Extra-curricular event for Cosmonautics Day for schoolchildren....
View of the VRM area.
There was a Volterra PWM controller, but it became Chill. In both cases, software adjustment of the Vgpu voltage is available.
As I already said, the five phases of the Tahiti decently warm up under load, while the Cayman, on the contrary, is not as strong in appearance, but cool, and I'm afraid that with better efficiency.
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- Detailed phase view of the GPU HD 7970.
- A similar view of the HD 6970 phases.
On the reverse side is the power phase logic, which consists of seven elements, since identical components are used for memory and GPU.
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It is very difficult to identify the manufacturer.
On the HD 6970, the elements were different, some for GPU power, others for memory.
Cooling system
Both turbines of the cooling systems are made in the same key. But in order to improve efficiency and increase the amount of air passing through the radiator, AMD has redesigned the profile and length of the blades. They became thinner and longer, and the round surface of the base decreased in diameter. These methods significantly affected the consumption, however, and the noise too.
Getting rid of the second DVI port, the rear panel received an additional place for the output of heated air. The side nozzle in the casing is now deaf, and it does not interfere with the passage of air from the inside. The diameter of the hole for the turbine impeller has increased by several millimeters following the changed profile.
Radiator dimensions have grown in width and length. Accordingly, the volume of the evaporation chamber also changed upwards.
The aluminum plate that cools the batteries and memory elements has changed with the advent of a different design for the placement of elements.
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The number of radiator plates has increased, but the distance between them remains the same.
The picture clearly shows how much the length of the radiator has grown, and you can also see the hole for attaching the casing. It became easily removable. It is enough to unscrew a few screws and you will see the insides of the cooling system in full view. You can blow and clean the radiator.
For the sake of the dense layout of modern system blocks, AMD decided to reasonably change the style of the cooling system casing. So that the air still flows in the normal volume to the turbine, and does not stop on the way, as was the case with the previous design of the cover.
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It can be seen how efficiently and rationally the contours of the turbine are made, the total height of the space above it, in comparison with the old cooling system, has grown to 4-5 mm.
test stand
The following components took part in testing the Radeon HD 7970:
- Motherboard: MSI Z68A-GD80 B3;
- Processor: Intel Core i7-2600K 4500 MHz (100 MHz x 45 1.44 V) or 1600 MHz when measuring the noise of the cooling system;
- Cooling system: water cooling system;
- Thermal interface: Arctic Cooling МХ-2;
- RAM: Corsair DDR3 1600 MHz, 4 GB x 2 modules (7-8-7-20-1T, 1.65 V);
- Hard drive: Crucial M4 128 GB;
- Power supply: Tagan TG1100-U95 1100 W;
- Audio card: ASUS Xonar HDAV 1.3;
- Operating system: Microsoft Windows 7 x64 SP1;
- Driver version: for ATi/AMD Catalyst 12.1b, NVIDIA - nforce 290.xx.
List of used measuring and control instruments and tools
- Sound level meter: Center 320;
- Multimeter: Fluke 289;
- Electricity tariff: E305EMG;
- Microphone: Philips SBC ME570.
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Testing tools and methodology
The following conditions were used to correctly measure temperature and noise. The room inside which the system of automatic support of climatic conditions is located. In this case, the temperature level was set at 26°C +/-1°C. The accuracy of compliance with the set parameters was monitored by four sensors, one of which was located 5 cm from the fan of the video card cooling system and was the leader. According to it, the main correction of the temperature in the room took place.
Noise was measured at a distance of 50 cm from the video card. The background level was 22 dBA. An SSD was used as a hard drive, and the power supply, pump, radiator with fans were outside the room during the measurement. There were no other components on the stand that made any noise.
The sound recording of the cooling system was made at a distance of 10 cm from the fan. The first 10-20 seconds without load in idle mode, then 100% load was turned on using the Furmark program. The highest level of noise is reached at the end of the audio recording. The temperature regime and noise were determined in advance, so that during the recording of the audio track you could hear exactly the maximum noise.
The level of electricity consumption (watts) in idle time was estimated according to the readings of the E305EMG tariff immediately after loading the operating system. The values displayed in the graph correspond to the minimum values reached from the device. Under load, the video cards were tested by the Unigine Heaven 2.5 program, the resolution, like all settings, is maximum. After 10-15 minutes, the temperature and fan speed reached their theoretical maximum, after which the data were entered into a table.
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Study of the potential of the cooling system
Explanations for charts:
- The red line is the maximum temperature.
- Blue - idle.
- The black line shows the level of noise emitted at a certain fan speed.
The dotted line indicates the adjustment range in automatic fan mode. The percentage indicates the speed of the fan/s set in MSI Afterburner. Thus, in order to understand how much the video card will heat up and how much it will make noise, say, at 50% fan speed, it is enough to draw a vertical line through the 50% mark. At the intersections, we get three values: with a red line - the maximum temperature in the load, with a blue line - idle temperature, with a black line - noise.
Temperature, noise level and electricity consumption
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Operating temperatures
Degrees, °CThe threshold for the active cooling phase of Tahiti comes in the range of 80 degrees, after crossing this border, the fan speed increases significantly. Previously, for both manufacturers, the mark was shifted to 90°C. This is the secret of the HD 7970's low temperature.
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The test involves video cards made on the basis of a reference design.Noise level
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The updated cooling system is hardly quieter than the previous solution. The increased number of transistors has to be cooled accordingly, so the fan noise is almost equal to the level of the previous HD 6970 video card, which, you see, is a considerable merit of the increased heatsink with a thermal chamber. And yet Tahiti is the loudest video card of the three: GTX 580, HD 6970, HD 7970. In idle mode, the GTX 580 is preferred, albeit at the cost of slightly higher PCB temperatures.
The test involves video cards made on the basis of a reference design.
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Electricity consumption
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Under load, the video cards were tested by the Unigine Heaven 2.5 program and the values differ significantly from those that were given in the overclocking mode. The GTX 580 constantly maintained stock frequencies, while the HD 6970 dropped to 575-615 MHz in places. The HD 7970 handled the loads of this program well and showed even lower values than the former leader HD 6970. But look how efficiently the GTX 580 consumes electricity. Its power consumption level stabilizes at 345 watts and remains unchanged throughout the test.
Listen to the cooling system:
And compare:
Overclocking
The load is created by running the Furmark 1.9.1 program with the most extreme settings. Monitoring of fans, GPU temperatures is carried out by the MSI Afterburner program. Data is entered on the diagram after fixing the fan speed when the maximum temperature is reached.
The potential of the graphics core depending on the voltage applied to it.
40nm graphics cores run out quickly in terms of overclocking. GF110 starts to resist at ~900 MHz, Cayman didn't go that far, just up to 950 MHz. But don't forget that a good two-thirds of the NVIDIA graphics core runs at double the frequency. And the 28 nm Tahiti is indifferent to any available frequency. And 1125 MHz is not the limit for it, I just ran into the common problem for a new video card, the lack of software that understands it.
I don't think that frequencies of about 1.2 GHz will turn out to be problematic for the Tahiti core, it looks more like a graphics processor that is very prone to overclocking. Indeed, to achieve 1.1 GHz, I did not need to change a single setting, neither voltage nor fan speed. I just moved the slider in the drivers and forgot about everything. I won't hide the fact that more and more companies are announcing obviously overclocked versions of the HD 7970, where 1.1 GHz frequencies are just child's play. The numbers 1.2-1.3 GHz appear there and this is air-cooled!
Power consumption depending on overclocking.
