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AMD Radeon HD 7950 3GB with PowerTune Boost Review

Author:
Date: August 13, 2012
Subject: Graphics Cards
Manufacturer: AMD
Tagged: powertune, hd 7950, boost, amd

7950 gets a quick refresh

Back in June, AMD released (or at least announced) an update to the Radeon HD 7970 3GB card called the GHz Edition. Besides the higher clock speeds, the card was the first AMD offering to include PowerTune with Boost–a dynamic clock scaling capability that allowed the GPU to increase clock speeds when power and temperature allowed. 

While similar in ideology to the GPU Boost that NVIDIA invented with the GTX 680 Kepler launch, AMD's Boost is completely predictable and repeatable. Everyone's HD 7970 GHz Edition performs exactly the same regardless of your system or environment. 

boost01.jpg

Here is some commentary that I had on the technology back in June that remains unchanged:

AMD's PowerTune with Boost technology differs from NVIDIA's GPU Boost in a couple of important ways. First, much to its original premise, AMD can guarantee exactly how all Radeon HD 7970 3GB GHz Edition graphics cards will operate, and at what speeds in any given environment. There should be no variability between the card that I get and the card that you can buy online. Using digital temperature estimation in conjunction with voltage control, the PowerTune implementation of boost is completely deterministic.

As the above diagram illustrates, the "new" part of PowerTune with the GHz Edition is the ability to vary the voltage of the GPU in real-time to address a wider range of qualified clock speeds. On the previous HD 7970s the voltage was a locked static voltage in its performance mode, meaning that it would not increase or decrease during load operations. As AMD stated to us in a conversation just prior to launch, "by having multiple voltages that can be invoked, we can be at a more optimal clock/voltage combination more of the time, and deliver higher average performance."

The problem I have with AMD's boost technology is that they are obviously implementing this as a reaction to NVIDIA's technology. That isn't necessarily a bad thing, but the tech feels a little premature because of it. We were provided no tools prior to launch to actually monitor the exact clock speed of the GPU in real-time. The ability to monitor these very small changes in clock speed are paramount to our ability to verify the company's claims, and without it we will have questions about the validity of results. GPU-Z and other applications we usually use to monitor clock speeds (including AMD's driver) only report 1050 MHz as the clock speed–no real-time dynamic changes are being reported.

(As a side note, AMD has promised to showcase their internal tool to show real-time clock speed changes in our Live Review at http://pcper.com/live on Friday the 22nd, 11am PDT / 2pm EDT.) [It has since been archived for your viewing pleasure.]

A couple of points to make here: AMD still has not released that tool to show us internal steps of clock speeds, and instead told me today that they were waiting for an updated API to allow other software (including their own CCC) to be able to report the precise results. 

01.jpg

Today AMD is letting us preview the new HD 7950 3GB card that will be shipping soon with updated clock speeds and Boost support. The new base clock speed of the HD 7950 will be 850 MHz, compared to the 800 MHz of the original reference HD 7950. The GPU will be able to boost as high as 925 MHz. That should give the new 7950s a solid performance gain over the original with a clock speed increase of as much as 15%.

Continue reading our coverage of the 7950 with Boost, and get your hands on the new firmware!

Graphics Core Next Professional Edition, FirePro W8000 and W9000

Subject: Graphics Cards | August 10, 2012 - 07:21 PM |
Tagged: firepro, firepro W8000, firepro W9000, amd, Tahiti XT

For GPU accelerated applications such as CAD there are only two main choices, AMD's FirePro or NVIDIA's Quadro series.  Legit Reviews got their hands on two of the three new cards from AMD, the $1600 W9000 and the $900 W8000, with the $600 W5000 missing in this review.  The results were good, the new generation cards perform better than their predecessors though in some tests only by a slim margin.  It is possible that more mature drivers will see the performance increase on those test to the large gap present in most of the other tests.  AMD has also kept the power requirements reasonable which is very important considering the huge improvement in efficiency displayed by NVIDIA's new architecture.

LR_w8000.png

"AMD has successfully brought the new GCN architecture to the workstation! We noticed some pretty nice performance gains in the FirePro W8000 and W9000 cards from the previous generation of AMD FirePro graphics cards. The AMD FirePro W9000 is impressive on paper as it has 2048 stream processors running at 975MHz, 6GB of ECC GDDR5 memory at 1375MHz and the ability to drive six monitors! In some benchmarks the AMD FirePro W9000 blew away the previous generation FirePro V8800 video card, but in others it was..."

