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2013 MacBook Air: PCIe SSD and Haswell ULT Insideby Anand Lal Shimpi on 6/10/2013 10:01 PM EST
- Posted in
- Storage
- Mac
- SSDs
- Apple
- MacBook Air
174 Comments
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barncii - Monday, June 10, 2013 - link0 Comments? OK... Great article, as always. Reply
solipsism - Monday, June 10, 2013 - linkYou posted right after the article was posted. Give it some time. Reply
n13L5 - Tuesday, June 11, 2013 - linkMaybe cause everybody's jaw dropped on the table when they got to the end of the article and found no GPU benchmark.
I'm sure he ran one already, but didn't want to post it until doing a full investigation and comparison... Reply
n13L5 - Tuesday, June 11, 2013 - linkHopefully, Anandtech will also tell us if it runs Windows without all kinds of issues from not being optimized for Windows, running the gamut from reduced battery life to cooling fans running at full tilt etc... Reply
Canllaith - Wednesday, June 12, 2013 - linkThe 2012 MacBook Air runs Windows 8 very well without cooling or battery life issues - I would expect similar from the 2013. Reply
dusty5683 - Monday, June 10, 2013 - linkJust curious, What OS version was the test platform running? Reply
Zok - Monday, June 10, 2013 - linkI'm going to go out on a limb and guess OS X. Reply
Homeles - Monday, June 10, 2013 - link"Version" Reply
Dman23 - Monday, June 10, 2013 - linkI'm assuming it's Mountain Lion the latest version of Mac OS X Reply
Spoony - Tuesday, June 11, 2013 - linkI believe what he is driving at is: often new versions of Apple hardware ship with special builds of the current operating system. It will be 10.8.4, but it may or may not be a special build of 10.8.4 with support for Haswell, PCIe SSDs, 802.11ac, and the like. With 10.8.5 that codebase is then merged in with the normal release cycle. Generic versions of 10.8.4 might not even boot the machine. Reply
mavere - Monday, June 10, 2013 - linkIs it safe to regard the Samsung SSD as a refitted 840 Pro? Or does Apple usually customize the firmware? Reply
darwinosx - Monday, June 10, 2013 - linkNot remotely an 840 Pro. Totally different design, bus, and much faster. Reply
Death666Angel - Tuesday, June 11, 2013 - linkFaster likely because of the different interface. Different design is a given since it uses a different interface. But how do you know that it is totally different and not just adapted to the specific needs of the different interface? Reply
DERSS - Wednesday, June 12, 2013 - linkApple does not use Samsung (or anyone else's) SSDs in any of its products, they design their own SSDs.
That said, the controller here for MBA is by Samsung (or it could be another supplier). Though patented solutions that this controller works on are Apple's; their engineers invented the technology (Apple bought its developers couple of years ago). Reply
Dug - Wednesday, June 12, 2013 - linkWhere did you get your info?
http://www.anandtech.com/show/6727/apple-is-using-... Reply
descendency - Monday, June 10, 2013 - linkSecond to last paragraph: "Obviously battery life is the biggest improvement here with the new MacBook Pro."
I think it should say MacBook Air. (there was no new Pro announced) Reply
JamesL - Monday, June 10, 2013 - linkExcuse my ignorance, but what is the difference between mass storage via SATA and PCI-E? Doesn't SATA typically run over a PCI-E bus and if so, what is the purpose of SATA? Reply
mevans336 - Monday, June 10, 2013 - linkSATA is limited by the SATA spec. In the case of SATA-III, that's about 500MB/s. By eliminating the SATA spec and running raw PCIe, you eliminate a bottleneck and can achieve much higher throughput. I'm not an computer engineer, but as I understand it, SATA would be similar to tunneling a higher-level network protocol through a lower level one. By eliminating the higher-level protocol (SATA) and moving to transport using the lower level protocol (PCIe) you can achieve much higher throughput. Reply
fteoath64 - Tuesday, June 11, 2013 - linkGreat explanation Mevan!. You are right, eliminating hardcoded sata controller allows for faster throughput and less overhead in signalling, many of which were for HDD and useless of SSD. Old scheme is [SSD Ctrl/firmware: sata port]---sata cable---host-sata-port---PCIbus or PCIe lane {ahci driver in OS}.
New PCIe scheme is [SSD Ctrl/ PCIe port/chip---edgeconnector---PCIe-lane connector {ahci driver}. Short cut is good!. Reply
vol7ron - Tuesday, June 11, 2013 - linkWorth mentioning that until recently, SSDs couldn't really come near that threshold. Also worth mentioning, those that do are only saturating it with sequential reads/writes. Finally, worth mentioning that the typical user most likely won't have a need for it. Unless you've lots of $$, large data transfers generally require large data storage, which are most likely going to be HDD or hybrid drives; though TB SSDs will be commonplace soon. Reply
Dug - Wednesday, June 12, 2013 - linkWe didn't need more than 64k of memory either. I'll take the improved speeds of the pcie bus whether you think a typical user will have need for it or not.
Blackmagic Disk Speed Test. Engadget recorded read speeds of 725.4 MB/s and write speeds of 433.4 MB/s, which is almost twice the speed of the current 15-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display. Reply
marco89nish - Monday, June 10, 2013 - linkSATA is limited to 6Gbps, 550MBps in practice, while single PCIe can carry up to 5Gbps. So, couple of PCIe lanes are decent upgrade to SATA. Reply
NikiK - Thursday, June 13, 2013 - linkLooks like Apple decided to go conservative using two links of PCIe Gen 2 at 2.5Gbps rather than a single PCIe Gen 3 link. Probably easier to have a more robust connection too. Reply
twistedgamez - Monday, June 10, 2013 - linkthe PCIe SSD sound awesome! Reply
Lord 666 - Monday, June 10, 2013 - linkLooking to see the battery life difference, if any, between the 13" i5 and i7 models. Was hoping for the rMBP 13" to be updated, but my laptop is on its last legs. Reply
StealthGhost - Tuesday, June 11, 2013 - linkMe too but I don't think intel released the processors for the MBPros yet Reply
8steve8 - Monday, June 10, 2013 - linkis the TB port TB1/DP1.1 or is it TB2/DP1.2 ??
i thought i read the new TB hardware for haswell platforms is TB2/DP1.2, is that the case here? Reply
repoman27 - Monday, June 10, 2013 - linkRedwood Ridge, i.e. still Thunderbolt 1, but with DisplayPort 1.2 capability when directly connected to a display and operating in DisplayPort signaling mode. Reply
8steve8 - Tuesday, June 11, 2013 - linkdo you have a source for this?
also, that means we can do DP MST and have up to 3 displays? Reply
8steve8 - Tuesday, June 11, 2013 - linkoh nevermind, i misread the other article, redwood ridge is tb1, falcon ridge which is not out is tb2.
Thanks repoman27 Reply
repoman27 - Wednesday, June 12, 2013 - linkI was wrong. DSL3510L, Cactus Ridge 4C. No DisplayPort 1.2 support.
It seems Intel has finally added Thunderbolt controllers to ARK. Still no spec sheets, but they do list pricing. $9.95 for the Cactus/Redwood Ridge 4C controllers, $9.40 for the 2C versions (why bother?) and $5.25 for Port Ridge. That's a lot cheaper than I thought. Maybe they are charging a steep licensing fee after all. Reply
coolhardware - Monday, June 10, 2013 - linkNice to see a PCIe SSD show up in a consumer product :-)
I wish Apple had splurged on the displays though as much of the competition,
not to mention the iPad, have higher res displays :-(
PS as an illustration, here's a handy dandy little list of the top pixel density laptops:
(site is still in beta) Reply
easp - Monday, June 10, 2013 - linkApple already has a HiDPI 13" laptop, the 13" retina MacBook Pro, which has been out for a while now and yet is missing from your list.
The MacBook Air line puts an emphasis on being lightweight (hence the name). A Macbook Air with a retina display and an Apple-worthy battery life would basically be indistinguishable from a rMBP 13". Reply
teknic - Tuesday, June 11, 2013 - linkYou just explained apple's marketing strategy... way to go. Reply
coolhardware - Tuesday, June 11, 2013 - linkThanks for mentioning the MBP13 easp, it has now been added to the list:
Also, you can add stuff to the list yourself if you want to contribute:
Personally I think teknic is on to something there... if Apple can do high resolution on an iPad they could do it on a MBA IMHO at least as an option, that way people could choose if they wanted more battery life (and low-res) or high resolution (and some degree shorter battery life) on their MBA.
As for that making it an MBP clone, personally I prefer the MBA form factor for travel and/or actually using a laptop on my lap.
PS thanks to Anandtech readers for adding a bunch of items to the pixel density list last night, appreciate the help! Reply
fteoath64 - Tuesday, June 11, 2013 - link"A Macbook Air with a retina display and an Apple-worthy battery life would basically be indistinguishable from a rMBP 13".
Not if the Air sports a 1600X 1200 resolution display going back to 4:3 aspect ratio which makes more sense in viewing web and documents rather than the idiotic 16:10 ratio!. Reply
abs1992 - Tuesday, June 18, 2013 - linkwhat they could have done is have a macbook air with 1080p display. This would take a battery life hit of about 2 hrs (having 10 hrs of battery life compared to 12 hrs is a compromise I would be willing to make, if it meant a better screen). I get this figure by comparing other laptops battery life. toshiba kirabook lasts about 5.25 hrs with a 2560 x 1440 screen. Apple MBA (last gen) lasts for 6.25 hrs with 1440 x 800 screen. Assuming haswell doubles the battery life, (which has been proven), having a retina display MBA would result in battery life of about 10 hrs approximately. I would think its would be better since it is OSX and not windows 8.
Now, some people are saying that it will be too similar to a retina MBP 13". I say the MBP 13" should add a discrete graphics card, like it does on the MBP 15" to differentiate between the two laptops. Reply
ghm3 - Monday, June 10, 2013 - linkJust ordered an 11" w/ an i7/8GB RAM/512GB storage. This'll be my first Mac since my C2D Macbook back in 2007, can't wait to play with it!
I'm looking forward to to the ample battery life for long flights I'm frequently on, My M11xR3 is good for about 3.5-4h of video w/ wifi/BT off and and the brightness down, I'm guessing this thing will be good for at least 6hr+ of nonstop video playback. Reply
Homeles - Monday, June 10, 2013 - linkLooks like the 13" is down $100 over last year's launch prices? That price drop was greatly needed. Despite this, MacBook Airs are still the least interesting PCs that Apple sell, in my eyes.
The 800 MB/s SSD is grossly overpowered for the kind of workloads that the MBA will be handling. Still, I can't help but hope that this helps drive PCI-E to be more mainstream in the SSD space, and carries over to the retail SSD market someday.
Looks like weight didn't change at all on the 13". I guess the alleged benefits of component reduction due to Haswell's FIVR aren't being realized here, or are not making a difference on the weight.
I do feel like Apple could have done so much better with Haswell, though. Every improvement being made here is going toward battery life, and the graphics boost is simply something that tags along by sheer coincidence. Could they not have made the CPU a little less anemic? Did they really have to jump all the way from their already industry leading 7 Hr battery life to 12? I guess they're trying to maintain their battery life edge, but there's a point where ludicrous battery life will have a diminishing return on your sales numbers. I suppose the jump from 7 to 12 hours is still within the range of being a useful boost, but they're pushing it.
