AMD Radeon HD 7970 Video Card Review @ [H]

My entire point is that AMD didn't do this in the past. This is exactly why I am disappointed with AMD now.
The numbers being correct is what makes this an especially painful slap in the face. If you don't believe them then I point you to TPU's averages and a calculator. If you still don't believe them then I point you to email TPU's editor, whoever that may be.
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"Hey look, the new ATI card is out and its 45% on average faster than its last card and the fastest single card out by 20% or so. I can't wait to pay $350 for it... wait what?"

The reason why ATI hasn't done this in awhile is because it hasn't had a clear cut performance lead in a while. 280 > 4870 and 4890, 480 > 5870, 580 > 6970... and nvidia priced the hell out of those things. Now that ATI has the upper hand, they aren't supposed to do the same? Do you think if the 4870 was 20% faster than the 280 that it wouldn't have been priced high? This is business, and they priced it, what I think, is perfectly. If your buying a high end card like a 580, you really should buy the 3GB version and the 7970 is faster and priced lower than that. So I don't get the complaints. And like someone said earlier, the thing I'm looking forward to the most is the 7950... based on past performances, it should be sitting right at 580 performance while being $100-150 cheaper and use less power... lets just hope they also carry a 3GB version of that.
 
If you don't like the price than don't buy it, i remember when Nvidia was the cheap solution compared to flagship ATi products x1950xt days. The fastest GPU can have the highest price and whats good for Nvidia is good for AMD. Bet you they will be sold out before u all can stop bitching about the price. Well done AMD i am definetly in for one 7970 now and a 7990 when it arrives :).
 
octoberasian said:
I have to admit, you have the best post by far in this thread! :D

I looked at other reviews and this card is lower at idle than my old Radeon 3870 from years ago! In other reviews, an overclocked 7970 is anywhere from 5 to 20 FPS short of Radeon 6990, faster than stock-clock 580, and can match, beat or is near a 580 SLI.

Crazy man, just crazy.

Aliens or not, that's friggin' impressive.
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I don't see it beating 580's in SLI??? It's a good card but lets not get ahead of ourselves lol :p.
 
sirmonkey1985 said:
read through the 4-8 pages(what ever you have your forum preferences set at) and its quite obvious people are ignoring the fact that its going up against a 600 dollar factory overclocked GTX 580 3GB custom PCB card.
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And, another fact that's probably overlooked by some people is that the custom GTX 580 is the only Nvidia card (to my knowledge) in the 500-series that can use more than one monitor similar to Eyefinity. That's without resorting to using two Nvidia cards in Nvidia Surround.

I believe that was necessary to do comparative tests in super-resolutions above 2560x1600. Without it, Brent would have probably reviewed games at Eyefinity-like resolutions using just the AMD Radeon cards from the 6900-series against the 7970.

To put this in perspective, a $550 Radeon 7970 is performing at playable framerates at high settings at 5760x1200 resolution using stocked clocks compared to a $600 customized Nvidia GTX 580 which is overclocked. Imagine what the 7970 can do overclocked now. And, at the same time, the 7970 is using less power at load with stocked frequencies than an overclocked GTX 580 at load using overclocked frequencies.

That says a lot right there, whether one wants to believe it or not.


refraxion said:
I don't see it beating 580's in SLI??? It's a good card but lets not get ahead of ourselves lol :p.
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Yeah, jumped the gun there. Lol. But it's still impressive nonetheless.
 
Yeah.. definitely killer cards for sure! I won't be making the switch or anything.. I won't even get Kepler when it comes out. I'm going to wait till the generation after and see where we're sitting for performance. I want a single card that can run all the bells and whistles at 2560x1440 with high AA and 60+fps average (should I say 50-60fps minimum fps, not average).... one can dream :p.
 
I was super excited reading about this card until I got to the price. I was hoping for the $400 range.

Even at $550 it is a good value compared to the 580 - however, I also refused to buy a 580 because of the price.

I'm still tempted to sell my 6950 and get one but I doubt I will until the price drops.
 
