AMD

[DrPop]

. . .The *effective* bandwidth of PCIe 3.0 is 985 MB/s per lane = 15.39 GB/s @ x16. To use it all, a single GPU running a 1080p monitor would have to achieve 1,992 frames per second.

Well, good to know I so desperately "NEEDED" those 40 lanes of PCIe 3.0 on these Socket 2011 mobos. I might actually use all that bandwidth in 20 years!

[John P. Myers]

Well, good to know I so desperately "NEEDED" those 40 lanes of PCIe 3.0 on these Socket 2011 mobos. I might actually use all that bandwidth in 20 years!

LOL well there is an advantage to having 3.0 over 2.0, which is time. Even if you only come up with 100 bytes of data that needs to be passed between the GPU and CPU, 3.0 can pass that data back and forth faster than 2.0, which speeds things up a little

[John P. Myers]

Sooo...it's the 15th and Z is wondering where the hell his case of R9-290Xs is...

Yeah...seems AMD is having issues and changed the launch date. Fortunately though, it's still soon, the 24th or maybe the 18th. Not even AMD seems to know which :/ eTailers and review sites are also under orders to keep quiet until then.

Remember the R9-290 and R9-290X are the only new GPUs. The 280X on down, which you can buy right now, are all 7000 series rebrands, the 280X being the 7970 GHz Edition.

[Fire$torm]

Sooo...it's the 15th and Z is wondering where the hell his case of R9-290Xs is...

Yeah...seems AMD is having issues and changed the launch date. Fortunately though, it's still soon, the 24th or maybe the 18th. Not even AMD seems to know which :/ eTailers and review sites are also under orders to keep quiet until then.

Remember the R9-290 and R9-290X are the only new GPUs. The 280X on down, which you can buy right now, are all 7000 series rebrands, the 280X being the 7970 GHz Edition.

So which are cheaper, the older 7xxx or their "R" clones?

[Mumps]

And the R clones aren't even clones with a die shrink? Or other minor improvements in the silicon?

[John P. Myers]

So which are cheaper, the older 7xxx or their "R" clones?

Pretty much the same price +- $10. At least on Newegg the 280Xs seem to be $10 cheaper than the 7970GEs ($300 vs. $310). However if you're in the market for a used 7970GE, those can be found even cheaper, while there are no used 280Xs yet, so that could save some money

Edit
@Mumps: Nope, no die shrink. Same 28nm as before. Last i heard TSMC won't be making the new 20nm wafers in useful quantity until June, but i'm not sure how AMD will handle that. It's too soon to release a "next gen" model based on the new die shrink, and at the same time there's no way they'd throw away the chance to release a "next gen" based on the new die shrink. I see release delays in the future...

Unlike Nvidia, AMD did tweak the original 7000 series chips a little for use in the Rx series, and based on compute benchmarks from Anandtech, the 280X seems to be 1-5% faster (though usually closer to 1%).

[DrPop]

@JPM - so what is the target price for the only "new" GPU - the 290X which we haven't seen yet? For the money, do you think it will be worth it over a used-price on a 7970 - I mean as far as cost per credits ratio?

[John P. Myers]

@JPM - so what is the target price for the only "new" GPU - the 290X which we haven't seen yet? For the money, do you think it will be worth it over a used-price on a 7970 - I mean as far as cost per credits ratio?

Cost/credit i think even a brand new 7970GE would beat a 290X. You'll be able to buy 2 7970GEs for the price of 1 R9 290X which will be around $600-$650. If the 7970GEs are used, you might even get 3 for that.

[DrPop]

OK, thanks. Guess that answers my question.

[John P. Myers]

Rumor has it AMD may be dropping the price of the 290X just to stick it to Nvidia. Seems plausible since AMD intentionally ruined an Nvidia tech conference in Montreal last week (or the week before, idr). Anyway, the new *rumored* price would be $550. We'll find out for sure in a few hours when the NDA goes poof