Lower power memory, Haswell, and a higher performing SSD: all three will make no influence on the user's perception of the MacBook Air's performance. Those are almost literally the only changes coming. Perhaps 802.11 ac sneaks its way in, but at the end of the day we're just looking at everything amounting to more battery life -- something Apple already has enough of.
No redesign, still the same boring color gamut, no weight reduction, no noticeable performance boost. Just more battery life and a price cut.
How boring! Reply
xTRICKYxx - Monday, June 10, 2013 - linkHow Boring? This is the first Ultrabook with serious battery life and at an extremely competitive price point.
I do think it was a mistake for Apple to skimp out on the displays sense nearly every other flagship Ultrabook will have 1080P+ displays.
Isn't it exciting to see computers finally getting all-day battery life? I mean, I remember wishing for a laptop with battery life like this in the 90's! Reply
xTRICKYxx - Monday, June 10, 2013 - linksince* Reply
Homeles - Tuesday, June 11, 2013 - linkApple's already had "all day" battery life. Other ultrabooks (technically the MBA isn't one) will also be receiving huge battery life increases. 12 hrs vs 9 hrs is a lot less of a deal than 7 hrs vs 4-5 hrs was. In addition, there will certainly be ultrabooks that are priced substantially lower than the MacBook Air. Reply
tim851 - Tuesday, June 11, 2013 - linkThe MBA didn't have "all day" battery life and this new model probably won't have either, unless you spend that day processing word on lowest brightness with WiFi turned off. The IB 13-incher returned 5-6 hours if you actually used it as a computer on the go, with high brightness to counter reflections, WiFi turned on with a less than optimal connection and lots of websurfing (including battery eaters like Youtube) and a multitasking workload. The new model will probably shoot at 8-9 hours, coming closer to a workday away from an outlet. The 11-inch model will still have room to grow.
Apple has positioned the MBA as the ultraportable, the device you grab without thinking about weight or charger. The MBP is the mobile workstation. Reply
seapeople - Wednesday, June 12, 2013 - linkSaying that 7 hours is all day battery life is just like saying the Tesla Model S is good for a road trip. Reply
darwinosx - Monday, June 10, 2013 - linkNot boring at all. Reply
Homeles - Tuesday, June 11, 2013 - linkCare to come up with a better argument than "I disagree?" Reply
easp - Monday, June 10, 2013 - linkGiven that the main issue with my wife's 5-year old MacBook Pro is memory capacity and battery life, not to mention the fact that I almost never tax the i7 Ivy Bridge in my rMBP, but the battery is currently in the red-zone, I think apple made a reasonable choice with their mainstream notebook line. I imagine we'll soon be hearing about bumps to the MBP that include moar power. Reply
Homeles - Tuesday, June 11, 2013 - link"5-year old"
Well, there's your problem right there. Reply
JDG1980 - Monday, June 10, 2013 - linkHaven't you been paying attention? Haswell is a flop. Runs hot, guzzles power on full load, and offers performance only marginally better than Ivy Bridge at the same clock speed. Heck, it probably took all the ingenuity of Apple's engineers just to make sure people wouldn't burn their laps while using this new MacBook! Reply
cditty - Tuesday, June 11, 2013 - linkHaswell is nowhere near a flop. You need to do some more research. Reply
teknic - Tuesday, June 11, 2013 - linkinitial reports are indicating that thermal temperatures have gone up over ivy bridge.
also, some consider the power savings in a desktop CPU to be a disadvantage since the CPU throttles giving you less the maximum performance on a desktop thats plugged into the wall. Reply
teknic - Tuesday, June 11, 2013 - linkbut ya, its not a flop. Reply
sherlockwing - Tuesday, June 11, 2013 - linkAll of those reports are from benches done at Desktop clockspeed(3.4Ghz+). Haswell could very well be designed to have much better efficiency at laptop clockspeeds(1.3-2.7Ghz) instead. Reply
teknic - Wednesday, June 12, 2013 - linkinteresting, I'm curious to see what comes of this... it seems like mobile was all they were thinking about. Reply
JDG1980 - Tuesday, June 11, 2013 - linkI did. AnandTech and Tom's Hardware didn't post thermal results on Haswell for some reason (not wanting to burn bridges with Intel?), but LegitReviews tested a Haswell 4770K and found that, under full load, it runs at 82 degrees Celsius at STOCK speed. No overclocking. That's utterly insane. At those temps, it'll probably burn out in 4 years or so (and since Intel only has a 3-year warranty, that's probably what they're hoping for). Ivy Bridge had some thermal issues, but nowhere near that bad, and Sandy Bridge had better thermal performance than any other x86 chip so far. I think that Intel decided Sandy Bridge was too good and might hurt future sales, and that they should make their next chips run hotter (using low-quality TIM with a gap between the heat spreader and core) so they wear out faster and can't be overclocked as much. Reply
Death666Angel - Tuesday, June 11, 2013 - linkYou have no idea about temperatures, do you? I've had laptops with C2D CPUs in them running in the high 80s and 90s for most of 5 years. Those CPUs will still outlive most other components inside such a laptop or desktop. Reply
Oscarcharliezulu - Friday, June 14, 2013 - linkSame, all our work laptops (thousands of them) run for 5 years easy ( replaced every 3 but we get to keep,the old one) and they run in the 90's at full load and no problems. Reply
Homeles - Tuesday, June 11, 2013 - link"Haswell is a flop."
Only if you are a drone of the internet hivemind, and are incapable of rational and critical thinking.
If the implications of Haswell aren't apparent to you, you're hopeless. Reply
Hacky Boy - Tuesday, June 11, 2013 - linkWhere did you get this info from? Reply
steven75 - Tuesday, June 11, 2013 - link"Did they really have to jump all the way from their already industry leading 7 Hr battery life to 12? I guess they're trying to maintain their battery life edge, but there's a point where ludicrous battery life will have a diminishing return on your sales numbers. I suppose the jump from 7 to 12 hours is still within the range of being a useful boost, but they're pushing it."
Let me just leave this here: I disagree completely with this entire paragraph. Reply
teknic - Tuesday, June 11, 2013 - linkHe's implying that they could've made a choice to increase CPU performance vs battery life, or say high res screen vs battery life.
unlike you (and me) he's adding discussion to this article. Reply
Homeles - Tuesday, June 11, 2013 - linkYeah, you're right -- a phone with 10000 hours of battery life is so much more useful than a phone with "only" 5000 hours of battery life. Reply
doobydoo - Wednesday, June 12, 2013 - linkYeah, you're right. Going from 5000 hours to 10000 hours is the same thing as 7 to 12... Reply
hackztor - Tuesday, June 11, 2013 - linkI agree, they should of cut one hour off that and put a retina display on. I would of purchased that and I hate buying Apple products. Reply
blacks329 - Tuesday, June 11, 2013 - linkSo you want a something that already consumes a tremendous amount of battery life in laptops to consume 300% more power and want the battery to only be affected by 8%. ... Oh and cost the same price
Yeah thats not how things generally work. Reply
Homeles - Tuesday, June 11, 2013 - linkThe price dropped by $100 -- there's plenty of room for a higher resolution display while maintaining last year's retail price. Yes, the battery life would undoubtedly drop by more than an hour with the same capacity battery, but 9-10 hours is certainly achievable. Reply
KitsuneKnight - Tuesday, June 11, 2013 - linkBut then, by your own assertion, Apple's battery life will be basically no different than the other Ultrabooks' battery life. Reply
Homeles - Tuesday, June 11, 2013 - linkMy issue is that almost literally every drop of improvement is going into the battery life.
Could they not have gone halfway on performance, and halfway on battery life, then delivered half of both again with Broadwell? Give me a better display. Give me more performance. Give me an updated design -- improve *something* in addition to battery life, if you insist on improving it. Power outlets are not a scarcity in today's world. Reply
tim851 - Tuesday, June 11, 2013 - link"Could they not have gone halfway on performance, and halfway on battery life"
They could have. But they didn't. Their choice. You don't have to buy. Stop the whining. Look around, maybe Samsung, Asus, Acer, Toshiba, Lenovo, Sony or Dell are selling your drug. Reply
teknic - Wednesday, June 12, 2013 - linkWithout the whining the internet would be a 1/4 of its current size.
Pretty sure this is a comment thread on a discussion surrounding the decisions and overall architecture of the Macbook Air.. what were you expecting to find here? You gotta admit, Apple didn't actually improve anything, Intel did. Reply
doobydoo - Wednesday, June 12, 2013 - linkIf this were true, their competitors would match Apple's battery life. Reply
mavere - Wednesday, June 12, 2013 - linkOEMs are glorified hardware gluers; there's no reason to "admit" anything.
Either the machine as a whole works well or it doesn't. Reply
akdj - Wednesday, June 12, 2013 - link"....You gotta admit, Apple didn't actually improve anything, Intel did."
How sad. Did you even read the article teknic? Intel didn't put PCI-e SSD storage into the air. Intel didn't design the memory pipeline. Intel didn't deliver wireless AC, nor did they design the battery and thermals and internal protection from heat. Apple has to be reliant on Intel for their CPU and GPU. As does every other OEM. Your comment is ridiculous. As are about 70% of the rest in this discussion. Anand and his crew are easily the top shelf when it comes to technology insight and wisdom as well as their 'care and energy' they put into each and Every article and contribution. They're impressed with the storage. They're impressed with the battery life, new wireless protocol and Apple's engineered memory control. What is it that you do that leaves you so 'un' impressed? And what is it that every other OEM that relies on Intel to 'power' their rigs have or will have that Apple hasn't offered in a 2.5 pound package....able to essentially perform any and every task a non-power user could ever need? They offer a higher resolution screen in the rMBP which will surely be updated later this year when Intel releases the appropriate higher powered silicon. That's the only 'non' improvement made. Of course their workstations will improve in performance with the latest CPU offerings. It's how you implement that CPU as a 'system' that differentiates Apple from Sony from Samsung from Asus....et al Reply
doobydoo - Wednesday, June 12, 2013 - linkFor me battery life is far more important than an incremental CPU improvement which 90% of Macbook Air users wouldn't even notice. You don't buy a Macbook Air if you're doing anything seriously CPU/GPU bound. You buy one for portability and battery life, with enough performance to do all of the basic tasks such as web browsing, mail, document creation etc.
