AMD Radeon HD 7970 3 GB

Super XP · Dec 22, 2011

Benetanegia said:
HD5000 to HD6000 is NOT a new gen, unless you really fall for AMD's (and Nvidia's) tactics. It was also made on the same 40nm process.

With a new process, and all the additional transistors that you can use, a lot more is expected.

No, that's failed math, plain and simple. Let's go with round numbers. 50% and 100%. According to you 100 is 50% more than 50, and that's false. 100 is 2x, or double of 50. 100 is also a 100% increase or 200% as much as 50.

50 + 50% == 50 + 1/2 * 50 == 75 != 100

I agree with this to a certain extent. Take the HD 6970; it's quite similar to the HD 5870 but with the introduction to some minor design tweaks based on Southern Islands (HD 7970). AMD was forced to come out with a somewhat Hybrid design branching two completely different Generations (Evergreen + Southern Islands) together onto a 40nm process and naming it Northern Islands. This is all thanks to the failed 32nm process which the HD 7970 design should have been based on with AMD calling it the HD 6970 instead. And if 32nm did get released, today we would be talking about this 2nd Gen HD 7970 design rather than the 1st Gen IMO.

20mmrain · Dec 22, 2011

Great performance increase for AMD's card over AMD.... Not enough to probably compete with the GTX680/780 when it releases. I really hope AMD has a refresh to come out around the same time. While I love the 30K GPU score in vantage and the 40% increase on average (or so) if you take the same math and apply it to the GTX 580 right now.... this card will get stomped when Nvidia drops Kepler (Complete speculation just looking at history). Which sux... because I was hoping to see a much higher performance in crease for $550 bucks. Doesn't mean that this card for right now is still the new baddest boy on the block.... and I do plan to get two to play with for sure!
Please don't take my opinion as complaining.... 40% or so is still a awesome increase! I just was wishing and hoping for something from the stars.

Nice review Wizzard!

ZoneDymo · Dec 22, 2011

Holy ffing shit this thing looks good :O
Man, really makes the 6000 series look slow

Also just saying but is it just me or does Batman AC look heavily Nvidia oriented?

Kaotik · Dec 22, 2011

ZoneDymo said:
Holy ffing shit this thing looks good :O
Man, really makes the 6000 series look slow

Even though I've been using TPU as reference for card speeds for years, I'm taking current results with grain of salt - especially HD6000-series performance seems notably slower compared to what it should be, even when compared to HD5000-series (and 7970 performance seems to be a lower than on most sites, too)

Also just saying but is it just me or does Batman AC look heavily Nvidia oriented?

After the MSAA fiasco on Batman AA, is it a wonder?

AsRock · Dec 22, 2011

Kaotik said:
Even though I've been using TPU as reference for card speeds for years, I'm taking current results with grain of salt - especially HD6000-series performance seems notably slower compared to what it should be, even when compared to HD5000-series (and 7970 performance seems to be a lower than on most sites, too)

After the MSAA fiasco on Batman AA, is it a wonder?

Forget Batman, i want to know why Skyrim sucks with this card lol.

cdawall · Dec 22, 2011

AsRock said:
Forget Batman, i want to know why Skyrim sucks with this card lol.

Best of the bunch?

Super XP · Dec 22, 2011

It makes sense why AMD priced the HD 7970 at $549. Mark my words, you won't be seeing price cuts from HD 6970's or HD 6950 because the HD 7970 is priced too high. This leaved the door open to making the HD 6900's sell very well for the Christmas Holiday Season.

Anyhow I've had enough of being the early adopter, from now on I'll wait for modifications and driver fixes before buying new tech.

W1zzard · Dec 22, 2011

Kaotik said:
especially HD6000-series performance seems notably slower

3dmark11 1680x1050, same data as used for the review:

anything wrong other than hd 5970 ? (which was running in single gpu mode it seems, rebenching that now)

essentially the same numbers as in the hd 6790 review in may 2011: http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/HIS/HD_6790_IceQ_X_Turbo/23.html

R_1 · Dec 22, 2011

Well, based on actual capacity of my 2TB HDD, compared to previous 360GB one, it should cost me $850. So at $85 it was a steal, "which is part of the reason prices for it never stabilized at that low a level".

