HD7970 NDA lifted: Reviews go live

[StuG]

Anyone figure out if the HD7970 features a backplate? This actually has been something I have come to love.

[Firestarter]

Yeah, I don't see the 7970 shaping up to be bad value or anything, considering the high-end nature of the card. Considering that Nvidia will have the same process (I think?) and power constraints, I don't think Kepler will be significantly faster unless they go for the same huge GPU strategy that they first tried with the GTX480, with the same caveats.

As for driver improvements, I'm actually pretty impressed by its performance at launch, keeping in mind that the drivers are probably somewhat immature. I've got a 7970-sized hole burning in my pocket, so I guess it's wishful thinking to expect future drivers to improve performance

Anyone figure out if the HD7970 features a backplate? This actually has been something I have come to love.

Anandtech says no. Also, they mention the GPU thermal interface material to be of the sticky kind that is used on the 6990.

[Airmantharp]

The card looks great at Anand and [H], and I await Scott's review.

The release of the HD7950 (with how much RAM?) and Nvidia's Kepler should stabilize prices a little lower too- at which point I'll actually look at replacing my HD6950's.

Also, we need BF3 MP benchmarks. Single player is unfortunately not hardly a representative test for 99% of the people playing this game, and they're among the people most interested in this card.

[rcs2k4]

Also, we need BF3 MP benchmarks. Single player is unfortunately not hardly a representative test for 99% of the people playing this game, and they're among the people most interested in this card.

Good luck scripting that to make it repeatable and consistent

Jokes to one side, i've typically seen a 3-10 FPS drop in performance on my humble little rig when playing BF3 in multiplayer vs the single player. It's hard to say it's all GPU releated, as I have seen multiplayer also stresses my CPU a lot more (all them packets of data and players?). It's hard to say whether im bottlenecking my CPU at that point, overloading the graphics cards or both. This new radeon is a bit unknown until a few more end up in the wild where BF3 is concerned.

And yeah, I'll take a HD7970 over my CF set-up anyday, esp based on those numbers and pleasing power consumption

[FuturePastNow]

Also, we need BF3 MP benchmarks. Single player is unfortunately not hardly a representative test for 99% of the people playing this game, and they're among the people most interested in this card.

Good luck scripting that to make it repeatable and consistent

Can you spawn bots on a multiplayer map in BF3?

Or do any games even let you do that anymore? I haven't played a shooter newer than Quake... 3... ish.

[flip-mode]

Any ideas on when Kepler will launch? I'm guessing it's 4-6 months away. Dunno though.

[Airmantharp]

Testing MP in BF3 (or any other game) isn't easy, but it is necessary. The CPU and GPU requirements, especially on the Back to Karkland maps, are drastically higher in my experience.

[JustAnEngineer]

IIRC, Kepler is expected in NVidia's second quarter, which runs from May through July.

I'm very eager to see some benchmarks for the Radeon HD7950.

[Pantsu]

7970 is definetely a good card overall. Great performance for the size and some really good features like ZeroCore that come in handy. If you just compare it to a 580 3GB it's definetely worth the price, and it most certainly will sell at that price too. Considering the initial production quantities might not be all that high it's understandable that the premium high end card goes for a premium price. AMD failed to recognize that when 5870 launched, they sold it too cheap and the demand was much higher than supply.

On the other hand we haven't been used to 500+ AMD single gpu cards in a while. The last few process node upgrades brought quite a bit of more bang for buck, but 28 nm apparently won't. This is what irks people, the new gen doesn't seem to drop prices at all. Of course if you look at 7950 it will most likely be 450$ and perform on par with a 580 3GB, so it is better value, but not by far. Also considering the state of PC gaming at the moment, I wouldn't consider these cards for 1080p gaming at all, you're much better served by a 250$ 6950/560Ti. These cards are for future titles and extreme Eyefinity resolutions and stereoscopic 3D gaming. Personally I'll be buying one for Eyefinity and HD3D in mind, since CF has huge issues with driver support and micro stutter. If you look at those Eyefinity benchmarks, 7970 is pretty much on par with 6990 without any of the issues of CF, so indeed quite worth the asking price in that category.

When Nvidia is ready (are you ready? ) with Kepler, it'll most likely be yet another 500 mm^2 chip that should outperform 7970 by a decent margin, but Nvidia has never had any problems asking for premium price on their flagship. So it'll cost 600-700$ if the performance is there. Of course it'll have to deal with 7990 too, but even that can priced all the way to 800$ at this rate. We were simply spoiled by the prices of past few gens. It looks like the performance increases will only get smaller in the future, and prices/performance will drop much slower. Sad but true.

