AMD Regains Single-GPU Performance Crown From NVIDIA, For Now

From DailyTech: It was less than a year ago that Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) launched the Radeon HD 6000 series (January 4, 2011, to be precise). The 6000 series didn't revolutionize the world of performance gaming and didn't top the single-card performance charts, but it did allow AMD to stay competitive with rival NVIDIA Corp. (NVDA) on the basis of price, if not performance.

In other words, the Radeon HD 6000 series was all about surival in the face of the dominant GeForce 500 series -- conceding performance, but still winning on the merits of a low price.

The 7000 series launch is a very different kind of lauch. AMD is unleashing a new architecture -- "Graphics Core Next" (GCN) -- on the world. And it has aggressively targetted the performance crown, and largely succeeded. That launch begins today with the release of the Radeon HD 7970 Tahiti.

A couple of quick notes --

This is a soft launch. Actual hardware will likely ship in January, though preorders are beginning shortly.

NVIDIA will be launching sometime in calendar Q1 2012 (fiscal Q1 2013) the GeForce 600 series. Our sources point to a January launch, though that's probably a soft launch. Expect NVIDIA to ship product sometime in the Feb.-March window, barring a surprise.

Like most past video card architecture bumps (e.g. NVIDIA's 4xx series Fermi and AMD's 2xxx Series VLIW4), the hype exceeds the performance and leaves people with a sense of disappointment. Likewise the price is bumped higher than many would like. But at the same time, like those previous architectures, it does -- to a degree -- deliver on its lofty performance processes. In that definition, while some may hate it (as most champions are hated), AMD has thus far suceeded in the objectives it set for the the Radeon HD 7970 Tahiti and the Southern Islands (aka. HD 7000 Series) family.

Unlike the previous generation, AMD is no longer gunning for the budget market. It's pricing its new high end single GPU solution in line with NVIDIA's premium pricing -- even a bit higher. It remains to be seen if this move backfires in January, when NVIDIA drops its 600 Series, but AMD could always slide down the prices next month to compensate, while getting a bit of extra green from early adopters.

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