AMD Radeon HD 7970 Overclocking Performance Review @ [H]

For those wondering why AMD would have clocks so low, I think it might have something to do with wanting the 7990 to be at ~same clocks as a single 7970. It was fast enough to become the undisputed single GPU champ, and that was enough.

Any chance you'd tell us if we guessed right ob the "secret upcoming review"? I'm guessing it a water cooled 7970 (or two?). Or, maybe a 7950?

I can't imagine that they have any 7990's in the wild yet and I don't think nVidia are ready to join the fight.
 
holy_robin_quotes.jpg


Want!
 
That's_Corporate said:
actually, there's MANY reasons why they wouldn't
frankly i'm too lazy to explain it to you - but just look around xtremesystems and here in the next few days... the great overclocks [H] got are not freaks of nature
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You only needed to say one word, "money".
 
cannondale06 said:
well thats nonsense and you know it. :rolleyes:
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I don't know it's THAT fast but... at 70% faster than an oc'd GTX 580 (which is faster than a 6970 by a good margin), it's fast as hell.

Thanks to That's Corporate for posting that XS link, hadn't seen that yet!
 
I don't think we have seen this kind of headroom and/or performance improvement (in the 20% range) from overclocking since forever. At best, I have seen maybe 10-15% tops.
 
Yobbles said:
Pre-release review samples seem to always overclock well and are not always indicative of what us chumps will get in retail. If they overclocked so well across the board don't you think AMD would have set the base clock higher? OF COURSE!!!
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Let me know where I can get a tinfoil cap too, thanks. :rolleyes: I would suggest just the opposite is true, the more mature the process gets as parts ramp up, the better they handle OCing on a wide range. At least that is our experience, and if you are hearing otherwise, maybe you should be listening to other folks besides the ones you are.
 
Yobbles said:
I'm skeptical. Pre-release review samples seem to always overclock well and are not always indicative of what us chumps will get in retail. If they overclocked so well across the board don't you think AMD would have set the base clock higher? OF COURSE!!!
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clocks are sometimes lowered because of power draw. amd wants to keep the card in a certain power range. look at the gtx480, how high could that overclock? nvidia kept it a lower clock speeds because when you oc it it draws 2 million watts (i rounded!!).
 
tricky0502 said:
clocks are sometimes lowered because of power draw. amd wants to keep the card in a certain power range. look at the gtx480, how high could that overclock? nvidia kept it a lower clock speeds because when you oc it it draws 2 million watts (i rounded!!).
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As I mentioned previously. TDP and power envelopes must be satisfied. :D
 
My 7970 CFX worked out well, no problems at all. Was playing St.Row III at 3200x1920 with ULTRA presets. One one single 7970, on a specific mission I was getting 23FPS (and 1100 GPU), with CFX (975 GPUs) I was getting 40FPS on the same mission, so very nice scaling.

One GPU was running 78C under load, the other about 72C. Slightly noisy, but I had the case off too, need to put that door back on and run again. Still MUCH QUIETER than my 580 SLI and a good bit faster too.
 
That's_Corporate said:
can you speak to any stuttering/micro-stuttering/nano-stuttering/quantum-stuttering that people seem to freak out about?
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None that I see, but I have always assumed I am not sensitive to it. I can point micro-stutter out in any game if I sit and obsess about it and look for it. My gameplay experience kicked ass, nice and smooth, easy to navigate, solid reticle control, etc....
 
The overclocking headroom is just insane! No wonder AMD isn't afraid to price the card that much.
 
given Nvidias bitching about the 28nm process and "blaming" them for their issues. I HIGHLY doubt Kepler will be a) on time (its already slipped) and b) competitive.

It seems PR ppl run Nvidia now and not the engineers. Which is a real shame cos it would provide some interesting competition. Right now the only real moneymakers at NV are the Tecra chips. They need to knuckle down and fix their engineering issues. Get Kepler on 28nm hammered out and get that insane power usage DOWN. Because when you are making noises about sucking more than 300W for a gfx card and asking for the standards to be changed? Something is WRONG.
 
Yobbles said:
I'm skeptical. Pre-release review samples seem to always overclock well and are not always indicative of what us chumps will get in retail. If they overclocked so well across the board don't you think AMD would have set the base clock higher? OF COURSE!!!
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Well if Yobbles says it's not possible then it's just not fucking possible. :rolleyes:
 
Brent_Justice said:
heh, not that

7970 CFX
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You ruined the surprise! Oh well, I'm still really excited to read the review when it gets posted. Really haven't wanted a video card this bad since I got my 9700 Pro, and this time I might actually be able to get one!
 
Can't wait for [H]'s CFX Eyefinity review. Best place for triple screen goodness.
 
rUmX said:
Can't wait for [H]'s CFX Eyefinity review. Best place for triple screen goodness.
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I hope they also o/c it in the same review!

then pit it against the 580 sli stock and o/c'ed.

(yes, i like seeing a slaughter)
 
GoldenTiger said:
Not to mention the people with retail cards in-hand now getting similar results :p.
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I think it's all a conspiracy, personally. I mean, everyone posting great scores and OC screenshots?

Bah! They all work for AMD and are using specially binned chips on LN2...yeah...that's the ticket!

And while everyone is admiring the benchmark numbers they posted, no one's paying attention to TSMC...where an AMD Special Forces unit led by Dirk Meyer in camo paint is throwing talcum powder and dog feces into the clean room where the nVidia Kepler chips are being fabbed so that nVidia's yields suck balls and they're delayed.

I think that's it in a nutshell. All you AMD fanbois can just stop with the misinformation now. you been served!

[/Oh Snap!]
 