I did spot from Anandtech article (IIRC) that AMD would increase the driver and ISV relations budgets in the future, which is really good to hear! Looks like AMD is heading in the right direction on the GPU front at least.

[NarwhaleAu]

I'm running a 6950 2GB with the flashed firmware to unlock the extra shaders. The CPU is a cut down core 2 duo, the Pentium E2140, so I wonder if I am CPU bound. It's overclocked, but it just doesn't feel as powerful as I think it should be.

I was thinking of upgrading to the 7970, but this card is priced at the leading edge. I think the performance is very impressive - I wish all those extra transitors were devoted to shaders and not general computing, but I understand the design decision.

I may have to wait for the next generation and instead focus on an ivy bridge processor.

[Airmantharp]

I'm running a 6950 2GB with the flashed firmware to unlock the extra shaders. The CPU is a cut down core 2 duo, the Pentium E2140, so I wonder if I am CPU bound. It's overclocked, but it just doesn't feel as powerful as I think it should be.

I was thinking of upgrading to the 7970, but this card is priced at the leading edge. I think the performance is very impressive - I wish all those extra transitors were devoted to shaders and not general computing, but I understand the design decision.

I may have to wait for the next generation and instead focus on an ivy bridge processor.

Your CPU is definitely holding you back, though I'm sure that the overclocking helps. Also, I only run Crossfire to support a 4MP display (2560x1600), so your single card should be more than fine at ~1080p, which benchmarks regularly support. You just need the CPU grunt to back it up for modern games.

[NarwhaleAu]

I figured as much - she's been a good processor, and will make a linux powerhouse. Come on ivy bridge!

[d0g_p00p]

I don't understand all the complaining on the $550 price (go read the [H] thread!). Let's consider:

• 3GB of RAM
• Faster than 3GB 580 that sells for same price, 25% faster than standard 580
• Fastest single GPU on planet - which is all we ever hear about from the Nvidians
• DRIVER IMPROVEMENTS - these will definitely stack up after a while - the 580 and 69xx cards have very, very mature drivers at this point while the 7970 is still working with beta drivers at the moment.
• Initially includes active DP > DVI adapter - aren't those things worth something?
• DX 11.1 (seriously, though, this doesn't mean a darn thing to me)
• brand new, compute oriented architecture (doesn't mean much to me though)
• Eyefinity on a single card - you have to buy two Geforces to do that so that's worth a huge amount
• Makes wonderful improvements in areas Radeons have been weak: tessellation
• If it's priced too low then it's just out of stock all the time
• We're talking people complaining about $50 for the $500-level card and people saying if it was $499 they'd probably buy - pu-lease, if you're spending $499 on a video card then I can't comprehend the complaint about another $50

It's certainly way, way out of my price range, but I can't see how if you'd be willing to spend $500 on a video card to begin with that $550 is all of the sudden something to be offended by.

What is more offensive to me is the fact that prices for the 570 and the 6970 haven't come down a AT ALL in the YEAR SINCE they launched!!!!!eleven. That's what's go me bothered. It seems like AMD and Nvidia are definitely getting away from price wars from each other ever since the price collapse days of the Radeon 48xx and the Geforce 2xx, and that's something that is far more worrying to me than initial launch prices (even though, ironically, this makes the initial launch price all that much more important).

TR readers are all cheap asses. Look at the one poster who thinks it should be $200 less. If you want the best, you pay the price. Hell I got flamed when I said that $300 is well worth it for ther GTX 560Ti (384 model). Some people just want i7's for $99, GTX 580's for $99 and think anyone who spends money on high end products are idiots or looking to increase e-peen. I have a pretty high end computer and I never talk about how fast it is or what I spent on it. I just wanted to play all my games at native rez of my monitor with most of the details turned on. Just like this post, it's one of the things I whine about on TR is how much people expect to get for what they are willing to pay. I guess it's a entitlement issue. That said I love the site and I love the users. Long live TR!!!

[Firestarter]

Also considering the state of PC gaming at the moment, I wouldn't consider these cards for 1080p gaming at all, you're much better served by a 250$ 6950/560Ti.

I'm seriously considering buying a 7970 or 7950 for 1080p@120hz gaming. I'm not buying shutter-glasses for 3D yet, but the 120hz is most definitely coming and I want a videocard to match.

edit: I realize that in many games, I won't be getting 120fps no matter how hard I try. BF3 for example, unless I suddenly find that magic 6ghz CPU. I'll probably have to wring out the CPU for all its worth.

