AMD Preps Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition Graphics Card to Compete with Kepler
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) doesn't appear terribly concerned with NVIDIA's Kepler architecture at the moment. If you recall, it took some time for AMD to roll out price cuts for its Radeon HD 7000 Series graphics cards after Kepler made its official entrance. But now that there's a dual-Kepler graphics card -- GeForce GTX 690, see our review here -- AMD can no longer claim it has the fastest single videocard on the planet. How do you respond if you're AMD?
According to a report in Australia's Atomic MPC, AMD's response is to goose its Radeon HD 7970 graphics card and launch a GHz Edition SKU. As the name implies, the revised card will sport a 1GHz GPU clockspeed, up from the current reference of 925MHz.
AMD's official reasoning for the clockspeed bump at this point in time is because of improved yields. With better silicon coming through the pipeline, AMD claims the average voltage required for a 925MHz clockspeed is now much lower than before, and that the current crop of chips are ramping up to 1,250MHz with little trouble. That being the case, it's curious why AMD isn't aiming a little higher, perhaps 1,150MHz or 1,200MHz, which would still give yields a bit of breathing room, but it appears the Santa Clara chip designer is content to stop at 1,000MHz and market the card as the third GHz Edition in the Radeon HD 7000 lineup.
According to a report in Australia's Atomic MPC, AMD's response is to goose its Radeon HD 7970 graphics card and launch a GHz Edition SKU. As the name implies, the revised card will sport a 1GHz GPU clockspeed, up from the current reference of 925MHz.
AMD's official reasoning for the clockspeed bump at this point in time is because of improved yields. With better silicon coming through the pipeline, AMD claims the average voltage required for a 925MHz clockspeed is now much lower than before, and that the current crop of chips are ramping up to 1,250MHz with little trouble. That being the case, it's curious why AMD isn't aiming a little higher, perhaps 1,150MHz or 1,200MHz, which would still give yields a bit of breathing room, but it appears the Santa Clara chip designer is content to stop at 1,000MHz and market the card as the third GHz Edition in the Radeon HD 7000 lineup.