The difference between what is actually a real 5-6 hours on the old Macbook Air to potentially 12 in the new one is staggering, it really changes how you can use the computer. A slightly faster CPU doesn't really do anything useful for this target market. Reply
seapeople - Wednesday, June 12, 2013 - linkIf you're not looking for battery life then why are you buying a MBA in the first place? They're not that much smaller than a rMBP, which would also, BTW, solve your lust after a high resolution screen. Second, if you you really want something super light and portable that has a high resolution screen, then buy a retina iPad. Reply
Oscarcharliezulu - Friday, June 14, 2013 - linkWe all really want both, but I'd have to say, as someone who is always on client sites and travelling between meetings the performance has been good enough for a few years now even on C2D or C2Q so its definitely all day battery life which is the key improvement Reply
Bkord123 - Tuesday, June 11, 2013 - linkMan you're killing me! I'm thinking about getting one and your points are valid. I would be upgrading from a mid-2009 MBP with the Core2Duo. After reading your comments, and the article, I'm a little bummed that the performance gains just aren't there. Do I hold out for another year?!?!? Reply
fteoath64 - Tuesday, June 11, 2013 - link@Bkord123: Hold off for the MBP announcement!. There might be a surprise choice if Apple puts in a GT3e chip in the 13 inch and NV GT770M for the 15incher. And who knows might gun for a 17 incher with dual SSD in raid 1 mode running 1.6GB/s of disk!!. Yikes, would be a scorcher machine !. Reply
perpetuity - Tuesday, June 11, 2013 - linkDude you have a 2009 MBP. I have a mid-2011 13" MPA after rolling with your rig. This is the best computer I have ever owned.
It's light (homeles they do not need to lighten this thing), it's fast as hell, the screen is crisp and bright and battery life is decent.
I'll likely upgrade just for the slight bump in speed and the incredible battery life, plus I'll be getting a faster GPU in comparison to the Intel HD Graphics 3000 on my current MBA.
Macbook Air is the best computer you will own. Reply
tim851 - Tuesday, June 11, 2013 - link1. No redesign
Apple has established a design brand. Everybody knows a MacBook when they see one. And every other manufacturer envies that. Apple will not abandon that design until brand fatique - what you display: being bored with a design for no other reason than "it's been around so long, it's too familiar and it's omni-present" - dictates they have to.
2. still the same boring color gamut
Yeah, Apple must receive tens of calls everyday from consumers demanding better color gamut in the MBA...
3. no weight reduction
The MBA is sturdy as a rock. Can't imagine it being possible to reduce weight without compromising build quality. I prefer build quality.
4. no noticeable performance boost.
That's rather Intel's fault, isn't it?
5. Just more battery life and a price cut.
How rude of them... Reply
caleblloyd - Tuesday, June 11, 2013 - linkGot to love it when the base clock on your phone is higher than the base clock on your laptop. Granted it's all about IPC anyways, but still it's kind of funny... Reply
jasonelmore - Tuesday, June 11, 2013 - link1.3 Ghz?!?!?! Appalling for a $1300 Ultrabook.
No MacBook Pro Update = Told ya so Reply
ThreeDee912 - Tuesday, June 11, 2013 - linkHere I was thinking that everybody on this site already knew that more GHz and cores doesn't mean performance.
Most of Intel's ULT chips have very low clocks to conserve power, but can turbo up to much higher speeds if needed. If you actually read the article, you'd see the i5 4250U in this laptop can turbo up to 2.6GHz. Reply
KitsuneKnight - Tuesday, June 11, 2013 - linkThe ARM world's obsession with GHz has caused everyone to forget the lessons of the Pentium 4. It's quite hilarious/sad. Reply
seapeople - Wednesday, June 12, 2013 - linkDon't be so bland. 1.3 Ghz is pathetic. I would rather they put in a 3.6 Ghz Pentium D to the MBA if they're going to rock the Dual Core!!! Reply
Neurus - Wednesday, June 12, 2013 - linkAnd that's why you don't work at Apple or any other hardware OEM or Manufacturer. Thanks. Reply
Homeles - Tuesday, June 11, 2013 - linkIt's available in the $1100 version as well. I do think it's a bit unfortunate that $200 only buys you extra storage space, although there's not much room for Apple to profit if you start upgrading anything else. However, it's still a better deal than last year's model, any way you look at it. Reply
SignalPST - Tuesday, June 11, 2013 - linkFingers crossed for a Fall rMBP update Reply
akdj - Wednesday, June 12, 2013 - linkYou....told us so? Wow! You DO know Intel hasn't released the appropriate silicon yet for high power rigs, right? The quad core mobile chips are coming in the next 30-60 days...desktop CPUs to follow. Doesn't take much to 'tell us so' does it? Common sense.
1.3Ghz allows for enormous power saving. You don't need extreme horsepower to check email, browse the 'net or respond to a post on Facebook. You're aware these chips 'boost' when the task at hand calls for it right? You're aware there's a possible 50% increase in graphics horsepower (& GPU memory), right? You're I'm sure aware that the price isn't starting @ $1300, right? Like every other 'ultra book' on the market, with similar specs from other OEMs...the base price is $999. Just like Asus. Just like Toshiba. Like HP and Dell...and a bit cheaper (with much better battery life) than Sony. Nothin 'appalling' about it. I understand if your mom told you 'No!' That's ok. Save your cash and buy what you need. You're not going to find another sub 1300 dollar UltraBook at this time with these specs.
Spend some time learning about Ghz. And processors. And their advancement in Tri gate transistors....and the performance gains attributed to these advancements in a clock vs clock battle of similar speeds on older architectures. Then, maybe you can add some meaningful discussion and insight to the 'comment' section in one of the top tier tech review sites on the Internet. World. Wide.
J Reply
oyabun - Tuesday, June 11, 2013 - linkThe Sony Vaio Pro 13'' released last week has a PCI Express SSD as well. It's 200gr lighter as well. Beat them to the punch by a week :P.
Of course, the shipment volume of Macbooks makes their implementation of PCI-E SSDs much more crucial. Reply
doobydoo - Wednesday, June 12, 2013 - linkThe Sony Vaio (which I purchased last year) is flimsy as hell, screen hinges are awful, feels plasticy and not well built at all - horrible mousepad compared to the Air (which I also own), and despite a QUAD SSD it's still slower than the Macbook Air. Reply
Neurus - Wednesday, June 12, 2013 - linkLast time I heard the Sony Vaio didn't come with OS X ;) Reply
doobydoo - Monday, June 17, 2013 - linkI run Windows 7 on both. Reply
jb510 - Tuesday, June 11, 2013 - linkThey announced the new MBA had 11ac, but I can't find any reference to how many streams it supports? Anyone? Reply
abrowne1993 - Tuesday, June 11, 2013 - linkOther than the move to PCIe SSDs, it seems like kind of a boring, run-of-the-mill update. Everything is going to be getting Haswell so we should see similar battery life improvements across the board as well as the other benefits that brings. I suppose the change to LPDDR3 will be nice for its lower power consumption, but it's possible other vendors will switch, too. I don't know how prevalent 802.11ac is now, but I can't imagine most consumers will need it or notice the difference.
I wasn't expecting a retina MBA because of the obvious downsides, but something new or interesting would have been nice. Reply
JJWu - Tuesday, June 11, 2013 - linkIntel Haswell-ULT supports LPDDR3. Haswell-ULT supports many low power interfaces moilbe device uses, such as LPDDR3, SDIO, UART...etc.
Does the WiFi use SDIO interface as Intel suggests? Reply
npp - Tuesday, June 11, 2013 - linkI can't help but feel a bit frustrated about all the comments here. A 800mb/s next-gen SSD, 12h battery life, plenty of CPU performance, much improved wireless connectivity, 100$ cheaper than the previous model, and still some people feel disappointed... Design? It's still one of the best in the industry, if not the best. Display? It's of very high quality anyway, even if it lacks those sacred 180 pixels in height to make it 1080p. I really don't get it, this is by all sensible criteria an excellent machine. Reply
Scannall - Tuesday, June 11, 2013 - linkMost of the complaints are just trolls that wouldn't buy an Apple product anyway. Just disregard them, it makes life much more pleasant. Reply
Roland00Address - Tuesday, June 11, 2013 - linkMy only complaint is the lack of an IPS screen. Yes apple has one of the best TN screens on the market but it would be nice to be IPS. Of course the problem with that is that it removes differnentation with the retina model even if the retina model has 4x the resolution. Apple wants you to pay $400 more for IPS and 4x resolution, instead of $100 more for ips Reply
Death666Angel - Tuesday, June 11, 2013 - linkInteresting, I was expecting more rage concerning the resolution. Sub 1080p in windows notebooks usually get tons of rage for that low resolution. Reply
zogus - Wednesday, June 12, 2013 - linkMost of those sub 1080p windows notebooks that people complain about are a) 14" or larger and b) have 16:9 aspect ratio. MBA 13" has a more useful 16:10 aspect ratio, and it is much better than 1366 x 768, the "standard" resolution for low-res notebooks which is heavily disliked by heavy users. 11" is 1366 x 768, but the screen is so small that people tend to be more forgiving on the issue. Reply
Bkord123 - Tuesday, June 11, 2013 - linkHi everyone. I've been waiting for a few years to upgrade to an Air. Is this the time to do it? I was hoping for retina. Two years I held off because I heard Ivy Bridge was going to be a big deal. Then I held out another year for Haswell. But one of the sentences in this article troubles me: "Although the base clock is lower, I wouldn't expect substantially lower performance..." At the risk of sounding ignorant, why would we see ANY lower performance? It's a new computer for God's sake! Help me understand everyone. Reply
jeffkibuule - Tuesday, June 11, 2013 - linkThe possibility of having slightly lower performance is because Apple focused heavily on battery life. If you want a true performance machine in this size class, get the 13" Retina MacBook Pro.
With the path they've chose, I don't see them doing a Retina MacBook Air for another 1-2 years. It's not worth waiting for at this point. Buy the air if you want the battery life, get the Pro if you want Retina and performance. That's how they are going to justify having 2 13" models for some time. Reply
Bkord123 - Tuesday, June 11, 2013 - linkHere's my entire laptop usage: Email, Internet, YouTube, occasional Netflix. Is this new Air right for me? Reply
Scannall - Tuesday, June 11, 2013 - linkYes Reply
kyuu - Tuesday, June 11, 2013 - linkThat kind of usage can be handled with a tablet that costs about half as much. Reply
perpetuity - Tuesday, June 11, 2013 - linkI use my mid-2011 MBA for: email, internet, internet development (code, light database work), graphic design (from web badges to 16x20 print posters) using old Photoshop (screw Adobe for locking me out of an upgrade!) and Pixelmator; netflix, etc...
It's the best computer I have ever owned, period. Reply
Bkord123 - Tuesday, June 11, 2013 - linkI have a general question about the 802.11ac spec. Will that make my Internet any faster or will it just make my Time Machine backups faster? I'm limited by my ISP bandwidth, right? I'm trying to figure out if ac is important to me. Reply
Kristian Vättö - Tuesday, June 11, 2013 - link802.11ac will only increase the bandwidth between your device(s) and router. Actual Internet speeds will still be limited by your ISP. Reply
fteoath64 - Tuesday, June 11, 2013 - link@Bkord123: On a rare case if your laptop has 3 or more concrete walls before it reaches your router, you might connect at less than 20Mbps and not know it. So if you have 30Mbps down or more Internet, you might benefit from the better penetrating power of ac and multi-bonding. Check the router tests from some good sites and do your own speed test to be sure. Some 802.11n routers have poor connection speeds after a certain distance, others are stellar in their performance. Apple just had to update their routers since the new AIRs support ac. Prevents customer question : "Err, but you sold me that feature with nothing to connect to ?!". Reply
Bkord123 - Wednesday, June 12, 2013 - linkThank you. I get it now! Reply
asendra - Tuesday, June 11, 2013 - linkAnand, or anyone really, do you know if those estimated battery times correspond to the macbook air with mountain lion installed, or with Mavericks?
