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
Starcraft II
Our next game is Starcraft II, Blizzard’s 2010 RTS megahit. Much like Portal 2 it’s a DX9 game designed to run on a wide range of hardware so performance is quite peppy with most high-end cards, but it can still challenge a GPU when it needs to.
For 2560 and 1920 we’re using 4x MSAA, which must be forced through the driver control panel as Starcraft II does not natively support anti-aliasing. As is often the case with forced MSAA the resulting performance hit is rather high, which is why SC2 can still tax our high-end GPUs.
Starting at 2560, things are looking good for the 7960. At 70.2fps it takes a 19% lead over the GTX 580, and is the only single-GPU card to crack 60fps at that resolution. Against the 6970 it also looks quite good, with a lead of just under 40%.
But when we drop down to 1920, the 7970’s tendency for its lead to drop with the resolution takes full force. Here the 7970 is only 2% ahead of the GTX 580, and looking at 1680 (without MSAA) has the 7970 being outright outgassed by the older GTX 580 by nearly 33%. Interestingly enough however we don’t see the same thing happen against AMD’s own cards, as the 7970 remains ahead of the 6970 by about 35%.
While it’s primarily 1920 and 2560 we’re interested in, it’s still worth pondering on 1680 for a moment. Given the consistent performance of the 7970 versus the 6970, it looks like we’re not simply seeing architectural strengths and weaknesses here. AMD simply cannot hit the high framerates of the GTX 580 here, and at this point we have to suspect that unless AMD is somehow ROP-bound, that we’re looking at a driver limitation of some kind that starts to particularly manifest itself at 1920 and below.
In any case while Starcraft II is not a particularly strong game for the 7970, at the very least the raw performance is there. The performance differences are largely academic as the 7970 is more than capable of powering through even 2560. As such if the 7970 is going to struggle to beat the GTX 580 at any game, this is one of the less meaningful games to struggle at.
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gevorg - Thursday, December 22, 2011 - link
37.9dB is a horrible testbed for noise testing! WTF!mavere - Thursday, December 22, 2011 - link
Seriously!With the prevalence of practically silent PSUs, efficient tower heatsinks, and large quiet fans, I cannot fathom why the noise floor is 37.9 dB.
Finally - Thursday, December 22, 2011 - link
As usual, AT is shooting straight for the brain-dam, I mean, ENTHUSIAST crowd feat. a non-mentioned power supply that should be well around 1000W in order to drive over-priced CPUs as well as quadruple GPU setups.If you find that horrendous they will offer you not to read this review, but their upcoming HTPC review where they will employ the same 1000W power supply...
B3an - Thursday, December 22, 2011 - link
*face palm*1: 1000+ Watt PSU's are normally more quiet if anything as they're better equipped to deal with higher power loads. When a system like this uses nowhere near the PSU's full power the fan often spins at a very low RPM. Some 1000+ PSU's will just shut the fan off completely when a system uses less than 30% of it's power.
2: It's totally normal for a system to be around 40 dB without including the graphics cards. Two or 3 fans alone normally cause this much noise even if they're large low RPM fans. Then you have noise levels from surroundings which even in a "quiet" room are normally more than 15 dB.
3: Grow some fucking brain cells kids.
andymcca - Thursday, December 22, 2011 - link
1) If you were a quiet computing enthusiast, you would know that the statement"1000+ Watt PSU's are normally more quiet if anything"
is patently false. 1000W PSUs are necessarily less efficient at realistic loads (<600W at full load in single GPU systems). This is a trade-off of optimizing for efficiency at high wattages. There is no free lunch in power electronics. Lower efficiency yields more heat yields more noise, all else being equal. And I assure you that a high end silent/quiet PSU is designed for low air flow and uses components at least as high in quality as their higher wattage (non-silent/non-quiet) competitors. Since the PSU is not decribed (a problem which has been brought up many times in the past concerning AT reviews), who knows?
2) 40dB is fairly loud if you are aiming for quiet operation. Ambient noise in a quiet room can be roughly 20dB (provided there is not a lot of ambient outdoor noise). 40dB is roughly the amplitude of conversation in a quiet room (non-whispered). A computer that hums as loud as I talk is pretty loud! I'm not sure if you opinion is informed by any empirical experience, but for precise comparison of different sources the floor should be at minimum 20dB below the sources in question.
3) You have no idea what the parent's age or background is, but your comment #3 certainly implies something about your maturity.
formulav8 - Tuesday, February 21, 2012 - link
Seriously grow up. Your a nasty mouth as well.piroroadkill - Thursday, December 22, 2011 - link
Haha, yeah.Still, I guess we have to leave that work to SPCR.
Kjella - Thursday, December 22, 2011 - link
High-end graphics cards are even noisier, so who cares? A 250W card won't be quiet no matter what. Using an overclocked Intel Core i7 3960X is obviously so the benchmarks won't be CPU limited, not to make a quiet PC.Ryan Smith - Thursday, December 22, 2011 - link
Our testing methodology only has us inches from the case (an open case I should add), hence the noise from our H100 closed loop radiator makes itself known. In any case these numbers aren't meant to be absolutes, we only use them on a relative basis.MadMan007 - Thursday, December 22, 2011 - link
[AES chart] on page 7?