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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MadMan007 - Thursday, December 22, 2011 - link
More stuff missing on page 9:[AF filter test image] [download table]
Ryan Smith - Thursday, December 22, 2011 - link
Yep. Still working on it. Hold tightMadMan007 - Thursday, December 22, 2011 - link
Np, just not used to seeing incomplete articles publsihed on Anandtech that aren't clearly 'previews'...wasn't sure if you were aware of all the missing stuff.DoktorSleepless - Thursday, December 22, 2011 - link
Crysis won't be defeated until we're able to play at a full 60fps with 4x super sampling. It looks ugly without the foliage AA.Ryan Smith - Thursday, December 22, 2011 - link
I actually completely agree. That's even farther off than 1920 just with MSAA, but I'm looking forward to that day.chizow - Thursday, December 22, 2011 - link
Honestly Crysis may be defeated once Nvidia releases its driver-level FXAA injector option. Yes, FXAA can blur textures but it also does an amazing job at reducing jaggies on both geometry and transparencies at virtually no impact on performance.There's leaked driver versions (R295.xx) out that allow this option now, hopefully we get them officially soon as this will be a huge boon for games like Crysis or games that don't support traditional AA modes at all (GTA4).
Check out the results below:
http://www.hardocp.com/image.html?image=MTMyMjQ1Mz...
AnotherGuy - Thursday, December 22, 2011 - link
If nVidia released this card tomorrow they woulda priced it easily $600... The card succeeds in almost every aspect.... except maybe noise...chizow - Thursday, December 22, 2011 - link
Funny since both of Nvidia's previous flagship single-GPU cards, the GTX 480 and GTX 580, launched for $499 and were both the fastest single-GPU cards available at the time.I think Nvidia learned their lesson with the GTX 280, and similarly, I think AMD has learned their lesson as well with underpricing their HD 4870 and HD 5870. They've (finally) learned that in the brief period they hold the performance lead, they need to make the most of it, which is why we are seeing a $549 flagship card from them this time around.
8steve8 - Thursday, December 22, 2011 - link
waiting for amd's 28nm 7770.this card is overkill in power and money.
tipoo - Thursday, December 22, 2011 - link
Same, we're not going to tax these cards at the most common resolutions until new consoles are out, such is the blessing and curse of console ports.