-$200 GPUs from AMD, the HD7770 and HD7750.  The stock HD 7770 run at 1GHz with 640 stream processors, 40 texture units and 16 ROPs and the 1GB of memory rides on a 128-bit bus at 4.5GHz.  The stock HD7750 has a slower core, running at 800MHz and a lower stream processor count of 512 as well as only 32 Texture units, with the memory subsystem unchanged from the HD7770.

Those who were disappointed by the lack of custom coolers and factory overclocks at the release of the HD 7970 will be happy to see the variety of HD7700 series cards.  For instance [H]ard|OCP reviewed the XFX R7770 Black Edition Super Overclocked which has a custom cooler, a 120MHz overclock on the core and a 300Mhz on the memory, effectively 5.2GHz.  [H] proved that there is more memory headroom available in this card, adding another 1.1GHz without needing to adjust the voltage.  For those who are willing to risk upping the power there might be even more speed possible from this card. 

You can also catch Ryan's review of the same card as well as an MSI version and a stock HD 7750.

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"Today marks the launch of AMD's Radeon HD 7700 series of GPUs in the sub-$200 bracket. We've got a retail XFX R7770 Black Edition Super Overclocked video card just itching to show us what it can do. Will this Radeon HD 7770 based video card hold up to the likes of the Radeon HD 6870 and GeForce GTX 560 Ti? You may be surprised."

Here are some more Graphics Card articles from around the web:

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Source: [H]ard|OCP

AMD Radeon HD 7770 and 7750 Cape Verde GPU Review

Author:
Date: February 15, 2012
Subject: Graphics Cards
Manufacturer: AMD
Tagged: xfx, southern islands, radeon, msi, hd 7770, hd 7750, cape verde, amd

Southern Islands Get Small

When AMD first started to talk to me about the upcoming Southern Islands GPUs they tried to warn me.  Really they did.  "Be prepared for just an onslaught of card releases for 2012," I was told.  In much the same strategy the company took with the HD 6000 series of cards, the new Radeon HD 7000 cards have been trickling out, part by part, so as to make sure the name "AMD" and the brand "Radeon" are showing up as often as possible in your news feeds and on my keyboard.  In late December we wrote our review of the Radeon HD 7970 3GB flagship card and then followed that up in January with a review of the Radeon HD 7950.  In those briefings were told in a general way about Cape Verde, the Radeon HD 7700 series, and Pitcairn, the Radeon HD 7800 series, but without the details of performance, specifications or release dates.  We have the answer for one more of these families now: Cape Verde.

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Cape Verde is the smallest of the Southern Islands dies and falls into the sub-$175 graphics market depending on card vendors' pricing and overclocking settings.  The real question we all wanted to know is what performance levels these new cards were going to offer and if they could be the TRUE successor to popular Radeon HD 5770.  While the answer will take pages and pages of details to cement into place, I can say that while an impressive card, I wasn't as excited as I had wanted to be.

But I am getting ahead of myself...  Check out our video review right here and then keep reading on for the full evaluation!!

AMD Cape Verde - the smallest of the Southern Islands

GPU companies like to brag when they are on top - you'll see that as a recurring theme in our story today.  One such case is the success of the Radeon HD 5770 that mentioned above - it still today sits on the throne of the most adopted DX11 capable GPU on the Steam Hardware Survey, one of our best places for information on the general PC gamer.  

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While the inclusion of it, as well as the Radeon HD 5870 and HD 5850, on this list are great for AMD a couple of years ago, the lack of a 6000-series card here shows us that users need another reason to upgrade; another card that is mass market enough (ala under $200) and offers performance advantages that really push gamers to spend that extra cheddar.

Bring in the Cape Verde GPU...

Continue reading our review of the Radeon HD 7770 1GB GHz Edition and HD 7750 Graphics cards!!

