AMD Radeon HD 7970 announced

[zarx]

JEMC said:

Snesboy said:

JEMC said:
Nice card, and a very good improvement over the HD6970, between 30-40% faster! Not bad at all.

Unfortunately the improvements are not as impressive if we compare it with the GTX 580, and then there is the price, $549!

I'll wait for the HD7950 with its dual BIOS

"Retailers will surely tack on an early-adopter premium, but if they somehow miraculously release at their MSRP, the GTX 580 is going to need a price drop before long. Of course, NVIDIA is supposed to release its new Kepler architecture in 2012. AMD has beat them to the punch, and upped the ante. In some areas, even an overclocked GTX 580 can’t match the new HD 7970 beast at stock. 2012 just got very interesting for GPUs.

AMD has taken back the hill. It’s your move NVIDIA."

From Overclockers.com

I think I'll wait for the 7750 or 7770

Oh, it is a very good card, but given that it's done on a new fab process, the first 28nm, some were expecting a revolution. And it's not. It's a solid upgrade for anyone with an HD5xxx/lower HD6xxx card or Nvidia equivalent but for the enthusiasts that have a GTX580 / HD69xx or even a Xfire/SLI  setup, the gains aren't that big to justify the price tag.

The price, and the noise (it seems to be a bit noisy, but given the good temps you could lower the fan speed or wait for a 3rd party custom cooler), are the only cons for an excellent card.

And if rumors are true (and I'm playing devil's advocate here) the GTX 780 is going to something revolutionary.

yea the price is a tad high, they are probably trying to turn a profit off it as fast as possible. AMD needs it ATM especially after the dissapointing Bulldozer launch. They have to make hay while the sun shines (before kepler launches) and the 28nm has been an expensive transition mard with delays (which delayed both AMD and Nvidia) so they will probably sell out what they can make anyway. 

And I would never trust GPU rumours (metro last night lol) TBH 

http://www.guru3d.com/news/amd-hd-7970-performance-leaks/

The 680 will likely out perform 7970 by ~20% use more power than a 580 and launch at $599