[Official] HD 7970 Reviews

ATIorNvidia · 22 Dec 2011 at 05:14

Guru3D: http://www.guru3d.com/article/amd-radeon-hd-7970-review/1

Hardwaresecrets: http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/AMD-Radeon-HD-7970-Video-Card-Review/1458

Neoseeker: http://www.neoseeker.com/Articles/Hardware/Reviews/AMD_HD_7970/

VR-Zone: http://vr-zone.com/articles/amd-rad...ahiti-xt-from-the-southern-islands/14307.html

HardOCP: http://hardocp.com/article/2011/12/21/amd_radeon_hd_7970_video_card_review

TechpowerUP!: http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/HD_7970/

Anandtech: http://www.anandtech.com/show/5261/amd-radeon-hd-7970-review

Expert Reviews: http://www.expertreviews.co.uk/graphics-cards/1289251/amd-radeon-hd-7970

hothardware: http://hothardware.com/Reviews/AMD-Radeon-HD-7970-28nm-Tahiti-GPU-Review/

nl.hardware: http://translate.google.co.uk/trans...e.info/reviews/2472/amd-radeon-hd-7970-review

Hardwareheaven: http://www.hardwareheaven.com/revie...d-7970-graphics-card-review-introduction.html

Tomshardware: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-hd-7970-benchmark-tahiti-gcn,3104.html

Overclockers.com: http://www.overclockers.com/amd-radeon-hd-7970-graphics-card-review/

Legit Reviews: http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1805/1/

KitGuru: http://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/zardon/amd-hd7970-graphics-card-review/

Bit-tech: http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphics/2011/12/22/amd-radeon-hd-7970-3gb-review/1

Vortez: http://www.vortez.net/articles_pages/amd_hd7970_3gb_tahiti_review,1.html

PC Perspective: http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphics-Cards/AMD-Radeon-HD-7970-3GB-Graphics-Card-Review-Tahiti-28nm

Hardwarecanucks: http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/foru...iews/49646-amd-radeon-hd-7970-3gb-review.html

ixbt: http://www.ixbt.com/video3/tahiti-part1.shtml

Purgatory · 22 Dec 2011 at 05:26

Should we warn drunkenmaster and the 80% speed increase people to take cover now ?

drunkenmaster

remember what I said here

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showpost.php?p=20736068&postcount=93

and the link inside that too remember I said you can quote me when they come out

.

Hate to say I told you so.

ATIorNvidia thanks for putting the reviews in one place

Another one here with many games tested and different CPUs nl.hardware.info

AMD Radeon HD 7970 review

http://translate.google.co.uk/trans...e.info/reviews/2472/amd-radeon-hd-7970-review

regulator86 · 22 Dec 2011 at 05:30

I genuinely thought this would be a mediocre card. Fortunately I restrained from speculation. Looks decent from the couple reviews I've read

Sycho · 22 Dec 2011 at 05:33

Very impressed with the power useage/noise level/temp compared to the 6970/580.

Performance seems pretty good we have to remember the drivers need to mature still too.

Final8y · 22 Dec 2011 at 05:41

Not bad, imagine that in Tri Fire .

.

Looking forwards to getting 8 series in Tri or Quadfire.

seena · 22 Dec 2011 at 05:49

overall little bit disappointed
but Dx 11 performance is good

looks like 7950 will be roughly fast as gtx 580

Defunkt · 22 Dec 2011 at 06:06

should be an amazing card when the non reference cooler/pcb and as sycho said once the drivers have been developed. The 7970 should be a real powerhouse by Feb when I plan to buy one. Even though I swore to myself not to buy another AMD card for some yrs.

xsistor · 22 Dec 2011 at 06:06

It's not bad at all... But now it's embarrassingly clear that AMD went overboard with their "OMFG!!! IT'S THE FASTEST **** SINCE FERRARRISSS! THE MOST ADVANCED CRAP EVER" "leaked" slide after "leaked" slide. And looking at one of the more demanding benches, it shows what a good card the GTX 580 was despite being over an year old, and officially now "last gen".

http://www.anandtech.com/show/5261/amd-radeon-hd-7970-review/19

Final8y · 22 Dec 2011 at 06:10

My understanding is that BF3 isn't using display lists. Generally speaking, though, we still have a lot to learn from GCN (even though the driver / 3D software teams have pulled an incredible feat off here - thanks guys!). I don't know what rev of the review driver Anand used, but we found about another 5% half way through the review cycle. Additionally we are finding things out right now such as the VLIW opimised FXAA code that DICE graciously implemented under an AMD path is now not as optimal as the NVIDIA FXAA path with GCN!

http://forum.beyond3d.com/showpost.php?p=1607915&postcount=1847

The big question of course is why are we only seeing such a limited lead from the 7970 here? BF3 implements a wide array of technologies so it’s hard to say for sure, but there is one thing we know they implement in the engine that only NVIDIA can use: Driver Command Lists, the same “secret sauce” that boosted NVIDIA’s Civilization V performance by so much last year. So it may be that NVIDIA’s DCL support is helping their performance here in BF3, much like it was in Civ V.

