AMD Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition 3 GB

[Delta6326]

Awesome Review like always W1zzard and I understand why you do the things you do. People just don't understand the multi monitor thing.

Meh, this card is just a normal 7970 with higher clocks and more voltage, while normal 7970's could do these clocks with no voltage change...

But this is what im most interested in.

 

[tt_martin]

But this is what im most interested in.

But 670 (and 680 as well) is voltage limited, 7970 not (up to 1.3-1.38v), so it has more oc headroom.

 

[Delta6326]

But 670 (and 680 as well) is voltage limited, 7970 not (up to 1.3-1.38v), so it has more oc headroom.

That is true, but you can still OC it a long ways

 

[erocker]

Good review.. confusing card. I thought these were supposed to be running at a much lower stock voltage. Thanks for uploading the bios to the database!

 

[okidna]

Good review.. confusing card. I thought these were supposed to be running at a much lower stock voltage. Thanks for uploading the bios to the database!

It does running at a lower voltage.............

Spoiler

.....in Blu-ray playback

0.95v versus 1.18v.

 

[Random Murderer]

Good review.. confusing card. I thought these were supposed to be running at a much lower stock voltage. Thanks for uploading the bios to the database!

Didn't realize he uploaded it... considering the GHz edition is on the reference board, maybe I'll give this BIOS a try tonight. That will show for sure if the GHz edition is simply the same card with a different BIOS or there's something actually different about the card that we can't see.
If it works and temps don't go up much I'll just keep this BIOS on the cards, the stock clocks of this BIOS are 50MHz higher on both core and memory than the XFX Black Edition BIOS making it the fastest reference 7970 yet. VTX3D and Sapphire both released cards with even higher clocks that are on the same board but use different components, so *technically* they're not reference designs.
It'll also be interesting to see if this raises the max OC in CCC. It'd be pretty sad if Overdrive in CCC only allowed a 75MHz OC on memory, lol.

 

[erocker]

It does running at a lower voltage.............

Spoiler

.....in Blu-ray playback

0.95v versus 1.18v.

Haha! Actually, my card does that now using an early (7970 review) unlocked bios.

 

[Random Murderer]

Haha! Actually, my card does that now using an early (7970 review) unlocked bios.

I can confirm the Black Edition BIOS does the same thing, as does the MSI unlocked BIOS.

 

[Casecutter]

1) nvidia cards can't run all tests at this resolution successfully, so they get a 0.0 score, which would greatly affect the summary score

Ouch!

Disappointed that it doesn’t appear to really be from a truly improve process that really enhanced the efficiency. These are binned silicone from wafers that came after the TSMC shut-down that where better/matched what the 28Nm process was to be endowed with. So yes nothing extra special as I’d had hoped, and even wonder if they are even change in the voltage as was reported last week?
I think that voltage stuff was eluding to “PowerTune with Boost”, which is really how AMD got this to be what it is and what differentiates from previous custom OC cards. It’s a case of “What’s good for the goose is good for the gander”, although I think this review is just nothing more than “a reference show me”. I want to see a 8 “custom” card roundup (Nvidia/AMD 4 on 4) all with the newest driver and really wring out everything on the resolutions and title that stress such cards to their limits.
I will say I think AMD can supply more GHz units, and be more price conscience than Nvidia will be able to be with GTX680’s in the months to come.

 

[W1zzard]

Thanks for uploading the bios to the database!

i tried flashing a non-ghz hd 7970 with that bios, but the driver would not load anymore. let me know if you make any more progress with it

 

[Random Murderer]

i tried flashing a non-ghz hd 7970 with that bios, but the driver would not load anymore. let me know if you make any more progress with it

Will do. Planning on swapping heatsinks tonight. In the process I'll pull one of my 7970s and attempt the flash on the other and report back the findings.

 

[librin.so.1]

By the by, CL bench scores http://clbenchmark.com/result.jsp

GCN is very effective when it comes to CL.

> On the other hand...

_
Also, I wonder: vanilla 7970 overclocked to have the same clock speeds as 7970_GHz.E - would they generally use more power than 7970_GHz.E? (assuming many "card samples".)
In other words: is 7970_GHz.E actually that much power hungry as most of You are saying? Relatively.

 

[1Kurgan1]

I still don't see where the ghz card is power hungry, max wattage is 3w higher than a normal 7970, am I missing something? I just don't see huge wattage difference from the basic 7970 even in the other wattage tests.