CTO Eric Demers to Leave AMD

Subject: Graphics Cards, Editorial | February 14, 2012 - 02:13 PM |
Tagged: demers, cto, amd

An interesting quarter for AMD continues as I learned today that AMD's Corporate Vice President and CTO of the Graphics Business Unit, Eric Demers, has decided to leave the company.  Having just had dinner with Eric and other AMD executives last week I am more than surprised about this sudden change since Demers' opinions of the roadmap for AMD were very positive.

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First, here is the official statement from AMD:

"Eric Demers, AMD Corporate Vice President and CTO, Graphics Business Unit, has decided leave AMD to pursue other opportunities.

AMD Chief Technology Officer Mark Papermaster will assume interim responsibility for the Graphics Business Unit CTO role until a replacement is found.

AMD remains fully committed to our critical graphics IP development and discrete GPU products.  We have a tremendous depth of talent in our organization, a game plan that is resonating with our customers and our team, and we are continuing to bring graphics-performance-leading products to market.  We will attract the right technology leader for this role.

We thank Eric for his contributions to the business and wish him well in his future endeavors."

As is usually the case with these types of announcements, everyone is being very hush-hush about where Demers will finally land though I can confirm that it is neither Intel nor NVIDIA.  For those of you in the know about the industry and its current direction, that doesn't leave a lot of other options and we are quite positive he will find a spot that fits his expertise.  

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Eric's background goes back quite a ways and includes stops at SGI, ArtX, Matrox, ATI and finally AMD.  He has been with ATI/AMD since April of 2000 (when David Orton first arrived from ATI) and rose to become the Chief Technology Officer of the graphics division as of mid-2009.  I have personally known Eric as one of the best sources of knowledge about GPUs and technology shifts and I will miss being able to question him on the design decisions being made in our industry.

For AMD, this move comes right after the drastic shift announced by AMD's new CEO Rory Read and new CTO Mark Papermaster to turn AMD into an SoC company.  I attended that same analyst day and came away from the event feeling upbeat about the direction of the company and the individuals at the helm, Demers being one of them.  The loss of Eric's talents will definitely be missed though with the rest of the team intact I don't think we'll see any immediate negative impacts from his departure.  Longer term though, we'll just have to see.  

The AMD rep I spoke with reiterated that this move had nothing to do with the newly hired executives and wasn't caused by any kind of internal disagreements.  Also, Demers did not express any kind of dissatisfaction with the direction of the company from a technological standpoint either.  While that is good to hear, you just don't leave a company after 12+ years without some reasons even if that reason is a better opportunity somewhere else.

Update on 2/14/2012 @ 11:53pm EST: According to this update from TheVerge.com, Demers may in fact end up at Qualcomm, the largest SoC vendor on the planet.  

We're hearing rumors that Demers will actually show up for work at Qualcomm, an interesting choice indeed: the company purchased AMD's mobile graphics division and Imageon media processor back in 2009. You now know it as Qualcomm Adreno, and it's the graphics solution in all Snapdragon-powered tablets and phones.

Source: PC Perspective

Gigabyte's non-standard HD 7970

Subject: Graphics Cards | February 14, 2012 - 01:54 PM |
Tagged: hd7970, gigabyte, factory overclocked

The most noticeable difference on Gigabyte's HD 7970 is the custom cooler, with three fans and a nice shroud, which should keep this card cool and quiet.  This is a good thing as the card sports a moderate overclock of 1000MHz on the core though the memory remains at stock speeds.  It doesn't need to stay at that speed however, [H]ard|OCP got the card up to 1305MHz for the core and 1605MHz for the memory, 6.42GHz effective.  That overclock is quite noticeable in games over both the GTX580 and the stock HD7970 though the performance comes at a price as the card pulls over 100W more than the stock card at full load.  For those drooling over the performance remember that these cards are intended to power multiple screens; [H] tested at 2560 x 1600 and if your setup is not of that resolution or higher you are tossing away money at a product you will not be using to its full potential.

