XFX’s Radeon HD 7970 Black Edition Double Dissipation: The First Semi-Custom 7970
by Ryan Smith on January 9, 2012 6:00 AM ESTGame Performance: Portal 2, Battlefield 3, Starcraft II, Civilization V
Regardless of the resolution and anti-aliasing setting used, the BEDD’s lead on the reference 7970 is always 7-8%, indicating that it’s another game largely GPU limited and one of the biggest benefactors of XFX’s factory overclock.
Battlefield 3 is also another consistent title. XFX’s 8% core clock and 4% memory clock overclock gets you 6-7% more on BF3, which is good news for XFX as this is one of the hardest games for the 7970 to pull away from the GTX 580.
With Starcraft II we’re back to seeing gains varying with the resolution. At 2560 it’s nearly 8% faster than the reference 7970, but at 1920 it’s only 5% faster. Based on what we’ve seen with AMD’s performance at 1680, AMD seems to have some general frame setup issues with SC2 that are limiting their ability to scale too far past 100fps, hence the weaker scaling at 1920.
Finally with CivV we have the biggest gap of them all. At 2560 the BEDD gains 8%, but at 1680 it’s only 1%. Whatever AMD has done with the 7970 to improve their performance in CivV this much, it apparently is resolution dependent. At lower resolutions the 7970 becomes more reliant on the CPU, probably a consequence of AMD’s lack of driver command list support.
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piroroadkill - Monday, January 9, 2012 - link
The overclocking scales amazingly, and without increasing voltage.Soon we'll see some great coolers, and some high clocks.
NVIDIA has their work cut out...
Beenthere - Monday, January 9, 2012 - link
The kiddies won't be able to get that $600 out of their pockets fast enough. It's like crack for a crackhead. :)imaheadcase - Monday, January 9, 2012 - link
It would take a fanboy to buy a card that is less than %6 faster than a GTX 580 and $200 more.piroroadkill - Monday, January 9, 2012 - link
Not really. It overclocks like crazy, uses less power while doing it, and has an updated feature set.Not to mention the increased VRAM. I've seen my 6950 use 1.6GB while playing Skyrim with custom texture packs, where there the 580 would be hitting the limits.
If you're running an assload of screens at once, you really, really could use the extra VRAM.
piroroadkill - Monday, January 9, 2012 - link
Further to this, if you own a GTX580, it means you wanted the fastest single GPU card without caring about the cost to start with - a GTX580 looks like bad value compared to getting a 6950 2GB, unlocking it 6970 and then applying mild overclocks.Point is, some people want the best there is. This is without doubt the best single GPU card there is.
Revdarian - Monday, January 9, 2012 - link
Less than 6% faster than a 580? 200$ more?Which benchmarks are you seeing? because it is obvious that you aren't looking at the ones on this article.
Crysis Warhead is 31% faster on average.
Metro2033 is 36% faster.
Dirt3 is 32% faster
Shogun is 34% faster
Batman is 22%
Portal 2 is 17% faster with SSAA
BF3 is 20% faster
And all that is without the other overclock that adds up to exactly 11% better across the board (multiplicative, so all those other scores, multiply by 1.11 and you get the proper scaling)
34.41; 39; 35; 37; 24; 19; 22
And as for 200$ more, please link a retail 3GB 580 for 400$ as plenty of peeps would be interested on it, and since this Black Edition isnt really worth the premium as the standard ones are able to get the same clocks if a bit louder, then try to link a 350$ 3GB 580.
imaheadcase - Monday, January 9, 2012 - link
1.5 gigs GTX 580 are about $400-450 now with rebates.Vram is a non-issue for %99 of games so that point is moot.
People don't care about powering savings or draw in a gaming card, if you do you can't afford it.
Most people who get a high end card don't overclock it. Maybe THIS card, but majority of people buy reference cards.
%6 is being to generous..what i meant to say 6 FPS on average.
Point still stands correct. :P
imaheadcase - Monday, January 9, 2012 - link
Point is, people buy gaming cards not for minor increases, even if you can afford the best even by a small UNNOTICEABLE gain.Revdarian - Monday, January 9, 2012 - link
Dude the second you said that 6% is being too generous you showed a total lack of Math understanding, as i said from the numbers in this review the lowest increase was around 17% and it usually hovered towards 30% and higher, those are significant numbers if you understood math.BTW this card isn't meant for low resolutions/low settings, so hmm yeah, of course that in low resolutions and settings the VRAM won't matter, but then again, you are bringing a cannon to a gun fight, totally overkill, so no, your post does not stand correct at all.
piroroadkill - Monday, January 9, 2012 - link
No, your point doesn't stand. VRAM does matter, especially on multi-monitor setups.Also, in some cases, the 7970 is quite a lot faster than the 580.
I would say you're being a fanboy by saying faster card? Why would you need a faster card.
A 580 should be enough for anyone!
It's called progress, and for some, it doesn't matter what the cost is.