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
Civilization V
Our final game, Civilization 5, gives us an interesting look at things that other RTSes cannot match, with a much weaker focus on shading in the game world, and a much greater focus on creating the geometry needed to bring such a world to life. In doing so it uses a slew of DirectX 11 technologies, including tessellation for said geometry, driver command lists for reducing CPU overhead, and compute shaders for on-the-fly texture decompression.
Because of the fact that Civilization V uses driver command lists, we were originally not going to include it in this benchmark suite as a gaming benchmark. If it were solely a DCL test it would do a good job highlighting the fact that AMD doesn’t currently support the feature, but a poor job of actually explaining any hardware/architectural differences. It was only after we saw AMD’s reviewer’s guide that we decided to go ahead and include it, because quite frankly we didn’t believe the numbers AMD had published.
With the GTX 580 and the 6970, the 6970 routinely lost to the GTX 580 by large margins. We had long assumed this was solely due to NVIDIA’s inclusion of DCLs, as we’ve seen a moderate single-GPU performance deficit and equally moderate multi-GPU lead for AMD melt away when NVIDIA added DCL support. The 7970 required that we rethink this.
If Civilization V was solely a DCL test, then our 2560 results would be impossible – the 7970 is winning by 12% in a game NVIDIA previous won by a massive margin. NVIDIA only regains their lead at 1680, which at this resolution we’re not nearly as likely to be GPU-bound.
So what changed? AMD has yet to spill the beans, but short of a secret DCL implementation for just CivV we have to look elsewhere. Next to DCL CivV’s other killer feature is its use of compute shaders, and GCN is a compute architecture. To that extent we believe at this point that while AMD is still facing some kind of DCL bottleneck, they have completely opened the floodgates on whatever compute shader bottleneck was standing in their way before. This is particularly evident when comparing the 7970 to the 6970, where the 7970 enjoys a consistent 62% performance advantage. It’s simply an incredible turnabout to see the 7970 do so well when the 6970 did so poorly.
Of course if this performance boost really was all about compute shaders, it raises a particularly exciting question: just how much higher could AMD go if they had DCLs? Hopefully one day that’s an answer we get to find out.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
292 Comments
View All Comments
tw99 - Thursday, December 22, 2011 - link
I just wanted to say thank you for including the 8800 GT in some of your benchmark charts. Even though its dated hardware, including it in your comparisons illustrates the punch that the newer hardware has and assists in decision making for people like myself looking to upgrade from their current setup, unlike most benchmarking articles on other sites that like to compare only the very recent generations, not taking consideration what people would have now.Leyawiin - Thursday, December 22, 2011 - link
I wonder if the Arctic Cooling Twin Turbo II I have sitting in the closet (and haven't ever used) would fit on one of these? Its compatible for up to an HD 6970 so I know it can cool one of these sufficiently (if the mounting holes match their old cards). Maybe I should wait to see what the HD 7950 is like - buying the top of the line card at launch usually isn't smart from a value standpoint.Leyawiin - Thursday, December 22, 2011 - link
Its all a moot point anyway. Damn "soft launch" not available for at least three weeks. Just a marketing ploy to keep people from buying Nvidia's top cards at the moment. If you aren't ready to sell your cards, keep your mouth shut.james.jwb - Thursday, December 22, 2011 - link
I have an Arctic Cooling Extreme Plus II on a 6970 and wouldn't use the lower sized versions. But Im also interest to know if it'll fit the 7970. But in all honesty, until these prices come down I won't go near this card, the performance increases just aren't worth it for most people.Dark Man - Thursday, December 22, 2011 - link
It looks like page 7 and 8 got the same content ?Dark Man - Thursday, December 22, 2011 - link
Sorry, page 8 and 9Dark Man - Thursday, December 22, 2011 - link
Page 13 and 14, tooRyan Smith - Thursday, December 22, 2011 - link
We added a couple of pages this morning; you're probably seeing the cascade effect of the rest of the pages being pushed back.evilspoons - Thursday, December 22, 2011 - link
I'd just like to say that I found this review harder to read than the usual stuff on Anandtech. Everything seemed wordy - if there was an opportunity to use a sentence instead of a word, the sentence was used.Good job on the comprehensive information, but trim the fat off the writing next time, please!
RussianSensation - Thursday, December 22, 2011 - link
Even if it's a 6 months lead, 2012 is so far looking like a year full of console ports. We have Syndicate (February 21, 2012), then Mass Effect 3, Max Payne 3 (both on March 6). Those games will get crushed by modern GPUs. HD7970 is an amazing buy for those who are building a new system now/soon and planned to spend $500+ on a GPU. But for current GPU owners, it's not enough of a performance boost imho. And on its own, it's still not fast enough for 2560x1600 either. It's a good card, but since modern GPU generations last 18-24 months, it's too early to call it great.