Official Radeon 7970 Reviews Thread

[AnandThenMan]

In no particular order.

anandtech.com
guru3d.com
hardwarecanucks.com
overclockers.com
techpowerup.com
hardwareheaven.com
hardwareheaven.com - Crossfire
legitreviews.com
tomshardware.com
hardocp.com

pcper.com
hothardware.com
kitguru.net
pcgameshardware.de
computerbase.de
expertreviews.co.uk
icrontic.com
maximumpc.com
hardwaresecrets.com
hexus.net

vr-zone.com
ixbt.com
nl.hardware.info
legionhardware.com
bit-tech.net
techspot.com
rage3d.com

Making this a sticky. Please contribute thread review links here.

Administrator Idontcare


edit 2: No activity for ~2days, unstickying this thread, it will float commensurate with the community's interest and natural activity level in the topic.

Administrator Idontcare

 

[arredondo]

Cool, I'll support your thread since it is more than the first review and the title isn't trolling.

 

[AnandThenMan]

Post more and I'll add them, but I'm reading so it won't be right now.

 

[ghost recon88]

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

 

[arredondo]

Overclocking looks promising according to the Overclock.com link (stock = 925/1375):

Without batting an eye, the HD 7970 clocked right up to a completely stable 1125 MHz core speed and 1575 MHz memory speed. I can’t wait to get voltage control on these things. If it does that at stock, imagine what we can do with some more voltage available!

 

[Deleted member 4644]

arredondo, here is my take on this card.

For people running smaller monitors, it's not bad. However, for those of us with 30" monitors, many were hoping for a single card solution that lets us play at 2560x1600 at high settings. This card is not that. It comes close, but it doesn't quite make it.

So for me, it means I still have to fool around with SLI or Crossfire, and all the bugs and driver updates that entails.

For me, it is basically as bad as no release at all -- Especially at this price, I would have been better served by buying a 580 at release.

 

[Flipped Gazelle]

Deleted member 4644, cold we please just have a thread with a compilation of 7970 reviews from around the 'net, without the editorializing?

 

[arredondo]

^^^ That's this thread. People can editorialize all they want, but the first post and title should be free of that.

 

[Vipeax]

My current list:
http://nl.hardware.info/reviews/2472/amd-radeon-hd-7970-review
http://www.ixbt.com/video3/tahiti-part1.shtml
http://vr-zone.com/articles/amd-rad...ahiti-xt-from-the-southern-islands/14307.html
http://www.guru3d.com/article/amd-radeon-hd-7970-review/
http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/foru...iews/49646-amd-radeon-hd-7970-3gb-review.html
http://www.anandtech.com/show/5261/amd-radeon-hd-7970-review
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2011/12/21/amd_radeon_hd_7970_video_card_review
http://www.overclockers.com/amd-radeon-hd-7970-graphics-card-review/
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/HD_7970/
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-hd-7970-benchmark-tahiti-gcn,3104.html
http://www.hardwareheaven.com/revie...d-7970-graphics-card-review-introduction.html
http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1805/1/
http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphics-Cards/AMD-Radeon-HD-7970-3GB-Graphics-Card-Review-Tahiti-28nm
http://hothardware.com/Reviews/AMD-Radeon-HD-7970-28nm-Tahiti-GPU-Review/
http://hexus.net/tech/reviews/graphics/33031-amd-radeon-hd-7970-3gb/
http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/AMD-Radeon-HD-7970-Video-Card-Review/1458
http://www.maximumpc.com/article/fe..._7970_43_billion_transistors_pure_performance
http://icrontic.com/article/amd-radeon-7970
http://www.expertreviews.co.uk/graphics-cards/1289251/amd-radeon-hd-7970
http://www.computerbase.de/artikel/grafikkarten/2011/test-amd-radeon-hd-7970/
http://www.pcgameshardware.de/aid,8...111-PCI-Express-30-und-28nm/Grafikkarte/Test/

 

[3DVagabond]

kitguru.net

Includes socket 2011 pcie 3 results. :thumbsup:

 

[Grooveriding]

Any crossfire benches anywhere ?

It's impressive in the right situation, Crysis 2 is a runaway win. Sort of on the fence about getting two of these though. Not looking like the jump in performance I'd want out of a $1000 upgrade.

