AMD Radeon HD 7970 Video Card Review @ [H]

cannondale06 said:
nice try but even you spent over 50 hours in the game. so again calling Batman Arkham City "a few hours long" is just ridiculous.
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no no, i have about 20 - with all collectables once and beating the game twice (new game +)

don't get me wrong, i love the game!
but it's not a big title, it's a console game, and the story isn't very long (but makes it up for it in quality, without a doubt)
 
That's_Corporate said:
no no, i have about 20 - with all collectables once and beating the game twice (new game +)

don't get me wrong, i love the game!
but it's not a big title, it's a console game, and the story isn't very long (but makes it up for it in quality, without a doubt)
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It comes across as a childrens game to me...

...like something I might have played as a kid on an 8bit NES. :rolleyes:

Arkham Asylum/City or whatever they are called couldn't interest me less.
 
Zarathustra[H];1038236699 said:
It comes across as a childrens game to me...

...like something I might have played as a kid on an 8bit NES. :rolleyes:

Arkham Asylum/City or whatever they are called couldn't interest me less.
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So what are the "adult games" you like to play? (oxymoron alert)
 
Zarathustra[H];1038236699 said:
It comes across as a childrens game to me...

...like something I might have played as a kid on an 8bit NES. :rolleyes:

Arkham Asylum/City or whatever they are called couldn't interest me less.
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well i was a big batman fan as a kid, so it tickles my fancy to be able to play as him :)
 
WorldExclusive said:
So what are the "adult games" you like to play? (oxymoron alert)
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Adult games? Like Leisure Suit Larry? :p

Meh, Each person likes their own stuff, but I tend to avoid anything platform or 3rd person regardless of genre.

Anything fantasy, or involving magic or at any level involving "super heroes" is also automatically out.

I do enjoy FPS games as long as they are NOT deathmatch (like that Quake/Unreal/Halo junk), have a high level of realism (as opposed to that CoD, or BF junk) or at least have a very compelling story (like Half-Life, S.T.A.L.K.E.R or Deus Ex)

I also enjoy strategy games (real time or turn based) like the Civilization series, as long as they are based in reality (unlike fantasy starcraft like junk)
 
Zarathustra[H];1038238185 said:
Adult games? Like Leisure Suit Larry? :p

Meh, Each person likes their own stuff, but I tend to avoid anything platform or 3rd person regardless of genre.

Anything fantasy, or involving magic or at any level involving "super heroes" is also automatically out.

I do enjoy FPS games as long as they are NOT deathmatch (like that Quake/Unreal/Halo junk), have a high level of realism (as opposed to that CoD, or BF junk) or at least have a very compelling story (like Half-Life, S.T.A.L.K.E.R or Deus Ex)

I also enjoy strategy games (real time or turn based) like the Civilization series, as long as they are based in reality (unlike fantasy starcraft like junk)
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Right, the ONLY games you like are Civilization and Kossacks. Admit that you simply don't like videogames.
 
So the prices came to shops in Poland.... it's horrible.
The cheapest 7970 is about 2700 PLN - $764 (with all the taxes and currency rates)
The cheapest 580 gtx is about 2000 PLN - $566

I'm not sure if AMD will find lots of sales with such prices. And there was not a single GPU card at that price for quite a time... think last that expensive was 280 gtx ultra.
 
AceCR42 said:
God damn dude just admit you don't like videogames.
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Falkentyne said:
Right, the ONLY games you like are Civilization and Kossacks. Admit that you simply don't like videogames.
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Maybe correct.

I typically dislike video games, but I am a huge fan of good Computer games :p it may seem like a silly distinction, but up until our age of console ports, computer games were always better and more mentally stimulating than their console counterparts.

I've bought or otherwise come into possession of (free games with video cards, etc.) the following games in the last several years. Some I've liked, others I've hated.

Code: 
Deus Ex Human Revolution + Tactical DLC (bought not yet played, but I'm looking forward to it.   Loved the original)

The Witcher: Enhanced Edition (not too sure about this one.   Heard great things, but I tend to hate fantasy styled stuff.   Bought it because it was on sale for $2.99)

Fallout 3: Was looking forward to this game, but it had a bad bug on my system which kept slowing it down to 5fps and making it unplayable.

Fallout: New Vegas Was looking forward to this game, but it had a bad bug on my system which kept slowing it down to 5fps and making it unplayable.

Red Orchestra 2 - Digital Deluxe Edition: Easily best game of 2011 for me.

Red Orchestra: Liked it, but got into it pretty late.   Graphics were painfully outdated.

Portal:  Loved it.  Great game.   Still looking forward to Portal 2 when it goes on sale.

Dead Space:  Absolute rubbish.   Got this free with a video card.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Clear Sky (ROW):  One of my favorite games of all time.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. CoP + SoC: Two of my favorite games of all time.

Just Cause 2:  Hated it.  Came free with a video card.

Metro 2033 Retail:  Pretty good. Good story, and great graphics.  felt constricted and scripted compared to Stalker though.

Civilization V - Deluxe Edition:  For me, easily best game of 2010.

The Deus Ex Collection  Re-bought the original on sale and re-played it.   It was just as enjoyable as the first time around.  Collection also came with Invisible War which I haven't even touched, cause I heard it sucked and would piss me off if I liked the original.

Half-Life 2: Episode Pack:  The Half life series has been a favorite ever since the original came out.

Sid Meier's Civilization IV Complete Edition: One of my favorite games of all time.

