***AMD Radeon HD7970 GHZ Edition - Official Reviews Thread***

[railven]

1200/1700 per sig below. Stock Sapphire with 74.1% ASCI.

1.200v core
1.650v mem

Afterburner used.

How do I adjust memory voltage in AB? I recall only seeing one slider.

I hit 1225/1650 with 1.225v on the top slider. Anything above would cause hard lock up, and I think it's my RAM giving me the ghost.

 

[Tempered81]

push the little triangle next to voltage

 

[Dark Shroud]

Anyone wanting the best HD7970 card would stay away from the GE edition and buy something like the MSI Lightning or the Gigabyte Windforce instead.

They're going make GHZ edition models using those coolers. It was already stated the stock blower fan design wasn't going to be used for the cards that make it to market.

 

[BallaTheFeared]

Whats the point then? There are already higher clocked non reference cards and this didn't change power/performance at all it's actually worse...


Pure marketing?

 

[3DVagabond]

They're going make GHZ edition models using those coolers. It was already stated the stock blower fan design wasn't going to be used for the cards that make it to market.

When you no longer can talk raw performance numbers, you move the goalposts. When the AIB's release their "custom" models (I actually think we will see next to zero "reference" cards available.) we'll be back to efficiency (with no mention of Pitcairn, of course.).

Since these chips are a direct plugin for the original Tahiti, we don't even have to wait for the AIB's to design boards for the new models. The only concern I have is original XT's being sold as XT2's just to make higher profits.

 

[lavaheadache]

Whats the point then? There are already higher clocked non reference cards and this didn't change power/performance at all it's actually worse...


Pure marketing?

of course it's pure marketing. It is to be able to lay claim to be king of the hill and sell cards to noobs. Anybody that knows anything already knew that an overclocked 7970 was the fastest single gpu card out (arguably, more or less).

 

[ShintaiDK]

They're going make GHZ edition models using those coolers. It was already stated the stock blower fan design wasn't going to be used for the cards that make it to market.

http://vr-zone.com/articles/club-3d-first-with-radeon-hd-7970-ghz-edition/16400.html

First GE out. Reference cooler.

 

[BallaTheFeared]

of course it's pure marketing. It is to be able to lay claim to be king of the hill and sell cards to noobs. Anybody that knows anything already knew that an overclocked 7970 was the fastest single gpu card out (arguably, more or less).

How though? The 690 trashes it.

The last two gens AMD has used their dual gpu to claim the title.

5970 vs 480

6990 vs 590 (suspect)

Now they're changing it up to single gpu, not single card?


Why aren't they required to have a disclaimer stating their "definitions" could change at any moment?

 

[lavaheadache]

straight from the horses mouth

"The AMD Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition rounds out our award-winning GCN family, providing world-class gameplay thanks to the industry's fastest single GPU," said Matt Skynner, corporate vice president and general manager, GPU Division, AMD

found here http://money.msn.com/business-news/article.aspx?feed=MW&date=20120622&id=15253713

They never claimed to have the fastest card, just the fastest gpu



I see no foul play, just people hating

How though? The 690 trashes it.

The last two gens AMD has used their dual gpu to claim the title.

5970 vs 480

6990 vs 590 (suspect)

Now they're changing it up to single gpu, not single card?


Why aren't they required to have a disclaimer stating their "definitions" could change at any moment?

Why did you quote where I said single gpu card and reply with the bolded text?

 

[Dark Shroud]

How though? The 690 trashes it.

Because they said GPU this time and not card.

The last two gens AMD has used their dual gpu to claim the title.

5970 vs 480

That time they claimed fastest card and they were right.

6990 vs 590 (suspect)

There was nothing suspect about it. The 6990 was faster and the 590 was going up in flames trying to compete with it.

Now they're changing it up to single gpu, not single card?

Probably because the situation changed. AMD doesn't have a duel card out yet while they now have the fastest GPU yet again.

Do you not understand PR & advertising?

Why aren't they required to have a disclaimer stating their "definitions" could change at any moment?

Think about what you just said. Situations change all the time in the tech industry.

Until the Ghz editions came out how about Nvidia being required to say the GTX 680 was the fastest card, until it hits 70C.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Its the loudest card, thats for sure.

 

[boxleitnerb]

Didn't AMD say there won't be cards based on the reference design? There we have it. The reference cooler is terribly loud and the board exhibits annoying coil whine according to several reviews. Who would buy this crap?
Hopefully Asus, MSI etc. step up.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Didn't AMD say there won't be cards based on the reference design? There we have it. The reference cooler is terribly loud and the board exhibits annoying coil whine according to several reviews. Who would buy this crap?
Hopefully Asus, MSI etc. step up.

I dont think it was AMD who said it....

