AMD 7970 E6 6GB

[BHawthorne]

Information points towards Sapphire will be releasing a card called the Flex 6G. A stock clocked 7970 with E6 mDP 6x port configuration and 6GB of VRAM. Looks like we have a winner here for Eyefinity this time around.

[Delphium]

What the jaz!! Thats a monster!
6GB Vram!! :O

Pardon me while I drool into my shoes.

[suiken_2mieu]

What the jaz!! Thats a monster!
6GB Vram!! :O

Pardon me while I drool into my shoes.

I think i see my next upgrade after my cpu.

[ViciousXUSMC]

More interested in that overclocked monster, 3GB is more than enough.

Though the E6 card will be great for anybody that actually uses a 3Lx2P setup.

[stickygreen]

Hmmm, i've been wanting to upgrade my 5870 E6

wonder how much it's going to cost..?

[sparx1981]

One thing people may want to consider... if you want to trifire this 6GB beast with a 7990.... you'll need a 12gb 7990.....

Do you think that will even exist?

So although this might be good as a standalone card, one one to team up with another 7970... I think you could be limiting your future options.

[BHawthorne]

Not limiting anything. I'd just buy two or three of em like i did with my two 5870 E6 cards. :)

[duniek]

oh my god
finally card which can operate my 9x5
17280x5400 res config lol

[Skid]

Hmmm, i've been wanting to upgrade my 5870 E6

wonder how much it's going to cost..?

I suspect 1 human soul. Or 100 human soul if not your own, as after all, one soul is not equal to another.

[LeandroJVarini]

6GB is a lot, do all these for the memory chips on a pcb? Will we see a 7970 with pcb sapphire larger than the default

[BHawthorne]

Taking bets it'll be pretty standard layout but VRAM on both sides of the pcb. The question is, will this be an AMD design like the 5870 E6 cards or will this be a custom AMD partner design?

[Downtown1]

Hopefully they make a 7990 with 12GB so we don't have to buy 2x 7970s.

[ViciousXUSMC]

Not sure I would use a 7990 unless I had a mobo with PCI-E 3.0

My not so old P67 with a 16X PCI-E 2.0 slot I would be worried would bottleneck a 7990 if/when it comes out.

[Gilly]

One thing people may want to consider... if you want to trifire this 6GB beast with a 7990.... you'll need a 12gb 7990.....

Do you think that will even exist?

So although this might be good as a standalone card, one one to team up with another 7970... I think you could be limiting your future options.

Probably not room on the PCB I would guess?

EDIT: "on the PCB" not PC :P

[Haldi]

Skyrim with UltraHyperMegaHigh Textures we're coming! 50'000x50'000 px !

No realy! I know that some Games use 2gb Vram. But that won't mean they realy need it!

Maybe with 9Screens an CF Setup you have more Vram usage... But haven't seen any tests who prove that.

Well better have and not need than other way around!

[BHawthorne]

Agreed. I've never heard of a multi-display user complaining about having too much VRAM before. :bigsmile:

[LeandroJVarini]

Hopefully they make a 7990 with 12GB so we don't have to buy 2x 7970s.

If it's really something out, it will be very big! :bigsmile:

Not sure I would use a 7990 unless I had a mobo with PCI-E 3.0

My not so old P67 with a 16X PCI-E 2.0 slot I would be worried would bottleneck a 7990 if/when it comes out.

Friend, I posted in another topic as there is no significant performance in PCI 3.0 for justice the purchase of a newer motherboard and costlier! Of course this is my opinions! :bigsmile:
Reaview complete pci-ex 2.0 vs 3.0
http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/hardware-canucks-reviews/49646-amd-radeon-hd-7970-3gb-review.html

[Taipan]

Agreed. I've never heard of a multi-display user complaining about having too much VRAM before. :bigsmile:

How much VRAM do we really need though?

I'm still deciding between the 3GB and 6GB versions.. but I currently have a Nvidia GeForce 580, with 1.5GB VRAM.

On 2560x1600 it uses about 1.2-1.6 GB VRAM depending upon most games.

My new resolution will be 4960x1600.

Looking linearly at the number of pixels, then 3GB should still be fine that comes with the standard 7970?
Surely 6GB is only for the 6x monitor setups or the 3x30"?

[BHawthorne]

For me it's all about options. What I need now might not be what I need later, so it's good to have excessive options. I thought about getting two vanilla 7970's, but I really want direct replacements for my 5870 E6 card port options. With all the projects and experimentation I do, I really need the E6 configuration.

[ViciousXUSMC]

[quote]Hopefully they make a 7990 with 12GB so we don't have to buy 2x 7970s.

If it's really something out, it will be very big! :bigsmile:

Not sure I would use a 7990 unless I had a mobo with PCI-E 3.0

My not so old P67 with a 16X PCI-E 2.0 slot I would be worried would bottleneck a 7990 if/when it comes out.

Friend, I posted in another topic as there is no significant performance in PCI 3.0 for justice the purchase of a newer motherboard and costlier! Of course this is my opinions! :bigsmile:
Reaview complete pci-ex 2.0 vs 3.0
http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/hardware-canucks-reviews/49646-amd-radeon-hd-7970-3gb-review.html


I have seen benchmarks showing that PCI-E 2.0 8x can bottleneck a card to a minor degree, it does not show until high resolutions.

It was comparing a dual 16x 16x mobo against one like mine that has a single 16x slot but gets cut to 8x in crossfire.

With that in mind this was in the era of 5870 being the top card and the issues cropped up in the range between 1920x1200 and 2560x1600.

We have passed all of these now with eyefinity resolutions in excess of 5760x1200 and gpus 2 generations ahead of the 5870.

We can conclude if crossfire had bottlenecks with a single 5870 in an 8x slot on PCI-E 2.0 that a card 2x as fast like the 5970 could show similar problems in a 16x slot.

And thus we get to where I was at with the idea of a 7990 in a 16x slot... it could/would hold the card back, even if only a small degree.

Most users would never notice, most hardware sites would never even notice, or test at high enough resolutions to notice, but its there.

Here is just one of many articles you can find this kind of information: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/p55-pci-express-scaling,2517-6.html

The more you look for it the more you will see it, and it scales up with stronger gpus & higher resolutions meaning for somebody looking to run eyefinity on a 7000 series card, I think its well worth knowing you could be hurting performance to a noticeable degree if you plan to do CF in 8x on a 2.0 setup, or if you plan to get a 7990.

7970 on a 16x slot would be fine.