It should be with Mountain lion because Mavericks won't be available till Fall, but with all the battery improvements in Mavericks, I find hard to believe they could even improve those 12h when mavericks launches.. Reply
Elwe - Tuesday, June 11, 2013 - linkFrom the pictures/video posted on-line (the ones from CNET are as good as any, I guess--http://www.cnet.com/apple-macbook-air-13-inch/), the ones currently available are clearly OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.4) of some form. But there are two caveats to that:
1) Apple could have (I would doubt it, but they did not make it clear) done these battery tests with a 10.9.x build, and mean for those numbers only to reflect Mavericks. Since Mavericks is not due to drop (for production use) for a while, I cannot imagine them not have some caveat or *.
2) Apple could have tweaked the base 10.8.4 to include some special Haswell goodness for the Air, and tide it over until 10.9. *If* they did either #1 or #2, I would find #2 much more likely. That they done this in the past both with Mac and iOS hardware. I have no idea how much trouble it would be to backport such things (there were a lot of new changes announced, and even more not discussed).
What I hope the situation is is that this is a standard 10.8.4 with the new Haswell chips and modern chipsets. And that Mavericks will just give us a bit more. Unlike some people that have posted, in this form factor I am not looking for much more power (cpu nor gpu) than the current line provides. I think the extra battery life is crazy helpful, though. Especially in the 11" inch one, where I was seeing more like four hours usage vs the five Apple sees (I do prefer 100% brightness vs 75% on these non-Retina screens, though). So let's say I would loose an hour (or even two hours) off the nine hour number from Apple . . . that still leaves me a good seven hours for the 11" model (and 10 for the 13" model). In something that is not ARM nor Atom based . . . that really is something, people.
Retina would have been nice, but I just do not see how (and did not last year) how they could do it in the form factor and at scale/cost. When they introduce the 13" Macbook Pro Retina just last year, I think we all saw the current state of what could be done in this price range/form factor.
For a "basic" SysAdm machine, I am really liking the 11". For a basic student or executive machine, I am really liking the 13". For power users, let's wait until the fall. Reply
asendra - Tuesday, June 11, 2013 - linkI thought of the possibility of them porting some of those features to a special 10.8.4 version for this airs, but the changes are really low level stuff, I really don't think it would be reallistically feasible. Reply
SamuraiSausage - Wednesday, June 12, 2013 - linkElwe - Can you elaborate on why you might find the 11" a better option for a sysadmin over the 13"? As a sysadmin myself I am a bit torn over the two. The power and portability of the 11" intrigues me and while I could get over the comparatively lower battery life the 1366x768 resolution concerns me. Reply
Bkord123 - Tuesday, June 11, 2013 - linkAm I the only one in America that wonders why "Maverick" is pluralized? Sounds weird to me. 'Maverick' sounds right. OS X Maverick. What's the deal with the 's'? Reply
lhurt - Tuesday, June 11, 2013 - linkhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mavericks_%28location... Reply
Bkord123 - Tuesday, June 11, 2013 - linkNo kidding. I must have missed that part of the WWDC. Many thanks! Reply
tipoo - Thursday, June 13, 2013 - linkIt ships with 10.8. Yeah, I really want to see what Mavericks can do, if it already gets 12:51 on a light load according to Engadget. Reply
fourthletter - Tuesday, June 11, 2013 - linkMascbook Airs have been using PCI-E SSDs since they launched ! They bought the first run of Toshiba's PCI-E SSDs - Please do more research. Reply
Mxheadroom - Tuesday, June 11, 2013 - linkBullshit. The socket may look similar, but the protocol was always sata. This is the first Apple device that direct connect the AHCI via PCIe. Reply
Bob Todd - Tuesday, June 11, 2013 - linkI love the battery life improvement with Haswell, especially for the 13". However, these make the 13" rMBP look like a bargain if you can deal with the (still very competitive to most of what's out there) 7 hour battery life. The Airs seem like a decent deal in absolute base configuration, but I'd want 8GB RAM and 256GB of storage. That puts the 13" Air at $1400. You can get a 13" rMBP with 8GB/256GB/faster regular voltage i5 for $1479 (for me with free 2 day shipping and no tax). You lose out on a whopping 5 hours of additional battery life and you've got the lowly HD4000 trying to drive all those pixels, but that's still more tempting for me. Reply
Bkord123 - Tuesday, June 11, 2013 - linkThat's right where I'm at also. I can't decide! Reply
aliasfox - Tuesday, June 11, 2013 - linkOr if you're willing to wait 1-2 months, you'd probably be able to get the rMBP with Haswell as well - alternatively, have the choice of a clearance Ivy Bridge or new Haswell.
If you put it that way ($1400 vs $1479, RAM and storage matching), the only things the Air really has going for it are 0.5 lbs and a few extra hours of battery life.
That said, the last time I played with a rMBP 13" it felt laggier than it should be given that it's a premium computer sold at a premium price. Let's hope a Haswell model (with Iris Pro?) corrects that deficiency. Reply
Elwe - Tuesday, June 11, 2013 - linkIt think the base 13" Pro (with Retina) is $1499, but for me, your point is a good one. If you need/wantthe extra ram (and not even close to everyone does, especially given the responsiveness of the SSD) and you need/want the 256GB SSD, a $100 difference that gives you that awesome screen (and presumably bit better cpu, when the Haswell line comes to down) seems worth it. But the screen is wasted on lots of people for lots of uses, clearly (just reality), and the extra weight is still noticeable. If I was a student, I still think I would probably stick with the Air. The battery life will be worth it to a lot of people (I know I really am interested in it, and I have access to power throughout the day though it is more of a pain to use than I would like).
But it puts into greater context why Apply released the 13" at $1699 (though I really appreciated the drop). You can either say the more nicely configured Airs are too expensive (what most people are going to say) or the 13" Mac Pro (with Retina) is cheap.
I think Apple is going to sell a tone of the 4GB/128GB 11" and 13" models for the school year. I think most people are going to avoid the older Macbook Pros (withou Retina) from here on out, and the Retina options are still an unnecessary option for lots of people. Reply
Neurus - Wednesday, June 12, 2013 - linkYou also gain a few pounds… the Airs are really light :) Reply
Sm0kes - Sunday, June 16, 2013 - linkIt's actually less than a pound, the 13'' air is 0.5lbs less than the 13'' rMBP. Reply
ntafy - Tuesday, June 11, 2013 - linkI wish Anand had included the 1.7GHz i7 in there as well. I'm currently between getting the latest MBA13 1.7GHz i7 /8/256 or the rMBP13 2.6GHz i5 /8/256. If the 1.7 offers comparable performance, it's an easy choice. Reply
willstay - Tuesday, June 11, 2013 - linkPlease test battery performance when Windows 8 is installed in it too. Reply
willstay - Wednesday, June 12, 2013 - linkAfter researching a little and finding features like Unity of VMWare Fusion and Coherence of Parallels. I wish battery performance is tested against Outlook running in one of those. Reply
SamuraiSausage - Wednesday, June 12, 2013 - linkThis would be interesting to me as well. Working in a heavy Windows environment, running some apps in Fusion +Unity is a daily occurrence. Would like to see if 6+ hours on battery is possible. Reply
wiz329 - Tuesday, June 11, 2013 - linkI'm curious @Anand, what are the benefits of 800 MB/s over 500 MB/s sequential transfers, unless you are routinely copying large files from an external TB SSD? Reply
dstroot - Tuesday, June 11, 2013 - linkHelp! Definitely getting a 13 inch air / 256gb HD. Questions are:
- Worth it to upgrade RAM to 8gb?
- Worth it to upgrade to 1.7Ghz CPU?
Use case is my main laptop - some web development and light iOS development and lots of email/web surfing. Travel a bit so I like the battery life.
Agree with the comments that a 1080p screen would be nice but when at home I think I will use an external display anyway...
So advice? Thanks! Reply
r3b3lspy - Wednesday, June 12, 2013 - linkSame question here, debating between i5 or i7 processor, all tests at Apple were done using the i5 and I'm afraid the i7 will get a hit on battery life, it will run hotter and the fan will start sooner than the i7 (this happened on the 2012) Reply
mavere - Wednesday, June 12, 2013 - linkAs a long time user of a 4GB RAM Macbook... get 8GB or don't buy it at all. Reply
Neurus - Wednesday, June 12, 2013 - linkI'm a long time Mac user. I have had a 11 MBA since 2011 (mid). If you can, max our ram and CPU. Yes. It's more money, but the machine will last 2-3 years minimum (depending what you do) and The more you have, the snappier will feel in the future. Even if it's "only a mere increase in performance" in the future, new versions of OSX, new things, will require more power. I've been using my MBA for iOS and Android development, so I'm the 5% of users who don't use a MBA for "occasional email/web/netflix". i really push this tiny 11. I have the i7/4g/256 (all you could get back then).
I will be getting a new one only for the USB3. The difference is noticeable (vs. USB2) and I need external storage for different reasons. Reply
karamazovmm - Tuesday, June 11, 2013 - link"Update: It's a custom Apple design, not M.2. Since there's no PCIe routed off of the CPU in Haswell ULT, these 2 lanes come from the on-package PCH."
Im sorry could you explain this to me? whats wrong in using the lanes from the pch? those are after all the pcie 2.0 x2 lanes required in the specs arent they?
and if we look at the hardware overview, I dont see a clear reason why it needs to be proprietary because it uses the pch pcie.
Can you please explain? Reply
ssiu - Tuesday, June 11, 2013 - linkApple could have used i5-4350U instead of i5-4250U to minimize the "new CPU is slower (or not faster) than old one" complaints. But I am glad Apple uses i5-4250U instead of (i5-4200U with higher base CPU clock but cut-in-half HD4400 GPU).
And I didn't expect retina this year but was hoping for IPS screen. This is still a premium $1k+ notebook (even if it is low-end for Apple), and even the lowly iPod Touch has IPS screen.
The battery life and SSD improvements are very good. Reply
Mr Perfect - Tuesday, June 11, 2013 - linkIn the screen shot showing SATA/SATAExpress properties, there is a line that states "TRIM Support: Yes". Last I knew, OSX did not support trim, has this changed? Reply
ThreeDee912 - Tuesday, June 11, 2013 - linkTRIM has been in OS X since 10.6.8, but it's only turned on by default for macs that come with an SSD. If you add your own third-party SSD, you have to edit some plist files to enable it manually. Reply
Mr Perfect - Tuesday, June 11, 2013 - linkNo kidding... Every time AT throws a SSD in a Mac for testing, they always comment on how OSX doesn't TRIM them. I wonder why they don't just edit these plist files? Reply
mestarm - Thursday, June 13, 2013 - linkThe plist hack is not reliable, my Intel SSD got crazy with it... Since this hack is not official - this is why AT is correct in stating that SSD trim is not supported (for non built-in ssd) Reply
iwod - Wednesday, June 12, 2013 - linkYou are the only one who mention this in comment. I was late to this discussion and i was hoping more would have discover this already.
