[Official] HD 7970 Reviews

Sin_Chase · 22 Dec 2011 at 11:01

Fast, but not enough.

Seeing what Kepler brings.

ATIorNvidia · 22 Dec 2011 at 11:04

Pretty steller gains from overclocking, especially the minimums:

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphics/2011/12/22/amd-radeon-hd-7970-3gb-review/9

I can't wait to see how far these little guys go with extra voltage

xsistor · 22 Dec 2011 at 11:09

ATIorNvidia said:
Pretty steller gains from overclocking, especially the minimums:

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/graphics/2011/12/22/amd-radeon-hd-7970-3gb-review/9

I can't wait to see how far these little guys go with extra voltage

It's a ~15% gain. It's a pretty standard gain. Not "stellar"

Cleeecooo · 22 Dec 2011 at 11:12

At 1080p it's only 3 FPS ahead of the GTX 580

**** THAT! WHAT A WASTE!

flopper · 22 Dec 2011 at 11:13

Cleeecooo said:
At 1080p it's only 3 FPS ahead of the GTX 580

**** THAT! WHAT A WASTE!

likely to say the same with kepler.
dont expect miracles in such resolutions.

glenimp617 · 22 Dec 2011 at 11:17

THAT'S IT

Drip feeding speed improvements again :rolleyes:

ATIorNvidia · 22 Dec 2011 at 11:19

xsistor said:
It's a ~15% gain. It's a pretty standard gain. Not "stellar"

The minimum FPS gains are better than "average". And 15% extra performance is stellar considering voltage hasn't been touched.

Edit: Also everyone seems to have forgotten one of the main reasons for these cards: Compute/GPGPU performance.

ViRuS2k · 22 Dec 2011 at 11:31

Why did i sell 1 of my 6950s ref asus cards LMFAO should have stuck to crossfire

bit of a waste of time guess i will be getting another 6950

OCPete · 22 Dec 2011 at 11:31

James J said:
Yet, it will have been in the AMD benchmarking kit that the 7970 should be benched against 1.5gb 580s. Can see that due to no reviewers actually directly benching 3gb 580s in the tests. We'll have to wait for user reviews next month to truly find out how good these actually are.

This

Balb0wa said:
Bit faster than a gtx580, price them at £350, great, if higher its not great.

and this.

Nightglow · 22 Dec 2011 at 11:32

I was expecting great things from the 7970, a bit deflated now.

Think I will look for another 6950 instead, plus what I had saved for the 7970, can now go towards a 27" or 30" monitor instead.

xsistor · 22 Dec 2011 at 11:37

ATIorNvidia said:
The minimum FPS gains are better than "average". And 15% extra performance is stellar considering voltage hasn't been touched.

Edit: Also everyone seems to have forgotten one of the main reasons for these cards: Compute/GPGPU performance.

Yeah, lack of voltage tweak to get there is good I must say. But then again my old GTX 460 OCed 25% without touching voltage. For a upper end card 15% without overvoltaging is good, but again these 7970s aren't really "top end" cards considering the jump to 28nm

LOAM · 22 Dec 2011 at 11:43

I planned on getting one late Jan / early Feb (currently on a 1gb 5870) but not a chance at the prices quoted. Would rather see if the 580GTX drops in price tbh.

panyan · 22 Dec 2011 at 11:45

xsistor said:
these 7970s aren't really "top end" cards considering the jump to 28nm

what do you mean?

SS-89 · 22 Dec 2011 at 11:47

Well I'm definitely waiting for kepler now.

James J · 22 Dec 2011 at 11:48

ATIorNvidia said:
The minimum FPS gains are better than "average". And 15% extra performance is stellar considering voltage hasn't been touched.

Edit: Also everyone seems to have forgotten one of the main reasons for these cards: Compute/GPGPU performance.

Gaming is the main reason for this graphics card, just like every other high end consumer release since the 90s. Compute/GPGPU is just a nice addition, yet gaming performance is what people buy gcards for.

xsistor · 22 Dec 2011 at 11:49

panyan said:
what do you mean?

I mean ability to double the transistor count while improving the architecture would suggest that only a 10% average lead over GTX 580 doesn't really do it justice. AMD's probably planning to release an 8000 series card which will be more the top end for this gen (28nm GCN).

SS-89 said:
Well I'm definitely waiting for kepler now.

I was almost sad I'm tied to an NVIDIA ecosystem to even consider these cards, but seeing the benches I'm perfectly fine with waiting for Kepler.

p5- · 22 Dec 2011 at 11:54

Seems fast, but perhaps everyone was expecting a lot faster given the price? (disregarding future price drops).

GTX580 is looking the better buy at the moment!

DazQ87 · 22 Dec 2011 at 11:58

Not as fast as I had hoped, will still be getting one to replace my 5850s but definatly not untill it comes down to £350 or less.
with a price tag of £400+ I think a lot of people will just buy a 580 and be done with it.

panyan · 22 Dec 2011 at 11:59

im getting a very Bulldozer-ish feeling about this: fantastic hype, the numbers look great, but the performance in underwhelming considering those numbers

xsistor · 22 Dec 2011 at 11:59

p5- said:
Seems fast, but perhaps everyone was expecting a lot faster given the price? (disregarding future price drops).

GTX580 is looking the better buy at the moment!

Actually if this is priced at circa the lower-end of £4xx this would still be the better buy. Unless GTX 580 3GB prices come down a fair bit. But for a lot of people the cheaper standard 580 may do better being about £100 cheaper. Hopefully those come down a bit too though.

Edit: I was wrong there. It looks like gtx 580 3GB can be bought for less than 400.