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
Total War: Shogun 2
One of our goals with this iteration of our benchmark suite was to throw in some additional non-FPS games, so we’re broadening our horizons a bit by adding in Total War: Shogun 2. Shogun 2 is the latest installment of the long-running Total War series of turn based strategy games, and alongside Civilization V is notable for just how many units it can put on a screen at once. As it also turns out, it’s the single most punishing game in our benchmark suite.
When deciding on what settings to use with Shogun, it required a bit more creativity on our part. 2560 is a true moonshot; everything is turned on, and it takes a minimum of 1.5GB of VRAM to run the game at this resolution. Accordingly performance is rather dismal, though as this is a TBS 30fps isn’t quite as critical as it is in other games. In any case the 7970 comes the closest to hitting 30fps, coming in just shy at 28.2fps, which is 29% ahead of the GTX 580 and 48% ahead of the 6970.
Meanwhile for 1920 we turned Shogun’s settings down to Very High, and yet we still had to disable MSAA to make it work with 1GB cards (did we mention that Shogun loves VRAM?). At these lower settings performance rockets up, and at the same time so does the 7970’s lead over the GTX 580. Here it’s 36% ahead of the GTX 580, which will be the greatest lead among all of our gaming benchmarks. As for the 7970 compared to the 6970, it’s still 48% of the 6970 showing us just how similar these video cards are at times.
Finally at 1680 the overall performance goes up yet again, but the 7970’s lead remains. It’s ahead of the GTX 580 by 30%, and 48% ahead of the 6970.
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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.