AMD Radeon HD 7970 Review: 28nm And Graphics Core Next, Together As One
by Ryan Smith on December 22, 2011 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
- AMD
- Radeon
- ATI
- Radeon HD 7000
Crysis: Warhead
Kicking things off as always is Crysis: Warhead. It’s no longer the toughest game in our benchmark suite, but it’s still a technically complex game that has proven to be a very consistent benchmark. Thus even 4 years since the release of the original Crysis, “but can it run Crysis?” is still an important question, and the answer continues to be “no.” While we’re closer than ever, full Enthusiast settings at a 60fps is still beyond the grasp of a single-GPU card.
This year we’ve finally cranked our settings up to full Enthusiast quality for 2560 and 1920, so we can finally see where the bar lies. To that extent the 7970 is closer than any single-GPU card before as we’d imagine, but it’s going to take one more jump (~20%) to finally break 60fps at 1920.
Looking at the 7970 relative to other cards, there are a few specific points to look at; the GTX 580 is of course its closest competitor, but we can also see how it does compared to AMD’s previous leader, the 6970, and how far we’ve come compared to DX10 generation cards.
One thing that’s clear from the start is that the tendency for leads to scale with the resolution tested still stands. At 2560 the 7970 enjoys a 26% lead over the GTX 580, but at 1920 that’s only a 20% lead and it shrinks just a bit more to 19% at 1680. Even compared to the 6970 that trend holds, as a 32% lead is reduced to 28% and then 26%. If the 7970 needs high resolutions to really stretch its legs that will be good news for Eyefinity users, but given that most gamers are still on a single monitor it may leave AMD closer to 40nm products in performance than they’d like.
Speaking of 40nm products, both of our dual-GPU entries, the Radeon HD 6990 and GeForce GTX 590 are enjoying lofty leads over the 7970 even with the advantage of its smaller fabrication process. To catch up to those dual-GPU cards from the 6970 would require a 70%+ increase in performance, and even with a full node difference it’s clear that this is not going to happen. Not that it’s completely out of reach for the 7970 once you start looking at overclocking, but the reduction in power usage when moving from TSMC 40nm to 28nm isn’t nearly large enough to make that happen while maintaining the 6970’s power envelope. Dual-GPU owners will continue to enjoy a comfortable lead over even the 7970 for the time being, but with the 7970 being built on a 28nm process the power/temp tradeoff for those cards is even greater compared to 40nm products.
Meanwhile it’s interesting to note just how much progress we’ve made since the DX10 generation though; at 1920 the 7970 is 130% faster than the GTX 285 and 170% faster than the Radeon HD 4870. Existing users who skip a generation are a huge market for AMD and NVIDIA, and with this kind of performance they’re in a good position to finally convince those users to make the jump to DX11.
Finally it should be noted that Crysis is often a good benchmark for predicting overall performance trends, and as you will see it hasn’t let us down here. How well the 7970 performs relative to its competition will depend on the specific game, but 20-25% isn’t too far off from reality.
Looking at our minimum framerates it’s a bit surprising to see that while the 7970 has a clear lead when it comes to average framerates the minimums are only significantly better at 2560. At that resolution the lowest framerate for the 7970 is 23.5 versus 20 for the GTX 580, but at 1920 that becomes a 2fps, 5% difference. It’s not that the 7970 was any less smooth in playing Crysis, but in those few critical moments it looks to be dipping a bit more than the GTX 580.
Compared to the 6970 on the other hand the minimum framerate difference is much larger and much more consistent. At 2560 the 7970’s minimums are 29% better, and even at lower resolutions it holds at around 25%. Clearly even with AMD’s new architecture their designs still inherit some of the traits of their old designs.
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RussianSensation - Thursday, December 22, 2011 - link
That's not what the review says. The review clearly explains that it's the best single-GPU for gaming. There is nothing biased about not being mind-blown by having a card that's only 25% faster than GTX580 and 37% faster than HD6970 on average, considering this is a brand new 28nm node. Name a single generation where AMD's next generation card improved performance so little since Radeon 8500?There isn't any!