The power consumption of the new graphics card is in the moderate zone, but still higher than the previous generation. I dare to assume that AMD played it safe so that a large number of GPUs fit into the maximum required number - 250 watts. The increase in frequencies hardly affects the growth in electricity consumption.
The Cayman drops sharply at 950 MHz, and it actively resists overclocking, significantly reducing the frequency down to 400-500 MHz. Therefore, it is hardly possible to consider overclocking as full-fledged, the GTX 580 is completely difficult to fit in or, better to say, “make friends” with FurMark. Modern NVIDIA drivers perfectly recognize the program and reduce not only the frequencies, but also the consumption of the video card. And the screen of the wattmeter constantly jumps in the range of +/-50-70 watts. Therefore, from the point of view of an enthusiast, the HD 7970 is the most "correct" card of the three.
GPU temperature depending on its frequency.
The increase in the size of the evaporation chamber had a positive effect on the temperature of the graphics core. Since the power consumption did not rise too steeply, the heating was moderate. The decrease in temperature in the HD 6970 in the region of 900-950 MHz is caused by a strong decrease in the frequency in 3D. The temperature of the GTX 580 rises evenly, despite all the attempts of the algorithm, built-in both in the physical form on the video card and in the logical form in the drivers, to lower the GPU frequencies.
VRM temperature versus GPU frequency.
Still, power circuits based on Volterra cells have much better electricity conversion efficiency. But keep in mind that the power consumption of the HD 7970 is still higher and the number of phases is less than that of the HD 6970.
Our French colleagues kindly provided thermal camera photos of all three video cards.
- GTX 580 under load.
- HD 6970 under load.
- HD 7970 under load.
As expected, a quieter and more revving fan allows the Cayman graphics core to warm up to large values. But the power circuits hardly reach half the temperature of the core. On the GTX 580, the surface under the VRM and GPU area heats up evenly, not least due to the lower fan speeds. But pay attention, the VRM zone heats up exactly evenly, over the entire surface, without obvious hot spots.
The HD 7970 is better cooled by a massive heatsink with a thermal chamber, but the five-phase VRM system creates a localized point where heat is concentrated in a small area. Additional memory chips add heat to the overall heating picture. From the point of view of the consumer, HD 6970 looks preferable to all =).
- GTX 580 idle.
- HD 6970 idle.
- HD 7970 idle.
As expected, the coldest video card was the HD 6970, it only heats up the graphics core, while the rest of the surface remains cool. The worst was the GTX 580, partly because of the decent VRM heat. It is not clear why it is in idle time that the zone releases heat so actively. Formally, the situation can be attributed to lower quality elements with lower efficiency compared to the components used in AMD video cards.
Fan speed (control is automatic).
The explanation for the cold nature of the Tahiti graphics core lies in this chart. The fan on the HD 7970 spins up more aggressively, but we still have to give credit - the cooling system handles 1.1 GHz like a light summer cocktail.
Overclocking continued until one of the conditions was reached: the critical temperature was over 100°C, the maximum voltage level was set in the MSI Afterburner program, the core frequency did not increase even after the next increase in voltage.
NVIDIA GTX 580
AMD HD6970
| GPU frequency, GHz | 0.875 | 0.900 | 0.915 | 0.930 | 0.950 | 0.975 | 1.000 |
| 1.175 | 1.175 | 1.175 | 1.175 | 1.175 | 1.225 | 1.300 | |
| Voltage, multimeter, V | 1.234 | 1.235 | 1.235 | 1.235 | 1.235 | 1.290 | 1.372 |
| Delta, V | 0.059 | 0.06 | 0.06 | 0.06 | 0.06 | 0.065 | 0.072 |
| GPU temperature, °C | 90 | 90 | 90 | 89 | 89 | 91 | 92 |
| VRM temperature, °C | 48 | 49 | 50 | 49 | 49 | 49 | 50 |
| 2350 | 2550 | 2550 | 2350 | 2350 | 2750 | 2950 | |
| 407 | 408 | 409 | 408 | 407 | 437 | 480 |
AMD HD 7970
| GPU frequency, GHz | 0.875 | 0.900 | 0.915 | 0.930 | 0.950 | 0.975 | 1.000 | 1.015 | 1.030 | 1.045 | 1.060 | 1.075 | 1.100 | 1.125 |
| Voltage, MSI Afterburner, V | 1.170 | 1.170 | 1.170 | 1.170 | 1.170 | 1.170 | 1.170 | 1.170 | 1.170 | 1.170 | 1.170 | 1.170 | 1.170 | 1.170 |
| Voltage, multimeter, V | 1.143 | 1.139 | 1.139 | 1.139 | 1.139 | 1.139 | 1.139 | 1.139 | 1.139 | 1.139 | 1.139 | 1.139 | 1.139 | 1.139 |
| Delta, V | -0.03 | -0.03 | -0.03 | -0.03 | -0.03 | -0.03 | -0.03 | -0.03 | -0.03 | -0.03 | -0.03 | -0.03 | -0.03 | -0.03 |
| GPU temperature, °C | 82 | 82 | 82 | 82 | 82 | 82 | 83 | 83 | 83 | 83 | 83 | 83 | 83 | 83 |
| VRM temperature, °C | 51 | 52 | 52 | 52 | 52 | 52 | 52 | 52 | 52 | 52 | 52 | 52 | 53 | 53 |
| Fan speed max, rpm | 2625 | 2625 | 2625 | 2625 | 2625 | 2625 | 2725 | 2725 | 2725 | 2725 | 2725 | 2725 | 2725 | 2725 |
| Power consumption Furmark, W | 425 | 426 | 426 | 427 | 428 | 428 | 429 | 429 | 429 | 430 | 430 | 430 | 430 | 430 |
Let's study the new product, its features, and answer the question, has AMD been able to become the sole leader among single-processor video cards with the release of the Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition?
Specifications
The technical specifications of the AMD Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition are shown in the table in comparison with the characteristics of the reference video cards AMD Radeon HD 7970 and NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680:
Design features
Externally, in comparison with the AMD Radeon HD 7970, the new reference Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition is completely indistinguishable:
Naturally, in terms of the size of the video card, no changes have occurred - its length is 278 mm, height and thickness - 100 and 38 mm, respectively.
There are also no changes in terms of outputs, the video card is equipped with one DVI-I with support for high resolutions (Dual Link), one HDMI version 1.4a and two DisplayPort version 1.2:
Given this trend, it is needless to say that nothing has changed in terms of power connectors, MIO and dual BIOS: the Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition is equipped with eight- and six-pin connectors for connecting additional power, two MIO connectors for creating CrossFireX bundles and a small BIOS selection switch:
Despite the increased frequencies, the power consumption of the new video card is declared at the same level: in 3D mode it is peak 250 W, and in 2D Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition, consumption can drop to 3 W (when the monitor is turned off). Let's also remind you about disabling all other video cards, except for the first one, in CrossFireX mode when exiting 3D mode. This certainly useful feature of the new Radeon HD 79xx has not disappeared.
In terms of the appearance of the printed circuit board and the arrangement of elements, we did not reveal any changes compared to the regular Radeon HD 7970:
As on the reference Radeon HD 7970, the boosted version of the video card is equipped with a 5 + 1 power supply scheme, where five phases fall on the graphics processor and one on the video memory power circuit:
The CHiL Semiconductor CHL8228G controller, installed in the back of the front side of the PCB, is still responsible for managing them:
The 28nm GPU of our copy of the AMD Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition graphics card looks like this:
As you can see from the characteristics table, it has no functional changes: 2048 unified shader processors, 32 rasterization units and 128 texture units. The only thing that AMD has done is to increase its frequency from the previous 925 MHz to 1000 MHz, and also introduced a new so-called boost mode, in which the frequency of the GPU under heavy load can increase up to 1050 MHz. Thus, we can say that the frequency of the AMD Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition GPU is 13.5% higher than the frequency of the regular Radeon HD 7970. According to monitoring data, the GPU voltage in 3D mode is 1.256 V, and in 2D, when the frequency drops to 300 MHz, voltage drops to 0.949 V.