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

Graphics Cards

Source: Legit Reviews

Podcast #213 - Windows 8 RTM, A75 Motherboards, GTX 660Ti rumors and more!

Subject: General Tech | August 9, 2012 - 04:56 PM |
Tagged: video, windows 8 rtm, windows 8, podcast, nvidia, llano, Intel, haswell, amd, a75, 660ti

PC Perspective Podcast #213 - 08/09/2012

Join us this week as we talk about Windows 8 RTM, A75 Motherboards, GTX 660Ti rumors and more!

You can subscribe to us through iTunes and you can still access it directly through the RSS page HERE.

The URL for the podcast is: http://pcper.com/podcast - Share with your friends!

  • iTunes - Subscribe to the podcast directly through the iTunes Store
  • RSS - Subscribe through your regular RSS reader
  • MP3 - Direct download link to the MP3 file

Hosts: Ryan Shrout Josh Walrath, Allyn Malvantano and Steve Grever

This Podcast is brought to you by MSI!

Program length: 1:00:35

Program Schedule:

  1. Week in Reviews:
    1. 0:02:19 PCPer Hardware Workshop Overview
    2. 0:07:00 Quakecon Coverage:
      1. http://pcper.com/reviews/Shows-and-Expos/Quakecon-2012-Day-3-Coverage
    3. 0:08:30 What MB is good for all those free APUs we gave out?
      1. MSI A75A-G55 FM1 AMD A75
      2. Asus F1A75-V
    4. 0:12:30 Windows 8 goes RTM
      1. Also, Windows 8 has new box art and changed name of Metro to Windows 8-style UI
  1. 0:18:08 This Podcast is brought to you by MSI!
  1. News items of interest:
    1. 0:19:13 AMD FirePro APU is Launched
    2. 0:23:25 Seagate acquires LaCie
    3. 0:25:20 GTX 660 Ti Prices?
    4. 0:27:24 Steam Selling non-game Software starting Sep. 5th - Windows Store competition
    5. 0:31:00 Ivy Bridge-E will come after Haswell
    6. 0:34:00 Plextor M5 Pro SSD - Marvell finally has some speed
    7. 0:35:30 EVGA GTX 460 2Win WAS $169
    8. 0:39:05 ARMAII with DayZ as retail title
    9. 0:41:00 Curiosity landed successfully on Mars (landed with a friggin' rocket powered skycrane!)
  1. Closing:
    1. 0:44:30 Hardware / Software Pick of the Week
      1. Ryan: UT2004
      2. Jeremy: Oh the decisions … SAMSUNG 830 @ $230 or Corsair Force Series GT @ $175
      3. Josh: My first cellphone in 8 years.
      4. Allyn: Google 2-factor authentication / Authenticator app for mobile
  1. 1-888-38-PCPER or podcast@pcper.com
  2. http://pcper.com/podcast
  3. http://twitter.com/ryanshrout and http://twitter.com/pcper and http://twitter.com/joshdwalrath
  4. Closing/Outro

Source: PC Perspective

Put your HTPC to work

Subject: Systems | August 9, 2012 - 03:17 PM |
Tagged: htpc, amd, nvidia, cyberlink, arcsoft, transcoding, Intel

If you have built yourself an HTPC then you have also built yourself a machine which is relatively good at transcoding video if you get the right software.  Not only can you watch movies, you can edit or manipulate your own movies.  The Tech Report delves into the current state of both hardware and software transcoding tools in their recent article.  They check out the performance of Cyberlink's MediaEspresso, ArcSoft MediaConverter and Handbrake on an Intel based system using the native GPU on the chip as well as tossing in AMD and NVIDIA GPUs to see how it changes the performance.

TR_hero.jpg

"The market is rife with hardware video transcoders and software that can take advantage of them. However, making sense of that jungle of disparate offerings can be tough. We've tried to make sense of it all, comparing the latest transcoding logic from AMD, Nvidia, and Intel in three major video conversion applications."

