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
Crysis: Warhead
Kicking things off as always is Crysis: Warhead. It’s no longer the toughest game in our benchmark suite, but it’s still a technically complex game that has proven to be a very consistent benchmark. Thus even four years since the release of the original Crysis, “but can it run Crysis?” is still an important question, and the answer continues to be “no.” While we’re closer than ever, full Enthusiast settings at a 60fps is still beyond the grasp of a single-GPU card.
Since the launch of the GTX 680 it’s been clear that Crysis is a game that favors AMD’s products and this is no clearer than with the 7970GE. AMD was already handily beating the GTX 680 here, most likely due to the GTX 680’s more limited memory bandwidth – so the faster 7970GE widens that gap even further. The 7970GE is a full 25% faster than the GTX 680 here at 2560 and is extremely close to hitting 60fps at 1920, which given Crysis’s graphically demanding nature is quite incredible, and for all practical purposes puts the 7970GE in its own category. Obviously this is one of AMD’s best games, but it’s solid proof that the 7970GE can really trounce the GTX 680 in the right situation.
As for the 7970GE versus the 7970, this is a much more straightforward comparison. We aren’t seeing the full extent of the 7970GE’s clockspeed advantage over the 7970 here, but the 7970GE is still at the lower bounds of its theoretical performance advantage over its lower clocked sibling with a gain of 8% at 2560. The 7970GE is priced some 16% higher than the 7970 so the performance gains aren’t going to keep pace with the price increases, but this is nothing new for flagship cards.
When it comes to minimum framerates the 7970GE further expands its lead. It’s now 35% faster than the GTX 680 (and just short of 30fps) at 2560, which neatly wraps up the 7970GE’s domination in Crysis. Even its performance lead versus the 7970 improves, with the 7970GE increasing its lead to 13%. A year ago NVIDIA and AMD were roughly tied with Crysis, but now AMD has clearly made it their game. So can it run Crysis? Yes, and a lot better than the GTX 680 can.
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raghu78 - Friday, June 22, 2012 - link
Correct. for gaming at the highest settings on ultra high resolution single monitor and multi monitor configurations there is only one leader in the market. Its the Radeon HD 7970 Ghz edition.http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/hardware-canu...
Look at the 2560x 1600 extreme and 5760 x 1080 perf average. The HD 7970 Ghz edition is faster .
From the review
"In our opinion and with all other things being equal, the HD 7970 GHz Edition is the card to have for ultra high resolution gaming"
CeriseCogburn - Saturday, June 23, 2012 - link
From the review: " What we have here is a statistical tie so the consumer’s performance-oriented choice will ultimately come down to brand preference."Yes, of course.... cherry picking again... so take a hot loud, housefire electrical sucking earth destroying sack of driver crap... it's the best card, of course...
That's great... all the penny pinchers here are right on it, I'm sure...
silverblue - Monday, June 25, 2012 - link
Fermi?Low blow, I admit.
CeriseCogburn - Tuesday, June 26, 2012 - link
The FERMI's performance blew the amd card to shreds.In this case, the house fire amd card sucks the low end of everything, an epic fail on every single metric, and amd has crap for compute software support so they lose there as well, just like any card loses when their driver software sucks in games.
Worse yet, amd often takes years to fix anything, if ever...then drops support.
Fermi WON when it "insulted you".
Housefire amd loses everything - total freakin LOSER.
raghu78 - Tuesday, June 26, 2012 - link
FYI there are reviews showing much bigger winshttp://www.hardware.fr/articles/869-18/recapitulat...
10 - 12% perf lead . So its not as simple as you think. The fact of the matter is Nvidia GTX 680 is losing the majority of games - Deus Ex, Alan Wake, Anno 2070, Crysis 2, Witcher 2, Witcher 2 EE, Dirt 3, Skyrim, Dirt Showdown, Crysis Warhead, Metro 2033. Also the margins in some of the games is very big - Dirt Showdown (50%), Crysis Warhead (15 - 25% depending on resolution) , Metro 2033 (20%), Witcher 2 (20%) , Anno (15%). Nvidia's wins in Shogun 2 clearly. BF3 is not a consistent win when you compare many reviews. Even Batman AC which runs better on GTX 680 with FXAA , runs faster on HD 7970 Ghz edition with 8X MSAA. So its clearly a case of you being in denial mode. so go on keep ridiculing others if that makes you happy.
CeriseCogburn - Tuesday, June 26, 2012 - link
Hey fanboy, your summary page shows the 680 at their weighted average special importance to each game 127 frames, and 7970, 127 frames.LOL - Amazing how you got 20% and 50% from EQUAL.
I tell you, the lies and spinning exceed political debate norms.
CeriseCogburn - Tuesday, June 26, 2012 - link
From your link, Dirt Showdown, where you have just claimed a 50% lead for 7970..." If the GeForce GTX 680 Radeon HD 7970 equals 1080p without advanced lighting, when it activated its dive performance, Nvidia does not have access to this patch soon enough that in order to propose specific optimizations. It will probably take one to two weeks for this to be corrected."
Let's see 0% or a tie = amd ahead by 50% !!!! according to raghu
LOL - I guess it's all in your heads - not even the reviewers own words can rallte the fantasies of amd out of control fanboys.
http://translate.google.pl/translate?hl=pl&sl=...
I'd say you're trolling but i think the fanboy and lack of intellect has you "doing what you believed was correct".
I could be wrong here, for the 1st time ever, though.
meloz - Friday, June 22, 2012 - link
Excellent review, Ryan!Performance is great, but the noise is a big issue. I hope in future manufacturers pay more attention to this aspect.
kyuu - Friday, June 22, 2012 - link
The 7970GE isn't a card to buy with a reference cooling solution, obviously. With custom cooling solutions, the noise/temp won't be an issue. It's doubtful you'll see many, if any, manufacturers even release this card with the reference cooler.CeriseCogburn - Saturday, June 23, 2012 - link
So amd sucks, but it's all good.Maybe that should be their new pr slogan.