AMD Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition Review: Battling For The Performance Crown
by Ryan Smith on June 22, 2012 12:01 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
- AMD
- GCN
- Radeon HD 7000
DiRT 3
For racing games our racer of choice continues to be DiRT, which is now in its 3rd iteration. Codemasters uses the same EGO engine between its DiRT, F1, and GRID series, so the performance of EGO has been relevant for a number of racing games over the years.
With AMD’s recent and significant performance gains under DiRT 3 due to their latest drivers, what was once an NVIDIA dominated game has flipped to an AMD-leading game before we even factor in the 7970GE. The 7970GE in turn only adds insult to injury, opening up an 18% lead at 2560. At this point framerates are so far above 60fps that it’s largely an academic difference, but 120Hz gamers will appreciate the difference. Otherwise we’ll be switching to DiRT: Showdown soon enough, and that should help to pull everyone’s framerate back down.
We should note that this is one of a few games where multi-monitor performance looks good across the board. Generally speaking having 2 high-end GPUs is still necessary for multi-monitor gaming (at least at comparably high quality), but in DiRT 3 even a single 7970GE can push past 71fps with ultra quality and 4x MSAA.
The minimum framerates largely reflect what we’ve already seen with the average framerates. DiRT 3 is already pretty consistent so the minimums aren’t much lower than the averages, which means at 2560 everything sails past 60fps with the 7970GE taking a clear lead. Even 5670 sees the 7970GE clearing 60fps.
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clumsyalex - Friday, June 22, 2012 - link
the first chart, the regular 7970 is priced higher than the ghz edition. the second chart shows it as lower howeverRyan Smith - Friday, June 22, 2012 - link
Actually those are a list of launch prices up top. The 7970 launched at $550, which is indeed higher than the $500 launch price of the 7970GE.EnerJi - Friday, June 22, 2012 - link
It's confusing and misleading. The first thing I thought when I saw it was that you had accidentally reversed the prices between the two models.Iketh - Friday, June 22, 2012 - link
that certainly isn't what I thought... i understood what was being presented to meCeriseCogburn - Saturday, June 23, 2012 - link
I love how amd has a birthday for tahiti at 6 months....Why wait a year for a birthday when you're a lying sack of crap corporate monster rip off crummy drivers fan boy mass brainwash co ?
Heck, two birthdays a year !!! amd is so great, they get two birthdays a year !
silverblue - Monday, June 25, 2012 - link
People in the first few months of a relationship like to mention anniversaries a lot despite the (rather obvious) point that the word denotes a yearly period. "Milestone" would be more appropriate though it does sound less glamourous and perhaps a bit pessimistic (well, in the case of relationships, anyway). Might even seem cynical.Captmorgan09 - Friday, June 22, 2012 - link
Just read the chart and it's not confusing... I did a double take the first time I glanced at it, but when I actually read it it made perfect sense. :)Ryan Smith - Friday, June 22, 2012 - link
In case it's not clear, since we have a price comparison chart at the bottom, the purpose of the prices up top is to help describe the cards. The fact that the 7970GE is listed for $500 next to the $550 7970 for example is to make it clear that it's launching at a lower price than the 7970. It helps offer some perspective on capabilities and the market segment it's designed for.That said, we can always get rid of it if it's a problem.
QChronoD - Friday, June 22, 2012 - link
Could I suggest adding when they launched on the line right above the prices? I can easily see how that is confusing, but also knowing how old each generation would be useful to see.Ryan Smith - Friday, June 22, 2012 - link
Now that's an excellent idea!