The HD 7770 is actually a great move by AMD.. an ingenious one. For a third-tier GPU chip, it's rated at a hefty 94 VP. Compared against the last two generations (HD 6670 and 5670), this is quite a jump (from 48 VP and 38 VP respectively). BTW, HD 6770 was actually a second-tier Evergreen chip that was just rebadged from HD 5770, still not truly of the Northern Islands generation.

Why so ingenious?

The die size has not really increased at all from HD 6670: 123mm^2 for the 28nm chip vs 118mm^2 for the 40nm chip. (Also, the 5670 -older 40nm chip- is 104mm^2). So, while maintaining the die size, the performance has literally doubled. The performance increase for such a size is amazing, even though the TDP went up from 66W to 80W (by 14W which is not that shabby).

It's such a tiny chip for AMD to produce. Nothing this tiny has ever had such a high starting MSRP ($159-169). Nvidia is certainly a bit agitated about this but Nvidia is the one actually making profits like usual. It's a huge accomplishment for AMD nonetheless (considering the fact that HD 7970 with its 365mm^2 size is only 42% faster than the tiny bit bigger 389mm^2 HD 6970 while consuming roughly the same wattage).

Shows just how immature GCN is more like it, half a decade after nvidia went the GPGPU route seriously, and AMD no longer has it Graphics CTO, Eric Demers to help improve this new architecture.

Don't forget that AMD just transitioned from 40 to 28nm. We will see if it is a "huge accomplishment" - or not - for AMD only when Nvidia brings out their new Kepler lineup.

i really NEED to get my hands on a HD 7970 to explore this GCN thoroughly. From what i see comparing what is out (79x0/77x0), it seems a bit unbalanced - like it needs to be fine tuned.

Right.. I know that AMD has something better up the sleeve (a higher-clocked 7970 with perhaps more shaders).

Not clocking the GPU at 1GHz when it could easily be oc'ed to at least 1150 MHz on average tells me that something is up. It's the same thing with GTX 460 - NV wanted to save some of the thunder for the 5 series, while letting the 460 go for dirt cheap (to snatch back the DX11 marketshare that AMD got an early headstart on).

Clocking the 7970 at 1GHz would've made it consume nearly as much wattage as GTX 580, which is not what AMD wanted. It's quite a deviation from HD 6970, which was clocked rather high with little headroom left for overclocking. AMD is clearly saving the thunder for something coming up soon, and to see what NV's next move is... perhaps to spoil the GK104 launch with this very thing. I think there's more than a 50-50 chance that there will be a fully unlocked Tahiti with 2304sp, clocked at 1 GHz, but that's just my imagination.

UPDATE: Added HD 6930 (released for Russian and Chinese markets only), rated at 126 VP.

This one: GTX 460 v2 went right under my nose without me noticing it at first. It's a strange card like GTX 550 Ti, with 1GB memory linked to 24 ROPs and 192-bit bus. Also, it's based on GF114 rather than GF104. Many users are fooled by this, and finding it not to be compatible with their original GTX 460 1GB even though both have the same amount of memory.. the box dies not make it clear at all, nor does it have a clear designation like "SE" or "768MB edition". It does not even say "v2" on the box. The only way is to look at the bus width (192-bit rather than 256).

I tried finding bechies for it, to no avail except for this one, so will use it as a scale against the original version, for the VP ratings:

http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/video ... GTX+460+v2

For the specs, see here: http://www.geforce.com/Hardware/GPUs/ge ... ifications

UPDATE: GTX 460 v2 1GB added, with 97 Voodoopower!!

Whoa, heres a review showing HD 7970 losing out to a GTX 580, at 1920x1200 without AA, in 13 (THIRTEEN) DX9/10 games:
http://www.tweakpc.de/hardware/tests/gr ... on/s08.php
For the different settings and with DX11, it shows a tiny difference between the 2.
What's wrong with this site?!?

i cant load it right now. is it just the game choices? I know the 7970 isnt consistent, it does really good at times and meh at others.

Loads fine for me.. It's for overall (all 13 games together). Never seen a site make the 7970 look that bad, seriously!!!

Yo, EMAIL ME! U U