This,'t isn't PCIe SSD. it is SATA Express. So to those who keep saying it is PCIe Raw without the SATA Overhead it is not true. I hope Anand will dig more into this Reply
mavere - Wednesday, June 12, 2013 - linkIntel's chipsets don't natively support SATA Express yet, and Apple isn't known to arbitrarily add extra controllers (or extra anything) into their mobile systems.
Also Apple stated the Mac Pro uses PCIe SSDs, and there's a production benefit for Apple to standardize connectors. Reply
repoman27 - Wednesday, June 12, 2013 - linkTo quote a SATA-IO slide on the subject:
"SATA Express is PCIe
The SATA Express environment is pure PCIe
There is no SATA link or transport layer, so there's no translation overhead
Users will see the full performance of PCIe"
SATA Express appears to be just an electrical/mechanical specification which combines existing protocols into a couple common physical interfaces. Sort of like ExpressCard—you didn't need chipset support to implement it, just PCIe, USB and OS support.
Apple seems to have deftly avoided the prescribed physical interfaces and once again gone proprietary in that regard. This is not M.2 (formerly known as NGFF). Reply
StealthGhost - Wednesday, June 12, 2013 - linkBattery capacity went up to 38 and 58 watt hour respectively.
Not sure if this has been pointed out yet but it's still wrong. Reply
hasseb64 - Wednesday, June 12, 2013 - linkApple has increased battery capacity in Air.
Haswell is still not that big improvement as your articles claim. Reply
Neurus - Wednesday, June 12, 2013 - linkSo… according to your math, (taking the 11inch model as an example). Going from a 35-watt-hour battery which could give "5 hours of web" to a 38-watt-hour battery and getting "9 hours of web" is not " a big improvement…
35 -> 5 hours.
38 -> 9 hours.
Not an improvement at all! My God! Let's go buy a Lenovo. Reply
Neurus - Wednesday, June 12, 2013 - linkThe 13'' model is WORSE! OMG!
It went from a 50 watt battery where it could only get 7 hours… to a new 54 watt battery and now it only gets 12 hours… damn you Apple!
Something is wrong at Apple. Reply
ashic - Wednesday, June 12, 2013 - link"On the storage front, Apple officially leads the charge with the move to PCIe based SSDs." - Don't really expect accurate journalism from crApple fanboy Anand any more. The Vaio Pro has already done PCIe SSDs on an ultrabook. Get your facts straight. Reply
valrond - Wednesday, June 12, 2013 - linkYes, the new VAIO Pro puts the Macbook "Air" to shame. Lighter and with FullHD touch screen. The Pro 11 weighs less than 1 kg, and the Pro 13 just 1.068 kg. Reply
ashic - Wednesday, June 12, 2013 - linkYup. And my Vaio Z2 has been running rings around everything else for two years. Reply
Neurus - Wednesday, June 12, 2013 - linkNice, what version of OS X does your Vaio Z2 have? OS X "Tokio" ? Reply
ashic - Thursday, June 13, 2013 - linkWhy would you want something as "kiddy" as OS X when you can have proper operating systems like Windows / Linux? Reply
ashic - Thursday, June 13, 2013 - linkGuys...my comment was not about one being better than the other (though it's pretty obvious). The point is about the biased journalism favouring Cupertino making false claims. We've seen it before from Anand, and we're seeing it again. Reply
lukarak - Sunday, June 16, 2013 - linkWell, leading the charge doesn't have to mean first to market. But apple has been leading the charge in mafny things, and it is rarely first with a tech. But Apple mentiones something in a keynote, and it's important. Not so much with the rest of the field, especially Sony. All in all, Apple takes 99% of the credit people will know about pci-e ssds. Reply
ashic - Tuesday, June 18, 2013 - linkyeah...and skewed journalism has a part to play in that. Reply
KPOM - Wednesday, June 12, 2013 - linkThe MacBook Air, unlike the Sony Vaio Pro, is a mainstream PC, not a niche product. It starts at $999. Reply
ashic - Thursday, June 13, 2013 - linkLet's see...
Air 11" starts at $999. Vaio Pro 11" starts at $1149.99.
Air 13" tops out at $1849.00 (laptop only, no adapters, software, etc. add ons). The Vaio Pro tops out at $2399.99 (with a faster processor, VGA adapter, IPS screen, additional sheet battery, and carbon fibre body).
Base 13" air (256GB storage and 4GB RAM) is $1299. Base Vaio Pro with 256GB storage and 4GB RAM, but with a faster processor is $1469.99.
Seems the difference in price is in the range of $150~$550 (with much better things on offer for each bracket). This is a huge change from the Z days where the difference was in the range of four figures. I don't see the Vaio Pro being any more niche than the air. Reply
AnTech - Thursday, June 13, 2013 - linkPerformance Testing: Not All 2013 MacBook Air SSDs Are The Same
In the meantime, we have noticed a vast difference in write speeds between the two SSD offerings that we've received so far. The 512GB Samsung SSD found in our 13-inch model offers roughly a 400MB/s increase in write speeds over the 128GB SanDisk/Marvell SSD as our 11-inch model was configured.
http://blog.macsales.com/19008-performance-testing... Reply
Sm0kes - Sunday, June 16, 2013 - linkThis is nothing new. In the 2012 models Samsung drives were only used on the 256GB models. The 128GB models got Toshiba. Reply
HugoWayne - Friday, June 14, 2013 - linkDoes the Macbook Air 2013 support DisplayPort 1.2? Can I daisy chain two DisplayPort 1.2 monitors to it? Reply
kiwilegal - Saturday, June 15, 2013 - linkCan you test how fast the SD slot is in this new machine. I believe you reported on the 2012 machine that speed was capped at 40MB/s. Is that still the case? Reply
MrN1ceGuY - Sunday, June 16, 2013 - linkHello Lal Shimpi,
nice first-look but when can we expect the full review? There are no 3DMarks or serious 3D-test out yet which is really sad. Reply
Sm0kes - Sunday, June 16, 2013 - linkHe posted on twitter he is testing now :) Reply
Paapaa125 - Monday, June 17, 2013 - linkWhich twitter feed you mean? Reply
Sm0kes - Monday, June 17, 2013 - linkAnand's twitter feed (@anandshimpi). Several people asked him specific questions (e.g., battery life, i5 vs. i7) and his responses were pretty clear that it's in progress. Reply
NonTechGuru - Monday, June 17, 2013 - linkSo, as a consumer who is confused by all this information, can someone knowledgable advise if they expect that the MacBook Pro to come out in the fall will be significantly faster than the new MacBook Air, including at bootup? Which would you purchase for consumer usage (documents, movies, music storage and streaming, etc.) at a moderate level (i.e., several hours daily)? Reply
NonTechGuru - Tuesday, June 18, 2013 - linkHaha, living up to my username. Just realized that it's the Mac Pro, not the MacBook Pro, that they are updating in the fall. Reply
Kill16by9TN - Monday, June 17, 2013 - link"Update: It's a custom Apple design, not M.2. "
Well, according to today's ElReg article "Samsung wins Apple MacBook contract, starts spitting out PCIe SSDs" www.theregister.co.uk/2013/06/17/samsung_pcie_flash_bell_tolling/
Samsung's SSD is called XP941, comes in 128GB, 256GB and 512GB and IS "an M.2 form factor of 80mm x 22mm". Reply
abs1992 - Tuesday, June 18, 2013 - linklooking forward to how much of an increase in battery life OSX Maverick will bring Reply
Konrad89423 - Thursday, June 20, 2013 - linkUntil the real review comes, here's my experience as a user, not a tech, who got a new 13 inch Air/8GB/1.7 i7 and ATC 2TB this week. Used wireless today to make initial clean backup and it took two hours and four minutes from begin to cleanup for 95GB according to the TM window. Using the Air since Monday I have a four cycle count on the battery, not run it below 40 per cent yet, right now battery indicator shows 83 per cent/10:15 remaining. Start up seems to vary from 15 to 30 seconds, wake up is instant. NO problems so far with either unit. Reply
dstroot - Saturday, June 22, 2013 - linkReally looking forward to the full review. Just ordered one and need something to read while I wait! :) Reply
tecsi - Monday, June 24, 2013 - linkCan you let us know whether these new MBAs will support 4K displays? Reply


text:
AMD Radeon HD 7990 Review: 7990 Gets Officialby Ryan Smith on 4/24/2013 12:01 AM EST
- Posted in
- Radeon
- Radeon HD 7000
- GPUs
- Tahiti
91 Comments
Back to Article
Plattypus - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - linkThere's a typo on the Specification Comparison chart, you put 7970 instead of 7990 for the first one.
Great review! Reply
deestinct - Thursday, April 25, 2013 - linkThere is no typo. It IS 7970 CF. CF stands for CrossFire, which means two 7970s. Therefore the comparison makes sense Reply
deestinct - Thursday, April 25, 2013 - linkAh sorry ignore my previous comment....i misunderstood what you said Reply
just4U - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - linkOne thing that bother's me about this and Nvidia's offering. You sort of "hope" (expect.. would be better..) that these types of cards would bring something more to the table besides just a dual stack of their top end card. Higher clocks, better memory.. something. Reply
jeffkibuule - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - linkPower savings compared to 2 cards in SLI/CrossFire. Ability to fit in a smaller chassis. Use of the best binned chips possible. But yeah, it really is for the 1%. Reply
mr_tawan - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - linkSingle card also means no need for SLI/Cross Fire mainboard (which save money a bit). Reply
Rookierookie - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - linkI don't know if you are spending $999 on your graphics card that saving money is really an issue. You are not likely to be using a low-end motherboard, and many of the high end motherboards support SLI/Crossfire anyway. Reply
just4U - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - linkThe power draw appears to be (in my opinion) partially due to the lower speeds. The cards are for a select crowd but I don't see the draw. There should bring something new to the table which would help to entice buyers. Reply
Ktracho - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - linkThere is a fair amount of variability in power consumption from one chip to another. Always choosing two chips that are on the low power side makes a significant difference compared to two chips chosen at random, because in the latter case, the design has to account for the worst case - two chips that are on the high power side. Reply
stren - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - link5 real monitor outputs and SFF is what it's about for those with unlimited cash, otherwise you'd be better off with mulitple lightnings or matrix cards. Until they support 2D lightboost then I'll be sticking with Nvidia. Reply
HisDivineOrder - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - linkThey bring a fantastic cooler that prioritizes silence and convenience to have SLI in a system that doesn't have two PCIe slots available for them. Plus, you always had the option of quad-SLI that's a little harder to do with four 680's.