The ASIC quality of the GPU die turned out to be very low - only 56.3%:
Like the regular Radeon HD 7970, three gigabytes of GDDR5 video memory are located in 12 FCFBGA chips on the front side of the PCB. The chips are manufactured by Hynix Semiconductor Inc. and are marked H5GQ2H24AFR R0C:
The theoretical effective frequency of such chips in 3D mode is 6000 MHz, on which the AMD Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition memory functions, in contrast to 5500 MHz on the Radeon HD 7970 (+9.1%). With a video card memory exchange bus width of 384 bits, the memory bandwidth reaches a record 288 GB/s. In 2D mode, the frequency is reduced to 600 effective megahertz.
There are no other changes to the reference AMD Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition:
Read with the GPU-Z utility and saved BIOS you can download from the file archive.
Cooling system and its efficiency
As you already understood, all the differences between the AMD Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition and the regular Radeon HD 7970 can be counted on two fingers of one hand, since they did not affect the cooling system of the video card, which consists of a heatsink with a copper evaporation chamber at the base, a copper base, turbine and plastic casing:
We did not detect a single change when disassembling this cooler and removing its radial fan:
According to monitoring data, the rotation speed of this turbine can vary from 1050 to 5400 rpm, and the maximum power consumption should not exceed 20 watts.
To check the temperature regime of the video card as a load, we used five cycles of the test of the very resource-intensive game Aliens vs. Predator (2010) at maximum graphics quality at 2560x1440 pixels with 16x anisotropic filtering and 4x MSAA:
The program was used to monitor temperatures and other parameters. MSI Afterburner version 2.2.2 and GPU-Z utility version 0.6.3. All tests were carried out in a closed case of the system unit, the configuration of which you can see in the next section of the article, at a room temperature of 25 degrees Celsius. Testing the efficiency of the cooling system of the video card was carried out before its disassembly using a standard thermal interface.
Let's see if the cooler of the reference AMD Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition can cope with its increased frequencies:
Automatic modeMaximum power
Yes, he managed, of course, but the temperature regime of the video card with automatic fan speed control leaves much to be desired, because the graphics processor warmed up to almost 90 degrees Celsius, and the radial fan accelerated to 3200 rpm, which is very noisy. At a maximum of 5400 rpm, it is very difficult to be in the same room with such a roaring video card, but such high speeds allow you to win back 18 degrees Celsius at once in terms of the temperature of the GPU at the peak of the load on it.
Overclocking potential
Maybe because of the low-quality GPU, or maybe just because of bad luck, but the overclocking potential of the AMD Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition sample provided to us for testing turned out to be average. Without increasing the voltage on the core, it was only possible to overclock it to 1180 MHz:
The memory was also modest with overclocking, stopping only at 6680 MHz. As a result, the frequencies of our copy of the video card were 1180 MHz (+12.4%) for the GPU and 6680 MHz (+11.3%) for the video memory:
Well, at least the temperature regime of the overclocked video card with automatic fan speed control has practically not changed:
A little upset, we decided to squeeze out all the juices and, inserting earplugs and setting the fan speed to maximum, we checked the potential of the graphics processor at a voltage increased to 1.3 V. The result is 1250 MHz, which is not so bad:
The temperature regime of a video card overclocked with an increase in voltage turned out to be as follows:
The peak temperature of the GPU reached 77 degrees Celsius (recall - at a maximum of 5400 rpm of the turbine). We hope that "GHz Edition" serial video cards with original and highly efficient coolers will be able to please us not only with lower temperatures, but also with a moderate noise level.
Energy consumption
Measurement of system power consumption with various video cards was carried out using the Zalman ZM-MFC3 multifunctional panel, which shows the consumption of the system "from the outlet" as a whole (excluding the monitor). The measurement was carried out in 2D mode, during normal work in Microsoft Word or Internet "surfing", as well as in 3D mode, the load in which was created using a three-time test from the game Metro 2033: The Last Refuge at a resolution of 2560x1440 at maximum settings graphics quality.Let's look at the results:
Obviously, for our test system with an overclocked six-core processor and any of the video cards tested today, a high-quality 550-watt power supply will suffice. As for the new AMD Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition, at nominal frequencies, a system with it consumes 20 watts more power than a system with a regular Radeon HD 7970, and about 80 watts more than a system with a non-overclocked GeForce GTX 680. Note that at When overclocking video cards, the power consumption of systems at the peak of the load increases insignificantly, even with an increase in the voltage on the GPUs. In idle mode, power consumption figures are almost the same.
Test configuration, tools and testing methodology
Video cards were tested on a system with the following configuration:
Motherboard: Intel Siler DX79SI (Intel X79 Express, LGA 2011, BIOS 0525 from 07/09/2012);
CPU: Intel Core i7-3960X Extreme Edition 3.3 GHz(Sandy Bridge-E, C1, 1.2V, 6x256KB L2, 15MB L3);
CPU cooling system: Phanteks PH-TC14PE (2x135 mm, 900 rpm);
Thermal interface: ARCTIC MX-4 ;
RAM: DDR3 4x4 GB Mushkin Redline(2133 MHz, 9-10-10-28, 1.65 V);
Video cards:
AMD Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition 3 GB 384-bit GDDR5, 1050/6000 and 1250/6680 MHz @ 1.3V;
Sapphire Radeon HD 7970 OC Dual-X 3 GB 384-bit GDDR5, 925/5500 MHz;
ASUS GeForce GTX 680 DirectCU II TOP 2 GB 256-bit GDDR5, 1006/6008, 1137/6008 and 1217/7168 MHz;
System Drive: 256 GB Crucial m4 SSD (SATA-III, CT256M4SSD2, BIOS v0009);
Drive for programs and games: Western Digital VelociRaptor (SATA-II, 300 GB, 10000 rpm, 16 MB, NCQ) in a Scythe Quiet Drive 3.5" box;
Backup disk: Samsung Ecogreen F4 HD204UI (SATA-II, 2 TB, 5400 rpm, 32 MB, NCQ);
Case: Antec Twelve Hundred (front wall - three Noiseblocker NB-Multiframe S-Series MF12-S2 at 1020 rpm; back - two Noiseblocker NB-BlackSilentPRO PL-1 at 1020 rpm; top - standard 200 mm fan at 400 rpm);
Control and monitoring panel: Zalman ZM-MFC3 ;
Power Supply: Xigmatek "No Rules Power" NRP-HC1501(1500W), 140mm fan;
Monitor: 27" Samsung S27A850D (DVI-I, 2560x1440, 60 Hz).