 

[Hilux SSRG]

Great review and your review process W1zzard is excellent the way it stands. Although I don't game at 1280 x 800 resolutions I want to see those charts because they are informative. To those who don't want to see 1280 x 800 charts look to the next page and don't presume others' opinions.

Even IF amd's single chip flagship is faster by 1%, nvidia will make another refresh of the gtx 680 to be 1% faster. Oh the cycle that never ends !

The standout this generation is the gtx 670 hands down.

 

[okidna]

I still don't see where the ghz card is power hungry, max wattage is 3w higher than a normal 7970, am I missing something? I just don't see huge wattage difference from the basic 7970 even in the other wattage tests.

3W higher is on Furmark.
It means nothing unless you want your card to run Furmark 24/7. It gives F@H new meaning though, FurMark @ Home

From W1zz review, 46W higher than 7970 vanilla on Average gaming scenario and 50W higher on Peak gaming scenario.

Yes, it's not a huge difference, but with 50W you can power 10 120mm or 140mm fans and made your case fly, a case-copter!

 

[1Kurgan1]

3W higher is on Furmark.
It means nothing unless you want your card to run Furmark 24/7. It gives F@H new meaning though, FurMark @ Home

From W1zz review, 46W higher than 7970 vanilla on Average gaming scenario and 50W higher on Peak gaming scenario.

Yes, it's not a huge difference, but with 50W you can power 10 120mm or 140mm fans and made your case fly, a case-copter!

http://i.imgur.com/jl4Ud.jpg

An overclocked card taking more power seriously shouldn't surprising though, and like people have already said, those buying a $500 card probably aren't all too worried about a bit of extra wattage. And I speak from experience here since before I ever bought my first 7970 I picked up a 1250w PSU, then got my 7970 then later got another. And I run them far past any of the clocks used here, not even sure what wattage they use, and I don't really care either. If I was concerned about wattage I would have probably gone for something a bit more tame like a 7850 or 7870 and left the clocks alone.

Also I don't think 10 fans is really all that much, considering the picture you linked 2.5 rows = 10 fans, that has a lot more than 10. I think my case (with rads) has 7 right now, if I has the room I would run 12, but I don't have the room for push and pull fans on my rads in just a mid tower.

 

[erocker]

i tried flashing a non-ghz hd 7970 with that bios, but the driver would not load anymore. let me know if you make any more progress with it

Uninstalled drivers, booted into ATiFlash and flashed it. Installed drivers and upon restart I got a bluescreen. Before installing drivers I checked CPU-Z and the bios was indeed on the card. The Vram voltage was set to 1.5v instead of my stock 1.6v.

Are the 12.7 beta drivers required for the GHZ edition?

 

[Boomstick777]

why did Nvidia fanboy complain too much in AMD articles

Nvidia fanboys very insecure, 'Oooh AMD have performance crown again' 'Must flame 7970 Ghz threads !!'

7970 Ghz is the new king, hail to the king baby .

 

[Boomstick777]

Why is everybody complaining about this card? Looks good to me! W1zzard should review a non reference one soon!

Looks good to me aswell, the Nvidia fanboys just can't stand the fact that AMD have the best single GPU performance crown again, it's like they literally cannot fathom it, there brains just can't deal with it, they need a way to justify it to themselves, therefore the flaming and weird comments that make no sense whatsoever to a non fanboy start..

Expect to see the age old 'poor AMD drivers' line being thrown around a lot on the next few days while the Nvidia fanboys are coming to to terms with the news.

 

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

You obviously didn't read my post. Did you miss the "until the HD 7000 series" portion?

As does my 5870 and 5850

 

[raghu78]

Again you miss the point that even the 7970GHz edition with overvoltage and OC loses to the GTX 680 in several games and where it comes on top we are talking about a 3% increase at most. So i really don't know what you are trying to say. That Some people have OCed the 7970 more ? So what ? Some will have also OCed and GTX 680 more, again so what ? We are not looking for the exceptions, we are looking for the rule and the rule is that the 7970 at stock is no match for the GTX 680 at stock and the 7970GHz edition still falls behind the stock GTX 680 in several games so if one was to slightly OC the GTX 680 it would certainly beat the 7970GHz.
I am not saying that the 7970Ghz is a bad card but it's just an OCed 7970 and nothing more, hardly something for people to get excited for.