SlyNine - Friday, December 23, 2011 - link
2900XT ? But I Don't remember if that was a new node and what the % of improvement was beyond the 1950XT.But still this is a 500$ card, and I don't think its what we have come to expect from a new node and generation of card. However some people seem more then happy with it, Guess they don't remember the 9700PRO days.
takeulo - Thursday, December 22, 2011 - link
as ive read the review this is not a disappointment infact its only a single gpu card but it toughly competing or nearly chasing with the dual gpu's graphics card like 6990 and gtx 590 performance...imagine that 7970 is also a dual gpu?? it will tottally dominate the rest... sorry for my bad english..
eastyy - Thursday, December 22, 2011 - link
the price vs performance is the most important thing for me at the moment i have a 460 that cost me about £160 at the time and that was a few years ago...seems like the cards now for the same price dont really give that much of a increaseMorg. - Thursday, December 22, 2011 - link
What seems unclear to the writer here is that in fact 6-series AMD was better in single GPU than nVidia.Like miles better.
First, the stock 6970 was within 5% of the gtx580 at high resolutions (and excuse me, but if you like a 500 bucks graphics board with a 100 bucks screen ... not my problem -- ).
Second, if you put a 6970 OC'd at GTX580 TDP ... the GTX580 is easily 10% slower.
So overall . seriously ... wake the f* up ?
The only thing nVidia won at with fermi series 2 (gtx5xx) is making the most expensive highest TDP single GPU card. It wasn't faster, they just picked a price point AMD would never target .. and they got i .. wonderful.
However, AMD raped nVidia all the way in perf/watt/dollar as they did with Intel in the Server CPU space since Opteron Istanbul ...
If people like you stopped spouting random crap, companies like AMD would stand a chance of getting the market share their products deserve (sure their drivers are made of shit).
Leyawiin - Thursday, December 22, 2011 - link
The HD 7970 is a fantastic card (and I can't wait to see the rest of the line), but the GTX 580 was indisputably better than the HD 6970. Stock or OC'd (for both).Morg. - Friday, December 23, 2011 - link
Considering TDP, price and all - no.The 6970 lost maximum 5% to the GTX580 above full HD, and the bigger the resolution, the smaller the GTX advantage.
Every benchmark is skewed, but you should try interpreting rather than just reading the conclusion --
Keep in mind the GTX580 die size is 530mm² whereas the 6970 is 380mm²
Factor that in, aim for the same TDP on both cards . and believe me .. the GTX580 was a complete total failure, and a total loss above full HD.
Yes it WAS the biggest single GPU of its time . but not the best.
RussianSensation - Thursday, December 22, 2011 - link
Your post is ill-informed.When GTX580 and HD6970 are both overclocked, it's not even close. GTX580 destroyed it.
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/graphics/display/...
HD6950 was an amazing value card for AMD this generation, but HD6970 was nothing special vs. GTX570. GTX580 was overpriced for the performance over even $370 factory preoverclocked GTX570 cards (such as the almost eerily similar in performance EVGA 797mhz GTX570 card for $369).
All in all, GTX460 ~ HD6850, GTX560 ~ HD6870, GTX560 Ti ~ HD6950, GTX570 ~ HD6970. The only card that had really poor value was GTX580. Of course if you overclocked it, it was a good deal faster than the 6970 that scaled poorly with overclocking.
Morg. - Friday, December 23, 2011 - link
I believe you don't get what I said :AT THE SAME TDP, THE HD6xxx TOTALLY DESTROYED THE GTX 5xx
THAT MEANS : the amd gpu was better even though AMD decided to sell it at a TDP / price point that made it cheaper and less performing than the GTX 5xx
The "destroyed it" statement is full HD resolution only . which is dumb . I wouldn't ever get a top graphics board to just stick with full HD and a cheap monitor.
Peichen - Friday, December 23, 2011 - link
According to your argument, all we'd ever need is IGP because no stand-alone card can compete with IGP at the same TDP / price point.