Subscores
AMD was the first manufacturer to out a graphics card with a 28 nm GPU—the Radeon HD 7970 released in December 2011. Since then, Nvidia has fought back with the GeForce GTX 680 then the GTX 670, hitting AMD right where it hurts. Not to be defeated, AMD first dropped the price of its flagship card and has now cooked up a boosted version of the Radeon HD 7970.
This is therefore still a GCN-architecture Tahiti chip with 2048 stream processors. But while in the Radeon HD 7970 the GPU was clocked at 925 MHz, here it's been upped to 1050 MHz, which is an increase of no less than 13.5%! The 3 GB of GDDR5 have also been boosted from 3175 MHz in the 7970 to 1500 MHz here, making a 9% increase.
These specs aren't really all that surprising, though, as many manufacturers already make their own modified Radeon HD 7970 cards with speeds at around about these levels.
Size, Noise, Heat
The reference card AMD sent us to test looked almost identical to the original Radeon HD 7970. In other words, it's 27.5 cm long and has a cooling system based around an off-centre fan. This system gets most of the hot air out of the casing effectively.
However, this Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition graphics card isn't particularly quiet. In games, the fan is really quite noisy, and will no doubt bother anyone else who happens to be in the room with you. In fact, when we tested the card, we could even hear the fan working from the next room!
At idle the fan is much more discreet, even though it's no match for the likes of the Asus GeForce GTX 670 DCU II TOP or Asus Radeon HD 7970 DCU II TOP.
Power Use
This Radeon graphics card boasts the same kind of low power use that's typical to AMD's Southern Islands GPUs. In fact, it uses slightly less power than the Radeon HD 7970 thanks to the reduced voltage. That said, it still can't beat Nvidia's GeForce GTX 680 and GTX 670.
It's nice to see ZeroCore Power technology back again too, which saves a few watts (15 or so) when your screen is on standby and shuts down the fan. This can be really handy if you tend to leave your computer running in a living room or bedroom.
Power use obviously rises in games, sometimes doing better and sometimes doing worse than the Nvidia GeForce GTX 680, depending on the game.
Performance in Games
As promised from the tech specs, performances have been upped by around 12% on average (as measured over our eight test games). The Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition therefore out-performs the GeForce GTX 680 reference card, but that won't necessarily be the case with modified branded cards like the Zotac GTX 680 Amp! Edition. Heavily overclocked GeForce GTX 670 cards will be slightly behind too.
Average general performances.
Click on the graph to see all our test results and
to compare graphics cards.
All in all, this is a nice update to AMD's Radeon HD 7970, even if we're not sure it'll be enough to compete with overclocked GeForce GTX 670 cards, which offer similar performance levels at a lower price, not to mention quieter gaming and lower power use. That said, AMD has out-done the Nvidia GeForce GTX 680 on graphics performances in games, making it the fastest single-GPU card of the moment.
AMD Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition: Specs
While the basic formula is the same, the boosted tech specs should make the GHz Edition a better graphics card. The GPU is practically identical to the one used in the Radeon HD 7970 from December 2011—it's actually a new revision of the GPU with higher clock speeds and a lower voltage.This is therefore still a GCN-architecture Tahiti chip with 2048 stream processors. But while in the Radeon HD 7970 the GPU was clocked at 925 MHz, here it's been upped to 1050 MHz, which is an increase of no less than 13.5%! The 3 GB of GDDR5 have also been boosted from 3175 MHz in the 7970 to 1500 MHz here, making a 9% increase.
These specs aren't really all that surprising, though, as many manufacturers already make their own modified Radeon HD 7970 cards with speeds at around about these levels.
Size, Noise, Heat
The reference card AMD sent us to test looked almost identical to the original Radeon HD 7970. In other words, it's 27.5 cm long and has a cooling system based around an off-centre fan. This system gets most of the hot air out of the casing effectively.
However, this Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition graphics card isn't particularly quiet. In games, the fan is really quite noisy, and will no doubt bother anyone else who happens to be in the room with you. In fact, when we tested the card, we could even hear the fan working from the next room!
At idle the fan is much more discreet, even though it's no match for the likes of the Asus GeForce GTX 670 DCU II TOP or Asus Radeon HD 7970 DCU II TOP.
Power Use
This Radeon graphics card boasts the same kind of low power use that's typical to AMD's Southern Islands GPUs. In fact, it uses slightly less power than the Radeon HD 7970 thanks to the reduced voltage. That said, it still can't beat Nvidia's GeForce GTX 680 and GTX 670.
It's nice to see ZeroCore Power technology back again too, which saves a few watts (15 or so) when your screen is on standby and shuts down the fan. This can be really handy if you tend to leave your computer running in a living room or bedroom.
Power use obviously rises in games, sometimes doing better and sometimes doing worse than the Nvidia GeForce GTX 680, depending on the game.
Performance in Games
As promised from the tech specs, performances have been upped by around 12% on average (as measured over our eight test games). The Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition therefore out-performs the GeForce GTX 680 reference card, but that won't necessarily be the case with modified branded cards like the Zotac GTX 680 Amp! Edition. Heavily overclocked GeForce GTX 670 cards will be slightly behind too.
Average general performances.
Click on the graph to see all our test results and
to compare graphics cards.
All in all, this is a nice update to AMD's Radeon HD 7970, even if we're not sure it'll be enough to compete with overclocked GeForce GTX 670 cards, which offer similar performance levels at a lower price, not to mention quieter gaming and lower power use. That said, AMD has out-done the Nvidia GeForce GTX 680 on graphics performances in games, making it the fastest single-GPU card of the moment.
| See Performance Index Table |
Pros
- Absolute performance levels
- Power use when idle
- ZeroCore Power function
Cons
- Very noisy when gaming
- Power use when running games
Conclusion
This improved version of the Radeon HD 7970 is able to rival and even surpass Nvidia on gaming performances. However, you may need to look for a branded version with a different cooling system to cut down on noise when gaming.
OUR SCORE
DigitalVersus on...