What are you talking ? The Radeon HD 7970 Ghz edition card comes with a stock voltage of 1.162 and boost voltage of 1.218. No overclocking has been done on this card for the review. I guess you did not see the performance summary. The GTX 680 is 2% slower at 1200p and 8% slower at 1600p. At 5760 x 1080 it gets even worse for GTX 680. GTX 680 loses to Radeon HD 7970 Ghz edition. Plain and simple. clock for clock the HD 7970 is a faster chip than GTX 680 when compared across a wide range of games. The gap grows wider as the resolution goes up.
For overclocked performance lets wait for custom Radeon HD 7970 Ghz edition OC model reviews. Then you can compare 680 OC vs Radeon HD 7970 Ghz edition OC. You are definitely trying your best to defend the GTX 680 when its proven that for ultra high resolution single monitor and multi monitor gaming the Radeon HD 7970 Ghz edition is the clear winner.

 

[qubit]

Uninstalled drivers, booted into ATiFlash and flashed it. Installed drivers and upon restart I got a bluescreen. Before installing drivers I checked CPU-Z and the bios was indeed on the card. The Vram voltage was set to 1.5v instead of my stock 1.6v.

Are the 12.7 beta drivers required for the GHZ edition?

Sorry to ask a potentially dumb question, but have you managed to run the card at all with that bios? I take it the BIOS screen shows up at least?

If you keep getting bsods, then perhaps it might help to install a fresh copy of Windows on another partition or HDD and take it from there? It might not hurt to try installing Linux, to see if it can display any sort of graphics output with the new BIOS.

It wouldn't surprise me if AMD put something in that BIOS to stop it working with regular 7970's, as that would clearly reveal just what a pure marketing ploy this release is.

 

[eidairaman1]

Good Launch but for it to be 50 bux more for 100+ MHz Increase. Better off Just sticking with the original 7970 and overclocking it to the level this is or getting a Lightning

 

[erocker]

Sorry to ask a potentially dumb question, but have you managed to run the card at all with that bios? I take it the BIOS screen shows up at least?

If you keep getting bsods, then perhaps it might help to install a fresh copy of Windows on another partition or HDD and take it from there? It might not hurt to try installing Linux, to see if it can display any sort of graphics output with the new BIOS.

It wouldn't surprise me if AMD put something in that BIOS to stop it working with regular 7970's, as that would clearly reveal just what a pure marketing ploy this release is.

First part of your question, yes. I can get into Windows fine without the driver installed. However, I'm wondering if I need to install the 12.7 beta driver in order for it to work. I suppose I could reflash and try.

No, I do not keep getting bsod's. I just get them with the bios flashed to my card, after I install the drivers (I was using 12.6 beta I believe).

I don't bother with Linux and I was doing this on a fresh copy of windows that I have installed an a spare SSD. Either way, I know how to remove everything video driver related so it doesn't matter.

I'm not sure if my card will benefit much from this bios either. The Ghz edition runs the VRAM at 1.5v while the stock versions use 1.6v. If the ram chips are binned I could imagine this causing some possible instability. With the "boost voltage" of 1.2v, my card can actually run 1200mhz stable. The problem may lay there, with the boost voltage. Perhaps the voltage controller has a different "firmware" apart from the bios that perhaps that allows this? Don't know really.

 

[eidairaman1]

Ya Know it might be worth a try but u already know the consequences i think

First part of your question, yes. I can get into Windows fine without the driver installed. However, I'm wondering if I need to install the 12.7 beta driver in order for it to work. I suppose I could reflash and try.

No, I do not keep getting bsod's. I just get them with the bios flashed to my card, after I install the drivers (I was using 12.6 beta I believe).

I don't bother with Linux and I was doing this on a fresh copy of windows that I have installed an a spare SSD. Either way, I know how to remove everything video driver related so it doesn't matter.

I'm not sure if my card will benefit much from this bios either. The Ghz edition runs the VRAM at 1.5v while the stock versions use 1.6v. If the ram chips are binned I could imagine this causing some possible instability. With the "boost voltage" of 1.2v, my card can actually run 1200mhz stable. The problem may lay there, with the boost voltage. Perhaps the voltage controller has a different "firmware" apart from the bios that perhaps that allows this? Don't know really.