AMD Radeon HD 7970 Video Card Review @ [H]

Wierdo said:
The way I see it, AMD's drivers are not bad, it's just the way they handle software dev support makes them lag up to a few weeks vs nVidia's updates sometimes, but when they come out they're usually just as good.

nVidia's has the edge here because they spend considerable funds on dealing with development houses in a more hands on fashion so that they get early access to the games and optimize them earlier than their competitor.

AMD's commented recently - see Anand's review - that they plan to direct more budget to doing the same thing to cater to this new market expectation, people don't have the patience to wait a few weeks for some of the new games to work optimally, they want it NOW. It's expensive but may be worth it considering the new generation of PC gamers with less patience for patches than past ones, even a couple weeks is no longer tolerated.
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AMD says a lot of things - the problem comes later with delivering what was promised :D
 
As for multi-monitor gaming, Star Wars: The Old Republic supports it out of the box and it works great. I can't wait to upgrade to one or two of these 7970s for my 3 23" monitors for the performance improvement. You guys that claim your consoles can do everything a PC can do because the PC just gets game ports... I'll keep chuckling while I enjoy my MMOs in their multi-monitor glory.

And yes, SWTOR looks incredible on 3 screens.
 
Trimlock said:
[H] has done these fun match ups before, they don't prove anything but are fun as hell!
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Well, they could prove something.

It becomes a battle between how well 3 GPUs in SLI scale, vs. two higher powered GPU's.

I still think the 580's will come out on top, but I think it would be much closer than many Nvidia fans would like :p
 
Zarathustra[H];1038200932 said:
Well, they could prove something.

It becomes a battle between how well 3 GPUs in SLI scale, vs. two higher powered GPU's.

I still think the 580's will come out on top, but I think it would be much closer than many Nvidia fans would like :p
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Yea you are right they CAN. But the [H] likes to prove stuff based on similar pricing, so for Kyle or Brent to say anything based on performance the pricing would have to be pretty close.

What would you expect them to say based on the more expensive Tri-SLI, especially if it out performs a 7970 CF? "Well they do cost quite a bit more!" and they already did do a review showing the less expensive 7970 beating out the 580 so the 7970's ground is already covered.

To me it would be as filler, plus Brent did mention they were waiting on a second to do CF testing. This might be a while before they include tri-SLI.
 
heatlesssun said:
The PC does support things like super high resolutions with multi-monitor technologies like Eyefinity, yes even some of those console ports work well with it like Skyrim and Batman AC that can easily use this kind of GPU power.
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Eric Demers of AMD alleged that certain DX11 games were over-engineered with tesselation artificially to make Nvidia products look better in benchmarks despite their being little to no improvement in the gaming experience from one level of tesselation to the next. One thing that Tahiti does is remove that obstacle.
 
My conclusion from this and other reviews out there is as follows.

One 7970 will give me an average of 83.3% of the performance of my 6970 crossfire setup in the type of games I play.

One overclocked 7970 will give me an average of 92.5% of the performance of my 6970 crossfire setup (which doesn't seem to overclock much at all)

So I could sell my two 6970's and pick up one of these and only lose 7.5% performance, and not have to deal with the hassle of crossfire profiles and titles that don't cooperate, and such.

WIN.

And if I find that one 7970 is not sufficient down the road, I could always pick up another...

In fact, as soon as the 7970's reliably are in stock places, I'll probably do just this. Sell both my Asus EAH6970 Direct CU II's either here in the FS/FT forum or on eBay and pick up a 7970.
 
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dook43 said:
Eric Demers of AMD alleged that certain DX11 games were over-engineered with tesselation artificially to make Nvidia products look better in benchmarks despite their being little to no improvement in the gaming experience from one level of tesselation to the next. One thing that Tahiti does is remove that obstacle.
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The Crysis 2 dx11 update is an example of this. Tesselation levels are waaaayyyy beyond what is nessisary,,
 
dook43 said:
Eric Demers of AMD alleged that certain DX11 games were over-engineered with tesselation artificially to make Nvidia products look better in benchmarks despite their being little to no improvement in the gaming experience from one level of tesselation to the next. One thing that Tahiti does is remove that obstacle.
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I wonder if he would be saying the same thing if Nvidia products were failing after certain level of tesselation is reached while AMD product is unaffected :D
 
Michaelius said:
I wonder if he would be saying the same thing if Nvidia products were failing after certain level of tesselation is reached while AMD product is unaffected :D
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Definitely not. But that doesn't mean he isn't right.

Do an experiment. Load up the Heaven benchmark. Start at the lowest tessellation setting, and then move your way up. be honest and stop when you feel you can no longer tell the difference.
 
