AMD Radeon HD 7970 Video Card Review @ [H]

notarat said:
I wouldn't call this a doorstop
ffb041.jpg
Click to expand...

Thats ~50% higher score than my two 6970's at stock speeds on my [email protected]...
 
Why is do the other two on the sapphire pic have 2304 shaders? thats 256 more shaders than the 2048 which is being released. Is AMD planning to unlock those later?
 
Quartz-1 said:
Why would it be particularly expensive? RAM is relatively cheap. Call it +$100?
Click to expand...

6gb alone could increase the price by 100, next you have SIX mini-dp ports (6 displays, single card) and you got one hell of an expensive card.
 
Trimlock said:
6gb alone could increase the price by 100, next you have SIX mini-dp ports (6 displays, single card) and you got one hell of an expensive card.
Click to expand...

What's so expensive about having 6 mini-dps? The normal cards have 4 video ports. Yes, it's going to command a premium, simply from having the extra VRAM, but it shouldn't command much more of a premium than that.
 
Wait...

Sapphire is going to have a 7970 that comes @ 1335 on the core out of the box?

:eek:
 
I thought it was impressive when I saw some reviewers doing 1165 on the core. Oh man, I am so buying one of these cards. Wonder if Asus is going to make an uber version of the card...

Anywho, I'm going to buy the 7970 that has the highest quality voltage regulation and drop that baby under WC.
 
Last edited:
Blacklash said:
Anywho, I'm going to buy the 7970 that has the highest quality voltage regulation and drop that baby under WC.
Click to expand...

According to that picture, Sapphire will be doing a card with in-built water cooling.

Having read the article on the PNY Geforce 580 with water cooling, I don't know why high-end cards don't come with it as standard now.
 
Quartz-1 said:
Why would it be particularly expensive? RAM is relatively cheap. Call it +$100?
Click to expand...

It depends on whether or not the reference PCB allows memory on the backside, more than likely it doesn't, which means a custom PCB, more so since I haven't seen any company use die/package stacking for GDDR5.

Thinking about the clocks on the to Atomic 7970s, I wonder if Sapphire will use dual 8pin connectors.
 
JMccovery said:
It depends on whether or not the reference PCB allows memory on the backside, more than likely it doesn't, which means a custom PCB, more so since I haven't seen any company use die/package stacking for GDDR5.

Thinking about the clocks on the to Atomic 7970s, I wonder if Sapphire will use dual 8pin connectors.
Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure they're allowed to do what they want with it as soon as it's released. Basically, if you want a souped-up version with a massive OC with X amount of memory and water cooling then all that needs to happen is someone in asus/xfx/giga/msi/saph/powercolor/his needs to make that decision :p Before, AMD would force them to make reference designs for a period of weeks/months before the custom versions were produced. With this release anything is possible from day one.

I'd expect these modified cooling/OC editions to cost more, but considering just how well this thing overclocks and the potential performance gains I don't think many people are bitching about the cost anymore. Looks like Sapphire has the right idea.
 
Last edited:
Quartz-1 said:
What's so expensive about having 6 mini-dps? The normal cards have 4 video ports. Yes, it's going to command a premium, simply from having the extra VRAM, but it shouldn't command much more of a premium than that.
Click to expand...

You said out your self, unique. Those cards have 1 dvi, 1 hdmi and 2 mini dp. These have six (preferred connectors) and onto of that,.slightly oc'ed, and 6gb. That is going to cost a lot.
 
Quartz-1 said:
According to that picture, Sapphire will be doing a card with in-built water cooling.

Having read the article on the PNY Geforce 580 with water cooling, I don't know why high-end cards don't come with it as standard now.
Click to expand...
So Agree with this statement. Water-cooling should be the standard on the high end. It is a PITA to find a block for a non-reference card, and the price for a block with a new card borders obscene.
 
The review stated the 7970 was near silent and cool at load and could still be OCed w/o any voltage increase. Unless you want to go mad [H] OC crazy, why go for the big $$$ to WC? The loudest part in my PC is my HD5970, which I'm tired of listening to. So I wanted to replace it with an HD7990 (if quieter than a 6990) but I might try a 7970 for some quiet performance instead.
 
Dantrax said:
The review stated the 7970 was near silent and cool at load and could still be OCed w/o any voltage increase. Unless you want to go mad [H] OC crazy, why go for the big $$$ to WC?
Click to expand...

Because as the article for the PNY indicated, it's not much extra - and with large quantities will come reduced cost. And noise isn't something to which [H] pays much attention, but is important to me. Further, water cooling allows for single slot designs, or allow for short cards in the next slot, which can be important when space is at a premium.
 
looks like a solid card. My wallet doesnt agree. Waiting on the green team for a rebuttal.
 
NIVO said:
looks like a solid card. My wallet doesnt agree. Waiting on the green team for a rebuttal.
Click to expand...

