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Review: AMD Radeon HD 7970 3GB

by Tarinder Sandhu on 22 December 2011, 05:00 4.0

Tags: AMD (NYSE:AMD)

Quick Link: HEXUS.net/qabaih

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Final thoughts and rating

AMD has today announced its fastest-ever GPU in the form of the Radeon HD 7970 3GB, codenamed Tahiti. This new card brings considerably more power to bear than the previous-generation Radeon HD 6970 2GB, and an increase in performance is achieved through a wholly revamped architecture based on a cutting-edge 28nm process.

Radeon HD 7970 is composed of a greater number of cores, texture-units, and memory bandwidth. These are allied to a leaner, cleaner architecture called Graphics Core Next (GCN). This approach moves away from the graphics-orientated VLIW architecture, as used on previous Radeons, and embraces an altogether different formula.

AMD wants, and needs, future GPUs to excel at both gaming and general-purpose computing, and thus GCN is a logical move that stems from the way the graphics market has evolved. Radeon HD 7970 is a general-compute device that also chews through graphics code; the GPGPU consideration is paramount and not just a throwaway notion tacked on at the last minute.

In fact, it's analogous to NVIDIA's Fermi in a number of key areas, and per-GCN compiling and scheduling provides an easier path by which general-purpose compute can be performed. The new GPU also signals the direction that AMD is taking for both discrete and APU graphics, so expect GCN to be very visible in years to come.

But all this talk of GCN and VLIW, while important when understanding the provenance of the card, does little to excite the gamer. They need to know it's fast at playing the hottest games, and it assuredly is. 4.3bn transistor and dollops of bandwidth push single-GPU benchmarks to new highs, and we expect performance to scale as newer drivers are released that tap into the grounds-up architecture.

Available in January 2012 for Ā£450, we'd recommend most users wait until the price drops after the initial launch-day mayhem subsides. But AMD doesn't really care about mainstream users for this card; it just needs to sell to proper enthusiasts, and it's in good shape to do so.

Bottom line: Radeon HD 7970 represents a successful major graphics overhaul. Fast and furious, it's a harbinger of things to come.

The Good

Brand-new design suited for graphics and compute
Fastest single-GPU card around
A well-balanced GPU
Strong power-draw credentials

The Bad

Price: it brings other multi-GPU solutions very much into play

HEXUS Rating


AMD Radeon HD 7970 3GB

HEXUS Awards


AMD Radeon HD 7970 3GB

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At HEXUS, we invite the companies whose products we test to comment on our articles. If any company representatives for the products reviewed choose to respond, we'll publish their commentary here verbatim.



*UK-based HEXUS community members are eligible for free delivery and priority customer service through the SCAN.care@HEXUS forum.



HEXUS Forums :: 132 Comments

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can someone pass the tissues? i made a mess…
Look forward to the update on ZeroCore. If they can get this right it would be a big win for bods like me who want to leave the PC on 24/7 but not chew through electricity unnecessarily.
Great to see AMD's engineers continuing to excel! Bravo sirs. Top notch review especially considering the short notice nature of the NDA lifting. Well done Hexus!!!!!

As for the product, I'm sticking with my GTX 480's until the next system upgrade. Don;t think this offers anything new to the fight, just does it much better.

:)
Tattysnuc
Great to see AMD's engineers continuing to excel!
:)

I think the ‘ATI’ engineers probably don't want to be associated with AMD engineers.

While ATI - cough AMD GPU engineers are kicking out good things, the AMD - cough AMD CPU engineers are not doing the AMD brand so proud.

Anyhoo, lovely specs, lovely stats - ups the hype for the middle range models.
Nice but yet again it looks like I am going to have to go nVidia as they are the only ones who are willing to ramp up the TDP a bit to make a beastly card :S