For comparison with the AMD Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition, we included a video card in the tests Sapphire Radeon HD 7970 OC Dual-X 3 GB:
Since both of its BIOSes have increased frequencies, we manually lowered the frequency of the GPU and video card memory to the nominal for the Radeon HD 7970 -925/5500 MHz, although GPU-Z stubbornly demonstrated slightly increased frequencies to us:
On the NVIDIA side, we included in the testing the best GeForce GTX 680 from our Lab. This is a video card ASUS GeForce GTX 680 DirectCU II TOP 2 GB:
Its performance was tested at nominal frequencies for ASUS - 1137/6008 MHz, nominal frequencies for the reference NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 - 1006/6008 MHz, and at the maximum possible overclocking for this instance of the video card 1217/7168 MHz:
To reduce the dependence of video card performance on platform speed, a 32nm six-core processor with a multiplier of 37, a reference frequency of 125 MHz and the activated “Load-Line Calibration” function was overclocked to 4.625 GHz by increasing the voltage in the motherboard BIOS to 1.47 V:
Hyper-Threading technology is activated. At the same time, 16 GB of RAM operated at a frequency of 2 GHz with timings of 9-10-10-28 at a voltage of 1.65 V.
Testing commenced on July 30, 2012 was conducted using the Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate x64 SP1 operating system with all critical updates as of that date and with the following drivers installed:
motherboard chipset Intel Chipset Drivers - 9.3.0.1020 WHQL dated 01/26/2012;
DirectX End-User Runtimes libraries, release date November 30, 2010;
video card drivers for AMD GPUs - Catalyst 12.x (8.982.0.0 RC1) from 07/19/2012+ Catalyst Application Profiles 12.7 (CAP1);
NVIDIA graphics card drivers - GeForce 304.79 beta from 07/03/2012.
The performance of video cards was tested in two resolutions: 1920x1080 and 2560x1440 pixels. For tests, two graphics quality modes were used: “Quality + AF16x” – texture quality in drivers by default with 16x anisotropic filtering enabled, and “Quality + AF16x + MSAA 4x (8x)” with 16x anisotropic filtering and full-screen anti-aliasing enabled powers of 4x or 8x, in cases where the average frames per second remained high enough for a comfortable game. Anisotropic filtering and full-screen anti-aliasing were enabled directly in the game settings. If these settings were not available in games, then the parameters were changed in the control panels of the Catalyst and GeForce drivers. Vertical sync has also been disabled. No other changes were made to the driver settings.
The list of test applications consists of two semi-synthetic packages, one techno demo and 13 games updated to the latest versions (as of the start date of the tests):
3D Mark Vantage(DirectX 10) - version 1.0.2.1, "Performance" and "Extreme" settings profiles (only basic tests were tested);
3D Mark 2011(DirectX 11) - version 1.0.3.0, "Performance" and "Extreme" settings profiles;
Unigine Heaven Demo(DirectX 11) - version 3.0, maximum quality settings, tessellation at the "extreme" level, AF16x, resolution 1280x1024 without MSAA and 1920x1080 with MSAA 8x;
(DirectX 11) - version 1.6.02, settings profile "Improved dynamic lighting DX11" with additional manual setting of all parameters to the maximum, own demo "cop03" was tested at the level "Backwater";
Metro 2033: The Last Refuge(DirectX 10/11) - version 1.2, used official test, quality settings "Very High", tessellation, DOF enabled, AAA anti-aliasing used, double sequential pass of the scene "Frontline";
Just Cause 2(DirectX DX10.1) - version 1.0.0.2, maximum quality settings, "Blurring background" and "GPU water simulation" methods are deactivated, double sequential pass of the "Dark Tower" demo;
Aliens vs. Predators (2010)(DirectX 11) - Texture Quality at Very High, Shadow Quality at High, SSAO enabled, two test runs at each resolution;
Lost Planet 2(DirectX 11) - game version 1.0, maximum graphics quality settings, motion blur enabled, performance test "B" used;
Sid Meier's Civilization V(DirectX 11) - game version 1.0.1.348, maximum graphics quality settings, double run of the "diplomatic" test of the five most difficult scenes;
Total War: Shogun 2(DirectX 11) - version 2.0, built-in test (Battle of Sekigahara) at maximum graphics quality settings and using one of the MSAA 4x modes;
Crysis 2(DirectX 11) - version 1.9, used Adrenaline Crysis 2 Benchmark Tool v1.0.1.14 BETA, "Ultra High" graphics quality profile, high-resolution textures activated, double-cycle demo recording on the "Times Square" stage;
Hard Reset Demo(DirectX 9) - test built into the demo version with Ultra-quality graphics, one pass of the test scene;
Batman Arkham City(DirectX 11) - version 1.2, maximum graphics quality settings, physics disabled, double sequential pass of the test built into the game;
Battlefield 3(DirectX 11) - version 1.4, all graphics quality settings on "Ultra", double sequential passage of the scripted scene from the beginning of the "Hunting" mission lasting 110 seconds;
DiRT Showdown(DirectX 11) - version 1.0, built-in test on the "Nevada" track at maximum graphics quality settings ("Ultra" preset);
Sniper Elite V2 Benchmark(DirectX 11) - version 1.05, used Adrenaline Sniper Elite V2 Benchmark Tool v1.0.0.2 BETA maximum graphics quality settings ("Ultra"), Advanced Shadows: HIGH, Ambient Occlusion: ON, Stereo 3D: OFF, double sequential test run;
You can find a more detailed description of the methods for testing video cards and graphic settings in some of the listed games in a specially created for this branch of our conference, as well as participate in the discussion and improvement of these techniques.
If the games implemented the ability to fix the minimum number of frames per second, then it was also reflected in the diagrams. Each test was carried out twice, the best of the two obtained values was taken as the final result, but only if the difference between them did not exceed 1%. If the deviations of the test runs exceeded 1%, then the testing was repeated at least once more in order to obtain a reliable result.
Performance test results and their analysis
3D Mark Vantage
The first semi-synthetic test 3DMark Vantage showed us a rather interesting picture. If in the mode without anti-aliasing, the new AMD Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition still noticeably loses to the GeForce GTX 680, then in the more resource-intensive "Extreme" settings mode, the difference is reduced to a minimum. When overclocking both video cards, the picture does not change, NVIDIA is slightly faster than AMD here. In general, the Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition outperformed its predecessor by 6.5-10.6%.
3D Mark 2011
In 3DMark 2011, the alignment of forces has not changed, but the leadership of the GeForce GTX 680 is more confident here. The AMD Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition is about 9% faster than the regular HD 7970.
Unigine Heaven Demo
The picture repeats itself: in the “light” graphics mode, the GeForce GTX 680 demonstrates higher speed than both variations of the Radeon HD 7970, and at a resolution of 1920x1080 and with anti-aliasing activated, the performance of the video cards is almost equal. The new Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition is 10.5-12% faster than the regular HD 7970.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat
As we can see from the results of the regular Radeon HD 7970, in S.T.A.L.K.E.R .: Call of Pripyat, top AMD video cards have not lost before, and with the release of the Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition, they began to outperform the competitor in the face of the GeForce GTX 680 by 7.5-11%. In fairness, we note that when overclocking these two video cards, their performance is almost equal, including in modes using anti-aliasing.
Metro 2033: The Last Refuge
In Metro 2033: The Last Refuge, the simple Radeon HD 7970 was already slightly faster than the GeForce GTX 680, and the new GHz Edition was able to increase this gap, as it outperforms the regular HD 7970 by 4-6% due to higher frequencies. True, you can comfortably play Metro 2033 on these video cards only at a resolution of 1920x1080 pixels and lower.
Just Cause 2
Just Cause 2 showed us the need to overclock the Radeon HD 7970 and turn it into a GHz Edition to compete with the GeForce GTX 680. If the previous AMD flagship lagged behind its direct competitor, then the boosted version is already on par with it in this game.
Aliens vs. Predators (2010)
In Aliens vs. The Predator (2010) Radeon HD 7970 looked better than the GeForce GTX 680 before, and with the release of the GHz Edition of this video card, it was able to increase its advantage up to 44% in the most resource-intensive mode.
