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.
292 Comments
View All Comments
CeriseCogburn - Sunday, March 11, 2012 - link
We'll have to see if amd "magically changes that number and informs Anand it was wrong like they did concerning their failed recent cpu.... LOLThat's a whole YEAR of lying to everyone trying to make their cpu look better than it's actual fail, and Anand shamefully chose to announce the number change "with no explanation given by amd"... -
That's why you should be cautious - we might find out the transistor count is really 33% different a year from now.
piroroadkill - Thursday, December 22, 2011 - link
Only disappointing if you:a) ignored the entire review
b) looked at only the chart for noise
c) have brain damage
Finally - Thursday, December 22, 2011 - link
In Eyefinity setups the new generation shines: http://tinyurl.com/bu3wb5cwicko - Thursday, December 22, 2011 - link
I think the price is disappointing. Everything else is nice though.CeriseCogburn - Sunday, March 11, 2012 - link
The drivers suckRussianSensation - Thursday, December 22, 2011 - link
Not necessarily. The other possibility is that being 37% better on average at 1080P (from this Review) over HD6970 for $320 more than an HD6950 2GB that can unlock into a 6970 just isn't impressive enough. That should be d).piroroadkill - Friday, December 23, 2011 - link
Well, I of course have a 6950 2GB that unlocked, so as far as I'm concerned, that has been THE choice since the launch of the 6950, and still is today.But you have to ignore cost at launch, it's always high.
CeriseCogburn - Thursday, March 8, 2012 - link
I agree RS, as these amd people are constantly screaming price percentage increase vs performance increase... yet suddenly applying the exact combo they use as a weapon against Nvidia to themselves is forbidden, frowned upon, discounted, and called unfair....Worse yet, according to the same its' all Nvidia's fault now - that amd is overpriced through the roof...LOL - I have to laugh.
Also, the image quality page in the review was so biased toward amd that I thought I was going to puke.
Amd is geven credit for a "perfect algorythm" that this very website has often and for quite some time declared makes absolutely no real world difference in games - and in fact, this very reviewer admitted the 1+ year long amd failure in this area as soon as they released "the fix" - yet argued everyone else was wrong for the prior year.
The same thing appears here.
Today we find out the GTX580 nvidia card has much superior anti-shimmering than all prior amd cards, and that finally, the 7000 high end driver has addressed the terrible amd shimmering....
Worse yet, the decrepit amd low quality impaired screens are allowed in every bench, with the 10% amd performance cheat this very site outlined them merely stated we hope Nvidia doesn't so this too - then allowed it, since that year plus ago...
In the case of all the above, I certainly hope the high end 797x cards aren't CHEATING LIKE HECK still.
For cripe sakes, get the AA stuff going, stop the 10% IQ cheating, and get our bullet physics or pay for PhysX, and stabilize the drivers .... I am sick of seeing praise for cheating and failures - if they are (amd) so great let's GET IT UP TO EQUIVALENCY !
Wow I'm so mad I don't have a 7970 as supply is short and I want to believe in amd for once... FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DID THEY GET IT RIGHT THIS TIME ?!!?
slayernine - Thursday, December 22, 2011 - link
Holy fan boys batman!This comment thread reeks of nvidia fans green with jealousy
Hauk - Thursday, December 22, 2011 - link
LOL, Wreckage first!Love him or hate him, he's got style..