AMD Catalyst 12.11 Beta Drivers and Never Settle Bundle available now
- Thread starter MagicWithEarvin
- Start date
This sort of thing is as old as time. Adverts do it all the time. At least here, despite obvious manipulation, to make it more visually appealing, it's still cold hard facts. We also have the numbers backed up by various review sites. It's all very well cracking a joke about it, but it's hardly worth getting too worked up over.
Yup, I just got one last week for 150€ (1GB edition though) and holy fuck, it overclocks with barely nothing. Managed to put it at 1GHz (from stock 860MHz or so) without overvolting.
should've called it "sorry for fucking up BF3 earlier guys"-driver
but this does make the 7950 extremely interesting for anyone looking to grab a new card for the next couple of years (for US buyers at least... Anandtech already mentions to double check whether your retailer offers the coupons/codes so I'm not sure what the situation over here would be)
but this does make the 7950 extremely interesting for anyone looking to grab a new card for the next couple of years (for US buyers at least... Anandtech already mentions to double check whether your retailer offers the coupons/codes so I'm not sure what the situation over here would be)
SillyEskimo
Member
Bah, just grabbed those 2 weeks ago. Needless to say, my computer is rather fast. I can run Crysis now!
Yeah it's a fantastic card, fucking adore mine. With a voltage tweak mine is up from 860MHz to 1200MHz, love it.
Felix Lighter
Member
Seems like a decent little performance increase, especially for Battlefield 3. Looking forward to testing it out.
Hero_of_the_Day
Member
Yeah. I found it pretty weird that they were only including it with their low end card. No way that card is running the game 1080p @ 60FPS with the high def texture pack (doubt it even without).
Forgot about that.
TouchMyBox
Member
There's an Assassin's Creed 3 high-res texture pack? :O
Hero_of_the_Day
Member
I believe so. I hope I'm not making shit up now. I heard it from other Gaffers.
EDIT: This just says they confirmed it will have "higher resolution textures".
Guerrillas in the Mist
Member
Shitty marketing stuff aside, it sure beats the hell out of the download code for Op Flashpoint: Red River that I got with my 560 TI.
Hero_of_the_Day
Member
Newegg has taken down the Sleeping Dogs promotion that was with the 7000 cards last night when this was posted. Maybe this will be going live quicker than the Anandtech article thought. Or they're really going to kill their sales until this promotion starts now that everyone knows and they took away the pre-existing promotion.
If nvidia was offering this I'd probably try to upgrade since my card is aging a bit and I do want hitman and far cry. I don't trust AMD after how poor their drivers and overall support are. Too many horror stories.
Yeah I remember when Dishonored was supposed to have high res textures too and it has the muddiest and lowest res textures possible.
Not saying you're wrong. I'm saying they're probably lying.
Hero_of_the_Day said:
Yeah I remember when Dishonored was supposed to have high res textures too and it has the muddiest and lowest res textures possible.
Not saying you're wrong. I'm saying they're probably lying.
legacyzero
Banned
Yep. After trying an Nvidia card for the first time recently, ill stay right here, thanks.
microtubule
Member
Rage3d.com says the drivers will be released today at 3PM ET.
http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthread.php?t=33995419
http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthread.php?t=33995419
ComputerMKII
Banned
Soon they will give one free graphics card for every three games bought.
Tallshortman
Member
I'm tempted to sell my 6950 and pick up a 7950 but I will probably hold out for the 8000 series cards.
SniperHunter
Banned
will this be available in Canada? I am planning to buy a 7970...maybe I should wait for the 8000 series? I will be busy for a while with studies and work.
Lazy Man's Wallpaper
Member
About six months ago I had the same dilemma. Got the great idea to upgrade my video card, which turned into new CPU and doubling the RAM, which THEN led to putting the 5770, old CPU and RAM into a whole new box that is now our second PC (wife and I play WoW together and her laptop just couldn't handle the game anymore). These things tend to snowball, folks.
Some are doing it today I think, and go for the 7850, it's a much better card.
Hero_of_the_Day
Member
DEAL IS LIVE ON NEWEGG!
are you still using the GTX 470?
and yeah AMD shitty drivers-and cards- made me almost quit pc gaming,I stopped buying PC games for two years before I went nvidia and got better PC gaming experience since then.
Yeah my 470 is going strong still but I'm starting to see it struggle more on games that push things. Obviously I can still run stuff like Xcom and Dishonored at pretty much max settings at 1080p but I had to turn the view distance on Borderlands 2 down to high (oh noes!) to stop it from dipping to the 30s and 40s.