That said, I think anyone buying a 690 over a Titan now is pretty stupid. It's not about the speed difference. It's that if you're in the market for a $1k GPU, go for the one that won't be running out of memory with next year's PS4/next Xbox ports. Reply
extremesheep - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - linkTable typo...should the first be "7990"? Reply
extremesheep - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - linkErr...should page 1, table 1, column 1 be "7990" instead of "7970"? Reply
Ryan Smith - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - linkYou may be seeing an old, cached copy. That was fixed about 25 minutes ago. Reply
code65536 - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - linkAny chance we could get Tomb Raider in future benchmark tests? Reply
Ryan Smith - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - linkIn the desktop tests? No. We keep the tests capped at 10 so that it's a manageable load when we need to redo everything, such as with the 7990 launch. At this point the desktop benchmark suite is set for at least the immediate future. Reply
VulgarDisplay - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - link4th paragraph: Incorrectly stated that Tahiti has 48 rops. Reply
Flamencor - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - linkWhat a mediocre review! In your conclusions, you mention nothing about how AMD absolutely spanked NVIDIA in compute performance and synthetics! It is 75 watts more power hungry, and in exchange you get substantially more memory and a total win on compute and synthetics! I know synthetics aren't actual gaming numbers, but they're indicative of how the card will stand up to future games. The fact that the card has far better synthetics says a lot about it's longevity. The card looks like a great card (although quite late)! I'm no fanboy, but why can't people just write a legitimately upbeat and positive review about an amazing part? Reply
Warren21 - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - linkRyan typically has a slight undertone of NVIDIA bias; it can be found in most of his articles. That being said, the GTX 600 series are some amazing cards. I'd love to have a GK104-based card to replace my aged 6870 1GB. Reply
CiccioB - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - linkThis kind of compute benchmarks based on OpenCL are quite useless. No professional applications use OpenCL and nvidia doesn't really put all its efforts in optimizing their OpenCL drivers.
You may be surprise to know that REAL applications that really need GPU assisted computation use CUDA. And thus you have the option to use nvidia GPU computation or nothing else.
That's for how good is OpenCL. It may be open, it may be something AMD needs to show good (useless) graphs, but in real word none is going to use it for serious stuff.
3D renderers are a meaningful example: apart the useless SmallLuxMark benchmark, professional engines use CUDA. AMD is not there with whatever "devasting" computational solution you may believe they have. That's why nvidia holds more than 80% of the professional market and it's the only one having GPUs solutions for HPC while AMD just struggles to sell consumer products.
By the way, goo review, though a double Titan solution may have been added to make it more interesting (especially for power consumption) :) Reply
A5 - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - linkPeople use OpenCL all the time. You have no idea what you're talking about. Reply
bigboxes - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - linkThen you might as well had a double 7990 in your fantasy world. Reply
Freakie - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - linkIt's already long been discussed, Nvidia's drop in Compute performance. Nvidia decided to focus their consumer cards on what they are meant for, gaming, and not overly engineer their GPU's to be heavy hitters for compute performance. There a number of instances where the GTX 580 is better at compute than the 680 is. As Ryan mentioned, the price AMD pays for those gains is in much higher power consumption which of course makes it harder for budget minded buyers to get into AMD. Having to spend an extra $30 on your PSU makes a big difference in a $600 build when you're trying to stretch every dollar and Nvidia has shifted to focus quite heavily in the budget build areas and this is one of the ways they are doing it.
And no, the synthetics say absolutely nothing about the longevity of a card. Longevity of a card is always the support that the GPU developer (AMD/Nvidia) and game developers give it. Software makes or breaks a GPU's ability to be useful, which is why we have a plethora of Driver updates and game patches and why things are programmed using unified tools and languages and why new GPU's keep certain features of their architecture throughout many generations. There is reason why Nvidia 7xxx and 6xxx series GPU's have suddenly become insufficient when they, at least the 79xx, lasted a VERY long time. Hardware shifted too far away fundamentally from those older cards and so software (games) made for newer cards simply did not have the hardware architecture of older cards in mind and now the utterly fail in some games. If you want longevity in your GPU, then just buy the latest architecture from whichever company you prefer, make sure it's not a rebranded version of a previous series, and you'll get the maximum lifespan out of it. Reply
lmcd - Friday, April 26, 2013 - linkIt's pretty irrelevant for this card given that the 7990 posted one significant win over the 7970... Reply
xTRICKYxx - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - linkLove the review. With having to compete with the GTX 690 and Titan, this is the correct response AMD provided. I think it should be priced at $849 or something around there to sway buyers.
On paper the 7990 is faster than all of Nvidia's products overall, but its high power consumption may be a turn off for some.
On another note, 320.00 is an awesome driver release. Reply
abhishek6893 - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - linkAMD 7990 is much faster than NVIDIA's TITAN. Reply
CiccioB - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - linkYessss.... It also uses twice the power though... Reply
Beavermatic - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - linkLOL.... considering the 7990 is a dual-gpu card, I would hope its faster than a Titan, given titan is a single-gpu powerhouse. But only marginally, which shows how powerful the Titan really is. Reply
shing3232 - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - linkwhere could i get AMD CCC 13.5? Reply
Sancus - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - linkIt would be nice if you guys got one of the PNK321 3840x2160 monitors and tested it with this card(and some other setups like CF 7970s, maybe Titans using borderless windowed...). Right now AMD has the only solution for fullscreen 4k gaming at 60hz because this monitor shows up as two displays when you run it at 60hz and thus without 2x1 Eyefinity you can't get a single display surface. Nvidia's only comparable solution is Mosaic but it's only for Quadro cards.
Anyway, it would be nice to find out whether 3840x2160 gaming is viable with the 7990. Reply
Ryan Smith - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - linkOne of our goals this year is to get a 4K monitor. But if so it will be a bit more mundane; something cheaper and more accessible, and something that can do 4K off of 1 DP 1.2 connection and present itself as one monitor. Reply
mayankleoboy1 - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - linkHow do you use SSAA in Crysis:Warhead ? Reply
Ryan Smith - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - linkYou can force it through the drivers on both AMD and NVIDIA cards. Reply
Veteranv2 - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - linkOne giant massive pro for the 7990 is compute performance. Nvidia clearly misses the ball there. Reply
StealthGhost - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - linkMassive...for the 5% of people who buy cards like this and don't game Reply
Veteranv2 - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - linkNot all graphic cards are bought for gaming....
And certainly in the future, compute for GPU will be more and more important.
Have you looked at the graphs? AMD has a GIANT leap over Nvidia. Reply
Ktracho - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - linkI think the compute benchmarking may be flawed. How many people who buy the Titan for compute will use OpenCL? I suspect almost all would be using CUDA. Since CUDA isn't available on AMD cards, I think a better benchmark would be HPL, which is a common benchmark in the HPC world. This would allow each manufacturer to show how much sustained performance a given card is capable of achieving, without being limited by the constraint of having to use OpenCL or DirectCompute, or whatever. Without such benchmark results, all that can be concluded without reservation is that if you must use OpenCL, then you really should limit yourself to AMD (at least for now). Reply
BrightCandle - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - linkLets be clear, you went live without FCAT results, which are singularly the most important aspect of reviewing this card as every other site has shown. Instead you chose to go with single FPS numbers, again.
Pages upon pages of useless numbers, because the card doesn't actually display those frames. Using an older driver would have been better than using a prototype driver users aren't expecting to use for at least another month. Reply
MartinT - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - linkI agree, the data set in this review is of very limited import, especially for a CF-on-a-stick solution.
You probably should have devoted more time to getting frame times into your workflow, and less time benchmarking so many games using less than relevant methodology.
Looking forward to your write up of the frame time data, but this article is a serious waste of time on your part, I'm afraid. Reply
Ryan Smith - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - linkObviously we planned to have full FCAT data for this, but fate wasn't so agreeable. In any case FCAT is meant to augment our FPS data, not replace it. So we needed to have the FPS numbers before we could dig into FCAT for the full breakdown.
And as a point of clarification, we aren't using the prototype driver for these results. We're using Catalyst 13.5b2, which should see a public release in the very near future. The prototype driver is another driver entirely, which we aren't using for these tests. Reply
TheJian - Saturday, April 27, 2013 - linkI said a week or two ago you'd find an excuse to leave out fcat...LOL. You did. Even come up with a problem nobody else has, and show a large boost to AMD that places like tomshardware don't show while showing NV cards slower than their benchmarks in the exact same games and resolutions.
Just like the percent gains in the driver post a few days ago (as I posted all of your %'s were lower than NV's own page which I linked to), you have NV scoring lower than other reviews.
Read the last comment people...They seem to lie a lot here and it's not surprising AMD chose to talk ONLY to this site recently and avoided access even to these guys to the driver team working on the "ISSUES" AMD has.
Heck toms last page title is this:
"Can The World's Best Bundle Save Radeon HD 7990?"
ROFL...That pretty much sums up what they found...AMD sucks currently when FCAT is thrown in the picture.
But even leaving that out they put 5 gamers in a pepsi/coke style blind play test. ALL 5 CHOSE NV 690 gtx as the better card. They even note both Titan and 690GTX gave a better gaming experience.
It's funny you didn't mention what tom's found with noise:
"It's only unfortunate that power-related vibrations generate more volume than the coolers themselves."
I guess you guys will keep claiming something about fcat problems until AMD solves their issues just as I've said before. This site is really losing credibility.
"Perhaps they are using multiple displays for Eyefinity/Surround setups - in that case, the HD 7990 has different but equally traumatic problems. In our testing, nearly every other frame generated by all of our games tested are dropped and never shown to the gamer, resulting in frame rates at about half of what they should be and half of what is being reported by some other testing methods. That's just not acceptable. We are working on another story that directly compares the issues of Eyefinity and Surround that we hope to have up by next week along with some videos to demonstrate those complicated issues. "
Other people draw the exact OPPOSITE conclusions from this site's conclusions...LOL. "traumatic problems" in multi-monitor setups is a pretty harsh thing to say correct?
But then you come up with this zinger:
"As we've seen in the past AMD does a bit better than NVIDIA at multi-monitor resolutions, so while the 7990 trails the GTX 690 at 2560, it immediately jumps ahead at 5760."
From your shogun page...How much does AMD pay you guys to say complete opposites of other review sites using FCAT results? Are they completely funding your site at this point or what?
"It's not a problem at this moment, but 2GB at multi-monitor resolutions in particular is going to be a wall very soon, and 2560 may not be too far behind. 2GB per GPU was reasonable in 2012, but now it's a year later and things change. So for as little as we can predict something to be future-proof, AMD certainly seems to have an edge."
Yeah, get back to me when you're not making up stuff that isn't happening. As toms 5 gamers showed, NV was better all around and all 5 chose NV without knowing which was which. That kind of data matched their FCAT results exactly, even with the beta2 latest driver and the Prototype driver that won't be out until who knows when. After Q2 isn't specific...that could mean 2014. While the prototype driver helped at toms they still had issues and the gamers still chose NV even after testing again with prototype.
"But when we combine the quantitative data enabled by video capture-based performance analysis and the subjective judgments of a panel of gaming enthusiasts who simply want to play their favorite titles on the best hardware possible, Nvidia's thousand-dollar GeForce GTX 690 outshines the similarly-priced Radeon HD 7990. Our early look at AMD's prototype driver suggests that more evenly pacing the rate at which frames are shown on-screen helps minimize frame time variance, which our gamers definitely noticed. But that release isn't expected for months—the second half of 2013 is as specific as AMD gets."
Also, you tested all the way to 5760...Memory isn't a problem and won't be for a long time (don't forget the titan has 6GB!). They don't program games for cards that barely exist. I'm guessing this is a limited run just like asus' card only had 1000, unlike NV's first titan run which was 100,000 and is sold out still today after more runs...LOL.
Without the games as incentive toms gives this on the conclusion page:
"And so we're faced with a card that represents a huge improvement over its predecessor, but still comes up shy of its competition, and is priced like an equal."
