http://www.anandtech.com/show/5265/the-radeon-hd-7970-recap

This has the new GCN cores and therefore should be optimal for Gpugrid. Although, we still have to test it...

gdf

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_AMD_graphics_processing_units#Southern_Islands_.287xxx.29_series

It's an impressive piece of hardware. I'm curious what you can make out of it!

MrS

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Scanning for our furry friends since Jan 2002

Hope you get the hold of one soon and can build an app around GCN.
While the 7970 only comes with a 5% core freq. bump, there's a 33% increase in core config and it has a 63% increase in transistors, over the 6970, and double that of the 5870. Plenty of potential.

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FAQ's

HOW TO:
- Opt out of Beta Tests
- Ask for Help

Not to forget the completely different core architecture.. which provides even more potential ;)

MrS

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Scanning for our furry friends since Jan 2002

I have a 7970 coming in tomorrow (Tuesday).
If you need a tester, I'm available. ;)

Test also in MilkyWay and CollatcConjecture and Moo!

:)

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Moo

What is Moo?

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Meet Moo .... :)

http://moowrap.net/index.php

Regards
Zy

I to have ordered one, willing to test an app when it arrives! :)

We don't have one yet.

gdf

I will have one also, next year or maybe in two years.

Unless the existing AMD app somehow works out of the box on an HD7970 and better than anticipated, the researchers would need to have one in the lab to build and test an app on. I'm guessing this year would be better than next year!

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FAQ's

HOW TO:
- Opt out of Beta Tests
- Ask for Help

Test also in MilkyWay and CollatcConjecture and Moo!

:)

Moo, MW and Prime Grid dont run as is on a 7970.

Collatz appears to be running ok, WUs are completing, am awaiting validation by wingmen to see if it completed correctly.

MW and PrimeGrid PPS Sieve fall over quickly - in the first few seconds, so with luck shouldnt be too hard to find out the cause. The 7970s at least run on Collatz - await confirmation of validation - so its likely all will be well in the once there is time to focus on adjusting existing packages to keep things going until GCN can be properly brought into play.

See what the next couple of weeks brings ....

Regards
Zy

just curious what driver you are using. Is it the one specifically for the 7000 series (only for win7 x64 atm)? - http://support.amd.com/us/kbarticles/Pages/radeon-7900-series.aspx

Please keep us updated :)

MrS

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Scanning for our furry friends since Jan 2002

There is a very, very, very intresting thread in the MW forum:
http://milkyway.cs.rpi.edu/milkyway/forum_thread.php?id=2741#52421

Just to give you an impression:

It's interesting that even at this point the HD 7970 is running the NVidia optimized app at 3.5x faster than the top GTX580 card that I could find in the database. Pretty impressive and the HD 7970 also uses less power.

I think, it's time for action now!

The AMD runs dp at 1/4th the sp speed, whereas GTX580 (and brothers) is artificially crippled to 1/8th the sp performance in dp. MW uses dp exclusively, whereas GPU-Grid is completely sp.

Furthermore the MW algorithm is very simple (yet efficient) in the way that it doesn't require any fancy memory managment. It runs perfect even on HD38x0, whereas HD 4xxx lacks even basic features for GPU-Grid.

Sure, the performance is impressive (as fast as my tuned HD6950 with the CAL app), but in GP-GPU programming so much depends on the actual code. So much in fact that there's not much point in saying "But look, this simple code runs great!"

MrS

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Scanning for our furry friends since Jan 2002

Hope you get the hold of one soon and can build an app around GCN.
While the 7970 only comes with a 5% core freq. bump, there's a 33% increase in core config and it has a 63% increase in transistors, over the 6970, and double that of the 5870. Plenty of potential.

What info do you have on its power requirements, and board size? Those are probably the most important items that will determine whether I get one.

just curious what driver you are using. Is it the one specifically for the 7000 series (only for win7 x64 atm)? - http://support.amd.com/us/kbarticles/Pages/radeon-7900-series.aspx

Yes, thats the link, its the 7XXX driver that AMD point you at when going through their front page driver downloads. At present you end up on that 7970 speific download page to download it.

So far so good - its running the MW NVidia OpenCL app in +/- 52 seconds settings @1115/300. Runs nice, very quiet, temps on my box are +/- 74 degrees fan on auto, and air exiting from the box is lukewarm at worst, runs very cool. Utilisation on the app is 99% on both the 7970s running in crossfire. Its looking like the scaling is very good, early days, need some more comparitors, but its way way different from the scalling issue on 5XXX.

All in All, Its a good start right off the bat with no tweeking, running what is essentially an NVidia app.

Matt at MW will get a 7970 shortly, so we shall see how it goes once he gets a chance to get stuck in.

Regards
Zy