AMD Radeon HD 7970: Promising Performance, Paper-Launched

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A sample of AMD's next-generation Radeon HD 7970 landed in our lab just before Santa. Don't cross your fingers for one of these in your stocking, though. It's not available yet. Is it fast, though? Our benchmarks suggest yes, but more testing remains!

Benchmark Results: World Of Warcraft

World of Warcraft isn’t a particularly demanding game, but with over 10 million players, it might be the most relevant.

Unfortunately, this isn’t the apples-to-apples comparison we were hoping for. AMD’s cards cannot run at 5760x1080 in DirectX 11 mode—a surprising misstep given this title’s popularity. As such we’re forced to use DirectX 9 rendering.

Additionally, Nvidia’s GeForce cards don’t support transparent anti-aliasing in DirectX 9 mode, necessitating those numbers be run using an incomparable code path. If it’s not one thing…

With that in mind, let’s see how AMD’s new card performs with 8x MSAA:

The frame rates are incredibly high, and performance never drops below 30 FPS. How about with 8x transparency anti-aliasing, enabled through each vendor’s driver interface?

While transparency anti-aliasing slows things down at 1080p, all of the cards maintain smooth performance. The same can’t be said of our findings at 5760x1080, though. In this case, only the dual-GPU solutions are viable, and even the Radeon HD 6990 struggles with its minimum frame rates. Enabling 8x transparency AA is probably an unreasonable setting, though all of these cards would probably have performed smoothly at 4x.

Don Woligroski
205 Comments Comment from the forums
  • thepieguy
    If Santa is real, there will be one of these under my Christmas tree in a few more days.
    Reply
  • a4mula
    From a gaming standpoint I fail to see where this card finds a home. For 1920x1080 pretty much any card will work, meanwhile at Eyefinity resolutions it's obvious that a single gpu still isn't viable. Perhaps this will be something that people would consider over 2x 6950, but that isn't exactly an ideal setup either. While much of the article was over my head from a technical standpoint, I hope the 7 series addresses microstuttering in crossfire. If so than perhaps 2x 7950 (Assuming a 449$) becomes a viable alternative to 3x 6950 2GB. I was really hoping we'd see the 7970 in at 449, with the 7950 in at 349. Right now I'm failing to see the value in this card.
    Reply
  • mi1ez
    Damn, that's a good looking GPU!
    Reply
  • cangelini
    a4mulaFrom a gaming standpoint I fail to see where this card finds a home. For 1920x1080 pretty much any card will work, meanwhile at Eyefinity resolutions it's obvious that a single gpu still isn't viable. Perhaps this will be something that people would consider over 2x 6950, but that isn't exactly an ideal setup either. While much of the article was over my head from a technical standpoint, I hope the 7 series addresses microstuttering in crossfire. If so than perhaps 2x 7950 (Assuming a 449$) becomes a viable alternative to 3x 6950 2GB. I was really hoping we'd see the 7970 in at 449, with the 7950 in at 349. Right now I'm failing to see the value in this card.
    I'll be trolling Newegg for the next couple weeks on the off-chance they pop up before the 9th. A couple in CrossFire could be pretty phenomenal, but it remains to be seen if they maintain the 6900-series scalability.
    Reply
  • cangelini
    thepieguyIf Santa is real, there will be one of these under my Christmas tree in a few more days.
    Hate to break it to you, but there won't be, unless you celebrate Christmas in mid-January.

    Start treating your SO super-nice and ask for one for Valentine's Day!
    Reply
  • Darkerson
    Well I know what I want at tax time :D
    Reply
  • danraies
    cangeliniStart treating your SO super-nice and ask for one for Valentine's Day!
    If I ever find someone that will buy me a $500 graphics card for Valentine's Day I'll be proposing on the spot.
    Reply
  • a4mula
    cangeliniI'll be trolling Newegg for the next couple weeks on the off-chance they pop up before the 9th. A couple in CrossFire could be pretty phenomenal, but it remains to be seen if they maintain the 6900-series scalability.
    While I have little doubt that 2x of these cards would be very impressive, so would the $1100+ pricetag. I guess coming from the 580 SLI standpoint it might not seem like much, but if you've been considering the $750 ($900 for mobo+psu difference) 3x 6950 route like myself it seems like a major jump.

    Of course this is all just initial reaction towards the earliest of benchmarks. Given awhile to really dig around the new 7xxx, while allowing it to mature from a driver standpoint might make the 3x6950 seem foolhardy.
    Reply
  • Zombeeslayer143
    WOW!!! I love the conslusion; all of it, which basically is interpretted as "I'm biased towards Nvidia," and trys to say don't buy this card! Has the nerve to mention Kepler as an alternative; right, Kepler, as in 1 year away. The GTX580 just got "Radeon-ed" in it's rear. I'm not biased towards either manufacturer, just love to see and give credit to a team of people with passion, vision, and hardwork come together and put their company back on the map, as is shown here today with AMD's launch of the 7970. It's AMD's version of "Tebow Time!!"
    Reply
  • Zombeeslayer143
    No hard feelings to the author...thanks for the review nonethless..
    Reply