AMD Radeon HD 7970 3 GB

[Wyverex]

Nice card, awesome performance/consumption.
Now I'm waiting for the HD 7950 with its attractive price

 

[mediasorcerer]

That picture scaring me^^^

bravo amd, thanx for review wiz

 

[dj-electric]

I smell trolls
BEGONE evil cretures!

 

[stefanels]

Very good review Wizz... Hope to see more good cards from AMD !!!

 

[SonDa5]

Nice card but $100 more than what I was hoping for.


The power draw and heat does seem higher than what I hoped for from 28nm GPU.



Would have liked to see how it compared in the UT3 category. UT3 has been covered on most of the reviews.

 

[HammerON]

Very nice! I might have to replace my 580's with two of these

 

[cdawall]

nice review can't wait until the price drop take effect.

 

[theJesus]

It amazes me that you test this card with an intel cpu???? I personally would like to see new architecture with new architecture! Test the HD7970 with a Crosshair V Formula and a FX-8150 (Zambezi) and see what it does. I don't get it, the Bulldozer comes out and its tested mainly with an Invidia card and not an AMD which is totally backwards! Oh well, I guess your an Intel/invidia fanboy (no offense meant at all) or are being paid to run test setups weird! Then again your not the only site testing this way... Weird!

You don't really expect him to go and re-run all those tests on all those other cards in a new system do you? He can't test one card in one system and the other cards in a different system, because then it wouldn't be a fair comparison; it has to be the same setup across the board.

 

[H82LUZ73]

Very good review Wizz

I just wish AMD would send 2 cards when they come out with new ones,This would help see if the crossfire is the same (IE the performance that is great now)Though you do get a sense of it ,The One 7970 is between the Gtx590 and the 6990....So in theory with 2 it will be 10 to 15% more then them right ?

Also Wizz nice to see some new games Like BF3 and Hard Reset (link to the game page would have been nice )

 

[qubit]

I don't think the card offers enough of a performance increase. Yes, it beats the 580, as it doesn't trounce it, but it should do - after all the 580 has been out for a year now. I would have expected around 50% better performance than the 580 minimum in all benchmarks, but we don't get that.

Note that PCI-E 3.0 won't make much of a difference to performance, as W1zz stated in an earlier post.

Overclocking is good though and the dual BIOS is a very worthy feature for peace of mind.

Great review as ever, W1zz.

 

[HellasVagabond]

1) Wiz from what i recall the GTX580 in the charts is with the first released drivers correct ? If so it's a fair comparison (for those who expect new drivers and new performance levels).

2) AMD still has the IQ optimizations to boost performance with their cards or did they remove it with the 7970 series ? (Don't think so but asking).

3) Rumor had it that the 7970 would be up to 50% faster than the GTX580 which is a prev. Gen card, still it's up to 20% faster so at least for me AMD saddly lost the train just like with the Bulldozer.

 

[1Kurgan1]

I don't think the card offers enough of a performance increase. Yes, it beats the 580, as it doesn't trounce it, but it should do - after all the 580 has been out for a year now. I would have expected around 50% better performance than the 580 minimum in all benchmarks, but we don't get that.

Overclocking is good though and the dual BIOS is a very worthy feature for peace of mind.

Great review as ever, W1zz.

50% is a lot to expect, I don't know if any generation gap has brought those kind of figures.

 

[the54thvoid]

This is a very good card no doubt. The GTX 580 is a very good card. This is faster and far more power efficient (due to process i know). So no grumbles - very, very good card.

But...

Why the flip (too early for swearing) can't AMD spend some time making a proper damn cooler? If you're going to release a new kick ass card that I 'was' tempted to go for (for the Pci-e x3 novelty), why don't you make sure the cooler is quiet at load? It's not like it draws huge power and creates lots of heat.

So for this simple fact - for me the stock card is fail - I wouldn't put it in my rig. But if Powercolor release an LCS model, that's a diff story.

Oh, and maths - it is 161% the cost of a 6970 without the 161% performance (best result is 6970 having 73% to the 7970's 100% at max res).

On price it is correct for Nvidia placing but not against the previous gen. (IMO).

 

[DZZRtt]

Awesome. Now I'm wating for 7950. I wonder if aftermarket coolers will fit with these

 

[the54thvoid]

Just checked - if the euro price is correct it makes it £416 which is very good for 580 competition (all things considered). But I'm sure it'll come in higher

Still too loud. C'mon after market coolers.

And in a related topic - the absolute famine of any 'concrete' Kepler rumours makes it quite plausible that NV are in no fit state to reply. It's unlike them to stay so quiet when their cards are being trumped....

 

[Bjorn_Of_Iceland]

very nice.

 

[SK-1]

Thanks for a good review....as always.

 

[Roph]

Loving the efficiency

When <75w 28nm Radeon 77xx/76xx cards are available maybe I'll get one

 

[qubit]

50% is a lot to expect, I don't know if any generation gap has brought those kind of figures.

I'm sure I've seen 50% before, but it was a while back. As the next gen nvidia card is several months away, it should be around 80-100% faster than the 580 in my book, but I have a feeling it won't be.

 

[AsRock]

Not really, with those still being over $300. I'd sell the 6970 for $275 - $300 and buy a 7970. Buying another 6970 will get you the performance increase now, but will screw you down the line on an upgrade path, as a 3rd 6970 won't give you a large gain, but a second 7970 would.

Well main issue is games only 1 of those games i play which is Skyrim and shit it's what 3fps was it at 1920x1080.

You have a good point. With Skyrim sucking with CF ( unless thats fixed now ). Although if i did play 1/2 of those games i don't believe the upgrade is worth it as that's another $275 blown on what ? 3-15fps extra.

Real problem here is demanding games don't seem to be pushing hardware enough.

 

[W1zzard]

not sure about those HD 5970 numbers, maybe CF didnt get enabled. I'll rebench.

1) Wiz from what i recall the GTX580 in the charts is with the first released drivers correct ?

no, i rebenched all cards with the latest drivers, check the test setup page

 

[the54thvoid]

Hexus review is up and it's saying it'll be £450.

Again - correct price to go against Nvidia but throws the Red School's wallet friendly pricing 'culture' into the history bin.

 

[Nesters]

At $50 more, 10% performance gain when using 1920x1080 is a pretty large gap, I would easily pay $50 for that. So I got to disagree. I don't see where you are getting negative performance vs a 580 from though? The performance summary shows it's higher at every single resolution (except 1024 where its tied). I see 0%, 6%, 7%, 10, and 15%.

Well, those were his "cherry-picked" benchmarks (not overall) where 580 was actually ahead of HD7970. As you can see, he has 570 in his rig so there might be some nVidia fanboism coming out.

Card is great, price is not. New architecture seems to take away those benchmarks where nvidia cards used to lead by a great margin.

 

[HellasVagabond]

not sure about those HD 5970 numbers, maybe CF didnt get enabled. I'll rebench.



no, i rebenched all cards with the latest drivers, check the test setup page

What about the IQ optimizations ? Any chance you had time to check that ?

 

[W1zzard]

What about the IQ optimizations ? Any chance you had time to check that ?

i use an out of the box install of the drivers without any change to settings