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
Battlefield 3
Its popularity aside, Battlefield 3 may be the most interesting game in our benchmark suite for a single reason: it’s the first AAA DX10+ game. It’s been 5 years since the launch of the first DX10 GPUs, and 3 whole process node shrinks later we’re finally to the point where games are using DX10’s functionality as a baseline rather than an addition. Not surprisingly BF3 is one of the best looking games in our suite, but as with past Battlefield games that beauty comes with a high performance cost
How to benchmark BF3 is a point of great contention. Our preference is to always stick to the scientific method, which means our tests need to be perfectly repeatable or very, very close. For that reason we’re using an on-rails section of the single player game, Thunder Run, to do our testing. This isn’t the most strenuous part of Battlefield 3 – multiplayer can get much worse – but it’s the most consistent part of the game. In general we’ve found that minimum framerates in multiplayer are about half of the average framerate in Thunder Run, so it’s important to frame your expectations accordingly.
With that out of the way, Battlefield 3 ends up being one of the worst games for the 7970 from a competitive standpoint. It always maintains a lead over the GTX 580, but the greatest lead is only 13% at 2560 without any MSAA, and everywhere else it’s 3-5%. Of course it goes without saying that realistically BF3 is only playable at 1920 (no MSAA) and below on any of the single-GPU cards in this lineup, so unfortunately for AMD it’s the 5% number that’s the most relevant.
Meanwhile compared to the 6970, the 7970’s performance gains are also a bit below average. 2560 and 1920 with MSAA are quite good at 30% and 34% respectively, but at 1920 without MSAA that’s only a 25% gain, which is one of the smaller gaps between the two cards throughout our entire test suite.
The big question of course is why are we only seeing such a limited lead from the 7970 here? BF3 implements a wide array of technologies so it’s hard to say for sure, but there is one thing we know they implement in the engine that only NVIDIA can use: Driver Command Lists, the same “secret sauce” that boosted NVIDIA’s Civilization V performance by so much last year. So it may be that NVIDIA’s DCL support is helping their performance here in BF3, much like it was in Civ V.
But in any case, this is probably the only benchmark that’s really under delivered for the 7970. 5% is still a performance improvement (and we’ll take it any day of the week), but this silences any reasonable hope of being able to use 1920 at Ultra settings with MSAA on a single-GPU card for the time being.
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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.