[luisnhamue]

I hvnt seen the reviews yet, and also when I came to this topic I just scrolled down
to the end of the thread. Just to say, AMD is awesome, they managed to launch this right on Christmas
for most folks this is the best gift.

It kinda makes sense, Christmas theme is Red and something, and it matches with AMD GPU division logo

[Zoomastigophora]

I hvnt seen the reviews yet, and also when I came to this topic I just scrolled down
to the end of the thread. Just to say, AMD is awesome, they managed to launch this right on Christmas
for most folks this is the best gift.

It kinda makes sense, Christmas theme is Red and something, and it matches with AMD GPU division logo

Except this is a soft launch and retail availability isn't happening until Jan. 9th or something.

[UberGerbil]

I hvnt seen the reviews yet, and also when I came to this topic I just scrolled down to the end of the thread. Just to say, AMD is awesome, they managed to launch this right on Christmas for most folks this is the best gift.

Except this is a soft launch and retail availability isn't happening until Jan. 9th or something.

And even if unlimited quantities were available immediately, three days before Christmas is way too late for any kind of sell-through. (Pay through the nose for one day shipping? Fight with crazed last-minute shoppers at a big box? Really?) It's kind of an odd time to even be releasing review samples and lifting the NDA, considering a lot of reviewers have other things going on (not to mention the AMD staffers who are expected to respond to reviewers' questions). The original schedule, launching right before the trade shows in January, made much more sense (assuming they weren't going to be ready no later than the end of October for the holiday season)

[flip-mode]

You may be right Uber, but it's nice to have some reading material over christmas.

[derFunkenstein]

TR readers are all cheap asses. Look at the one poster who thinks it should be $200 less. If you want the best, you pay the price. Hell I got flamed when I said that $300 is well worth it for ther GTX 560Ti (384 model). Some people just want i7's for $99, GTX 580's for $99 and think anyone who spends money on high end products are idiots or looking to increase e-peen. I have a pretty high end computer and I never talk about how fast it is or what I spent on it. I just wanted to play all my games at native rez of my monitor with most of the details turned on. Just like this post, it's one of the things I whine about on TR is how much people expect to get for what they are willing to pay. I guess it's a entitlement issue. That said I love the site and I love the users. Long live TR!!!

That's not just TR; that's the internet in general. The price is fair given the performance, but it's actually so fast and priced accordingly as to be impressive if not terribly relevant to me. When the 7800 series is announced/benched/released, I'll be looking at whatever is roughly $200-ish. And even then, who knows; I just upgraded about 8 months ago.

[elmopuddy]

Looks like a decent card, but loud.. when my EVGA 580 hit 88 (and it hit that temp alot) it gets quite noisy, and the 7970 is louder. Looks like I'll hold onto my 580 for another generation, but very glad to see a Radeon at the top of the charts again.

[cynan]

The HD7970 at $550 is definietly overpriced. Probably by as much as $100.

Right now (and off and on almost since launch a year ago) you can buy a 2GB HD6950 for around $250 or even a bit less. Get 2 of these for crossfire and you will get a good 15-20% boost over a single HD7970 in most games. If your main concern is GPGPU then the HD7970 has nothing on the GTX580 or GTX570, which cost less.

Sure the HD7970 offers a few extra features, like directx 11.1, more efficient power scaling, and the ability to support HD+ resolutions over HDMI 1.4, etc, but these are the sort of features that normally get tacked on with next gen releases anyway.

I'm hopeful that NVIDIA will respond by slashing the price of their GTX580 by $50 or $100 which will hopefully force AMD to reconsider the $550 price. However, I suppose AMD hasn't given NVIDIA much of an incentive to do so.

[flip-mode]

The HD7970 at $550 is definietly overpriced. Probably by as much as $100. Right now (and off and on almost since launch a year ago) you can buy a 2GB HD6950 for around $250 or even a bit less. Get 2 of these for crossfire and you will get a good 15-20% boost over a single HD7970 in most games. If your main concern is GPGPU then the HD7970 has nothing on the GTX580 or GTX570, which cost less.

I'm not sure that's a good price metric. It has for a long time been the case that you could buy two cards that would beat the high end card for less money. Two 460s beat a 580. The two card approach has disadvantages and anyone would prefer a single card over two if price and performance were equal and multi-gpu support was guaranteed and consisten. They're not equal, guaranteed, or consistent, so it becomes a balancing act. The 7970 is priced against the 580 and in that respect its price is fair - it's not ushering in any change to the price/performance landscape, but it is delivering more performance than the 580 for a little bit more price.