Lost Planet 2
But in Lost Planet 2, the increased frequencies of the AMD Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition do not help her in the fight against the GeForce GTX 680:
The gap is narrowing, but nothing more. Video cards based on NVIDIA graphics processors are still in the lead in this game.
Sid Meier's Civilization V
Fans of the Sid Meier's Civilization V series of games have, in general, one choice - video cards on AMD GPUs, which outperform the competitor by up to 67%.
Total War: Shogun 2
Up until the latest Total War: Shogun 2 update, installed automatically by Steam, NVIDIA graphics cards could successfully compete with AMD graphics cards, but now the situation has seriously changed:
This was already a couple of months ago, and NVIDIA was able to fix the situation in this game by releasing a new version of the drivers. Whether this will be the case this time - time will tell, but for now the GeForce GTX 680 is here only in the role of catching up.
Crysis 2
If earlier the Radeon HD 7970 and GeForce GTX 680 were approximately equal in Crysis 2, then with the release of the Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition, the scales tipped in favor of AMD. Albeit with a slight advantage, but the novelty is in the lead in this test. With the maximum overclocking of both video cards, their performance does not differ.
Hard Reset Demo
Here, the new AMD Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition outperforms the regular Radeon HD 7970 by up to 16%, and due to this, the loss of the GeForce GTX 680 is replaced by a victory over it. However, the latter, when overclocked, gets a higher return in Hard Reset than the Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition, and easily regains its leadership.
Batman Arkham City
AMD Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition performs with varying success in the game Batman: Arkham City: if in modes without anti-aliasing the GeForce GTX 680 is very fast, then when MSAA 8x is enabled, the palm passes to the new AMD video card, which is ahead of the regular Radeon HD 7970 by 7- 9%.
Battlefield 3
The increased frequencies of the new Radeon turned out to be appropriate in the game Battlefield 3: where the GeForce GTX 680 was in the lead earlier, now the HD 7970 GHz Edition is at least not inferior, and even slightly outperforms the competitor in anti-aliasing modes.
DiRT Showdown
Well, everything is clear here and without comment, with the DiRT Showdown engine, the NVIDIA architecture works less efficiently, therefore it suffers a complete fiasco in this game against the backdrop of high results for AMD video cards.
Sniper Elite V2 Benchmark
In a similar way, but still not so bright, the situation is developing in the new Sniper Elite V2 test. The advantage of AMD Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition over GeForce GTX 680 here reaches an impressive 54%.
Traditionally, we apply a summary to charts and graphs, and move on to summary charts.
Pivot Charts
The first pair of summary diagrams will show you and me the advantage of the AMD Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition at 1050/6000 MHz over the regular Radeon HD 7970 at 925/5500 MHz:
On average for all tests, an increase in the frequency of the GPU by 13.5% and video memory by 9.1% brought the Radeon HD 7970 a performance increase of 9.3-9.6% at a resolution of 1920x1080 pixels and 9.9-10% at a resolution of 2560x1440 pixels . The maximum growth was achieved in games such as Aliens vs. Predator (2010) and Lost Planet 2, and minimal in Metro 2033: The Last Refuge.
Now let's look at the confrontation between AMD Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition 3 GB and GeForce GTX 680 2 GB at their nominal frequencies:
The GeForce GTX 680 is still faster in semi-synthetic tests, the game Lost Planet 2, as well as individual modes of Just Cause 2, Hard Reset, Batman: Arkham City and Battlefield 3. In other tests, the advantage is on the side of the new AMD Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition, and in games like Aliens vs. Predator (2010), Sid Meier's Civilization V, Total War: Shogun 2, DiRT Showdown and Sniper Elite V2, it is very decent. However, let's not forget that today a lot depends on the specific game and its engine, and not just on performance video card itself For example, from my own experience I will say that in StarCraft II previously excluded from our test list: Wings of Liberty (due to excessive processor dependence) and Tom Clancy's HAWX 2 (due to irrelevance) the GeForce GTX 680 would be in the lead. So everything is relative.
Finally, let's compare the performance of overclocked AMD Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition at 1250/6680 MHz and ASUS GeForce GTX 680 TOP at 1217/7168 MHz:
It cannot be said that the situation has changed dramatically, nevertheless, due to higher overclocking (in percentage terms), the GeForce GTX 680 managed to close the gap with the Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition where it won, and increase where it lost.
Conclusion
To say that the new AMD Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition is now the fastest single-processor video card would not be entirely correct, since we did not reveal its total superiority over the reference NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680. However, the increased frequencies allowed this graphic solution to exceed the performance level of the previous Hi-End AMD video card by 10% and in most cases still outperform the competitor from NVIDIA. However, in our opinion, the release of the AMD Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition turned out to be somewhat "blurry", because today a good dozen factory Radeon HD 7970s with increased frequencies, and sometimes with frequencies above the "GHz Edition" level, are freely offered. That is, the novelty, in general, did not surprise anyone with its performance and certainly did not impress anyone. Perhaps, overclockers had the highest hopes for it, expecting a new stepping of the Tahiti XT core, its reduced voltage and, as a result, a high overclocking potential. In today's article, alas, this was not confirmed. We hope that serial video cards will be more attractive in this regard. Time will tell.Test Methodology
| AMD Catalyst Control Center Settings | |
|---|---|
| antialiasing | Use application settings |
| Anisotropic Filtering | Use application settings |
| Tessellation | Use application settings |
| Catalyst A.I., Texture Filtering Quality | Quality, Enable Surface Format Optimization |
| Mipmap Detail Level | Quality |
| Wait for V-Sync | off, unless application specifies |
| Anti-Aliasing Mode | Multi sample AA |
| Direct3D Settings, Enable Geometry Instancing | On |
| Triple buffernig | Off |
| NVIDIA Control Panel Settings | |
| ambient occlusion | Off |
| Anisotropic Filtering | Application-controlled |
| Antialiasing - Gamma correction | On |
| Antialiasing-Mode | Application-controlled |
| Antialiasing - Settings | Application-controlled |
| Antialiasing - Transparency | Off |
| CUDA-GPUs | All |
| Maximum pre-rendered frames | 3 |
| Multi-display/mixed-GPU acceleration | Multiple display performance mode |
| power management mode | Adaptive |
| Texture filtering — Anisitropic sample optimization | Off |
| Texture filtering — Negative LOD bias | allow |
| Texture filtering - Quality | Quality |
| Texture filtering - Trilinear optimization | On |
| Threaded optimization | Auto |
| Triple buffering | Off |
| vertical sync | Use the 3D application settings |
| A set of benchmarks | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Program | API | Settings | Test Mode | Permission |
| 3D Mark 2011 | DirectX 11 | Profiles Performance, Extreme | ||
| Unigine Heaven 2 | DirectX 11 | Max. quality, DirectX 11, tessellation in Extreme mode | AF 16x, MSAA 4x | 1920x1080 / 2560x1440 |
| Crysis Warhead + Framebuffer Crysis Warhead Benchmarking Tool | DirectX 10 | Frost flythrough. Max. settings, DirectX 10. | AF 16x, MSAA 4x | 1920x1080 / 2560x1440 |
| Metro 2033 + Metro 2033 Benchmark | DirectX 11 | Max. settings, DirectX 11, DOF, tessellation, NVIDIA PhysX off | AF 16x, MSAA 4x | 1920x1080 / 2560x1440 |
| DiRT 3 + Adrenaline Racing Benchmark Tool | DirectX 11 | Aspen, 8 cars. Max. quality, DirectX 11 | AF, AA 4x | 1920x1080 / 2560x1440 |
| Crysis 2 + Adrenaline Crysis 2 Benchmark Tool | DirectX 11 | central park. Max. quality, DirectX 11, high resolution textures | AF 16x, Post MSAA + Edge AA | 1920x1080 / 2560x1440 |
| Battlefield 3 + FRAPS | DirectX 11 | The start of the Going Hunting mission. Max. quality | AF 16x, MSAA 4x | 1920x1080 / 2560x1440 |
| Batman: Arkham City. Built-in benchmark | DirectX 11 | Max. quality | AF, MSAA 4x | 1920x1080 / 2560x1440 |
| The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim + FRAPS | DirectX 9 | City of Whiterun. Max. quality | AF 16x, MSAA 4x | 1920x1080 / 2560x1440 |
| Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 + FRAPS | DirectX 9 | Mission Return to Sender. Max. quality | AF, MSAA 4x | 1920x1080 / 2560x1440 |
The following video cards took part in testing as rivals to the Radeon HD 7970 GHz Editon:
- AMD Radeon HD 7970 (925/5500 MHz, 3 GB)
- NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 (1006/6008 MHz, 2 GB)
- NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670 (915/6008 MHz, 2 GB)
- NVIDIA GeForce GTX 590 (607/3414 MHz, 3 GB)
- AMD Radeon HD 6990 (880/5000 MHz, 4 GB)
In order for both participants in today's intrigue, Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition and GeForce GTX 680, to be fully armed, the latest beta drivers from NVIDIA (304.48 Beta) and AMD (Catalyst 12.7 Beta) were used in testing. In addition, the PCI-E 3.0 mode was activated for the GTX 680, which is not officially supported on the Intel X79 platform.