Counter-Strike: Source   Thoroughly enjoyed it for many years after college, but it comes across as not realistic enough these days after playing more intense FPS games like RO2.

Half-Life 2 Bronze: The Half life series has been a favorite ever since the original came out.

Condition Zero:  Never really played it.

Counter-Strike:  Loved it back in the day (pretty much all I did in college), but it comes across as not realistic enough these days after playing more intense FPS games like RO2.

Half-Life Platinum Pack:  By far, best game of the 90s.

Since Steam came out that's pretty much everything.

Just because I'm picky about only playing games I think are of higher quality, doesn't mean I don't like games.
 
I really wish there were review sites that compared these new cards to previous generation SLI or Crossfire setups. It'd be nice to see some numbers to tell me what kind of performance increase I could expect going from a 5850 crossfire setup to a 7970. With 5850s still being fairly potent, and crossfire being such a cheap option now, I feel like that kind of comparison can definitely be relevant.
 
Daggah said:
I really wish there were review sites that compared these new cards to previous generation SLI or Crossfire setups. It'd be nice to see some numbers to tell me what kind of performance increase I could expect going from a 5850 crossfire setup to a 7970. With 5850s still being fairly potent, and crossfire being such a cheap option now, I feel like that kind of comparison can definitely be relevant.
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There is no good way to get there directly, unfortunately, but we can do estimates.

If you compare the 5850CF with the single 6970 in Anandtechs 2011 GPU benchmarks, the 5850CF has an - on average - 16.3% performance advantage.

Then if you compare the 6970 to the 7970 in anandtechs 2012 GPU benchmarks, the 7970 has an average of 37.4% performance advantage.

Throw this all together, and it looks like the 7970 has an ~20% performance advantage over the 5850CF setup.

Now this comes with disclaimers - of course. The comparisons are not on the same platforms or in the same titles, so it won't be particularly accurate, but it should give you at least an estimate of where things are, and won't be as poor as you might think, as averaging it out over many titles should minimize the inaccuracies of this method.

A single GPU performing 20% better than two in CFX is not bad at all, especially since single GPU gaming always feels better and more fluid than dual GPU gaming.
 
that overclocking article [H] did was such an eye opener
screw two of these, looks like just one overclocked is enough for my 30"
and with a game as demanding as BF3 at that res, that's an incredible feat
 
Zarathustra[H];1038241543 said:
There is no good way to get there directly, unfortunately, but we can do estimates.

If you compare the 5850CF with the single 6970 in Anandtechs 2011 GPU benchmarks, the 5850CF has an - on average - 16.3% performance advantage.

Then if you compare the 6970 to the 7970 in anandtechs 2012 GPU benchmarks, the 7970 has an average of 37.4% performance advantage.

Throw this all together, and it looks like the 7970 has an ~20% performance advantage over the 5850CF setup.

Now this comes with disclaimers - of course. The comparisons are not on the same platforms or in the same titles, so it won't be particularly accurate, but it should give you at least an estimate of where things are, and won't be as poor as you might think, as averaging it out over many titles should minimize the inaccuracies of this method.

A single GPU performing 20% better than two in CFX is not bad at all, especially since single GPU gaming always feels better and more fluid than dual GPU gaming.
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I definitely agree with your final point. There will always be less hassle with a single card setup. I'm just not sure that a 20% performance increase is worth $550 (before selling off my 5850s.)

Thanks for the rough estimate, I appreciate that.
 
The 7970 has a single link DVI output so my question is; If I get a 30" monitor & want to set it to 2560x1600 resolution how many DVI cables do I have to hook up to it ? 2 or 1 ?
 
Dantrax said:
The 7970 has a single link DVI output so my question is; If I get a 30" monitor & want to set it to 2560x1600 resolution how many DVI cables do I have to hook up to it ? 2 or 1 ?
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where are you getting that from? DVI on the 7970 is dual link just like any other modern video card.
 
My bad, the included adaptors dp to dvi & hdmi to dvi are single link. So 1 dual link DVI cable from the 7970 to a 30" monitor will get me 2560x1600, am I correct?
 
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Daggah said:
I definitely agree with your final point. There will always be less hassle with a single card setup. I'm just not sure that a 20% performance increase is worth $550 (before selling off my 5850s.)

Thanks for the rough estimate, I appreciate that.
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well look at it this way.. you get an estimated 20% improvement with much less power usage and heat output. not to mention another 20-30% with the insane overclocking headroom of the 7970. in my opinion its win win even at 550 bucks not to mention the 7k series doesn't have the broken crossfire that the 5800 series has.
 
Yeah i replaced my 5870CF with 7970 - like just having 1 card and for 1080p it is more than enough, although i am still considering adding a 7990 :)
 
robble said:
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.
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famous last words.. i bought one within hours of it going on sale :D
 
Well worth it, imo.

Without touching voltage, I overclocked mine from stock (925/1375) to 1110/1510 with no stability issues.

Gets similar benchmark scores to my friends 2x6970 Xfire setup.
 
Got my annual portion of my reenlistment bonus and now I'm thinking about buying a 7970. /sigh
 
I'll come back and edit this post after I install my 7970 and re-run the benchmark, but I forgot to write down the score....so I want to get this down before I forget.

Unigine 2.5 benchmark @ 1920x1200
2x 5850s: 1340 score (no OC)
1x 7970: 1599 score (no OC)

Performance difference: 19.33%

1920x1200
DirectX 11
Shaders: high
Tesselation: normal
Anisotropy: 4
Anti-aliasing: off
Full screen
 
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