I'm hopeful that NVIDIA will respond by slashing the price of their GTX580 by $50 or $100 which will hopefully force AMD to reconsider the $550 price. However, I suppose AMD hasn't given NVIDIA much of an incentive to do so.

That would be nice. 580s die size is significantly higher and circuit board layout is just as complex so that move would probably not do a significant amount of good for Nvidia's bottom line. And beyond that the 580 is still slower. There are folks out there that don't care about the extra $50, they just want the fastest card, and there are also plenty of folks out there that are going to buy the Geforce card regarless of price or the fact that there's a faster Radeon. Anyone that cared about the extra $50 is going to be looking at the 570 or 6970 anyway - those are significantly cheaper and offer significantly better price/performance.

Looks like a decent card, but loud.. when my EVGA 580 hit 88 (and it hit that temp alot) it gets quite noisy, and the 7970 is louder. Looks like I'll hold onto my 580 for another generation, but very glad to see a Radeon at the top of the charts again.

Yeah, the noise issue would be a major pill for me to swallow if I were considering buying these things and it could possibly kill the deal. Fortunately the idle noise levels are pretty terrific and that matters much more to me.

[cynan]

It's not ushering in any change to the price/performance landscape, but it is delivering more performance than the 580 for a little bit more price.

Yes. And that's my issue with the price. I think there is expectation among enthusiasts (who this product is aimed at) for that very thing: A restructuring of price/performance with a significant next generation release (ie, die shrink or architecture change - both of which are happening here). Does this restructuring have to be as drastic as it was with the release of the HD48XX cards? No, of course not - that was a one shot deal and a desperate attempt to regain market share after a lackluster HD3XXX series that generally got spanked by NVIDIA. Since then, AMD has managed to stay competitive, hence such a drastic price restructure doesn't make sense.

However, to launch something like this that is more or less on the same price/performance scale as the previous generation offerings, together with the fact that the HD6970 launched at a price of $170 less, is a bit of a large pill for many to swallow. And I'm certain NVIDIA will exploit this when they get around to releasing their GTX7XX cards. If price performance always followed a more or less linear trajectory, then we'd be paying thousands of $$ for high end GPUs today. A price/performance restructure with a significant next gen release is not an unreasonable expectation. One we just aren't seeing here.

It's possible though that TMSC yields are still poor and AMD just won't have the stock to meet demand at a lower price than $550. In such a scenario, it's hard to blame AMD for getting as much as they can for the few units that they can actually get out the door.

[just brew it!]

That's not just TR; that's the internet in general. The price is fair given the performance, but it's actually so fast and priced accordingly as to be impressive if not terribly relevant to me. When the 7800 series is announced/benched/released, I'll be looking at whatever is roughly $200-ish. And even then, who knows; I just upgraded about 8 months ago.

Yup. "Competitive" and "relevant" can be very different things, depending on where your priorities lie.

I don't think I've ever spent more than $200 on a GPU (not counting "workstation" class cards I've ordered at my day job, but that doesn't count since it wasn't my money). I don't see this changing any time soon. When I discovered that the IGP on my M4A78T-E supported dual-head (albeit with the second head running analog... minor gripe), I opted to ditch a discrete video card entirely. Haven't regretted it yet, but I also acknowledge that the IGP will be woefully inadequate if I ever get back into gaming.

[michael_d]

Radeon HD 7970 CrossFire Scaling.

CrossFire scaling has been improving over generations, the results above are somewhat mixed but hopefully driver optimizations will continue the trend.

[DancinJack]

Does anyone know when the 7800 series is to be released?

[kamikaziechameleon]

DRIVER IMPROVEMENTS - these will definitely stack up after a while - the 580 and 69xx cards have very, very mature drivers at this point while the 7970 is still working with beta drivers at the moment.

Very true, I expect the card to improve to a comfortable 50 percent faster than the 580 simply on the basis of driver optimizations as the architecture is so new. My principle gripe is why isn't this replacing the 6970? why not price it 350-400 and bump down all your cards to fit it in there and then actually make Nvidia compete by dropping their cards prices. The goofy thing most of us really don't care to be early adopters at that price point. Not saying its a bad product, I wouldn't buy it out of my price range, etc. I was looking at AMD cards as my future purchase but now I'm feeling like buying a 6950 is buying old tech at a not discounted enough price, lol. The return of the 500 dollar premium card is a scary thing.