⇡ Overclocking, temperature, power consumption
Since PowerTune does not show itself at the observed clock frequencies, the Boost Clock frequency of 1050 MHz became the starting point for overclocking. With GPU voltage, things are not so simple. The fact is that the voltage setting in MSI Afterburner (it is possible that the same thing happens with other utilities, we have not tried it) no longer has any effect on the observed voltage. To increase it, you need to try to set a higher permanent voltage using the appropriate option. But, no matter how strange it may look, this does not stop the voltage from fluctuating, it just shifts the observed values upward. Thus, we cannot fix the voltage, but we can shift the range within which it changes. As a result, if you manually set the voltage to 1.3 V, then the oscillation range will be about 1.227 - 1.252 V.
It should be noted that in some cases, when playing with various overclocking and monitoring utilities, the voltage was still fixed at 1.3 V, but then, apparently, Power Tune went crazy, and strong artifacts appeared on the screen in 3D regardless of the GPU frequency. It doesn't look like it's worth trying to beat Power Tune, especially since she's doing her job so well.
If we consider the Boost Clock of the new adapter as the standard GPU frequency in other Radeons (and in terms of the principles of Power Tune, it is), the HD 7970 GHz Edition overclocked even better than the regular HD 7970: up to 1240 MHz for the processor and 7320 (1830) MHz from memory. If we subtract the 50 MHz Power Tune Boost range from 1240 MHz, we get the frequency that many instances of the standard HD 7970 reach. Apparently, a longer frequency table allows the overclocked GPU to reach higher peak values, while rolling back to the previous lower threshold in heavy tasks. However, it is not a fact that the card actually ever reaches these 1240 MHz, and is not constantly in throttling. Until monitoring utilities gain access to the innards of Power Tune, this will remain a mystery.
But the fantastic memory overclocking is just the merit of the excellent controllers of the Tahiti chip and memory chips, apparently slightly superior to those that are equipped with standard HD 7970.
The HD 7970 GHz Edition heats up a little more than the standard version - about the same as the GeForce GTX 680. The cooling system, turned on at full speed, allows you to maintain the same temperatures during strong overclocking as in normal mode, but only at the cost of colossal noise. We admit that even with automatic fan control, the HD 7970 GHz Edition makes a lot more noise than the GeForce GTX 680.
The maximum recorded power consumption of the card, as expected, still slightly increased compared to that of the regular HD 7970. We don't think AMD is lying when they claim that the TDP of both versions of the HD 7970 is the same. Apparently, the HD 7970 GHz Edition is simply mastering it more actively. During overclocking, of course, power consumption shoots up at the ceiling. A powerful power supply will not interfere.
⇡ Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition vs GeForce GTX 680
These are the results for which everything was started. So, did AMD manage to regain the lost leadership?
The GeForce GTX 680 without overclocking still performs better than the HD 7970, but among the overclocked Radeon cards, it is faster.
Gamingtests+ Unigine Heaven
At a resolution of 1920x1080 in three out of nine gaming benchmarks (Crysis Warhead, DiRT 3, Metro 2033), the Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition is ahead. In the other three, the GeForce GTX 680 wins (Unigine Heaven 2, Battlefield 3, Skyrim). In other games, there are no significant differences between the opponents. Perfect draw. In the 2560x1440 mode the situation outweighs in favor of the HD 7970. Only in CoD 3 and Unigine Heaven does the GTX 680 retain its superiority.
Overclocking is better for the AMD card than for the GTX 680: the performance gain is noticeably higher, and as a result, the HD 7970 GHz Edition takes revenge even at 1920x1080.
⇡ Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition against all
- It's unfortunate for AMD, but in 3DMark 2011, the Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition is inferior not only to the GeForce GTX 680, but also to the GTX 670.
- The advantage of the GHz Edition over the standard version is noticeable.
Unigine Heaven 2
- The GHz Edition added a few FPS over the regular HD 7970.
- At 2560x1440, the GeForce GTX 670 and GTX 680 have a minimal advantage, but at 1920x1080 the HD 7970 GHz Edition is noticeably behind.
- The overclocked GHz Edition beats the Radeon HD 6990 and compares to the GTX 670 and GTZ 680.
Crysis Warhead (DirectX 10)
- In this test, even the regular HD 7970 easily beats the GeForce GTX 680 due to its higher memory bandwidth.
- The HD 7970 GHz Edition is even slightly worse than the GeForce GTX 590, and the overclocked GHz Edition is on par with the Radeon HD 6990.
Metro 2033 (DirectX 11)
- The advantage of the HD 7970 GHz Edition over the regular version is small.
- The HD 7970 GHz Edition is noticeably faster than the GeForce GTX 680.
- When overclocked, the GHz Edition reaches the level of the GeForce GTX 590 and Radeon HD 6990.
DiRT 3 (DirectX 11)
- The HD 7970 GHz Edition is far superior to the standard version.
- The GHz Edition is also noticeably faster than the GTX 680, comparable in performance to the Radeon HD 6990 and GeForce GTX 590.
Crysis 2 (DirectX 11)
- In the 2560x1440 mode, there is a noticeable performance increase compared to the regular HD 7970.
- At 2560x1440, the HD 7970 GHz Edition is also ahead of the GeForce GTX 680, and the overclocked card left the GTX 590 behind and caught up with the Radeon HD 6990.
- In the 1920x1080 mode, test participants hit the 100 FPS limit set in Crysis 2.
Battlefield 3 (DirectX 11)
- Once again, the HD 7970 GHz Edition has a noticeable FPS boost compared to the standard HD 7970.
- The novelty is about on par with the GTX 670 and GTX 680.
- An overclocked HD 7970 GHz Edition is too tough even for a GTX 590.
Batman: Arkham City (DirectX 11)
- The magic phrase GHz Edition once again gives the HD 7970 a nice FPS boost.