 

[BallaTheFeared]

I see no foul play, just people hating

I don't see people hating, I just see people pointing out what a joke AMD is.

 

[master_shake_]

Who cares if it's loud??

are you gonna game in complete silence??

if you fold with it are you gonna sit there and watch it?

I don't see people hating, I just see people pointing out what a joke AMD is.

whats the joke?

being top dog is no mean feat...

 

[BallaTheFeared]

whats the joke?

being top dog is no mean feat...

The joke is just like their 8 core bulldozer chip their top product is competing with a mid-range product while using considerably more power for nearly the same performance :sneaky:


I laugh, perhaps not everyone sees the humor though.

 

[lopri]

S/he's got GTX 470 Triple-SLI setup. The hate is understandable. ^^

 

[BallaTheFeared]

S/he's got GTX 470 Triple-SLI setup. The hate is understandable. ^^

That's it! :wub:

 

[blackened23]

I don't see people hating, I just see people pointing out what a joke AMD is.

You have legitimate points about the GE but this is just trolling.

I agree with you that GE seems like a press stunt more than anything, but it does prove like others have said that the OC 7970 meets or beats the 680 in many scenarios, obviously at the cost of power. I have to wonder if that has something to do with the aggressive voltage the GE uses, it is using over 1.22V for 1050mhz which is dumb....my old 7970s before I moved on did 1225mhz at a lower voltage than that....and 1225 is a big jump scaling wise compared to 1050.

I can only speculate though, i'm not sure why the GEs are using so much voltage. As far as the whole mid range chip thing, you know as well as everyone else that GK110 isn't done and GK100 failed. End of. Good stuff for more speculation and/or trolling though?!

 

[Olikan]

I can only speculate though, i'm not sure why the GEs are using so much voltage. As far as the whole mid range chip thing, you know as well as everyone else that GK110 isn't done and GK100 failed. End of. Good stuff for more speculation and/or trolling though?!

kinda funny, nobody remembers, but tahiti is a mid range chip aswell

 

[lavaheadache]

The joke is just like their 8 core bulldozer chip their top product is competing with a mid-range product while using considerably more power for nearly the same performance :sneaky:


I laugh, perhaps not everyone sees the humor though.

if you are implying that the 670 is nvidia's midrange product, that couldn't be much farther from the truth. What do they have that is faster single gpu wise? The 680? By the same reasoning even the 680 is competeing with the 670. Fact of the matter is that the new skew 7970 is faster than both.

I'm actually inclined to think that you are implying that 670/680 are in midrange cards because they are based on gk104, which is equally laughable. It is the best gpu could muster up while still being late to the party. Secondly, how do you know where Tahiti originally stood in the scheme of things? The huge 40, 32 and 28 nm fiasco's affected both compainies road maps. Is releasing the best thing you have at a given time a crime?

I don't fault Nvidia for releasing gk 104 as the 680. It is fine product. Just so happens that Tahiti is too and much more vesatile at the same time.

Go ahead and drag the craptastic bulldozer in to the discussion. It's a good cop out when you are backed into a corner and need something to divert attention away.

Every company releases turds.

remember the fx 5800? Remember the 8600m GT faulty mobile chips. Remember the GPU Killing Driver? Remember the exploding GTX 590?

My guess is probably not.

**edit**

Blackend 23 beat me to some of the points I wanted to bring up, I was trying to make breakfast for my Punkin Pie at the same time

 

[boxleitnerb]

I dont think it was AMD who said it....

Yes they did, via Dave Baumann:
http://forum.beyond3d.com/member.php?u=1http://forum.beyond3d.com/showpost.php?p=1652073&postcount=3695

Not sure why anyone cares about the reference cooler since it won't be used.

 

[master_shake_]

lol, whos talking bout dozer??

 

[Skurge]

The posters in this forum. When the 480 came out, power use didn't matter. Compute did and DX11 performance did when there like DX11 games out. Now the 7970GE is the fastest thing out power use is really important and high ress, high AA is irrelevent now. So is compute. Even though games are using it now. at leaset talk of physx has all but died out.

People with 4.5ghz+ CPUs and 3+ GPUs are talking about how a 7970 uses tons of power.

Yeah AMD is the joke here.

 

[Rvenger]

Yes they did, via Dave Baumann:
http://forum.beyond3d.com/showpost.php?p=1652073&postcount=3695

And it continues...

The GHz edition ASIC is explicitly designed to fit within the same thermal / electrical / physical footprint as the standard 7970 and as such, given that every one of the partners have transistioned to their own designs they will be using their own fansink designs. The "reference" design is not much more than our qualification mule now and is sampled for the purposes of performance testing.

I wonder if you can flash a standard 7970 to a GE to get boost enabled since they have identical PCBs.