The games get old or I already have them. But I have to live with the card itself (especially at these prices) for probably 4-5 years or maybe more.
"For buyers that have faith in multi-GPU scaling and AMD's ability to deliver timely profile updates the 7990 can and will handily surpass Titan by about 20%"
Umm…Have you read Hardocp's driver review of AMD's situation for the last year? They were 6 months late on some game optimizations and it took them a year to get drivers even near right and Enduro still sucks according to notebookcheck's 7970 rehash review.
They paint a pretty POOR driver picture for a year for AMD. While you're there read their review of the 7990 which also points to multimonitor problems:
"We have sent our experiences to AMD, and hopefully there will be a fix in the future and then we can bring you TressFX performance under Eyefinity and CrossFire."
LOL. But you think it's all good with multi-monitor's and think the memory future proofs it eh ryan? Everyone else thinks it sucks and has issues. Comically they found a slide showing AMD claiming to be able to do 3840x2160 in tombraider. They couldn't get it to run there at all:
"AMD is claiming playable performance in Tomb Raider with TressFX enabled at a resolution of 3840x2160. We wanted to test this ourselves, and found where Tomb Raider stores its graphics settings in the registry. We attempted to force 3840x2160, unfortunately the game would not start at this resolution." Followed by this little gem, "Therefore, we find it highly unlikely that AMD's claim is valid." Well ok then. They made the same claim for crisis 3…Which again Hardocp attempted to prove (right or wrong):
"Above is our run-through at "max settings" at 3840x2160. You can clearly see that performance is very poor on the AMD Radeon HD 7990. The minimum framerate is 10 FPS, and the average is 19.4 FPS, well under 30 FPS. This level of performance is not playable in Crysis 3."…Well ok then…Another lie shot down eh? "This claim is clearly invalid."
Yeah, we hear you loud and clear. Two AMD claims, two AMD lies. It didn't even work with 1.3mil pixels less res of 5760x1200 for them. They got below 30fps.
Farcry note: "GeForce GTX 680 SLI has the lowest framerates, but the smoothest overall experience thanks to SLI's non-stutter gameplay compared to CrossFire in this particular title."
Yeah, that's kind of what tomshardware and their 5 game players said. No stutter=BETTER gameplay.
And when they found your memory claim kicking in:
"Hitman is sensitive to VRAM capacity. In this case, the AMD Radeon HD 7990 and Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition CrossFire have the advantage thanks to the larger 3GB of VRAM per GPU. GeForce GTX 680 SLI only has 2GB per GPU."
"The drops in performance make gameplay not possible because it hitches and lags behind as you are playing."
So when your situation actually happens, it isn't playable already anyway…LOL Not the minimums on all cards were under 3fps…LOL. That's not a type man, it's they all scored 1, 2 & 3 fps…ROFL. But you keep trying to help AMD any way you can ryan…They need it…LOL.
Their conclusion page:
"Hopefully after reading this evaluation you've come to the same question we have, "Where's the missing performance?"….So the card sucks then there too? They even manually turned up powertune 20% and got the same results. And again another site saying it: "Quite simply, AMD CrossFire is the stutterer in the room." Yeah we know the 5 gamers said the same at toms. His 680 GTX experience however is described as this on the same page:
"I was in awe. It felt smooth, really smooth, it felt like it was running at a faster framerate than it really was."…Yeah kind of why the 5 gamers at toms picked it too. He calls the 7990 a "BAD VALUE".
Again, 80 pages of complaints at notebookcheck's forums don't lie either. People need to take all the AMD driver complaints into major consideration. Who here thinks AMD's drivers are great and on time? We'll be waiting months for them to fix a problem they've had for a year+ and enduro has had issues for as long also (notebookcheck's first review was awful and the second fixed some but not everything, they still say it has a ways to go compared to NV). Just google 7970m & notebookcheck you'll get there people. It's laughable hardocp crashed trying to prove AMD's driver claims.
PCPER's review conclusion page says the same about drivers:
"With its performance completely dependent on CrossFire technology, the HD 7990 as a $1000 graphics card has a very hard time justifying its price. With our early testing of the Catalyst prototype driver showing positive results though, there is yet hope for CrossFire to be fixed in this generation, at least for single monitor users! But until that driver is perfected, is bug free and is presented to buyers as a made-for-primetime solution, I just cannot recommend an investment this large on the Radeon HD 7990."
LOL…HOPE…At least for SINGLE monitor users. Ryan Shrout says TITAN for multi-monitor and 690GTX for single monitor. It seems everyone says quite the opposite of you Ryan Smith. I could keep going but hopefully people get the point. NOBODY sees it like anandtech.
Check out Techpowerup's review also people…Shows a TON of games these guys leave out. Skyrim, Assassins Creed 3, F1 2012, Borderlands 2, StarCraft2 Heart of the Swarm, Diablo3, COD Black ops2, and World of Warcraft (awful scores for radeons on WOW). The 690GTX basically wins everything at nearly ever res. Guess that's why NONE of these are tested at anandtech even though they are all HUGE sellers compared to crap like Warhead, Dirt Showdown. Nobody PLAYS Warhead based on server checks, and which nobody bought in the case of showdown. Makes you wonder why these two games get tested here don't it people? Why leave out multi-million units popular sellers like these that they leave out? It's because you'd get a very clear picture of why NV owns 65% of the gaming market. Overall in their 20 or so games Titan was 4% faster and GTX 690 was 14% faster.
The negatives they state?:
• High price
• Annoying coil noise
• Requires CrossFire game support to reach proper performance
• Many games do not scale properly in CrossFire
• Very high multi-monitor and Blu-ray power consumption
• Slim performance gains from overclocking
• Long card
Again with the COIL NOISE and of course they note all the games with crossfire issues in their review.:
"Out of eighteen titles, five did not scale, or worse, showed negative scaling. These are not small titles, but big AAA games: Assassin's Creed 3, Batman: Arkham City, F1 2012, StarCraft II, Skyrim, and World of Warcraft. What really surprises me is that this long list is the same as the one we had with our reviews of HD 7990 "New Zealand" implementations by board partners, like the ASUS ROG ARES II and PowerColor Devil 13. So either AMD does not care or can't fix CrossFire support with these games millions of people play."
Jeez…5 out of 18 games running like CRAP and they're all AAA titles. Is this why they are all OUT of Anandtech's gaming suite ryan? Again I ask, how much is AMD paying you guys or do you just really love them that much?
"What is a major issue, though, is the extremely annoying coil whine the card emits as soon as it runs a 3D application."
He notes the 690 GTX and Titan have no such issues. Also notes it OVERPOWERS the fans just as Toms said. Forget to mention this did you ryan?
"In order to overcome the frametime issues some of our colleagues reported, AMD is working on a new driver to improve things, and has provided us with it, but it's only for Windows 8 and sacrifices some performance for more constant frame delivery."
So win7 users won't even be expecting this HOPE driver then? OF course it slows things down also. I hope you'll be benchmarking it rather than just telling us how AMD smoothed out play…But I doubt it. You'll forget to mention what they already found…IT'S SLOWER WITH THE HOPE DRIVER. Nuff said I guess...Read other reviews people and judge Ryan Smith yourself. Reply
blackoctagon - Thursday, May 02, 2013 - linkUm...you seem to have missed the fact that Ryan didn't exactly give the 7990 a glowing review mate. Reply
TheJian - Friday, May 03, 2013 - link"For buyers that have faith in multi-GPU scaling and AMD's ability to deliver timely profile updates the 7990 can and will handily surpass Titan by about 20%"
That doesn't sound like he'd go against it as all the others I've shown flatly did. Raise your hand if you have faith in ANY amd drivers, or them being on time. Read the stuff I linked to, every site made driver comments. Look at Ryan Shrout's comment on them ignoring millions of users and still having crap drivers. Heck he basically is recommending it for "future proof" memory crap. HOGWASH. Titan has 6GB and as hardocp showed to tap out memory you end up at 3fps or less. What good is future proof crap if you can't play when at 30fps when the future kicks in?...LOL
Also, he said FCAT article coming last week. AS I said they won't write one until AMD fixes their issue. Where is this magical article? Every other big site has dealt with FCAT but this one. Strange yes? Reply
MartinT - Saturday, May 04, 2013 - linkRyan, this review's been out in it's misleading form for 10 days, when do you anticipate FCAT results to be published? Reply
Finraziel - Friday, July 19, 2013 - linkWell, it's been about 3 months now, so unless I'm totally missing it... I'm guessing the answer is never? Pretty crappy, guys. Reply
StealthGhost - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - linkIt's damn late to the party to still lose to the 690 in games. I have nothing against AMD, I just wish they'd step it up, or maybe price this thing to compete. Reply
CiccioB - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - linkIf they won't sell price will drop soon enough, If they sell there's not reason to lower it.
This is possible an attempt to get a bit more money on their quite underpriced flagship GPU. nvidia sells a smaller GPUs for a higher price, meaning that AMD is not getting all the potential they could with such a solution.
However I do not know how many of these cards they can sell. AMD is famous for the no-quality of their crossfire (stuttering) and for its support (there are still many games where their crossfire do not scale at all), so spending such an amount of money for something that won't deliver a good enough experience is quite useless.
It is much better a solution made up of 2 discrete cards, so you can easily get rid of them once you (soon) become disappointed with AMD crossfire support. Reply
Finally - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - linkNow we can compare which company comes aorund with the LESS BUGGY dual GPU $999 "hopefully it will show twice the performance - unfortunately it rarely does" mess of a product...
It's the perfect card for the 1%, because they don't have to worry about price, power draw, noise or pretty much everything else (they sure as hell don't soil their hands with manual labor, but have them assembled for a few grand extra).
My suggestion is to make both of them into "limited editions" by replacing every plastic part possible with solid gold... Reply
Torrijos - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - linkSo no FCAT yet for some test?!
This is ridiculous! Why propagate possibly false information about a 1k$ card instead of waiting for the proper data?
PCPer has FCAT data and it's damning for AMD's tech and marketing. Reply
A5 - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - linkYou could've taken like 5 minutes to read the article to see why there aren't any FCAT results and saved yourself some embarrassment. They're coming soon. Reply
Torrijos - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - linkI guess you didn't understand me!
My point is, no matter the excuse, if FCAT results weren't available to provide the potential consumers with the proper information on what he would be purchasing, the article shouldn't have been published.
They say the results are coming in a week...
Good! Let's wait a week.
Instead we get superlatives and plots about how great the card is doing, except that some other site (PCPer) had the time to present FCAT result and as of right now you would be trowing money out the window.
Good news though that same site tests the experimental drivers and show that AMD might be on a path to a solution, BUT no release date for that driver, so NO IDEA WHEN this 1k$ card would FINALLY be useful!
There is no excuse, if you have an ounce of scientific integrity, to present a paper/article without the proper data. That is embarrassing! Reply
rocky12345 - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - linkWhat I find funny is that a year ago you would have taken these numbers & most likely ran to the store with cash in hand to be the first in line to buy one of these cards. But because someone somewhere was bored & decided that straight Frame rate numbers was so 90's & decided to make some crap software that breaks things down to each & every frame you now can not decide if a card is good or not withoout these fcat numbers. If any given card produces smooth frame rate in a game at the monitors res & refresh then it is a good card. But if all your looking at is unlocking the refresh & spending all of your time bench testing then enjoy your beloved fcat. myself I tend to enjoy actually playing the games I will let others spend their time worrying about the fcat numbers if that is all that is important to them.
