| Test Hardware | |
|---|---|
| Processors | Intel Core i7-3960X (Sandy Bridge-E) 3.3 GHz at 4.2 GHz (42 * 100 MHz), LGA 2011, 15 MB Shared L3, Hyper-Threading enabled, Power-savings enabled |
| Motherboard | Gigabyte X79-UD5 (LGA 2011) X79 Express Chipset, BIOS F10 |
| Memory | G.Skill 16 GB (4 x 4 GB) DDR3-1600, F3-12800CL9Q2-32GBZL @ 9-9-9-24 and 1.5 V |
| Hard Drive | Intel SSDSC2MH250A2 250 GB SATA 6Gb/s |
| Graphics | AMD Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition 3 GB (@ 1000/1500 MHz) |
| AMD Radeon HD 7970 3 GB (@ 925/1375 MHz) | |
| AMD Radeon HD 7950 3 GB | |
| Nvidia GeForce GTX 680 2 GB | |
| Nvidia GeForce GTX 670 2 GB | |
| Nvidia GeForce GTX 690 4 GB | |
| Power Supply | Cooler Master UCP-1000 W |
| System Software And Drivers | |
| Operating System | Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit |
| DirectX | DirectX 11 |
| Graphics Driver | AMD Catalyst 12.7 (Beta) For HD 7970 GHz Edition, 7970, and 7950 |
| Nvidia GeForce Release 304.48 (Beta) For GTX 680 and 670 | |
| Nvidia GeForce Release 301.33 For GTX 690 | |
You'll notice we're missing some comparison hardware that was included in our most recent GeForce GTX 670 review. That's by design. AMD's Catalyst 12.7 driver release purportedly includes a number of important improvements. Thus, we felt it necessary to retest the Radeon HD 7970 and 7950, omitting any 6900-series board due to time constraints. Similarly, Nvidia just this week made public its 304.48 driver, which was supposed to improve performance in a number of games as well. Unfortunately, it didn't really affect any of the titles we tested, so we wasted some cycles there. But at least we have the GTX 680 and 670 benchmarked anew using the latest from Nvidia, too.
| Games | |
|---|---|
| Battlefield 3 | Ultra Quality Settings, No AA / 16x AF, 4x MSAA / 16x AF, v-sync off, 1680x1050 / 1920x1080 / 2560x1600, DirectX 11, Going Hunting, 90-second playback, Fraps |
| Crysis 2 | DirectX 9 / DirectX 11, Ultra System Spec, v-sync off, 1680x1050 / 1920x1080 / 2560x1600, No AA / No AF, Central Park, High-Resolution Textures: On |
| Metro 2033 | High Quality Settings, AAA / 4x AF, 4x MSAA / 16x AF, 1680x1050 / 1920x1080 / 2560x1600, Built-in Benchmark, Depth of Field filter Disabled, Steam version |
| DiRT 3 | Ultra High Settings, No AA / No AF, 8x AA / No AF, 1680x1050 / 1920x1080 / 2560x1600, Steam version, Built-In Benchmark Sequence, DX 11 |
| The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim | High Quality (8x AA / 8x AF) / Ultra Quality (8x AA, 16x AF) Settings, FXAA enabled, v-sync off, 1680x1050 / 1920x1080 / 2560x1600, 25-second playback, Fraps |
| 3DMark 11 | Version 1.03, Extreme Preset |
| HAWX 2 | Highest Quality Settings, 8x AA, 1920x1200, Retail Version, Built-in Benchmark, Tessellation on/off |
| World of Warcraft: Cataclysm | Ultra Quality Settings, No AA / 16x AF, 8x AA / 16x AF, From Crushblow to The Krazzworks, 1680x1050 / 1920x1080 / 2560x1600, Fraps, DirectX 11 Rendering, x64 Client |
| SiSoftware Sandra 2012 | Sandra Tech Support (Engineer) 2012.SP4, GP Processing and GP Bandwidth Modules |
| Arsoft MediaConverter 7.5 | 449 MB MPEG-2 1080i Video Sample to Apple iPad 2 Profile (1024x768), 148 MB H.264 1080i Video Sample to Apple iPad 2 Profile (1024x768) |
| LuxMark 2.0 | 64-bit Binary, Version 1.0, Classroom Scene |
If you're one of the folks who likes to see our tessellation scaling results in HAWX 2, you'll find them below. In essence, though, the Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition scales exactly like the 7970 that came before it.



- Is An Overclocked Radeon HD 7970 Greater Than GeForce GTX 680?
- PowerTune With Boost: Is The Accelerator Stuck?
- Radeon HD 7970 Vs. Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition
- Overclocking With PowerTune
- Will Your Old 7970 Take A GHz Edition Firmware?
- Test Setup And Benchmarks
- Benchmark Results: 3DMark 11
- Benchmark Results: Battlefield 3 (DX 11)
- Benchmark Results: Crysis 2 (DX 9/11)
- Benchmark Results: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (DX 9)
- Benchmark Results: DiRT 3 (DX 11)
- Benchmark Results: World Of Warcraft: Cataclysm (DX 11)
- Benchmark Results: Metro 2033 (DX 11)
- Benchmark Results: GPU Compute
- Benchmark Results: MediaConverter 7.5
- Temperature And Noise
- Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition Gets Our Aftermarket Cooling Treatment
- Power Consumption
- New Drivers Deliver; Radeon HD 7970 Claims A Symbolic Win
And for the gamers: take a look at the new UT4 engine! Without excellent GPGPU performace this will be a disaster for each graphics card. See you, Nvidia.
the issue is them rethinking their future designs scares me... Nvidia has started a HORRIBLE trend in the business that I hope to dear god AMD does not follow suite. True, Nvidia is able to produce more gaming performance for less, but this is pushing anyone who wants GPU compute to get an overpriced professional card. now before you say "well if you're making a living out of it, fork out the cash and go Quadro", let me remind you that a lot of innovators in various fields actually do use GPU compute to ultimately make progress (especially in academic sciences) to ultimately bring us better tech AND new directions in tech development... and I for one know a lot of government funded labs that can't afford to buy a stack of quadro cards
now if only you could bold it
with Winzip that does not use GPU, VCE that slows down video encoding and a card that gives lower min FPS..... EPIC FAIL.
or before releasing your products, try to ensure S/W compatibility.
the issue is them rethinking their future designs scares me... Nvidia has started a HORRIBLE trend in the business that I hope to dear god AMD does not follow suite. True, Nvidia is able to produce more gaming performance for less, but this is pushing anyone who wants GPU compute to get an overpriced professional card. now before you say "well if you're making a living out of it, fork out the cash and go Quadro", let me remind you that a lot of innovators in various fields actually do use GPU compute to ultimately make progress (especially in academic sciences) to ultimately bring us better tech AND new directions in tech development... and I for one know a lot of government funded labs that can't afford to buy a stack of quadro cards
And for the gamers: take a look at the new UT4 engine! Without excellent GPGPU performace this will be a disaster for each graphics card. See you, Nvidia.
;-)
Excellent tip. Told you I'd look into it!
WoW is meaningful, actually.
New games will make it in when vendors start giving us more than two or three days to retest all of their graphics cards
And here's me, hoping that this kind of competition landscape would still be present in the enthusiast CPU market.
I really hope this is trolling, rather than a calous endeavor to discredit a competitors product.