Ideally I'd like to keep it until a year into the next gen consoles so developers are set in a routine and the new GPUs, whether it's the 700 or 800 series by then, will be out.
MrCunningham
Member
Check Newegg.ca and other Canadian retailers like NCIX and Tigerdirect: The never settle deal is already up:
http://www.newegg.ca/Desktop-Graphics-Cards/SubCategory/ID-48
[EDIT]: It only seems to be available for the 7950/7970's at the moment. Maybe they are still updating their prices?
Horsemama1956
Member
Don't worry guy, nVidia is PERFECT with support and drivers. No one has had problems with them, and they never will. Forget the fact there are just as many reported issues as people have with AMD on forums like overclock.net and such.
Unless of course you're talking about the PC thread on Neogaf, which seems to be only full of people that started PC gaming in the last year or 2. Had nVidia and AMD(ATi) cards since the Rage/TNT days and they both have the same problems.
zephervack
Member
Good deal and to be honest, im really happy with my 7970, but I do miss the stuff that you can add with nVidia inspector, and easier super sampling, etc
SniperHunter
Banned
nice! I want a 7970!
They have been for me and for most on here in the last year or so. The complaints from every big game last holiday season mostly came from widespread AMD driver issues.
Rodney McKay
Member
...but I just picked up a GTX 660 ti to upgrade my aging Radeon 5770.
I know I probably should have waited for Black Friday, but I had the money and it seems like a damn good card so far, it even plays some games my AMD wasn't able to (Halo 1 for some reason, just couldn't get it to start up with the 5770.)
I was mostly happy with my AMD though, so I have nothing against them (although Physx IS pretty awesome for the games that have it). I only had two or three games that had AMD exclusive issues (or maybe just my 5770) over the course of the 2-3 years I had it.
I know I probably should have waited for Black Friday, but I had the money and it seems like a damn good card so far, it even plays some games my AMD wasn't able to (Halo 1 for some reason, just couldn't get it to start up with the 5770.)
I was mostly happy with my AMD though, so I have nothing against them (although Physx IS pretty awesome for the games that have it). I only had two or three games that had AMD exclusive issues (or maybe just my 5770) over the course of the 2-3 years I had it.
Early 2013, I believe.
Might be able to return the card (it gets abnormally hot anyway) and perhaps re-order.RibbedHero
Member
lol at the people with "AMD drivers suck!" posts, straight outta 2005.
joeygreco1985
Member
Meh. I've learned my lesson regarding AMD cards.
joeygreco1985
Member
Please. I was having driver trouble with my Radeon HD 5870 10 months ago. Switched to a GTX 670 and never looked back.
microtubule
Member
MagicWithEarvin
Member
That was quick.
The 7950 is tempting and its 3GB VRAM is more future-proof than my 2GB 660ti, so I dunno if I should do it. Then again, everyone going "lol AMD drivers" is holding me back from the switch.
And yet it persists in 2012.
MrCunningham
Member
I still think the driver issue is a little overblown. I have a few different friends with Radeon cards in the 7850 to 7950 range, and I haven't heard any complaints from them with driver issues. There were a few issues in the end of 2011 with games like Rage and such, but I think AMD has been trying to turn that situation around in 2012, and they have been doing a decent job.
Though, if you're like me and dual boot with Linux, the NVIDIA cards will always still be a little more favorable. I have no idea what the current state of AMD drivers are like in Linux (though I hear the open source ones have been making progress) but NVIDIA is still the best option there. There are also the extra perks like PhysX on the NVIDIA side, but still.. you can't go wrong with a 7950 at $300-320 dollars. That's a good bang for your buck right there.
Though I wonder what the performance would be like with a hybrid PhysX solution? Something like a Radeon 7870/7950+ Geforce 430/630 combination? I've heard that some people had pretty decent results with set ups like this, but I don't have any first hand results.
I'd say that's true when it comes to Crossfire (had nothing but issues with dual 5850s) but support for single cards has been fine, especially this year. After the crap I dealt with with the 5850s I was strongly considering going back to Nvidia, but slightly worse single card driver support is not enough to make me pay an extra $100 for a GTX 680, which has essentially no performance benefit over a 7970.
RibbedHero
Member
Eh, I've been with Nvidia for the last year, but for the 3 years preceding that I was with AMD and I didn't have a single problem. The two GPU players are pretty much on par now, any problems are really just anecdotal.