Techpower up relative performance 1920x1200:

perfrel_1920.gif
 
The comments on the msrp are amusing if you've been buying the top dog regularly the past decade. Folks have been spoiled the past two years. I think its priced appropriately. Man some over locked benches posted are impressive on stock volts.
 
i have a 480gtx and this does look attractive. when will waterblocks appear for these cards?
 
Johnny_Utah said:
I'm surprised that this card was not tested in a Sandy E rig. I am eager to see if there are any noticeable benefits of PCI-Express 3.0. Amy ideas?
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This site actually did performance comparisons in a pci-e 2.0 and 3.0 slots and found no difference
http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/AMD-Radeon-HD-7970-Video-Card-Review/1458/11

SixFootDuo said:
Sorry, I can't see any logic whatsoever in a $550 price point.
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Really?? Can't see any logic? I've spent over 700 hours in excel to bring home this point so pay attention please

w8ojr6.png

What I've done here is plot FPS in BF3 (src: Tom's) vs. lowest newegg price for these various parts (except of couse the 7970 we gather is $550). The orange line is what's called a line of best fit. Basically, anything above the line has an above average cost per performance and anything bellow the line has a bellow average cost per performance. Do we see a trend here? If you're having trouble with the conclusion I'll spell it out. Basically, the 7970 with OC has about the same price/performance as the 6970 and all AMD parts are a better value (in BF3) than NVidia parts. The logic for not making it cheaper is that they've never really been much cheaper in the price/performance area and they are already providing a better value than nvidia is with a price point of $550.

refraxion said:
I don't see it beating 580's in SLI??? It's a good card but lets not get ahead of ourselves lol :p.
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It almost matches a GTX 580 3GB SLI in Crysis 2

crysis2.jpg.jpeg
 
octoberasian said:
And, at the same time, the 7970 is using less power at load with stocked frequencies than an overclocked GTX 580 at load using overclocked frequencies.
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I would hope a stock clocked card would use less power than an overclocked one. And one would hope that a full die shrink would also use [a lot] less power than a non-shrunk part.
 
octoberasian said:
And, another fact that's probably overlooked by some people is that the custom GTX 580 is the only Nvidia card (to my knowledge) in the 500-series that can use more than one monitor similar to Eyefinity. That's without resorting to using two Nvidia cards in Nvidia Surround.

I believe that was necessary to do comparative tests in super-resolutions above 2560x1600. Without it, Brent would have probably reviewed games at Eyefinity-like resolutions using just the AMD Radeon cards from the 6900-series against the 7970.

To put this in perspective, a $550 Radeon 7970 is performing at playable framerates at high settings at 5760x1200 resolution using stocked clocks compared to a $600 customized Nvidia GTX 580 which is overclocked. Imagine what the 7970 can do overclocked now. And, at the same time, the 7970 is using less power at load with stocked frequencies than an overclocked GTX 580 at load using overclocked frequencies.

That says a lot right there, whether one wants to believe it or not.




Yeah, jumped the gun there. Lol. But it's still impressive nonetheless.
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And then there is the scary reality that it can do Eyefinity driving three 23" displays *by itself* - with each display at 1920x1080 - and remain on the sunny side of $600USD. Number of other GPUs that can do this - exactly zero. However, what's *really* frightening is that it is actually more efficient in terms of power than the HD6970; depending on the electricity bill, the price increase vs. HD6970 vs. power savings (same GPU) can well result in a lower (not higher) TCO over the GPU's lifetime because the power savings could well offset the initial price padding.

Yikes.
 
Like the resolutions with a single chip! Had my fill of duel video card configurations, I go all the way back to having 2 6800 ultra’s and think I paid six + bills for each one (seven + after Fatal1ty Zalman coolers); AMD’s price is fine and it comes with the adapters for Eyefinity (a big + in my mind).
 
*Puts the card on not buy list. :bleh:
Probably make more sense to nab a GTX 580 instead.
 
KickAssCop said:
*Puts the card on not buy list. :bleh:
Probably make more sense to nab a GTX 580 instead.
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LOL< are you just trolling. Yes it is not a gtx 580 killer, but you would rather buy a gtx 580 for less performance at this time? Unless you just purely hate ati.
 