I can explain exactly why AMD did this. It's called "gpu harvesting" along with "future products". Do not be surprised in the near future when AMD releases a very bad ass new video card with more shaders, better cooling and much more highter clocks that will simply destroy what we are seeing today. This smaller die + all the new features have really opened the door for new stellar performance. I am still against the high pricing of this card but I will admit, I am extremely excited about the future of what's possible with this GPU.
 
chithanh said:
Even if there is no need, 7970 CF scales nicely beyond 2 cards, especially at Eyefinity resolutions :)
http://nl.hardware.info/reviews/2506/19/amd-radeon-hd-7970-quad-crossfirex-eyefinity-review-schaling
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Wow... I don't think I've ever seen 299% Scaling with 3 cards under any circumstances before EVER. Thats unreal!!!

BTW- some of those benchmarks looked like they might be CPU bound (especially Crysis 2 with how 2 card scaling increases with res), but I don't read German.
 
Kepler is in deep shit if it comes out like another super hot jet engine, aka the 480....NV has proven they don't care about TDP or noise as long as they are faster.
 
fps4ever said:
Kepler is in deep shit if it comes out like another super hot jet engine, aka the 480....NV has proven they don't care about TDP or noise as long as they are faster.
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If they are using the fast/hot process and going for the clockspeed the fanboys above are hoping for, it certainly will. Don't bet on the 3GHz shaders.
 
fps4ever said:
Kepler is in deep shit if it comes out like another super hot jet engine, aka the 480....NV has proven they don't care about TDP or noise as long as they are faster.
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I remember another company taking that route about 1 generation before they collapsed...

3dFx

Not saying it'll happen here because nVidia is too divested and does VERY well in other areas, but if they put out another 480 type card, they'd better be prepared for a very lean year of discrete graphics sales.
 
notarat said:
I remember another company taking that route about 1 generation before they collapsed...

3dFx

Not saying it'll happen here because nVidia is too divested and does VERY well in other areas, but if they put out another 480 type card, they'd better be prepared for a very lean year of discrete graphics sales.
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Yea, I'm for once in some time expecting this year to be mostly amd:

1) no news on Kepler, with rumors now that there'll be nothing at all until June
2) 7970 launch above expectations
3) a LOT of headroom in the 7 series, not to mention disabled shaders
3a)yields on 7 series didn't seem to be in short supply, so process more mature than we thought?

The last two seem to indicate that amd could easily have something waiting in the wings, and with nvidia's current stance I'm not sure what to expect from Kepler when it finally releases. Should be an interesting year in gpu's.
 
Tiporaro said:
3a)yields on 7 series didn't seem to be in short supply, so process more mature than we thought?
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agreed!
the fact it's a day after launch and there's still some on newegg, despite an instant sellout on the 9th, tells me AMD was able to produce a good amount of these
 
That's_Corporate said:
agreed!
the fact it's a day after launch and there's still some on newegg, despite an instant sellout on the 9th, tells me AMD was able to produce a good amount of these
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yea they had sufficient stock built up along time ago, but chose to make everyone think they would be in short supply TO BUILD UP DEMAND for launch day.

This in turn caused the sell out @newegg, which told them exactly what they wanted to hear....that LOTS of (apparently wealthy) people would be buying this card, regardless of the price or other considerations........


If they hadn't done this & the initial sales @$599 weren't that great, they would have had to very quickly start to cut the prices to get rid of the initial stock....which is N O T what they wanted to have to do........

end result: consumers get squeezed again & the Corp shitheads get more richer more quickly :eek:

typical greedy bastards :)
 
Private companies making a profit, and people wanting to hand over their money. What has this world come to =)

bonehead123 said:
yea they had sufficient stock built up along time ago, but chose to make everyone think they would be in short supply TO BUILD UP DEMAND for launch day.

This in turn caused the sell out @newegg, which told them exactly what they wanted to hear....that LOTS of (apparently wealthy) people would be buying this card, regardless of the price or other considerations........


If they hadn't done this & the initial sales @$599 weren't that great, they would have had to very quickly start to cut the prices to get rid of the initial stock....which is N O T what they wanted to have to do........

end result: consumers get squeezed again & the Corp shitheads get more richer more quickly :eek:

typical greedy bastards :)
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bonehead123 said:
yea they had sufficient stock built up along time ago, but chose to make everyone think they would be in short supply TO BUILD UP DEMAND for launch day.

This in turn caused the sell out @newegg, which told them exactly what they wanted to hear....that LOTS of (apparently wealthy) people would be buying this card, regardless of the price or other considerations........


If they hadn't done this & the initial sales @$599 weren't that great, they would have had to very quickly start to cut the prices to get rid of the initial stock....which is N O T what they wanted to have to do........

end result: consumers get squeezed again & the Corp shitheads get more richer more quickly :eek:

typical greedy bastards :)
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OR!

the Corp shitheads made a good product that people wanted, and had a good manufacturing chain with good yields

oh right, this is AMD, it's fashionable to bash them regardless of WHAT they do - i forgot
 
bonehead123 said:
yea they had sufficient stock built up along time ago, but chose to make everyone think they would be in short supply TO BUILD UP DEMAND for launch day.

This in turn caused the sell out @newegg, which told them exactly what they wanted to hear....that LOTS of (apparently wealthy) people would be buying this card, regardless of the price or other considerations........


If they hadn't done this & the initial sales @$599 weren't that great, they would have had to very quickly start to cut the prices to get rid of the initial stock....which is N O T what they wanted to have to do........

end result: consumers get squeezed again & the Corp shitheads get more richer more quickly :eek:

typical greedy bastards :)
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Well you earned your handle with this post
 
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