Official Radeon 7970 Review and discussion thread

[brady]

It's an impressive card for the price and power draw, I think. The main thing that keeps me from using AMD cards for gaming is (1) no PhysX support, and (2) worse driver support than nVidia. Those things are a big enough deal for me that even if I were in the market for a new card right now, I'd buy one of nVidia's current offerings over AMD's newest.

[Roadhog]

Originally Posted by Rollo

How many here would say this launch was impressive if it was NVIDIA launching this part? Anyone?

Id say it was impressive if nvidia launched a part right now that was 50% faster than their last gen.

Originally Posted by Rollo

Supposedly they had given up the "cheaper, smaller, about as good strategy" here and produced a big monolithic GPU that people wouldn't have to "settle for" according to their press deck. That will be the case exactly the number of days until kepler launches, then it's back to "about as good and cheaper" and from the looks of things this will be more of a 2900XT vs 8800GTX situation. NVIDIA only has to hit 50% faster to be 25-30% faster than this part.

The 7970 isn't a big monolithic GPU at all. It is the most efficient high end GPU out now by a LARGE margin. So, for Nvidia to be successful, it only has to be 25% faster than a 7970. Yet, the 7970 that is 25% faster than a 580 isn't successful to you? LOL So where is kepler, no where in sight is where.

Oh also, the 780 will have to compete with this beast.
http://www.techpowerup.com/157320/AM...GB-Memory.html

[Rollo]

It's not hard to understand Roadie.

50% better than last gen's best GPU is generally considered "good".

25% is considered "meh".

Why do you want to compare the BeefdozerII to the year old GTX580, but hold the 780 to the BeefdozerII standard of performance? Because it makes the Beefdozer II look like less of a faceplant, that's why.

We should compare 780 to 6970 by your "logic", except the 70%+ performance gains it will likely offer over 6970s again doesn't make your team look very competent.

Personally, I'd rather wait a few months for a card that's a real step forward than get basically the same thing I could have overclocking my 3Gb GTX580.

[Roadhog]

Originally Posted by Rollo

It's not hard to understand Roadie.

50% better than last gen's best GPU is generally considered "good".

25% is considered "meh".

Why do you want to compare the BeefdozerII to the year old GTX580, but hold the 780 to the BeefdozerII standard of performance? Because it makes the Beefdozer II look like less of a faceplant, that's why.

We should compare 780 to 6970 by your "logic", except the 70%+ performance gains it will likely offer over 6970s again doesn't make your team look very competent.

Personally, I'd rather wait a few months for a card that's a real step forward than get basically the same thing I could have overclocking my 3Gb GTX580.

Guess the 580 is ultra meh then... Only 18% over a 480 which came out 6 months before the 580. If nvidia picks up another 18% over the 580, it will still get beat by the 7970.


So, what should a 7970 be compared to? The 580 is only 1 month older than a 6970 so seems fair that the 7970 should be compared to both as there really is nothing else to compare it to.

And yes, when the 780 comes out, it will obviously be compared to the 7970 and 580.

Also, the Hardocp review did use an overclocked 580(11% OC), and the 7970 was still 20%+ faster on average. Give the 7970 that same overclock and that 20% will turn into 30%+ because we all know how great the 7970 scales overclocked.

[i SPY]

Originally Posted by MUYA

FIXED!!!!
HAHAHAHAHAh

The funny part is its not based of the flagship, but again on lower-end like now 460/560Gtx gpus.. Imo it better not have the same symptoms like G104/G114 chip (tdr, dpc issues, downclocking, etc) and this is only because they shifted too much stuff on driver instead of using hw.. But yea you have to cut it somewhere to make more $$$ xD

And GK104 is using the same number of ROPS like 480 gtx or 580gtx, so im not expecting any miracles either..




Same by 7970 with 32 vs 6970 32 heh.. they need moooar ROPs, 40-48 would be ideal for 7970.


At least it can score good when Oc'ed


http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...n,3104-16.html

This is on stock voltage/CCC limited clocks.


http://3dmark.com/3dm11/2394130

[Bman212121]

Originally Posted by brady

It's an impressive card for the price and power draw, I think. The main thing that keeps me from using AMD cards for gaming is (1) no PhysX support, and (2) worse driver support than nVidia. Those things are a big enough deal for me that even if I were in the market for a new card right now, I'd buy one of nVidia's current offerings over AMD's newest.

I'd say that PhysX is even more niche than 3d gaming... Few titles use it and the ones where it could really help immersion are done on a CPU physics engine instead.

The driver argument while I can't say I fully agree with is being addressed. The main thing is that they did finally get around to allowing custom profiles much like Nvidia. This should really help for CFX users and getting new titles to work.

As we noted last week with the release of the Catalyst 12.1 preview, AMD has a lot of technical and reputational debt to dig themselves out of when it comes to their Catalyst drivers. AMD dropped the ball this fall a number of times, failing to deliver on appropriate drivers for Rage, Battlefield 3, and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim in a timely manner. This isn’t something AMD is shying away from either – they know they screwed up and they’ll admit as much – but the question remains of how they intend to improve from there. Now that they once again have the leading single-GPU video card they need to have the leading drivers to run it.

Part of this redemption will come from the addition of new features, if only to reach parity with NVIDIA. Catalyst 12.1 introduced custom application profiles, while as we discussed with Eyefinity, Catalyst 12.2 will add to AMD’s suite of Eyefinity features with custom resolutions and the ability to relocate the Windows task bar. Furthermore AMD has features in the development pipeline for their Catalyst drivers for introduction later this year, but at this point it’s too early to talk about them.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/5261/a...7970-review/13

That whole page is definitely worth a read as it goes into a lot more detail about trying to improve relationships with developers to get their software more optimized. Nvidia definitely does have an advantage in some titles which becomes apparent when compared two evenly matched cards.