[kamikaziechameleon]

I don't understand all the complaining on the $550 price (go read the [H] thread!). Let's consider:

• 3GB of RAM
• Faster than 3GB 580 that sells for same price, 25% faster than standard 580
• Fastest single GPU on planet - which is all we ever hear about from the Nvidians
• DRIVER IMPROVEMENTS - these will definitely stack up after a while - the 580 and 69xx cards have very, very mature drivers at this point while the 7970 is still working with beta drivers at the moment.
• Initially includes active DP > DVI adapter - aren't those things worth something?
• DX 11.1 (seriously, though, this doesn't mean a darn thing to me)
• brand new, compute oriented architecture (doesn't mean much to me though)
• Eyefinity on a single card - you have to buy two Geforces to do that so that's worth a huge amount
• Makes wonderful improvements in areas Radeons have been weak: tessellation
• If it's priced too low then it's just out of stock all the time
• We're talking people complaining about $50 for the $500-level card and people saying if it was $499 they'd probably buy - pu-lease, if you're spending $499 on a video card then I can't comprehend the complaint about another $50

It's certainly way, way out of my price range, but I can't see how if you'd be willing to spend $500 on a video card to begin with that $550 is all of the sudden something to be offended by.

What is more offensive to me is the fact that prices for the 570 and the 6970 haven't come down a AT ALL in the YEAR SINCE they launched!!!!!eleven. That's what's go me bothered. It seems like AMD and Nvidia are definitely getting away from price wars from each other ever since the price collapse days of the Radeon 48xx and the Geforce 2xx, and that's something that is far more worrying to me than initial launch prices (even though, ironically, this makes the initial launch price all that much more important).

TR readers are all cheap asses. Look at the one poster who thinks it should be $200 less. If you want the best, you pay the price. Hell I got flamed when I said that $300 is well worth it for ther GTX 560Ti (384 model). Some people just want i7's for $99, GTX 580's for $99 and think anyone who spends money on high end products are idiots or looking to increase e-peen. I have a pretty high end computer and I never talk about how fast it is or what I spent on it. I just wanted to play all my games at native rez of my monitor with most of the details turned on. Just like this post, it's one of the things I whine about on TR is how much people expect to get for what they are willing to pay. I guess it's a entitlement issue. That said I love the site and I love the users. Long live TR!!!

on the basis of market fragmentation charging workstation prices on consumer cards is ridiculous as workstation cards are getting cheaper all the time but meanwhile the consumer cards are shooting back up. I don't see how you can expect consumer cards to cost a premium to be even worth the time developing and marketing them. AMD's best days spawned from the notion that you should target the 300 price point with your designs. This saved them the need to leave room for expansion and overclocking to produced a premium 500 dollar model of their core 300 dollar chip. AMD's consolidation of design and engineering created a focused and refined product lineup that made it easier to know what you are buying when shopping AMD. Mean while there are currently 3 different chips sold under the 560 label from nvidia ranging from great deals to horrible ones. If you get a 6850 or 6950 you know what you are getting there are no phantom bargain chips aping the rep of a big brother.

I kinda rambled off point the whole thing was that a single GPU design should not target a 400< market. There is room to go dual GPU to justify that market. If the 7970 was 400 then the ceiling on the 7990 X2would be 800 and the 7980 X2 could be up too 600 without seeming unreasonable.

[flip-mode]

The strange thing here is that I'm usually the biggest cheapskate in the room and I feel like the 7970 price is not any kind of insult.

Anyway, I'm more concerned about performance. By my (probably misguided) calculations, the 7970 is delivering close to the same efficiency per sp as the 6870. So I was doing some speculating of what the follow-up cards will be:

7970 @ 2048sp @ $550
7950 @ 1792sp @ rumored $450
7870 @ 1536sp @ rumored $300
7850 @ 1280sp @ rumored $220

So we have the 7850 with just a few more shader processors than the 6870 at about the same efficiency per shader processor with a rumored msrp of $220. That's not very exciting progress on either performance or price/performance. I can understand the halo product shunning the price/performance attribute, but not the $200 card.

I'll have to wait and see - the above is highly speculative and probably not even close to how it will play out.

[derFunkenstein]

Aren't all the 7000 series using VLIW4 cores at least? They won't be GCN cores, sure, but the 7800 series should be better performance than the 6800 series using VLIW5 cores.