- At 1920x1080 the card is on par with the GTX 680, and at 2560x1440 it outperforms it.
The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim (DirectX 9)
- There is no significant difference between the HD 7970, HD 7970 GHz Edition and GeForce GTX 680 in this game: after a certain limit, the Skyrim engine can no longer use additional computing power.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (DirectX 9)
- Compared to the stock version of the HD 7970, the GHz Edition has a big framerate increase.
- Nevertheless, only the GeForce GTX 670, not the GTX 680, is an equal rival for the new product.
⇡ Conclusions
For AMD, for the first time since the bygone days of the Radeon X1950 XTX, the moment has come when the top video card is at least as good as the NVIDIA flagship of the same generation. The HD 7970 GHz Edition is even slightly faster than the GeForce GTX 680 in heavy graphics modes (such as 2560x1440) overall thanks to the 384-bit memory bus. In addition, after factory overclocking, it still has a significant margin of frequencies. The updated Power Tune technology has a beneficial effect on the overclocking potential of the GPU, and the memory began to overclock much better. In future cards from both NVIDIA and AMD, we are sure to see a flourishing dynamic frequency and voltage control technologies, as it has already happened with the CPU.
In fact, in the original version, the HD 7970 is a very powerful card, and most copies easily reach such frequencies at which you can catch up and overtake the GeForce GTX 680. The GHz Edition is mostly a fashion product for both the owner and the manufacturer . AMD overclocked the HD 7970 just enough to match the GTX 680 and still stay within the same TDP. Our power consumption tests clearly show what would have happened if the developers had set as their goal an unconditional victory over the NVIDIA flagship.
Alas, AMD has already lost a special advantage over NVIDIA cards in the High-End segment, which it has enjoyed in recent years - power consumption. If earlier top-end Radeons could not beat the GeForce GTX 480 and GTX 580 in terms of performance, but they consumed and heated up much less, now there is a draw in the benchmarks, but the TDP Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition is as much as 55 W higher than that of the GTX 680.
And one more question. The existence of two physically identical cards with different software in the Radeon line already looks ugly. What are the buyers of the HD 7970 GHz Edition paying for, if almost the same can be achieved by easily overclocking the standard HD 7970, and why didn't the owners of the latter get a new firmware? Since the BIOS of video cards cannot be updated as easily as drivers, it would be better if the HD 7970 GHz Edition completely replaced its predecessor. Well, purely from the point of view of world harmony.
AMD Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition | Energy consumption
Idle power consumption is still AMD's forte, and the company's new graphics card, which draws the system under 100W while "idling on the Windows desktop," tops the chart.
ZeroCore technology further demonstrates the advantages of AMD, although the card Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition consumes more power than original Radeon HD 7900 series cards. Still, you save an additional 10W when Windows turns off the monitor.
AMD Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition | New drivers give Radeon HD 7970 a token victory
The AMD Driver Development Team deserves a long weekend. Catalyst 12.7 beta does wonders for some of the games in our test suite. Nvidia GeForce GTX 670 is no longer faster Radeon HD 7970. And in fact, these drivers allowed the video card Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition overtake GeForce GTX 680 in most of our tests.
Unexpectedly original model Radeon HD 7970 at a price of $460-$480 has become more attractive. So what to do with the new card Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition ?
Instead of just replacing Radeon HD 7970, AMD decided that a 1000+ MHz model could coexist. AMD says the price starts at $500, and we assume that this applies to reference cards as well. Models with a third-party cooler will almost certainly cost more. The first deliveries are expected next week, with bulk receipts starting a week later.
The AMD factory cooler is still very loud, so it's best to avoid it. But if the partners of the company apply interesting solutions, like those that we saw in the review Radeon HD 7950, and will be able to keep the price around $500, the video card Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition takes its rightful place next to GeForce GTX 680 .
But there is one catch. If there was no GeForce GTX 670, we would consider GeForce GTX 680, since there would be no particular alternative in the field of high-end video cards. However, it is not. Today, there are other high-end GPUs that provide almost the same performance but at a more attractive price point, detracting from the flagship single-GPU card.
We do not guarantee that the cards Radeon HD 7970 will continue to overclock like now, especially when AMD selects the best chips for new models. However, we'd rather save some money and get a close result. For this reason, the original Radeon HD 7970 and the GeForce GTX 670 remain our favorites for gaming graphics cards.
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AMD demonstrated the Radeon HD 7970 graphics card in the first half of January. The novelty turned out to be very successful and rightfully topped the list of the most productive single-chip solutions on the market. Now it's time to prepare and release material about the main competitor (GTX 680 was presented on the evening of March 22), but due to circumstances, we ignored the "red" camp in January. And this gap needs to be filled. will consider the top solution from AMD on the example of a video card from Gigabyte. The model index is intricate and not everyone will understand - GV-R797D5-3GD-B - so in our article we will omit it. Let's start with the specifications.
Gigabyte Radeon HD 7970 | Specifications
The card is equipped with a chip with a new architecture codenamed Tahiti. This is the first architecture in a series planned under the code name Southern Islands. We have already witnessed the release after Tahiti of cards with Cape Verde chips (77xx line), and more recently cards of the 78xx series with Pitcairn chips.
Our colleagues have already said a lot about the key features of the new architecture, so we don’t see much point in repeating. Let us emphasize only the main measurable metrics that may be of interest to an ordinary user who does not go into the particulars of the logical structure of computing units. The main characteristics of the HD 7970 series cards, an example of which today is a copy from Gigabyte, are shown in the table.
| Characteristic | Radeon HD 7970 | Radeon HD 6970 | Nvidia GTX 580 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Process norms, nm | 28 | 40 | 40 |
| Crystal area, mm² | 378 | 389 | 530 |
| Estimated number of transistors, mln. | 4300 | 2640 | 3000 |
| Core frequency in 2D mode, MHz | 150 | 150 | 50/100 |
| Core frequency in 3D mode, MHz | 925 | 880 | 772/1544 |
| Memory size, MB | 3072 | 2048 | |
| Memory frequency in 2D, MHz | 300 | 300 | 67 |
| Memory frequency in 3D, MHz | 5500 | 5500 | 4008 |
| Memory bus width, bit | 384 | 256 | 384 |
| Number of shaders, pcs | 2048 | 1536 | 512 |
| Number of rasterization blocks, pcs | 32 | 32 | 48 |
| Number of texture blocks, pcs | 128 | 96 | 64 |
| Power consumption in 2D, W | 3 | 20 | - |
| Power consumption in 3D (maximum), W | 250 | 250 | 244 |
| Overall L x W x H, mm | 275 x 100 x 37 | 275 x 100 x 37 | 270 x 100 x 38 |
In addition to architectural changes, which are undoubtedly significant, the novelty has another competitive advantage - a “thin” technological process. The Radeon HD 7970 was the first video card with a chip manufactured at TSMC factories according to 28 nm standards. And this immediately provides an opportunity to increase efficiency, reduce energy consumption per unit of productivity. As a result, on a crystal with an area of 365 mm². managed to etch over four billion transistors. In Cayman, with an area of 389 mm², it was a little more than two and a half, and in the case of the current green leader, the GTX 580, with a gigantic crystal size (520 sq. mm), about 3 billion. The GTX 680, thanks to the transition to the 28nm process technology, managed to fit 3.54 billion transistors into a much smaller area of 294 mm².
