So I rock up to work one morning and sure enough I have a new package on my desk, I take a gander and inside I find an engineering model of the new AMD Radeon HD7970. So naturally I take it out of the box and drop it into my test bed and run 3DMARK over it. I also popped open battlefield3 and ran some FPS tests using fraps on the same sequence on low medium high and ultra.

I ran with the card for a good week after downloading the drivers and getting the card setup and being a competitive type gamer I had to delve into my pub gaming to get a bit of a feel for its performance as ironically in COD4/CS:S my fps is locked at between 250-300 anyway so I had to dig up something that required some more grunt to be able to put this little puppy through its paces. And yes i did run the windows experience index and surely enough it scored 7.9 in both categories.

Okay so first up lets take a look at my test bench system so we can get an idea of what we were working with here:

Case: CoolerMaster Storm Scout
Power Supply: CoolerMaster GX650W
Motherboard: ASUS ROG CrosshairV Formula
Processor: AMD FX6100 – 6 Core Processor 3.3GHz
Memory: Kingston HyperX DDR3 Dual Channel 2133MHz memory @ 8-8-8-24
Hard Drive: Kingston SSDNOW V100 128GB
OS: Windows7 Home Premium 64BIT Edition

Note that none of these components are overclocked and are all running at base configurations. For the full product info follow the article down to the bottom of the page where AMD has outlined the full feature set.

3DMARK11 Settings:



3DMARK11 Card Details:



3DMARK11 Score:



BF3 on Low:



BF3 on Med:



BF3 on HIGH:



BF3 on ULTRA:



AMD Radeon HD7970 Feature set:

Efficient Architecture for Leading DirectX® 11 Performance

• New architecture for greater performance: AMD has further enhanced its GPU design efficiency through the introduction of the 28nm process technology and Graphics Core Next Architecture, realizing an improvement of over 150% in performance/sq mm over the prior generation.
• Refined AMD PowerTune technology: Designed with the most advanced power management features, the AMD Radeon HD 7970 is equipped with the intelligence to convert unused power headroom into extra performance by dynamically controlling clock speeds, allowing gamers advanced performance inside of the power envelope they specify.
• AMD ZeroCore Power Technology: Gamers asked, AMD delivered – the AMD ZeroCore Power technology found in the AMD Radeon HD 7970 ensures that no power is wasted when the graphics card is not in use, enabling lower idle power than any other currently available graphics card.4 With support for AMD CrossFire technology, AMD ZeroCore Power eliminates wasted power, as well as additional heat and noise from extra cards when you are not using them.
• PCI Express 3.0: The AMD Radeon HD 7970 comes natively equipped with support for PCI Express 3.0. With world-class performance scaling, enthusiasts' GPU experience is maximized when paired with the latest platforms
• Discrete Digital Multi-Point (DDM) Audio: DDM Audio provides multiple independent audio streams for audio-capable displays via DisplayPort or HDMI signals. DDM Audio delivers unique experiences in cases where multi-display video conferencing, directional audio or multi-room entertainment hubs are being used.
• Enhanced Multi-GPU Capabilities: AMD CrossFire technology is the ultimate multi-GPU performance gaming platform. Unlocking game-dominating power, AMD CrossFire technology, coupled with PCI Express 3.0, will allow for unprecedented bandwidth in TriFire and QuadFire configurations.

The Ultimate Immersive Gaming Experience and Innovative AMD Eyefinity 2.0 Technology

• Next Generation AMD Eyefinity technology: AMD Eyefinity 2.0 features all-new support for stereo 3D, universal bezel compensation, brand new display configurations and an expanded and more immersive field of view. This allows users with 2560x1600 monitors in an AMD Eyefinity 5x1 landscape configuration to achieve a horizontal resolution of 12,800 pixels, driving more than 20 million pixels of screen real estate. More than 70 game titles have been AMD Eyefinity-validated, while many are AMD Eyefinity-ready, and hundreds more are AMD Eyefinity-compatible.
• DisplayPort 1.2 and HDMI 1.4a: With full support for 3GHz HDMI 1.4a and DisplayPort 1.2 HBR2, the AMD Radeon HD 7970 is set to drive next generation displays at up to 4K resolution.
• 3D entertainment choices with AMD HD3D technology: With the arrival of the latest in stereo 3D technology, AMD continues to deliver an enhanced visual experience on stereo 3D-capable desktops and notebooks powered by AMD Radeon graphics. The AMD Radeon HD 7970 is backed by AMD's open 3D initiative for stereo 3D gaming and Blu-ray 3D movies.

Better Performance through AMD App Acceleration

• AMD App Acceleration lets you do more, faster: Enthusiasts will enjoy improved GPGPU performance and new features in many top media, entertainment and everyday productivity applications with AMD App Acceleration
• Extensive support of industry standards: AMD Radeon HD 7970 fully supports DirectCompute® and OpenCL™ technologies, enabling broad application support today and tomorrow.

The AMD Radeon HD 7970 is available January 9, 2012 from retailers worldwide, with select models starting at $549 US SEP.

they look good, and will be great bang for bucks

however as always, nvidia has a trick up their sleeve.

whats disappointing, is the not so huge gains from a new architecture

2x 7950s when they are released IMO...

Or just wait for kepler....

The 7970 samples people have been getting are overlooking like crazy.....

As a reference point here is a the 3dmark result for an AMD HD6870 on the same system:

Nice write up talnoy, this isn't one of those threads where a random post will win one of these cards is it

I would like to upgrade my old pc but can't afford afford it atm. Might look at one of these down the track when they're a bit cheaper.

true aussie using the word gander lol..... good write up Talnoy, did miss a single detail as usual

So your fps locked 250-300 even when running fraps?

I'm curious to know the results when you run the game medium, fraps on, and at 1080 reso.

Edit* Sorry for the confusion. The way I red the review and the pictures.

You ran the game and scored 250-300 fps free of fraps.
You ran the game and scored 115fps in medium while running fraps but not recording.
You were also running the game at 720?

Edited once, 28/12/11 - 2:35pm.

The card seems to bech well in particular situations. High tesselation & highres + AA & AF.

It's miles ahead and in some cases is hot on the heels of 590/ 6990. Crossfire looks mighty impressive.

www.hardwareheaven.com/reviews/1362/pg4/amd-radeon-hd-7970-crossfire-performance-review-battlefield-3.html

no no no, COD4 = locked to 250 fps, CSS = locked to 300 fps. obviously the card was a constant 300/250 for those games.

the screenshots with fraps in BF are the actual fps for bf3, fraps wasn't recording the fps counter would be red if that was the case. and not running fraps would create little to no improvement.

Recording im guessing he would sit around 60fps (fraps) as im pretty sure recording with fraps rapes your CPU not GPU.

swiftz ill give you my 6990 when they bring out a card that tops it

Hoping to get 2 of these beauties for crossfire!

BF3 was run at my native res 1920x1080, i used the 4 ingame presets to determine the settings so it would be easy to compare against other cards.

3dmark was @ 720 because its the basic edition, i dont get enough of these cards to buy the full edition of 3DMARK

send it over, ill run the benchmarks for you

Are you referring to the rumour going around that GK100 a.k.a Kepler will have a 512-bit bus and 1500 CUDA cores? I'm still skeptical about that spec even after 2048 stream processors were confirmed for the 7970. Not to say it would not be out reach for Nvidia at the 28nm process, although I imagine such a card would be hard to keep cool and quiet. Here's to hoping that NOT another Fermi 1.0 debacle happens, cause there were way too many trolls likening Fermi 1.0's thermals to a Nuclear reactor.

I have a 7950 already!