Michaelius said:
I wonder if he would be saying the same thing if Nvidia products were failing after certain level of tesselation is reached while AMD product is unaffected :D
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instead of you going from amd thread to amd thread bitching about amd just put "I hate AMD" in your sig line and be done with it.

I don't even know why you come into the amd sections, since it's clear you have an issue with them.
 
Silent Knight said:
I wonder how would the 7970 perform in Bitcoin mining. :D
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Probably very well. Bitcoin mining is directly related to the amount of shaders & their speed. Hence why nvidia cannot compete there. The 7970 has more shaders than the now venerable 5870 and faster to boot while using significantly less power. But the cost may be too high to be worth it at current bitcoin prices.
 
heatlesssun said:
For $1100 there's just no way the performance gains are that substantial consistently to make it a meaningful upgrade for that price drivers and overclocking counted. More power efficient sure.
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Again, I disagree.

A 3GB 580 SLI owner can sell their cards for around $900, meaning the cost of 7970 crossfire is $200 to said user.

for only $200, that user gets 18 FPS more in BF3 at 2560x1600 according to hardware.fr

18 FPS more, at that resolution, is ENORMOUS bang-for-the-buck at a measly $200 for someone who has already invested $1,000+ into a 30 inch monitor and $1,200 into 3GB 580 SLI

as anyone with true [H]ardware will tell you, getting those kinds of FPS gains with already top-end hardware is incredible. "the faster you go, the harder it is to go incrementally faster"
 
This, exactly this. I am thankful that the secondary GPU market is as strong as it is, because it affords less pain during my yearly upgrades. After one year a gpu will loose 20%-30% of its value, but after three years the gpu is pretty much worthless. I would rather take the yearly $200-$500 hit and write it off as a "rental fee or lease fee" than to take the full hit 2-5 years down the gpus life line when it either dies or is completely obsolete.

That's_Corporate said:
Again, I disagree.

A 3GB 580 SLI owner can sell their cards for around $900, meaning the cost of 7970 crossfire is $200 to said user.

for only $200, that user gets 18 FPS more in BF3 at 2560x1600 according to hardware.fr

18 FPS more, at that resolution, is ENORMOUS bang-for-the-buck at a measly $200 for someone who has already invested $1,000+ into a 30 inch monitor and $1,200 into 3GB 580 SLI

as anyone with true [H]ardware will tell you, getting those kinds of FPS gains with already top-end hardware is incredible. "the faster you go, the harder it is to go incrementally faster"
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you guys in america might have 3gb 580's, doesnt exist here.
Overclocked blablalba, most people would want stock cards.
Low power consumtion
Eyefinity out of the box.
Good overclockability.
More performance for your $$$ £££ €€€.

How the hell isnt this a good launch, GTX580 is a damn good beast, but nooo way it gives 7970 any problems, who in their right mind buys GTX580 over 7970....
If you don't like something about AMD would wait for keppler in a few months and be happy with that.

Kudos to AMD to be on the top of the graphics.
 
I wonder how the 7970 fares with 5x 1080p monitors? I'm thinking you'd need at least 2 cards, and I'm wondering if 3 GB will be enough VRAM.
 
I've been looking around and noticed "1xS-Link DVI" for the 7970.. does this mean I can't run 120hz 1080p LCD straight off of DVI?
 
Yobbles said:
All of you planning to buy the 7970, enjoy playing your console port games designed for 5 year old hardware on your shiny new glorified doorstop. :)
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I wouldn't call this a doorstop
ffb041.jpg
 
I wonder if the Sapphire Atomic RX HD 7970 will be as fast as the HD 6990/GTX 590. Because I have a feeling its going to be priced similarly.
 
hmmm I might be selling my SLI 580s :)

Not sure what to ask for them. They have AC Accelero Plus coolers on them.
 
Man I want to jump on the 7970 at launch but really would like one of these factory OC cards with possible better cooling and would hate to regret not waiting a bit. What are the chances of these all being available on the 9th?
 
Mungojerrie said:
The weird part is that it is entirely unnecessary for AMD to paper launch a product.
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I guess they wanted to forestall Christmas GTX 580 purchases? Otherwise why buck the hard launch trend (especially for only 2 weeks or so).
 
Vegasr said:
Man I want to jump on the 7970 at launch but really would like one of these factory OC cards with possible better cooling and would hate to regret not waiting a bit. What are the chances of these all being available on the 9th?
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Yup, wasn't too impressed with these cards at first, but now that Sapphire is offering these crazy factory overclocked cards, I'm now very interested. It definitely would be nice to have these oc cards at launch, but I want to see benchmarks with these cards first. Hopefully, it's priced reasonably as well.
 
I just want to be able to pre-order them!!!!! Haven't seen them pop up anywhere. I'll pay for 2 of them now then sell my 580s later.
 
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