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
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.
Starcraft II has traditionally favored NVIDIA and neither driver improvements nor higher clockspeeds can change that. The 7970GE closes the gap, but it still leaves the GTX 680 ahead by 3% at 2560. This is however a solid improvement over the 7970, with the 7970GE having increased its performance by 9% over its predecessor. With the next edition of Starcraft II still technically due this year it will be interesting to see if performance shifts at all or whether NVIDIA maintains their lead.
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HighTech4US - Tuesday, June 26, 2012 - link
LOLor
AMD sucks, but in a good way
Margalus - Friday, June 22, 2012 - link
In the normal clock tests you test 5760x1200 which is a very good thing. Could you not do the same resolution with your overclock tests as well? I would really like to see how triple monitor performance is overclocked.Another thing I was wondering, does running triple monitor at 5760x1200 increase power usage of the card or make it run hotter?
Ryan Smith - Friday, June 22, 2012 - link
1) Obviously it's a bit too late for that in this article, but we can certainly look into doing that for future articles.2) Generally speaking, no. Unless a card is already operating well under its PT limit (in which case the game is likely CPU-bound), increasing the resolution doesn't significantly shift the power consumption. The actual display controllers are effectively "free" at these power levels.
Margalus - Friday, June 22, 2012 - link
thanksmedi01 - Friday, June 22, 2012 - link
Not retaking back performance crown?cmdrdredd - Friday, June 22, 2012 - link
Nope because it doesn't win every single benchmark. Just because it wins one resolution doesn't equate to being the fastest one.CeriseCogburn - Tuesday, June 26, 2012 - link
If any of these people had been paying any attention at all in between articles ( meaning checking on the net) they would already know it takes about 1250 on the 7970 core to equal the 680oc.1000 doesn't do it. 1050 nope. 1150 nay.
Hexus already proved same core speed results in the 7970 behind. That's already been linked in replies.. so here it is because the amd fans will descend calling names and declaring liar (though they likely saw it before and just can't for the fanboy of themremember, as most brains use the delete key a lot)
http://hexus.net/tech/reviews/graphics/37209-gefor...
RaistlinZ - Friday, June 22, 2012 - link
My regular stock 7970 overclocks higher than this Ghz Edition, and does it on lower voltages. At least this makes the prices drop on regular 7970's.owendingding - Friday, June 22, 2012 - link
I think we can find a 7970ghz edition bios and put it on a regular 7970 and achieve the same performance. I also assume that you have a non reference 7979, like mine a gigabyte wind force you can get a lower temperature and 680 like performance. I just hope that bios is universal.CeriseCogburn - Tuesday, June 26, 2012 - link
Someone already posted Tom's shows it is NOT universal and cannot just be flashed to any 7970.NOPE. Amd locks you out, because they are evil.