But in any case, this is probably the only benchmark that’s really under delivered for the 7970. 5% is still a performance improvement (and we’ll take it any day of the week), but this silences any reasonable hope of being able to use 1920 at Ultra settings with MSAA on a single-GPU card for the time being.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/5261/amd-radeon-hd-7970-review/19

Marine-RX179 · 22 Dec 2011 at 06:11

Not impressed to be honest. It is only a bit faster than the GTX580 at 1920 res, and reasonably faster than the GTX580 at 2560 res (but that's more like due to the extra 1.5GB of VRAM). It is a bit like how Intel launched Q6600, and the AMD's Phenom II X4 came a whole year late, but with only little bit faster speed; or even how the 6970 was playing catch up with the GTX480 last year.

So the 7970 would overclock by 16%, which is pretty much the same as how much the average GTX580 would overclock by (772 to 900MHz=16.5%). Power consumption wise...it's a bit lower than 6970 yes, but still pretty high if comparing to the 6950/GTX560TI/5870 range. Considering the price and still reasonable high power consumption, people would still be much better off with CF6950 2GB or SLI GTX560Ti 2GB.

To be honest, moving from 40nm to 28nm and this is all they can achieve is a bit underwhelmed. Think enthusiasts that want the fastest new gen single GPU graphic card that has the grunt to push 2560 res will have to wait and see what Nvidia can put on the table, considering the GTX580 is more or less come close to matcing the 7970, despite it is on the old 40nm process. Something tells me that AMD simply isn't making the most out of die shrink, comparing to Intel and Nvidia...

P.S. Gotta love how hardocp is at it again...choosing a GTX580 1.5GB instead of 3GB to compare with the 7970 3GB, and do an apple-to-apple test for BF3 at 2560 res on Ultra and with 2xAA instead of 1920 res to make sure the GTX580 1.5GB will be completely out of VRAM to give the wrong impression that the 7970 is much better than the GTX580 lol.

ATIorNvidia · 22 Dec 2011 at 06:13

lol, this card isn't "late", it's early. AMD will most likely release the 8000 series (which will most likely be a revision of current cards) not too long after Nvidia release their 28nm cards.

Marine-RX179 · 22 Dec 2011 at 06:37

ATIorNvidia said:
lol, this card isn't "late", it's early. AMD will most likely release the 8000 series (which will most likely be a revision of current cards) not too long after Nvidia release their 28nm cards.

My point is AMD is always playing catch up- performance wise...

As I said, moving onto 28nm and this is all they achieved is a bit of a joke...if it was the 7950 we were talking about here, then it might be acceptable; but for a new gen flagship card, its improvement is simply not enough when comparing to the performance of last gen's flagship card from the other camp. It is faster than the GTX580 yes, but it is not faster than it at a big enough margin. It is quite clear that AMD's approach to the new gen card is to rush out of the door before Nvidia does and waving the big flag of 1st 28nm GPU graphic card on the market, rather than spending more time beefing up the 7970 to compete with Nvidia's flagship card head to head on performance's end. But I guess it is understandable if thinking from business strategy point of view, as it would bad news for AMD if they did launch their flagship card same time as Nvidia does, and the 7970 still end up slower than the Nvidia cards (both the GTX x70/GTX x80) despite spend extra few months trying to improve it (i.e. ATI HD 2000 series Nvidia 8000 series).

Purgatory · 22 Dec 2011 at 06:44

This part of the review says it all really..

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/HD_7970/28.html

Relative performance for all resolutions (8% faster then a GTX 580 1.5GB)

Most popular resolution 1920 x 1200 (10% faster then a GTX 580 1.5GB) or 1920 x 1080 and if 1080 you can add another 1-2% to the GTX 580 making it only 8-9% faster then a GTX 580 1.5GB at 1920 x 1080.

I'm waiting for Kepler and for Nvidia to do 28nm right. Yes Amd have the fastest single GPU card... whoo hoo +10% (at the resolution I use) ... for £500 ... plus quality Amd drivers to boot :rolleyes:

... No thanks !

Was really hoping to update my monitor to 2560 x 1600 and have only a single card to run it but not at this rate it seems... ohh well saves me updating my monitor for another year and graphics card.

Troezar · 22 Dec 2011 at 06:55

Not bad but I wouldn't part with £400-£500 for one. Doesn't leave me wanting a 7950 or even a 78Xx, not for 2560x1440.....

WingZero30 · 22 Dec 2011 at 06:59

Kepler is the one to look out for now

Final8y · 22 Dec 2011 at 07:02

Purgatory said:
This part of the review says it all really..

Most popular resolution 1920 x 1200 (10% faster then a GTX 580 1.5GB) or 1920 x 1080 and if 1080 you can add another 1-2% to the GTX 580 making it only 8-9% faster then a GTX 580 1.5GB at 1920 x 1080.