Here are some more Systems articles from around the web:

Systems

Source: The Tech Report

AMD Launches Professional FirePro APU for Workstations

Subject: General Tech | August 7, 2012 - 10:41 AM |
Tagged: FirePro APU, APU, amd, a320, a300

AMD announced today that it is extending the professional FirePro brand to its Accelerated Processing Units–APUs. Aimed at the professional market, AMD is hoping to get its APUs into workstations that perform computer aided design (CAD) work as well as multimedia content creation and editing. Thanks to the APU’s built-in VILW4 graphics, it can be used with GPU-accelerated software to speed up workloads.

AMD FirePro APU.png

Currently, there are two FirePro chips planned–the A300 and A320 APU. Both processors are based on the company’s consumer Trinity APUs. They feature four Piledriver CPU cores and a VLIW4 GPU architecture with 384 stream processors and dedicated UVD video decoding hardware. The A300 is clocked at a 3.4 GHz with a turbo speed of 4 GHz. On the other hand, the A320 has a base clockspeed of 3.8 GHz and a turbo clockspeed of 4.2 GHz. The A320 is even unlocked, which would allow open overclocking.

APU Model TDP CPU Cores CPU Clockspeed (base/max turbo) Stream Processors GPU Clock Unlocked
AMD FirePro A300 65W 4 3.4 GHz/4 GHz 384 760 Mhz No
AMD FirePro A320 100W 4

3.8 GHz/4.2 GHz

 384 800 MHz Yes

 

The new FirePro APUs differ from the consumer lineup in that AMD has put them through more testing to ensure reliability and compatibility with industry software.

Features include:

  • AMD Eyefinity Technology support
  • AMD Turbo Core
  • Display resolutions up to 10,240 x 1600 for multi-monitor setups
  • Discrete Compute Offload support that allows the pairing of the APU graphics and a discrete GPU to accelerate GPGPU software.
  • 30-bit color support
  • Dedicated UVD hardware for media encoding

It is an interesting move for AMD to get into the workstation and professional design market. The company has been putting out dedicated graphics cards aimed at professionals for a long time, and now with the company betting its future on HSA and APUs, it was only a matter of time before they started aiming APUs at the professional market as well. The A300-series APUs will be available in various workstation integrators (OEMs for workstations) starting this month. Unfortunately, there is no word yet on pricing or whether the processors will be sold individually or not. You can see the full press release on the AMD website.

Source: AMD

Podcast #212 - Live from QuakeCon 2012!

Subject: General Tech | August 4, 2012 - 12:54 PM |
Tagged: VR, ssd, Seagate, quakecon, podcast, ocz, oculus rift, nvidia, Intel, carmack, amd

PC Perspective Podcast #212 - 08/03/2012

In this special live edition of the PC Perspective Podcast, we discuss QuakeCon 2012 and other news of the week!

You can subscribe to us through iTunes and you can still access it directly through the RSS page HERE.

The URL for the podcast is: http://pcper.com/podcast - Share with your friends!

  • iTunes - Subscribe to the podcast directly through the iTunes Store
  • RSS - Subscribe through your regular RSS reader
  • MP3 - Direct download link to the MP3 file

Hosts: Ryan Shrout Josh Walrath, Allyn Malvantano and Steve Grever

This Podcast is brought to you by MSI!

Program length: 49:04

Program Schedule:

In this special live edition of the PC Perspective Podcast, we discuss QuakeCon 2012 and other news of the week!

 

 

Source: PC Perspective

AMD Hires Veteran CPU Architect in Jim Keller

Subject: Processors | August 1, 2012 - 08:38 AM |
Tagged: x86-64, x86, MIPS, Jim Keller, arm, amd, Alpha

There has been quite a bit of news lately from AMD, and very little of it good.  What has perhaps dominated the headlines throughout this past year was the amount of veteran AMD employees who have decided (or were pushed) to seek employment elsewhere.  Not much has been said from these departing employees, but Rory Read certainly started things off with a bang by laying off some 10% of the company just months into his tenure.

Now we finally have some good news in terms of employment.  AMD has hired a pretty big name in the industry.  Not just a big name, but a person who was one of the primary leads on two of AMD’s most successful architectures to date.  Jim Keller is coming back to AMD, and at a time where it seems AMD needs some veteran leadership who is very in touch with not just the industry, but CPU architecture design.

