AMD Makes its Move.

In March of last year, AMD/ ATI introduced us to the last and most powerful of its “Cayman” based family of video cards, the dual GPU HD 6990. Though significant refinements to the companies 40nm chip design led to a healthy increase in performance, it was one that came at the price of efficiency.

Just two weeks later, having already worked hard to exorcise the demons that plagued its infernally power hungry Fermi, Nvidia’s GTX 590 took the opposite approach, sacrificing potential performance for a cooler running card. The result was two dual GPU heavyweights that were extremely well matched and despite a year of intense driver development, debate is still fervent as to which is the true champion.

However, for those who desire performance at any cost from single GPU card , it is Nvidia’s GTX 580 that has lead the field ever since its release in late 2010, ATI’s HD 6970, though arguably better value, fell short of its rival as soon as frame rates were called for.

With Nvidia’s “Keplar” (the Fermi’s 28nm successor) being ostensibly hit by a series of production related delays, AMD has seized the initiative and unleashed its own 28nm chip.

The complete line-up of cards will be released throughout the first quarter of 2012 and include budget, mainstream and enthusiast grade models. These are categorised as follows:

The Budget cards will be codenamed “Verde” and be part of the “HD 7700” series.

The Mainstream cards will be codenamed “Pitcairn” and be part of the “HD 7800” series.

The High end/Enthusiast cards will be codenamed “Tahiti” and be part of the “HD 7900” series.

Amongst a multitude of exciting enhancements, we are treated to the second incarnation of ATI’s Eye Infinity, which this time allows the user to create fully customised multi-screen resolutions based on whatever monitors are at their disposal.

Also featured is a new and extremely efficient power management system defined as “Zercore power”, a driver level implementation which switches the GPU into an ultra low-consumption state (less than 3 watts) when minimal screen activity is detected for more than a specific period of time.

It has been reported that the maximum amount of power the HD 7970 (AMD’s flagship model) will require at stock speeds is just 210 watts. That’s roughly 50 watts less than a GTX 580 and for what is almost certain to prove superior performance.

The aforementioned HD 7970’s GPU boasts an incredible 4.3 billion transistors and incorporates 3gb of video ram as standard.

As of now,  it is freely available at various well-known and respected e-tailers, though few will part with one for much under £450!