Kaotik · Dec 22, 2011

W1zzard said:
3dmark11 1680x1050, same data as used for the review:

http://img.techpowerup.org/111222/Capture235.jpg

anything wrong other than hd 5970 ? (which was running in single gpu mode it seems, rebenching that now)

essentially the same numbers as in the hd 6790 review in may 2011: http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/HIS/HD_6790_IceQ_X_Turbo/23.html

3DMark seems to be having the exact expected order (well, aside 6950 losing to 5870, but that's just one app so could be just app specific), it's just the average that doesn't make any sense, I simply don't see any way that 6870, which has always been faster, in the most recent review nearly 7%, could suddenly jump down to being nearly 4% slower than 5850, both being VLIW5 chips

buggalugs · Dec 22, 2011

Its funny, everyone is happy with the performance of the 7970 except people who have 580's lol.

Grings · Dec 22, 2011

Superb Review, the 3 games i am playing atm (Batman, BF3 and Skyrim) tested, AND my card in there for comparison (6950)

I'm getting one, i wanted to see a review first before deciding on this or a 2nd 6950

badtaylorx · Dec 22, 2011

buggalugs said:
Its funny, everyone is happy with the performance of the 7970 except people who have 580's lol.

it's the same on other sites as well :pimp:

Fluffmeister · Dec 22, 2011

Hehe that's probably because this gext gen, 28nm card doesn't offer much of a boost over the year old 580.

I can see why the Cayman crowd are getting giddy though.

cdawall · Dec 22, 2011

Fluffmeister said:
Hehe that's probably because this gext gen, 28nm card doesn't offer much of a boost over the year old 580.

I can see why the Cayman crowd are getting giddy though.

It could be .5nm and that would do absolutely nothing as far as design goes. Good job bringing up a fact that makes zero difference towards performance though.

TheMailMan78 · Dec 22, 2011

1Kurgan1 said:
50% is a lot to expect, I don't know if any generation gap has brought those kind of figures.

4850 to 5850 :laugh:

Thats what I was hoping for. But anymore its just not gonna happen.

Also W1zz how did you test BF3?

Mussels · Dec 22, 2011

fantastic card, exactly what we expected from a new design.

pity about the price, but thats one thing that WILL get better over time.

the power efficiency really intruiges me, would like a graph on how that compares to SLI/crossfire setups that give similar performance.

Grings · Dec 22, 2011

I don't think the price is that bad, everybody seems to be comparing it to the cheapest 580 prices, which have dropped a fair bit since launch, as any product does once its been out a few months.

Also, 3gb versions of the 580 cost a fair bit more than the price of a standard one most people are using for comparison.

ERazer · Dec 22, 2011

great reviewed once again almighty wiz :respect:

buggalugs said:
Its funny, everyone is happy with the performance of the 7970 except people who have 580's lol.

true, guess ill hold on to my 580 for another year but cheers for the red team tho. i still consider my old 5870 one of best cards i had

ensabrenoir · Dec 22, 2011

Making it hard for me to go green on my next build. Amd/ati = awesome gpus. People test with intel cpus &etc because amd dont have anything yet to make full use of its gpus potential.

Crap Daddy · Dec 22, 2011

20% performance gain at the most common res. over the 6970 and GTX570 for 200$ + difference? Hmmm...

Benetanegia · Dec 22, 2011

Crap Daddy said:
20% performance gain at the most common res. over the 6970 and GTX570 for 200$ + difference? Hmmm...

Sssshhhh or you will be burned at the stake as the rest of us stating the obvious.

afw · Dec 22, 2011

Great review ... Solid Card :rockout:

...

RejZoR · Dec 22, 2011

Am i only one who thinks MLAA should work faster on GCN ? I mean, MLAA is done through compute shaders, if they say GCN is faster, they should consider rewriting the algorithm for HD7000 series in order to better utilize it. Would give me a reason to reconsider HD7000 series card. though i doubt it since HD6950 serves me very well at the moment.

TheMailMan78 · Dec 22, 2011

RejZoR said:
Would give me a reason to reconsider HD7000 series card. though i doubt it since HD6950 serves me very well at the moment.

See this is where I'm at. My 5850 still runs great and most everything on high. Maybe not the max settings but not far off. 550 bones just doesnt seem worth it in my case. I could get another 5850 for 100 bucks and run everything at maxed even with the crappy scaling of the 58xx series.

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AMD Radeon HD 7970 3 GB

Super XP

20mmrain

ZoneDymo

Kaotik

AsRock

TPU addict

cdawall

where the hell are my stars

Super XP

W1zzard

Administrator

R_1

Kaotik

buggalugs

Grings

badtaylorx

Fluffmeister

cdawall

where the hell are my stars

TheMailMan78

Big Member

Mussels

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Grings

ERazer

ensabrenoir

Crap Daddy

Benetanegia

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afw

RejZoR

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