A Simply Fabulous Article on the in-depth new stuff on the AMD Tahiti A.K.A. HD 7970 GPU core - Hardware & Software

[url]http://techreport.com/articles.x/22192/1[/url] Seriously, some of the stuff in here is just awesome. I would totally go back to AMD if they stopped making ballsy shit ass drivers asfuckcunt They actually... finally... Incorporated ACTUAL hardware h.264 encoding. None of this using-shaders-to-do-general-encoding shit. Actual blocks on the GPU for encoding and according to the article it can do 1080p at 60fps speeds. [quote]We're talking about hardware purpose-built to encode H.264, not just an encoder that does its calculations on the chip's shader array. As usual, the main advantages of custom logic are higher performance and lower power consumption. Tahiti's encode logic looks to be quite nice, with the ability to encode 1080p videos at 60 frames per second, at least twice the rate of the most widely used formats. The VCE hardware supports multiple compression and quality levels, and it can multiplex inputs from various sources for the audio and video tracks to be encoded. Interestingly, the video card's frame buffer can act as an input source, allowing for a hardware-accelerated HD video capture of a gaming session.[/quote]

the HD 7970 is turning out to be an impressive piece of kit, some nice performance shown in games either matching or besting the GTX 580. What I really like about it is the "Zero Core power" feature which is said to use only a single watt while the card is idle.

A wonderful piece of hardware with drivers which'll upload your entire porn folder to your employers should you try to run OpenGL on it.

[QUOTE=BrainDeath;34036672]A wonderful piece of hardware with drivers which'll upload your entire porn folder to your employers should you try to run OpenGL on it.[/QUOTE] Yeah, ATI's OGL implementation kind of sucks. See: Brink They need to step up their driver programming because it seems like with each new game release, ATI needs a hotfix and nVidia is more or less fine

I would be so tempted to get this card as a potential upgrade over my 9800GTX if it were not for the fact that AMD is known to have shitty drivers, this card just looks amazing though

Very nice. Still interesting in what Kepler has in store...

[QUOTE=wingless;34035200]the HD 7970 is turning out to be an impressive piece of kit, some nice performance shown in games either matching or besting the GTX 580. What I really like about it is the "Zero Core power" feature which is said to use only a single watt while the card is idle.[/QUOTE] Not said, it actually can do that. When you turn off your screen the GPU goes into zerocoremode and even turns off the fan.

XFX Double D Edition 7970. [img]http://a3.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc7/403949_302483939792636_142480772459621_836188_1387491441_n.jpg[/img]

I wish I could buy bare versions of graphics cards, I always strip off the HSF and replace it with my own water cooling methods anyways.

[QUOTE=billyjohn86;34045131]I wish I could buy bare versions of graphics cards, I always strip off the HSF and replace it with my own water cooling methods anyways.[/QUOTE] I'm sure AMD will sell you 20,000 GPUs if you're willing to build a PCB around them.

I'll stay with Nvidia til they fix their OpenGL performance.

Whats wrong with their openGL thing? Sorry, never had ati/amd

[QUOTE=Maagiline;34100426]Whats wrong with their openGL thing? Sorry, never had ati/amd[/QUOTE] AMD cards have awful openGL performance. It's better than not having any support, but just barely. I don't use it a lot so I didn't mind getting a 6970. But with their driver quality in general my next card will be a GTX 700 one.

oh ffs I really want the 700 series but they come out in like 2013 or late 2012 this one comes like tomorrow basically