AMD Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition Review: Battling For The Performance Crown
by Ryan Smith on June 22, 2012 12:01 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
- AMD
- GCN
- Radeon HD 7000
OC: Power, Temperature, & Noise
Our final task is our look at the 7970GE’s overclocking capabilities. As the 7970GE is based on the existing 7970 we aren’t expecting any significant changes, however it’s reasonable to expect that general manufacturing process improvements over the last 6 months will have pushed yields and tolerances a little higher, giving us just a bit more headroom.
At the same time the presence of the boost clock and its associated voltage is going to change overclocking as well. The higher voltage should lend itself to higher overclocks, meanwhile validating overclocks is also going to be a bit harder as now we need to make sure neither the overclocked base clock/voltage combination or the overclocked boost clock/voltage combination is unstable, similar to the extra effort needed to overclock the GTX 680 series.
| Radeon HD 7970 Series Overclocking | |||||
| Ref 7970GE | Ref 7970 | XFX 7970 BEDD | |||
| Shipping Core Clock | 1000MHz | 925MHz | 1000MHz | ||
| Shipping Max Boost Clock | 1050MHz | N/A | N/A | ||
| Shipping Memory Clock | 6GHz | 5.5GHz | 5.7GHz | ||
| Shipping Max Voltage | 1.218v | 1.175v | 1.175v | ||
| Overclock Core Clock | 1150MHz | 1100MHz | 1125MHz | ||
| Overclock Max Boost Clock | 1200MHz | N/A | N/A | ||
| Overclock Memory Clock | 6.4GHz | 6.3GHz | 6.3GHz | ||
| Overclock Max Boost Voltage | 1.218v | 1.175v | 1.175v | ||
After going through the full validation process we were able to hit an overclock of +150MHz, which pushed our base clock from 1000MHz to 1150MHz, and our boost clock from 1050MHz to 1200MHz. Depending on how you want to count this overclock amidst the presence of the boost clock this is either 25MHz better than our best 7970 card, or 75MHz better. In either case our 7970GE definitely overclocks better than our earlier 7970 cards but not significantly so, which is in-line with our expectations.
As with any overclocking effort based on a single sample our overclocking results are not going to be representative of what every card can do, but they are reasonable. With AMD now binning chips for the 7970GE we’d expect to see some stratification among the 7970 family such that high overclocking chips that would previously show up in 7970 cards will now show up in 7970GE cards instead. For penny-pinching overclockers this is not good news, but for more hardcore overclockers this is nothing new as AMD’s partners have been doing something similar with their factory overclocked cards for some time now.
Meanwhile our memory overclock isn’t significantly different from what we could pull off with the reference 7970. The limitation is the memory bus or Tahiti’s memory controller, neither of which has changed. After around 6.4GHz errors start catching up and performance gains become performance losses.
Moving on to our performance charts, we’re going to once again start with power, temperature, and noise, before moving on to gaming performance. We’ll be testing our 7970 cards with the PowerTune limit set to +20% in order to avoid any real possibility of being performance limited by PowerTune.
With the 7970GE’s already high load power, overclocking and raising the PowerTune limits isn’t doing it any favors when it comes to overclocking. On the contrary to being a free overclock power consumption now exceeds even the GTX 690 in all situations and power consumption is almost certainly in excess of 300W at the card level. As we’ll see in our gaming performance section we’re definitely getting more performance out of the 7970GE, but we’re paying for it with power.
With a rise in power consumption comes a rise in temperatures to a varying degree. At 83C under Metro the 7970GE has gotten warmer, but not significantly so. The same cannot be said for OCCT. At 89C we’re approaching the reasonable limits for this card and cooler.
The 7970GE was already loud at stock and overclocking it doesn’t help. Under Metro noise is now at 63.8dBA, and under OCCT it’s tied with the 6990 for noise at 66dBA. Even if you’re forgiving of noise, this is reaching the point where it’s going to be difficult to ignore. Serious 7970GE overclockers will want to seek other cards and/or aftermarket coolers.