The BF3 number are what are putting me off personally.

 

[Vipeax]

Any crossfire benches anywhere ?

0 so far. I guess they were that short on review cards....

 

[badb0y]

You know I did some digging and check this out:

vs

Compared to the HD 5870 release it isn't even that bad....I think people had some ridiculous expectations. Albeit the HD 5870 released at $380~ .

 

[Flipped Gazelle]

Any crossfire benches anywhere ?

It's impressive in the right situation, Crysis 2 is a runaway win. Sort of on the fence about getting two of these though. Not looking like the jump in performance I'd want out of a $1000 upgrade.

The BF3 number are what are putting me off personally.

One site - maybe Tom's? - said something about 7970's being in such short supply that cards were not provided for Xfire.

 

[amenx]

Techpowerup performance summary, all resolutions:

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

 

[Flipped Gazelle]

Compared to the HD 5870 release it isn't even that bad....I think people had some ridiculous expectations. Albeit the HD 5870 released at $380~ .

Good find. I think AMD set this card to be as good as it needs to be, and can ramp it up pretty quickly when Nvidia catches up.

 

[Vipeax]

You can't link the performance summary without this one as well:
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/HD_7970/29.html

 

[NoStateofMind]

Personally I'm disappointed. I think the right price point is $449. For $549 it will trickle off the shelves IMO. GTX 580 is close enough in benches that the choice becomes a wash unless you are looking for eyefinity.

 

[Vipeax]

Btw, anyone else a bit confused by the 5970 performance ratio on the 7970 review? Right next to the 5870 and below the GTX480.

 

[RussianSensation]

The BF3 number are what are putting me off personally.

I think you'd really need to overclock those HD7970 cards to make it worthwhile from GTX580 level of performance in BF3. Early overclocking results are very favourable for BF3.

However, at stock clocks, HD7970 isn't much better than 20% over GTX580 in BF3. Looks like apoppin's estimates of 25-30% on average was right afterall. But with overclocking, the HD7970 just takes off (no wonder since 1125 vs. 925 is a 22% overclock). AMD went way too conservative with clock speeds. Should have shipped this card at 1050 mhz.

Also, the reference cooler seems loud. I'd probably wait for 3rd party cards with factory pre-overclocks, better aftermarket coolers and unlocked BIOS that lets you easily overclock past 1125mhz and not have the reference fan sound like a jet engine at > 1.1ghz overlcocks.

 

[genietime]

Nevermind, that must be a typo

 

[geokilla]

My pants are wet

 

[Silverforce11]

I think you'd really need to overclock those HD7970 cards to make it worthwhile from GTX580 level of performance in BF3. Early overclocking results are very favourable for BF3.

However, at stock clocks, HD7970 isn't much better than 20-25% over GTX580. Looks like apoppin was right afterall. But with overclocking, the HD7970 just takes off (no wonder since 1125 vs. 925 is a 22% overclock). AMD went way too conservative with clock speeds. Should have shipped this card at 1050 mhz.

Also, the reference cooler seems loud. I'd probably wait for 3rd party cards with factory pre-overclocks with better aftermarket coolers and unlocked BIOS that lets you easily overclock past 1125mhz and not have the reference fan sound like a jet engine.

We had lengthy speculation on performance estimate here, i think we came to the conclusion that it should be around 50% faster than 6970 and ~30% faster than gtx580. It met its target, with plenty of TDP and OC headroom to spare. I had speculated that its theoretical max should be around 66% faster than 6970, but on the condition of optimal drivers.

As to the fan, its got priority of temps so fan speed is high. 72C on load is low enough for users to manually lower the fan to around 35%. AMD fans (blower types) get very noisy above 40%, its a lot of airflow condensed through a small one way direction.

Edit: Here's official from AMD's Dave @ B3D forums "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!"

Plenty more room for improvements via drivers, GCN is too new.

 

[vas flam]

kitguru.net

Includes socket 2011 pcie 3 results. :thumbsup:

Holy wow! pci 3 may of actually made a dif :awe:

 

[badb0y]

I am going to keep my Shaman since I can no longer go water cooling anymore.....Going to push this card to the max, can't wait till the 9th!