SixFootDuo said:
Taking everything into account, yes, this is a new trend for AMD. It's not yet clear why they are abandoning the "affordability" aspect of their video cards, especially since this is a key area they had gained much success from in the past.

I've spent the last few hours digging around on single gpu prices and so far, this new $550 is sticking out like a sore thumb. Yes, there have been many many expensive cards but not $550 expensive.

If you look at past tends, we are absolutely in new uncharted territory. However you want to slice it, spin it, point of view it, put this into context, they are breaking new ground here. It's a bit alarming to more than a few of us.

Using just basic math, their new price point to performance ration vs the 6970 has them asking nearly a 90% premium price increase.
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More like AMD actually has performance to back up the price premium - which they have NOT had since the days of the original ATI 9xxx series (specifically 9800/97009600Pro/XT/AIW - nine SKUs that laid the smackdown on what nVidia could match at the time; however, they were not inexpensive by any means, especially in AIW trimmings). Here they have a GPU that has firmly locked up the performance crown, and it's not as far underneath the competition price-wise as it has been; however, it is still priced less than the same GPU competition it is beating with the ugly stick. Given the lower than expected yields (which doubtless are keeping pricing high), I can certainly understand the taller sticker.

What I don't get is that we are *all* certainly aware of the issues with yield - so why the blame-game?
 
PGHammer said:
And then there is the scary reality that it can do Eyefinity driving three 23" displays *by itself* - with each display at 1920x1080 - and remain on the sunny side of $600USD. Number of other GPUs that can do this - exactly zero. However, what's *really* frightening is that it is actually more efficient in terms of power than the HD6970; depending on the electricity bill, the price increase vs. HD6970 vs. power savings (same GPU) can well result in a lower (not higher) TCO over the GPU's lifetime because the power savings could well offset the initial price padding.

Yikes.
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TCO there's something you don't normally hear in video card discussions. Has anyone ever figured out how much these high end cards actually cost you per month to run?
 
larkin said:
Tom's certainly paints a different picture of the 7970's performance vs GTX 580 in BF2. The 7970's min FPS matches the 580's avg and beats its avg by 38%. With a standard OC, the 7970 will be well ahead by 50% and out pacing a 590 (priced at $750).
BF3%20Ultra%201080.png
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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!
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http://forum.beyond3d.com/showpost.php?p=1607915&postcount=1847
 
With rumored overclockability, I'll be waiting reviews to see if overclocking can bring 30% or more advantage in performance compared to GTX 580. And then I can finally recommend this card.

I don't buy cards over $300, 'cause I game mostly on 1080p, but some of my friends are eyefinity gamers, and they often ask me for hardware recommendations.
 
At least this time AMD didn't release another dud like Bulldozer, though its performance increase wasn't that great but I like how it uses less power than a GTX 580 and the heat output wasn't too bad either. So its a win in some cases.
 
Holy jumping jesus, how retarded do you have to be to believe that Bulldozer is any indication of what the GPU part of AMD can produce.
 
Definitely going to keep an eye out for the 7950. Looking at building a desktop next Feb/March, and power being so expensive where I live, I feel like it might be just the right performance vs. power consumption for me.
 
AMD zerocore power is probably the best thing yet. I have quadfire and know it sucks up a lot of juice at idle. I'd have to wait until some water blocks come out though and the price goes down some :)
 
Nice, but it is priced too high (I guess they don't need to worry about supply now).

I'll wait for Kepler and then choose.
 
I'd like to see some of these comparisons rerun once the 7970 is overclocked. I think a 7970 at 1.1 or 1.2 on the core would pull it further away than the overclocked 580 in the review. A 33% freq increase at default voltage is impressive. AMD has priced the card where it belongs compared to the competition, not in the bang for the buck category.

Hopefully the 7950 can be unlocked and become the new 6950
 
Great review guys..

I honestly don't think this is worth an upgrade at all from the 580, looking at the facts.

If you're gaming on 1920X1200 on a 60hz monitor, the increase in fps is minimal across the board and not worth the upgrade.

@ 2560x1600?; still, nope.
 
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