The core frequency has increased, and the memory still runs at the same effective frequency of 5500 MHz under load. On the other hand, the memory bus width has grown to 384 bits, as in the competitor's GTX 580 (although for the GTX 680 it was decided to return to a 256-bit bus). This increased the memory bandwidth to 264 GB per second. The amount of memory also increased by one and a half times and reached three gigabytes.
If we talk about computing units, then in the new chip there was a quantitative increase in comparison with its predecessor. Unless there are still 32 ROPs left. An interesting figure is striking in the table - power consumption in 2D mode. Only three watts! If so, “Tahiti” is the coldest idle top-end graphics chip ever.
The Radeon HD 7970 was the first mainstream device to support the PCI Express 3.0 interface. Very handy, given the emergence of the Intel LGA 2011 platform and Sandy Bridge-E processors. In addition, Ivy Bridge processors containing a PCI Express 3.0 controller will be released at the end of April. And then the double bandwidth of the interface will become more affordable. Motherboard manufacturers are preparing with might and main, filling the market with models with fast multiplexers on board. To the natural question that arises - will the HD 7970 be able to benefit from PCI Express 3.0? - we will not answer within the framework of this article. But we promise to supplement the material upon receipt of the necessary equipment at our disposal.
Gigabyte Radeon HD 7970 | Detailed inspection
Samples with a reference design are not as interesting as video cards with coolers and printed circuit boards of manufacturers' own design. However, as a sample starting point for reviews of future modified accelerators, it is necessary to “dissect” the original. No wonder it is called the reference version.
As usual in the case of top-end accelerators, the board is overall: the length is 26.5 centimeters, and the cooling system is two-slot. The plastic casing, which hides the nuances of cooling, is pasted over with Gigabyte stickers - a little bit to distinguish it from many “clones”. Let's pay attention to the metal bracket on the reverse side of the board: it gives rigidity at the place where the cooler is attached to the chip.
There are four display connectors on the slot cover: AMD in the latest generations of video cards pays due attention to multi-monitor configurations. The most common DVI and HDMI are complemented by two mini-DP sockets for the happy owners of modern monitors.
To power the video card, two connectors are displayed on the sidewall: six- and eight-pin.
In the traditional place, there are connectors for connecting video cards with bridges to CrossFireX arrays. To the left, if you look closely, there is a small switch between the two BIOSes. There are two of them in the card: in case of problems with the first one during experiments with firmware replacement, or any errors, you can switch to the backup one.
Cooling is carried out by the already traditional copper evaporation chamber, on which aluminum fins are soldered. And they are blown by a turbine fan according to the standard scheme: air passes through the entire card in the direction of increasing component temperature (from the batteries to the chip) and is removed through the back wall of the case. Our copy of the Gigabyte Radeon HD 7970 has already been in someone's "caring" hands: the radiator under the casing has already experienced someone's ruthless impact, bruising is visible.
The entire cooling system is mounted in a metal frame and bolted together in the area of the video chip. The frame not only adds rigidity, but also removes heat from batteries and memory chips. Contact is made through thermal pads.
The copper base of the evaporation chamber is roughly machined.
After removing excess thermal paste from the chip, the board appeared as follows:
In the case of this instance, two-gigabit Hynix H5GQ2H24MFR R0C memory chips are used. The nominal frequency of their operation is 6 GHz, which is 500 MHz higher than the standard operating mode in the Radeon HD 7970. Accordingly, we can count on memory overclocking.
There are no markings on the crystal - a clean, mirror-like silicon surface. But unlike the flagship of the previous generation, in the HD 7970 the protective frame around the chip has become noticeably larger and tightly frames it.
Let's pay attention to the power subsystem. At the back of the card, you can see six phases: five for the core itself, one for the memory chips. A gaping gap is visible in the orderly row of chokes and switches, where it was supposed to have components of another phase - in the first engineering samples it really was, but for some reason it was decided to release a card with fewer phases in the products.
Phase control is entrusted to the eight-channel CHiL CHL8228G controller, which is familiar from previous generation AMD video cards.
A separate phase feeds the logic of the I / O system, it is placed closer to the front of the board and is controlled separately.
Gigabyte Radeon HD 7970 | Test platform and applications
The test bench configuration is shown in the table below. To take the readings, we used the Sandy Bridge platform with an Intel Core i5 2500K microprocessor overclocked to 4 GHz.
As rivals to the Gigabyte Radeon HD 7970, we identified the reference video cards of the predecessor from AMD and the top card from Nvidia (taking into account the GTX 680, which has not yet been released at the time of the tests). The specified hardware configuration was running Windows 7 Ultimate x64 SP1. Graphics driver versions: AMD Catalyst 12.2 and 296.10 for Nvidia cards.
A set of test applications and settings are shown in the table below.
All games were captured at 1920 x 1080 resolution using only the DirectX 11 API.
Gigabyte Radeon HD 7970 | Test results
Let's turn to the results. Let's start with synthetic tests. In 3DMark 11, the Radeon HD 7970 takes a solid lead ahead of the second-placed GTX 580 quarter.
The Unigine Heaven test is useful not only for evaluating performance in general, but also for analyzing the possibilities in individual visual effects, such as tessellation. The graph shows the difference in the number of frames in the Normal and Extreme tessellation modes.
As you can see, the HD 7970 is only marginally better than the GTX 580. But the previous performance leader, AMD, is far behind. Thus, we can evaluate the efforts of AMD engineers, who significantly improved performance according to this benchmark.
In Crysis 2, the novelty practically provided the minimum FPS at a comfortable level. If friezes are possible in the case of rival cards, in the case of the HD7970 they are almost invisible, the picture is smooth and allows you to play comfortably.
Battlefield 3 once again shows the HD 7970's progress over its predecessor. Yes, and the GTX is lagging behind.
In Dirt3, the results of the three maps are quite dense and allow you to “drive” comfortably. The distribution of seats is the same: the new product is followed by the GTX 580 in a couple of frames, and the HD6970 is a little behind.
Meto 2033 is still the storm of graphics cards. FPS drops happen on dynamic scenes. Interestingly, the GTX 580 provides a slightly higher minimum FPS, but at such orders it doesn’t matter - the freeze is still more than noticeable.
Gigabyte Radeon HD 7970 | Temperature regime
AMD has implemented ZeroCore Power technology in the new series. It implies a significant reduction in power consumption in standby mode. The maximum power consumption (TDP) is declared at the level of the previous generation of productive solutions - 250 watts. On the one hand, the technical process has become thinner, and on the other hand, the number of transistors on a chip has increased markedly. We used Unigine Heaven to warm up the GPU. The results are shown in the diagram. The air temperature in the room where the testing took place was 19 degrees Celsius.
In idle mode, the chip is cooler by almost a dozen degrees compared to the GTX 580. Impressive.
Gigabyte Radeon HD 7970 | Conclusion
On the example of the Gigabyte Radeon HD 7970, it can be seen that the new product from AMD is the fastest solution on the market. Whether this leadership will last longer than two and a half months, we will find out very soon - the GTX 680 was launched on March 22, and soon it will appear in.
AMD engineers did a great job on the architecture, judging by the advantage that the Tahiti chip gained over the Cayman. The ZeroCore technology is also impressive. We will consider the overclocking possibilities of the new, thinner chip upon receipt of models with the manufacturers' own design. They are the most interesting in this regard. Well, the already available data suggests that Tahiti has a solid overclocking potential - most chips are able to work around the 1100 MHz mark. But this is a topic for a separate article.
The price of the card at the moment is an average of 19,200 rubles (according to the Yandex.Market service). A lot or a little, everyone decides for themselves. But you need to keep in mind that the same GTX 580 can be found for 12-13 thousand rubles.