All in all it's a pretty solid card. I really like how they tweaked all of the power options. IMO it seems like a lot of gamers don't care if the fan has to be a bit louder if it keeps their GPU cool during a game. Once you're out of game though getting that card throttled down as much as possible to make your pc silent is great for everything else. My main pc could easily be used to surf the web / perform as a HTPC without making my room a sauna. Then it still packs more than enough power to play games.


The 3 seperate displays with seperate audio is intriguing, but one thing that still needs to change is input support. If I could use those as completely seperate "VM's" I would be all over this card. There are a lot of games in which my main pc is more than adequate to host multiple instances, but I don't have a way to use them as such. Imagine having a CFX setup with eyefinity on a SNB-E pc. When you're playing by yourself you can have all of the fun an immersion of triple panel gaming. A couple of friends want to stop by to play a game, but having to haul their whole rig is time consuming and a bit of a hassle. If you could break up your 3 monitors into seperate computers so they could join in it would be awesome.

[Redeemed]

Originally Posted by Bman212121

I'd say that PhysX is even more niche than 3d gaming... Few titles use it and the ones where it could really help immersion are done on a CPU physics engine instead.

The driver argument while I can't say I fully agree with is being addressed. The main thing is that they did finally get around to allowing custom profiles much like Nvidia. This should really help for CFX users and getting new titles to work.



http://www.anandtech.com/show/5261/a...7970-review/13

That whole page is definitely worth a read as it goes into a lot more detail about trying to improve relationships with developers to get their software more optimized. Nvidia definitely does have an advantage in some titles which becomes apparent when compared two evenly matched cards.


All in all it's a pretty solid card. I really like how they tweaked all of the power options. IMO it seems like a lot of gamers don't care if the fan has to be a bit louder if it keeps their GPU cool during a game. Once you're out of game though getting that card throttled down as much as possible to make your pc silent is great for everything else. My main pc could easily be used to surf the web / perform as a HTPC without making my room a sauna. Then it still packs more than enough power to play games.


The 3 seperate displays with seperate audio is intriguing, but one thing that still needs to change is input support. If I could use those as completely seperate "VM's" I would be all over this card. There are a lot of games in which my main pc is more than adequate to host multiple instances, but I don't have a way to use them as such. Imagine having a CFX setup with eyefinity on a SNB-E pc. When you're playing by yourself you can have all of the fun an immersion of triple panel gaming. A couple of friends want to stop by to play a game, but having to haul their whole rig is time consuming and a bit of a hassle. If you could break up your 3 monitors into seperate computers so they could join in it would be awesome.

That is an application of VMs I'd never considered. Is that even possible? With the API's dealing with the drivers and such? I think it'd be rather neat.

[K007]

Originally Posted by i SPY

The funny part is its not based of the flagship, but again on lower-end like now 460/560Gtx gpus.. Imo it better not have the same symptoms like G104/G114 chip (tdr, dpc issues, downclocking, etc) and this is only because they shifted too much stuff on driver instead of using hw.. But yea you have to cut it somewhere to make more $$$ xD

And GK104 is using the same number of ROPS like 480 gtx or 580gtx, so im not expecting any miracles either..




Same by 7970 with 32 vs 6970 32 heh.. they need moooar ROPs, 40-48 would be ideal for 7970.


At least it can score good when Oc'ed


http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...n,3104-16.html

wtf...that is some massive rape over there...look at those bf3 numbers!!! 4xaa + ULTRA???

[Bman212121]

Originally Posted by K007

wtf...that is some massive rape over there...look at those bf3 numbers!!! 4xaa + ULTRA???

I think you mean this massive rape...

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2011/..._card_review/9

Framerates are a bit low for my tastes, but I'm sure you could live without a few options to get the frame rates you wanted. If not you can always buy two.

[Roadhog]

Originally Posted by Bman212121

I think you mean this massive rape...

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2011/..._card_review/9

Framerates are a bit low for my tastes, but I'm sure you could live without a few options to get the frame rates you wanted. If not you can always buy two.

Don't forget that 580 has a pretty good overclock on it.

[brady]

Originally Posted by Bman212121

I'd say that PhysX is even more niche than 3d gaming... Few titles use it and the ones where it could really help immersion are done on a CPU physics engine instead.

I agree that it's pretty niche, and I think if you don't care enough about it, then AMD offers some amazing products in terms of price/performance/power consumption. I'd actually prefer GPU accelerated PhysX be platform independent; I think it's annoying that it's not.

The driver argument while I can't say I fully agree with is being addressed. The main thing is that they did finally get around to allowing custom profiles much like Nvidia. This should really help for CFX users and getting new titles to work.

I have noticed that the quality of the drivers has gone up, but I still much prefer nVidia's driver support. Part of that could just be that I've mostly used nVidia products and so I have a level of familiarity, but I just have this sense that things are quite as refined with AMD drivers.

[Kain]

Originally Posted by Bman212121

I think you mean this massive rape...

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2011/..._card_review/9

Framerates are a bit low for my tastes, but I'm sure you could live without a few options to get the frame rates you wanted. If not you can always buy two.

Notice that the GTX 580 was done at 5040 x 1050 while the HD 7970 was done at 5760 x 1200. The HD 7970 also had SSAO enabled (not sure what that is ).