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"GIGABYTE has a custom cooled and overclocked version of the Radeon HD 7970. We examine how well GIGABYTE's Windforce 3X cooling technology allows us to overclock this next generation video card. Find out how this GIGABYTE GV-R797OC-3GD monster compares to a GeForce GTX 580, a Radeon HD 6970, and reference HD 7970."

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Source: [H]ard|OCP

AMD Verdetrol 1GHz Prescription Pills Arrive at PC Perspective

Subject: Editorial, General Tech, Graphics Cards | February 9, 2012 - 08:48 PM |
Tagged: amd, radeon, southern islands

Working from home comes with a host of stereotypes and assumptions that the rest of world places on people like myself.  I am often accused of working in my underwear, not showering through day-long stretches, not working and instead playing games all day and of course, being a drug dealer.  And NOTHING perpetuates that vision from the outside world like an overnight UPS package arriving with the sound of rattling pills inside.  This is what greeted me after my delivering smirked away:

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In preparation for an upcoming graphics launch AMD thought up a pretty interesting marketing campaign geared around a "Verdetrol 1GHz" drug that will apparently help the reviewing community "enhance performance".  Hmph.

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Actually contained within are 28 jelly beans (get it, 28nm???) of a flavor I can't quite detect though I am guessing they are somehow related to this.  And of course, these pills are for "external use only" - a healthy warning.

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The telephone number is listed as 905-555-7770 so you can probably guess what the hubbub is all about.

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And while the directions state to take one tablet daily by fan intake, we were never one to conform.

Source: PC Perspective

NVIDIA Kepler Graphics Cards Lineup Leak To Web

Subject: Graphics Cards | February 6, 2012 - 06:23 PM |
Tagged: nvidia, kepler, graphics, gpu

Although there were quite a few rumors leading up to AMD's Radeon 7000 series launch, the Internet has been very quiet on the greener side of the graphics market. Finally; however, we have some rumors to share with you on the Nvidia front. As always, take these numbers with more than your average grain of salt.

Specifically, EXP Review managed to uncover two charts that supposedly detail specifics about a range of GeForce 600 series Kepler cards from the number of stream processors to the release date. Needless to say, it's a lot of rumored information to take in all at once.

Anyway, without further adieu, let's dive into the two leaked charts.

Model Code Name Die Size Core Clock (TBD) MHz Shader Clock (TBD) GHz Stream Processors SM Count ROPs Memory Clock (effective) GDDR5  Bus Width Memory Bus Width
GTX690 GK110x2 550mm2 ~750 ~1.5 2x1024 2x32 2x56 4.5 GHz 2x448bit 2x252GB/s
GTX680 GK110 550mm2 ~850 ~1.7 1024 32 64 5.5 GHz 512bit 352GB/s
GTX670 GK110 550mm2 ~850 ~1.7 896 28 56 5 GHz 448bit 280GB/s
GTX660Ti GK110 550mm2 ~850 ~1.7 768 24 48 5 GHz 384bit 240GB/s
GTX660 GK104 290mm2 ~900 ~1.8 512 16 32 5.8 GHz 256bit 186GB/s
GTX650Ti GK104 290mm2 ~850 ~1.7 448 14 28 5.5 GHz 224bit 154GB/s
GTX650 GK106 155mm2 ~900 ~1.8 256 8 24 5.5 GHz 192bit 132GB/s
GTX640 GK106 155mm2 ~850 ~1.7 192 6 16 5.5 GHz 128bit 88GB/s

 

From the chart above, we can see the entire lineup of Kepler cards from the NVIDIA GTX 640 to the dual GPU GTX 690.  The die size in the higher end GeForce cards is approximately 50% larger than that of the AMD Radeon HD 7970, but not much bigger than that of the GTX 580.  If only we knew the TDP of these cards!  In the next chart, we see alleged performance comparison versus the AMD competition.