Jim was a veteran of DEC and worked on some of the fastest Alpha processors of the time.  Much could be written about DEC and how they let what could have been one of the most important and profitable architectures in computing history sit essentially on the back burner while they focused on seemingly dinosaur age computing.  After the Alpha was sold off and DEC sold away, Jim found his way to AMD and played a very important role at that company.

amd_logo.gif

The first product was helping to launch the K7, and worked primarily with system engineering.  The vast majority of design work for the K7 was finished by the time he signed on, but he apparently worked quite a bit on integrating it into the new socket architecture that was derived from the DEC Alpha.  Where Jim really earned his keep was in co-authoring the x86-64 specification and being lead architect on the AMD K8 series of processors.  While he left in 1999, the mark he left on AMD is essentially indelible.

After AMD he joined Sibyte (Broadcom) and was lead architect on a series of MIPS processors used in networking devices.  This lasted until 2003 and he again left the company seemingly more prosperous than when he began.

PA-Semi was the next stop and he worked again primarily on networking specific SOCs utilizing the PowerPC architecture.  So far, by counting fingers, Jim has worked on five major ISAs (Alpha, x86, x86-64, MIPS, and PowerPC).  These chips were able to power networking devices with 10 Gb throughput.  PA-Semi was then purchased by Apple in 2007/2008.

At Apple Jim was now Director of Platform Architecture and worked with yet another major ISA; ARM.  Jim worked to develop several major and successful products with the A4 and A5 processors that have powered the latest iPhone and iPad products from the Cupertino giant.  To say that this individual has had his fingers in some very important pies is an understatement.

Jim now rejoins AMD as CVP and Chief Architect of CPU Cores.  He will report directly to Mark Papermaster.  His primary job is to improve execution efficiency and consistency, as well as implement next generation features into future CPU cores which will keep AMD competitive with not only Intel, but other rising competitors in the low power space.  This is finally some good news for AMD as they are actually adding talent rather than losing it.  While Jim may not be able to turn the company around overnight, he does look to be an important piece of the puzzle with a huge amount of experience and knowhow with multiple CPU ISA.  If there is anyone that can tackle the challenges in front of AMD in the face of a changing world, this might be the guy.  So far he has had a positive impact in every stop he has made, and perhaps this could prove to be the pinnacle of his career.  Or it could be where his career goes to die.  It is hard to say, but I do think that AMD made a good hire with Jim.

Source: AMD

Podcast #211 - MSI HD 7870 HAWK, Building a Gaming PC from 1999, a Llano SFF System Build and more!

Subject: General Tech | July 26, 2012 - 02:16 PM |
Tagged: SFF, retro, podcast, nvidia, llano, kepler, Intel, amd, 7870 Hawk, 7870, 1999

PC Perspective Podcast #211 - 07/26/2012

Join us this week as we talk about the MSI HD 7870 HAWK,  Building a Gaming PC from 1999, a Llano SFF System Build and more!

You can subscribe to us through iTunes and you can still access it directly through the RSS page HERE.

The URL for the podcast is: http://pcper.com/podcast - Share with your friends!

  • iTunes - Subscribe to the podcast directly through the iTunes Store
  • RSS - Subscribe through your regular RSS reader
  • MP3 - Direct download link to the MP3 file

Hosts: Ryan Shrout, Jeremy Hellstrom, Josh Walrath and Allyn Malvantano

This Podcast is brought to you by MSI!

Program length: 0:53:21

Program Schedule:

  1. Introduction
  2. PCPer moving to pcper.com/live
  3. 1-888-38-PCPER or podcast@pcper.com
  4. http://pcper.com/podcast
  5. http://twitter.com/ryanshrout and http://twitter.com/pcper
  6. Quakecon - Hardware Workshop @ pcper.com/workshop (August 4th, 2012, 2pm CT)
  7. Join me this weekend at Fry's!!
    1. Fry's Electronics, 1077 East Arques Ave., Sunnyvale, CA 94085

Podcast topics of discussion:

