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
The Test
Starting with the launch of the 7970 we will be using our new GPU testbed, replacing both our hardware and most of our benchmarks. On the hardware side we’re using an Intel Core i7 3960X overclocked to 4.3GHz on an EVGA X79 SLI motherboard, giving us access to PCIe 3.0 while keeping most CPU bottlenecks at bay. While we’re only looking at a single card today, based on some informal surveys for multi-GPU testing we will continue to test our cards adjacent to each other to represent the worst case scenario, as it turns out there are a number of users out there who do use that arrangement even if they’re not in the majority.
On the software side we’ve refreshed most of our benchmarks; the suite is tilted towards DX11, but there are still enough DX9/10 tests to get a good idea of how new cards compare to pre-DX11 cards. On that note I know we have a lot of Skyrim fans out there, and while we wanted to include Skyrim benchmark we’re having trouble coming up with any good test cases (that don’t involve INI hacking) that aren’t incredibly CPU limited. If you have any suggestions, please drop me a line.
For drivers on AMD’s cards we’re using AMD’s beta 8.921.2-111215a drivers, which identify themselves as Catalyst 11.12 but are otherwise indistinguishable from the Catalyst 12.1 preview released last week. On that note, for those of you who have been asking about support for D3D11 Driver Command Lists – an optional D3D11 feature that helps with multithreaded rendering and is NVIDIA’s secret sauce for Civilization V – AMD has still not implemented support for it as of this driver.
For NVIDIA’s cards we’re using NVIDIA’s latest beta driver, 290.36.
Finally, as we’ve only had a limited amount of time with the 7970, we’ve narrowed our suite of cards just slightly in order to make the deadline. For those of you curious about how middle-tier cards such as the GTX 560 series and the Radeon HD 6800 series or various multi-card SLI and CrossFire setups compare, we’ll be adding new results to Bench throughout the rest of the month, and Eyefinity soon after that. For the time being since we only have a single card, we’re focusing on single card results with a single monitor.
| CPU: | Intel Core i7-3960X @ 4.3GHz |
| Motherboard: | EVGA X79 SLI |
| Chipset Drivers: | Intel 9.2.3.1022 |
| Power Supply: | Antec True Power Quattro 1200 |
| Hard Disk: | Samsung 470 (240GB) |
| Memory: | G.Skill Ripjaws DDR3-1867 4 x 4GB (8-10-9-26) |
| Video Cards: |
AMD Radeon HD 7970 AMD Radeon HD 6990 AMD Radeon HD 6970 AMD Radeon HD 6950 AMD Radeon HD 5870 AMD Radeon HD 5850 AMD Radeon HD 4870 AMD Radeon HD 3870 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 590 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 570 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 470 NVIDIA GeForce GTX 285 NVIDIA GeForce 8800GT |
| Video Drivers: |
NVIDIA ForceWare 290.36 Beta AMD Catalyst Beta 8.921.2-111215a |
| OS: | Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit |
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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?