That's going to be to tough of a wait for me. Looks like I'm going with Team Red for the first time since the 4870 X2 :D
 
Quartz-1 said:
According to that picture, Sapphire will be doing a card with in-built water cooling.

Having read the article on the PNY Geforce 580 with water cooling, I don't know why high-end cards don't come with it as standard now.
Click to expand...

I agree. The question is will the WC versions of the 7970 have average WC and be overpriced.

I may very well get the Sapphire WC version. I will wait and see the details.
 
Last edited:
so if these cards can get up to 1,300 on the GPU, that should be in the same league as a 6990

so that means when you compare 2 x 7970 to 2 x 6990 you'd get:
- far better performance due to superior scaling with 2 GPU's vs. 4 GPU's
- far less power & heat
- the option to add another 7970 that you can't do with quad-fire 6990's
- immense compute performance

...all for $300 less - freaking awesome in my book
 
That's_Corporate said:
so if these cards can get up to 1,300 on the GPU, that should be in the same league as a 6990

so that means when you compare 2 x 7970 to 2 x 6990 you'd get:
- far better performance due to superior scaling with 2 GPU's vs. 4 GPU's
- far less power & heat
- the option to add another 7970 that you can't do with quad-fire 6990's
- immense compute performance

...all for $300 less - freaking awesome in my book
Click to expand...

I've already got a nice amount of $$ set aside just for these so I'm biding my time waiting for the top over clocking card to be named, and then I'll buy two of them to replace my 6970s.

Oh...and cold 7970 cards are hitting 1.7GHz core and 2GHz memory...
 
Man, since it appears like these bad boys will overclock like crazy, what are the chances of an overclocked 7970 beating out two GTX 580's SLI in performance? Is that even remotely possible?
 
One thing I'm concerned on is Newegg's price gouging. If these 6970s go like hotcakes, places, especially NE, will increase the price pretty fast. So, the $549 might be day one only. :(
 
addictedto60fps said:
Man, since it appears like these bad boys will overclock like crazy, what are the chances of an overclocked 7970 beating out two GTX 580's SLI in performance? Is that even remotely possible?
Click to expand...

Well it takes 1650 on the core for one of these to do more than 14k GPU in 3dmark11.

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums...er-feedback!&p=5024064&viewfull=1#post5024064

Still one @ 1335 should pass a stock 6990 and 590 in real gaming. IMO, that's awesome for a single GPU.

I'm a single GPU guy myself, so I'll definitely be getting one of these and overclocking it.
 
Last edited:
I know that there have been countless reviews ad nauseum, but I don't believe anyone has mentioned this in their gtx 580 versus 7970 comparison, which I find quite interesting:

What I did notice is the colours in games seemed more vivid on the ATI cards which to my eyes was more pleasing, I felt the ATI card gave a visually better gaming experience.
Click to expand...

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18357459
 
Mungojerrie said:
The weird part is that it is entirely unnecessary for AMD to paper launch a product.
Click to expand...
At Beyond3D forums, Dave Baumann explained why they decided to launch earlier than originally planned.
Dave Baumann said:
And this is largely driven by the timing relative to the holiday period. With both product shipping now and samples having to go to press pre-Christmas leaving that amount of time was bound to create leaks and some reviews going early; this thread over the last week or so is a testiment to the lack of respect over embargo material given to certain parties, leaving it another 2 weeks would have been a lot worse in that respect.
Click to expand...
 
So they refuse to announce Bulldozer specs because doing so would cannibalize sales of existing products, but they are fine announcing the new video card early? I'm sure it has nothing to do with Bulldozer sucking and the 7970 rocking. :rolleyes:
 
Quartz-1 said:
According to that picture, Sapphire will be doing a card with in-built water cooling.

Having read the article on the PNY Geforce 580 with water cooling, I don't know why high-end cards don't come with it as standard now.
Click to expand...

cyrusfox said:
So Agree with this statement. Water-cooling should be the standard on the high end. It is a PITA to find a block for a non-reference card, and the price for a block with a new card borders obscene.
Click to expand...

A LOT of high end users don't run WC....completely disagree with these statements.

I guess maybe a "standard" WC edition in addition to the normal cards, but that's usually the case anyway.
 
Forceman said:
So they refuse to announce Bulldozer specs because doing so would cannibalize sales of existing products, but they are fine announcing the new video card early? I'm sure it has nothing to do with Bulldozer sucking and the 7970 rocking. :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

It has to do with partners announcing their product line up at ces
 
MavericK96 said:
A LOT of high end users don't run WC....completely disagree with these statements.
Click to expand...

The PNY has a complete sealed unit, like the Corsair H80. No complex fluid cooling system required. As long as you've got a spare 120mm fan bay, you're good to go.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top