  1. Week in Reviews:
    1. 0:05:10 MSI R7870 HAWK Review
    2. 0:13:00 Gaming like it's 1999
    3. 0:18:10 Enermax Platimax 1000w PSU Review
    4. 0:18:50 AMD Llano System Build Article
  1. 0:21:20 This Podcast is brought to you by MSI!
  1. News items of interest:
    1. 0:22:15 ECS Pre-announced AMD AMP Memory profiles
    2. 0:25:10 New passive CPU cooler can handle 100w
    3. 0:27:15 ARM, TSMC to Produce 64-bit Processors With 3D Transistors
    4. 0:30:20 Falcon Ridge to double Thunderbolt performance
    5. 0:31:40 Drobo Thunderbolt prices
    6. 0:35:10 Radeon HD 7990 delayed again probably
    7. 0:36:35 New Dawn Demo from NVIDIA
    8. 0:40:00 Check out this cool DX11 demo video
    9. 0:44:15 Intel and AMD financials
  1. Closing:

    1. 0:45:20 Hardware / Software Pick of the Week

      1. Ryan: Zoom Handy Recorder H4n
      2. Jeremy: Hand knit beer coozy
      3. Josh: GET A DAMN SSD ALREADY
      4. Allyn: Samsung Cloud Gaming Beta (almost)
  1. 1-888-38-PCPER or podcast@pcper.com
  2. http://pcper.com/podcast
  3. http://twitter.com/ryanshrout and http://twitter.com/pcper
  4. Quakecon coverage at pcper.com/workshop. Hope to see you there!
  5. Closing/outro

Video Version:

 

Source: PC Perspective

Dual GPU AMD 7990 Delayed Until At Least August

Subject: Graphics Cards | July 25, 2012 - 11:56 AM |
Tagged: radeon hd 7990, GCN, dual gpu, amd, 7990

The long-awaited dual GPU Graphics Core Next architecture Radeon HD 7990 has missed its original Computex reveal and will likely miss the July release suggested by previous rumors. Interestingly, VR-Zone China reportedly has some updated information on specifications and release date.

Radeon 7970 heatsink.jpg

The 7970. Expect the 7990 to have a much larger PCB and heatsink!

The dual GPU 7990 will allegedly not be released until at least late August 2012. Further, it will be powered by four six-pin PCI-E power connectors, and will have 6GB of GDDR5 memory (total, 3GB per GPU). Connecting the two 7970 Tahiti XT GPU cores in CrossFire will be a PLX chip – similar to that found in the dual GPU NVIDIA GTX 690 graphics card. As far as video outputs, you can expect four mini-DisplayPorts and two dual-link DVI connectors.

Additionally, previous rumors suggested that the GPU cores would be clocked at 850 MHz, but that may not be the case now that AMD is seeing much better binning with its GHz Edition chips. Also unclear is whether or not the Radeon HD 7990 will have any sort of Powertune with Turbo boost technology like the 7970 GHz Edition. Being based on two 7970 GPU cores, you can look forward to 4,096 stream processors, 64 ROP units, and a dual slot design with three fans providing cooling for the heatsink.

Right now, AMD does not have an answer to the NVIDIA GTX 690 which has been on the market for a while. At this point, you may be better off getting two 7970 GHz Edition graphics cards and putting them in CrossFire. Granted, they are going to take up more space in your case but you can get them today, they will have GPU boost, and will likely cost less to boot. With that said, I do understand the allure of a dual GPU AMD card based on GCN and hope to see it soon.

Stay tuned for more Radeon 7990 coverage as it arrives.

Source: Videocardz

AMD Llano APU System Build: Mini-ITX for HTPC and Gaming

Author:
Date: July 24, 2012
Subject: Processors, Systems
Manufacturer: AMD
Tagged: Seagate, ocz, mini-itx, llano, Lian Li, corsair, APU, amd, a8-3870K

A selection of parts

AMD is without a doubt going through some very tough times with massive personnel issues as well as some problems with products and profitability.  But that doesn’t mean the current product line from AMD is without merit and that you can’t build a great system for various environments, including those users looking for a mainstream and small form factor gaming and home theater PC. 

While preparing for Quakecon 2012 we needed to build a system to take on the road for some minor editing and presentation control purposes.  We wanted the PC to be small and compact, yet still powerful enough to take on some basic computing and gaming tasks.  I happen to have some AMD Llano APUs in the office and thought they would fit perfectly.

If you are on the hunt for a small PC that can do some modest gaming and serve as an HTPC, then you might find our build here interesting.  And while it isn't nearly as exciting as building a Llano PC while blindfolded - it's pretty close.

Case: Lian-Li PC-Q08B

case.jpg

Continue reading our AMD Llano APU Build article!!


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