I'm waiting for Kepler and for Nvidia to do 28nm right. Yes Amd have the fastest card... whoo hoo 10% ... for £500 ..quality Amd drivers to boot ... No thanks !

While naturally of course comparisons will be made to the competitions technology, what also has to be take into account is comparisons to their own previous and how well it does over that because it ain't like that have taken NV technology and only improved 10%.

And seeing as your Driver comment at the end then its all Irrelevant as you and n one will would be buying it no matter if it was 200% faster because of those drivers right.

oweneades · 22 Dec 2011 at 07:03

Marine-RX179 said:
P.S. Gotta love how hardocp is at it again...choosing a GTX580 1.5GB instead of 3GB to compare with the 7970 3GB, and do an apple-to-apple test for BF3 at 2560 res on Ultra and with 2xAA instead of 1920 res to make sure the GTX580 1.5GB will be completely out of VRAM to give the wrong impression that the 7970 is much better than the GTX580 lol.

It would appear that HardOCP chose the Galaxy MDT GTX580 as it can natively run Nvidia Surround from one card. For whatever reason the card itself only has 1.5GB of Vram instead of 3GB which is just plain odd given what it would be used for. I am not really seeing the conspiracy theory here.

EDIT: Slightly confused by their conclusion TBH. In prior reviews the HD6970 has been much closer to the GTX580 yet in this review the 580 is noticeably quicker in all scenarios. I suppose this is the problem with testing real world gameplay, more representative of the actual cards performance but pretty useless for an Apples to Apples comparison.

Very disappointed with the Eyefinity performance though. It isn't much quicker than the HD6970 which is annoying as I was hoping for a nice boost from a single card.

Given this is the "flagship" it doesn't bode that well for the HD7950.

Hopefully new drivers will boost performance somewhat.

Marine-RX179 · 22 Dec 2011 at 07:05

oweneades said:
It would appear that HardOCP chose the Galaxy MDT GTX580 as it can natively run Nvidia Surround from one card. For whatever reason the card itself only has 1.5GB of Vram instead of 3GB which is just plain odd given what it would be used for. I am not really seeing the conspiracy theory here.

My point was if you check out other games they tested on applie-to-apple, some are compared at 1920 res, but when it comes to high profile game such as BF3, they decide to comparing it at 2560 res instead

ATIorNvidia · 22 Dec 2011 at 07:05

Marine-RX179 said:
My point is AMD is always playing catch up- performance wise...

As I said, moving onto 28nm and this is all they achieved is a bit of a joke...if it was the 7950 we were talking about here, then it might be acceptable; but for a new gen flagship card, its improvement is simply not enough when comparing to the performance of last gen's flagship card from the other camp. It is faster than the GTX580 yes, but it is not faster than it at a big enough margin. It is quite clear that AMD's approach to the new gen card is to rush out of the door before Nvidia does and waving the big flag of 1st 28nm GPU graphic card on the market, rather than spending more time beefing up the 7970 to compete with Nvidia's flagship card head to head on performance's end. But I guess it is understandable if thinking from business strategy point of view, as it would bad news for AMD if they did launch their flagship card same time as Nvidia does, and the 7970 still end up slower than the Nvidia cards (both the GTX x70/GTX x80) despite spend extra few months trying to improve it (i.e. ATI HD 2000 series Nvidia 8000 series).

AMD aren't playing catch up, the 7970 is the fastest GPU currently available, and it beats the GTX 580 in everything. AMD IS going to complete with Kepler, just with the 8000 series most likely. AMD don't even NEED to go for the top spot in performance on 28nm. If their goal is to be competitive on price : performance, then so be it. AMD aren't making graphics card to appease your enthusiast mindset.

Purgatory said:
This part of the review says it all really..

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/HD_7970/28.html

Relative performance for all resolutions (8% faster then a GTX 580 1.5GB)

Most popular resolution 1920 x 1200 (10% faster then a GTX 580 1.5GB) or 1920 x 1080 and if 1080 you can add another 1-2% to the GTX 580 making it only 8-9% faster then a GTX 580 1.5GB at 1920 x 1080.

I'm waiting for Kepler and for Nvidia to do 28nm right. Yes Amd have the fastest single GPU card... whoo hoo +10% (at the resolution I use) ... for £500 ... plus quality Amd drivers to boot ... No thanks !

Was really hoping to update my monitor to 2560 x 1600 and have only a single card to run it but not at this rate it seems... ohh well saves me updating my monitor for another year and graphics card.

Don't know why you're moaning about the price, it's around the same as a 3GB GTX 580 and better in every way.

oweneades · 22 Dec 2011 at 07:09

Marine-RX179 said:
My point was if you check out other games they tested on applie-to-apple, some are compared at 1920 res, but when it comes to high profile game such as BF3, they decide to comparing it at 2560 res instead

Ah got you. Didn't see that - I have enough trouble reading HardOCP's reviews as it is....