Model Bus Interface Frame Buffer Transistors (Billion) Price Point Release Date Performance Scale
GTX690 PCI-E 3 x16 2x1.75 GB 2x6.4 $999 Q3 2012  
GTX680 PCI-E 3 x16 2 GB 6.4 $649 April 2012 ~45%>HD7970
GTX670 PCI-E 3 x16 1.75 GB 6.4 $499 April 2012 ~20%>HD7970
GTX660Ti PCI-E 3 x16 1.5 GB 6.4 $399 Q2/Q3 2012 ~10%>HD7950
GTX660 PCI-E 3 x16 2 GB 3.4 $319 April 2012 ~GTX580
GTX650Ti PCI-E 3 x16 1.75 GB 3.4 $249 Q2/Q3 2012 ~GTX570
GTX650 PCI-E 3 x16 1.5 GB 1.8 $179 May 2012 ~GTX560
GTX640 PCI-E 3 x16 2 GB 1.8 $139 May 2012 ~GTX550Ti

 

If these numbers hold true, NVIDIA will handily beat the current AMD offerings; however, I would wait for reviews to come out before making any purchasing decisions.  One interesting aspect is the amount of GDDR5 memory.  It seems that NVIDIA is sticking with 2GB frame buffers (or less) per GPU while AMD has really started upping the RAM.  It will be interesting to see how this affects gaming in NVIDIA Surround and/or at high resolutions.

What do you guys think about these numbers, do you think Kepler will live up to the alleged performance scale figures?

Source: EXPreview

Galaxy MDT GeForce GT 520 Graphics Card Review

Author:
Date: February 3, 2012
Subject: Graphics Cards
Manufacturer: Galaxy
Tagged: mdt, idt, GT 520, geforce, galaxy

Four Displays for Under $70

Running multiple displays on your PC is becoming a trend that everyone is trying to jump on board with thanks in large part to the push of Eyefinity from AMD over the past few years.  Gaming is a great application for multi-display configurations but in truth game compatibility and game benefits haven't reached the level I had hoped they would by 2012.  But while gaming still has a way to go, the consumer applications for having more than a single monitor continue to expand and cement themselves in the minds of users.

Galaxy is the only NVIDIA partner that is really taking this market seriously with an onslaught of cards branded as MDT, Multiple Display Technology.  Using non-NVIDIA hardware in conjunction with NVIDIA GPUs, Galaxy has created some very unique products for consumers like the recently reviewed GeForce GTX 570 MDT.  Today we are going to be showing you the new Galaxy MDT GeForce GT 520 offering that brings support for a total of four simultaneous display outputs to a card with a reasonable cost of under $120.

The Galaxy MDT GeForce GT 520

Long time readers of PC Perspective already likely know what to expect based on the GPU we are using here but the Galaxy MDT model offers quite a few interesting changes.

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The retail packaging clearly indicates the purpose of this card for users looking at running more than two displays.  The GT 520 is not an incredibly powerful GPU when it comes to gaming but Galaxy isn't really pushing the card in that manner.  Here are the general specs of the GPU for those that are interested:

  • 48 CUDA cores
  • 810 MHz core clock
  • 1GB DD3 memory
  • 900 MHz memory clock
  • 64-bit memory bus width
  • 4 ROPs
  • DirectX 11 support

Continue reading our review of the Galaxy MDT GeForce 520 graphics card!!

AMD shows 18mm thin reference ultrathin notebook based on Trinity

Subject: Graphics Cards, Processors, Mobile | February 2, 2012 - 02:02 PM |
Tagged: amd, trinity, hsa, ultrabook, ultrathin

Today at the AMD Financial Analyst day in Sunnyvale, Lisa Su, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Global Business Units, showed off a reference design from Compal of an 18mm think ultrathin notebook that they are obviously hoping to compete with Intel's Ultrabook push.

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The notebook is based on AMD's upcoming Trinity APU that improves on the CPU and GPU performance of the currently available Llano APU.  There weren't many details though Su did state they were hoping for prices in the $600-800 range would could but a lot of pressure on Intel. 

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Source: PC Perspective