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behrouz - Friday, June 22, 2012 - link
nevermind i got itLepton87 - Friday, June 22, 2012 - link
I don't agree that 7970GHz isn't any faster than GTX680.http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/HD_7970_GHz...
Just look at the performance summaries. At 2560x1600 it's clearly the faster card.
Homeles - Friday, June 22, 2012 - link
Keep in mind, every 680 boosts differently. Every site is going to have different opinions because of this.CeriseCogburn - Saturday, June 23, 2012 - link
That's why a collated average is so helpful."
Summary of results at a resolution of 2560x1600:
GeForce GTX680 is on average 32.36% more efficient than GeForce GTX580,
GeForce GTX680 is on average 6.39% more efficient than the Radeon 7970. "
http://translate.google.pl/translate?hl=pl&sl=...
The GTX 680 wins. It's clear beyond any amd fanboys illusions, wishes, and fantasies, most often stated every time, till the day they croak it.
It's "their opinion" though, so "it's not wrong"... (if that tracks as true for you check your forehead for 3 stamped letters.)
thebluephoenix - Sunday, June 24, 2012 - link
Efficiency? You know that 5870 was far more efficient than GTX480. 6970 also compared well to GTX 580.Before calling people fanboys be sure that you aren't one.
For me it's simple, 7970 has good compute performance, and GTX 680 has PhysX.
7970 GE = 7970 OC Edition, still a very good card.
CeriseCogburn - Tuesday, June 26, 2012 - link
It's the wording used by the collator, a foreigner no doubt, "efficiency" you fool, since you didn't check the link.It MEANS FRAME RATE.
Leave it to the retarded, once again, to jump, screech, and FAIL.
thebluephoenix - Thursday, June 28, 2012 - link
Efficiency usually means energy efficiency. Perf/Watt, (or rMAX/rPeak, on Top500 site).Except for google translated polish pages, obviously.
Frame rate is speed, so the card is faster, not more efficient.
Go now, be (nV)idiot somewhere else.
CeriseCogburn - Saturday, June 30, 2012 - link
It is ALSO more efficient. How clueless are you still ? Why do clueless Cluseau's respond ?Look, if you ever decide to click the link and take a gander for an hour or two ( my estimation about how long it would take for you to get a round opinion of the massive database of the most popular reviewers concerning these tow cards, don't get back to me.
A gigantic thank you would be nice but I'm not expecting it.
Maybe silverblue needs a friend too, then you can spew name calling together, and giggle, that is likely the extent of the mental capacities, so have at it.
silverblue - Friday, June 29, 2012 - link
Yet amusingly, you failed to point out the error of the author's ways before somebody here pulled you up on it... I doubt that efficiency is a word that can be mis-translated; the author just used the wrong term. The very fact that you quoted two lines with the same incorrect term proves that you were happy enough to treat it - as is so often in your case - as factual. If anything, the 680 is probably something in the region of 10-15% more efficient per frame than the 7970 based off the collated results on that article, notwithstanding the fact that drivers have been significantly revised for both architectures since then.You also stated that the article was '"their opinion" though, so "it's not wrong"' but you slate everybody else's conflicting opinions as wrong. Am I the only person seeing an issue with this approach?
I'm really confused as to why you even bother to visit here except to be a class-A troll, and I'm going to take some of my own advice and flat out ignore you from now on unless you actually say something of any use. Ordinarily, I wouldn't tell others what to do but on this occasion, I implore them to follow suit. We should put you in a room with Beenthere just for the hell of it.
CeriseCogburn - Saturday, June 30, 2012 - link
You're goners in the head dude.The article, which you still obviously never looked at (as it will crush your amd fan heart), collates reviews from around the web, including this sites.
It's not an opinion, it's FACTS, as best we can get them, in one BIG mathematically deduced pile, and the word is meant to be FRAME RATES, which of course is all you amd fan boys claim you care about, unless of course you were spewing about eyefinity without 3 monitors and no $100 adapter that took a year and a half to come down to $35 not available...
Just face the facts for once, like a man.