Like I said if a given card can hold its frames at my monitors refresh then that is all thats important. Reply
rocky12345 - Thursday, April 25, 2013 - linkI may have been a bit harsh in my last post. I went to that site read the review on the 7990 & then read the fallow up review about the prototype 2 drivers http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphics-Cards/Frame-... and AMD is indeed on the right path on sorting this out.
I myself have never noticed these issues in my games because I am normally to involved in the action or story to notice the tiny glitches or runt frames as everyone is pointing out. Reply
Klimax - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - linkI'd like to ask what mode was Titan in for compute tests? Was it Single or double precision. (Can't test it yet unfortunately as I do have Titan myself) Reply
Ryan Smith - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - linkSP mode for everything except FAH's double precision tests. Reply
yannigr - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - linkNo comment about the game bundle in the conclusion? 8(not one or two) NEW and FREE and TOP(most of them) games don't count when deciding about a $999 card? I don't think that everyone is downloading games from torrents. Reply
A5 - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - linkThere's a comment earlier. It's not really worth mentioning in the conclusion. Reply
R0H1T - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - linkI'd think that over the lifetime of this card one would/could easily recuperate his/her expenditure with bitcoins & as such given the possible improvements in performance especially with future driver updates this dual GPU card is a much better deal over the titan or GTX 690, again over a long(er) period of time not counting the short term drawbacks ! Reply
A5 - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - linkDon't peg your cost/benefit analysis to Bitcoins. That's dumb. Reply
R0H1T - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - linkUmm did you miss the part where the game bundle is worth ~350 $ in itself ? The bitcoin mining is an added advantage & unless you think its asinine for one to go down that route, FYI the bundled games are also resold, it's disingenuous for anyone to suggest that mining bitcoin isn't worth it ! Reply
Nfarce - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - linkUhm, that Bundle is only "worth $350" to those who would USE it, as in those who haven't already purchased the games, let alone those who wouldn't play them (I never was a Tomb Raider or Bioshock fan, and I already have Crysis 3 and FC3). Think a little bigger next time. Reply
Nfarce - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - linkOh, and those are downloads only, which are NOT resalable...unless you like passing along your personal information to the buyer. Reply
R0H1T - Thursday, April 25, 2013 - linkThe point still stands regardless of the game bundle, its like saying the free accessories you get with your phone/tablet are useless because you have a better pair of headphones at home ! The same goes for bitcoin mining, like discount coupons you don't necessarily have to use them but they certainly aren't worthless for people who actually do care about every penny they spend ! Reply
nathanddrews - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - linkGPU Bench 2013 - broken links
Every selection I make under DX11 brings me to the following page:
Speaking as one of those wackos that still plays games on a CRT, I have to admit that the entire state of GPUs is pretty bad. You've got to spend a mortgage payment just to get over 120fps @ 1080p maxed out on recent titles. Software seems to have evolved tremendously, offering cinematic levels of detail, but GPUs have not kept pace. The move to 60Hz LCD has sadly let GPU manufacturers off the hook. If we're looking at mainstream 60-120fps 4K displays this year and 120fps 8K displays following close behind, then AMD and Nvidia have their work cut out for them. They need to push a LOT more pixels MUCH faster than they are now. I can tell you right now, I'm not going to be impressed by 4K @ 30Hz. Reply
iMacmatician - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - linkI noticed that too. Hopefully they fix it. Reply
Ryan Smith - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - linkThe web devs fixed it this morning. Reply
nathanddrews - Thursday, April 25, 2013 - linkFantastic, thanks! Reply
Wreckage - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - linkLate, not faster than the 690 and it uses a lot more power. Throw in the stuttering issues and this may be the biggest hardware disappointment of the year. Reply
eanazag - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - linkNVidia needs to up the power and VRAM on the 690 part. I am sure that the additional VRAM accounts for some of the additional 75W AMD is working with. Maybe 10W; 20W at most. NVidia needs to flex that 690 since they have the TDP room and spank AMD. I saw a lot of game favoring in the review. Luckily for Nvidia that compute isn't a big deal for today. AMD smokes it in compute. Reply
iMacmatician - Friday, April 26, 2013 - linkIn a few months (given the 770 and 760 Ti rumors), they might be able to do a refresh with revised GK104s and give 8 GB of RAM and clock bumps over the 690 in the same TDP. Reply
colonelclaw - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - linkThe card I don't understand the price/performance/name of is the Titan. Looking at these charts shouldn't Nvidia have called it the GTX780? Maybe I'm reading it wrong, but it doesn't look like much more than the standard generational change we normally get once a year from Nvidia/AMD, and follows on from 2012's 6xx series. Charging a grand for it seems a little offensive, in my opinion. Reply
prime2515103 - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - link"The GTX 690 is a 300W card and the 7990 is a 375W card. The GTX 690 consumes around 75W less power and puts off 75W less heat, full stop."
If the 690 was consuming 75W less power and dissipating 75W less heat, it would be drawing 150W less in total. How did you calculate this? Reply
tk11 - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - linkConsumed power = dissipated heat. He's just pointing out that the increased power draw also equates to an increase of 75W of heat output. Reply
sulu1977 - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - link3 fans? Oh please, you can do better than that. For that price I want at least 9 whizzing fans because I simply love my quiet workroom to sound like a busy airport. Reply
tk11 - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - linkMore fans != more noise because more fans running at lower speeds make less noise than fewer fans running at higher speeds. Reply
chadwilson - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - linkI know the whole mindset of put it out on release, but I really don't see a reason to read this article without FCAT information. Anyone who would be considering a purchase will be waiting until this data comes available with the latest drivers, so the entire article IMO is moot without it. Reply
JarredWalton - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - linkPersonally, if you're concerned about FCAT I think you'll want to wait about three months before buying any dual-GPU AMD setup. Maybe they'll surprise me and fix their drivers before then, but I'm betting on partial and flaky fixes for a little while longer. Reply
Beavermatic - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - linklooks like Nvidia already responded with a Titan Ultra model today...
seeing how the 7990 is a dual-gpu card, and the Titan is a single GPU, I would hope the 7990 would beat it. You'd have been a lot wiser to compare it to Nvidia's dual GPU card, the 690 (which is already faster than the Titan to begin with).
The fact remains, the titan is like 15 to 20% slower than the 690 or 7990, and its single GPU. That's pretty damn impressive that the single-gpu titan can compete with the dual-gpu cards. Toss in another titan for SLI, and it slaughters both of those cards, lolololol. And not by a small amount, but by leaps and bounds.
Also, check the 7990 benchmarks, look at the microstutter and framerate averages. They are god awfully terrible as well as power consumption. What good is a card when it's rollercoastering framerates like mad? I know Nvidia's SLI has some issues as well, but they've really fined tuned it, but AMD's crossfire and multigpu cards are just horrendous, and shouldn't even be considered. Reply
Nfarce - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - link"The fact remains, the titan is like 15 to 20% slower than the 690 or 7990, and its single GPU. That's pretty damn impressive that the single-gpu titan can compete with the dual-gpu cards. Toss in another titan for SLI, and it slaughters both of those cards, lolololol. And not by a small amount, but by leaps and bounds."
Yeah, and you would be "leaps and bounds" $2000 lighter in the bank account too (or in credit card debt like the way many home PC builders pay for the components in their rigs). You can bet $2k in price would not equal double performance what $1k could buy. Reply
Beavermatic - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - linkI've got (2) Titan's in SLI and I didn't use a credit card, just sayn' Reply
Nfarce - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - linkMost people can't afford to pay $2k in cash (or would not choose to do so if they could do so, as is the case of me). Plunking down that kind of money for GPU performance for gaming and not thinking twice about it (or missing it) is the exception, not the rule. That's all I'm saying. More power to you, so to speak, for bragging rights. Reply
Shark321 - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - linkWithout FCAT numbers this review is a complete waste of time. 3 Weeks ago Ryan wrote that FCAT numbers for crossfire will be available "next monday", and nothing has happened since. EVERY other major hardware review website has FCAT results. Reply
brucek2 - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - linkLong time AnandTech fan here, but this review really drops the ball.
Like many other commenters said, if you don't have the FCAT analysis or similar, you're not ready to publish a review. As other sites are showing the 7990's frate rate is in some cases largely fictitious and has gamer-perceptible stutter. Apparently the prototype drivers will fix or improve the issue, but the release date is only "second half 2013" ie potentially months away.
Also, did your sample not have the high pitch whine caused by vibrations of the capcitors / PCB that other reviews are reporting? Can't cover what didn't happen but this appears to be a material issue with this card.
In short had I bought this case based solely on this review, I would have ended up sorely dissappointed. I trust AnandTech more than that and don't want to see this trust erode. Reply
HisDivineOrder - Wednesday, April 24, 2013 - linkYou have to hand it to AMD. Looking at the benchmark games, six out of ten are already Gaming Evolved titles that were included in a bundle by AMD. Of the four that are not, Battlefield 3 will almost certainly be updated to BF4 this year when the Gaming Evolved version shows up.
Control the way the benchmark games are developed, control the benchmarks, and look better by comparison. It's smart and I bet it costs a lot less money than actually releasing new cards every year. Reply
7Enigma - Friday, April 26, 2013 - linkHere's a thought Ryan; You didn't have enough time to get the FCAT results together, and you are releasing a review of a product that at best is 2 weeks away (can you say SUPER SOFT LAUNCH). So how's about you HOLD THE REVIEW until release or at least until you have a proper review ready.
The last couple years has seen Anandtech flip/flop constantly on this point. And while I don't feel Anandtech is biased towards one or the other be it AMD/Intel or AMD/NVIDIA, it just looks bad when one time you hold a review and other times incomplete articles get thrown out to beat the NDA.... Reply
Chaser - Friday, April 26, 2013 - linkWhen I decide I need three 30 inch monitors I'll consider a $1000.00 video card. Meh. Reply
Mr. Mephisto - Monday, April 29, 2013 - linki currently own the powercolor 7990 and i have to say the driver releases have changed the performance exponentially. the card was downright disappointing playing crysis 3 using driver 13.2 but after 13.5 there is a much smoother gaming experience. i really dont think that it matters if AMD has better architecture if they cant release good drivers.
*i guess it should be said that this is my first AMD card in my 7-8 years of gaming. i used to be a nvidia fanboy XD Reply
Parablooper - Monday, April 29, 2013 - linkThere's no way I can afford it, but that doesn't stop me from getting really fucking pumped. Reply
Biln3 - Tuesday, April 30, 2013 - linklooks like we need to buy 2 6970s instead of a 6990 Reply
Shark321 - Friday, May 03, 2013 - linkThere is a rumour floating around in forums that Anandtech did not post any FCAT results (like promised 4 weeks ago), because of a deal with AMD. Reply
AbdullA - Thursday, May 16, 2013 - linkof course Nvidia :) Reply

subset: commoncrawl