[H] HD 7970 Dual-X Review

[Tempered81]

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2012/04/10/sapphire_hd_7970_oc_edition_video_card_review

We have had several complaints about the thread title. After having a discussion we are going to change it; it's at odds with the content of the article and the grief it causes is not worth the trouble
-ViRGE

 

[chimaxi83]

Beast performance, nice. If only it were cheaper, this would be a no brainer to me at the same price point as 680. mainly because I'm on water and would have more luck with overclocking/temps.

INB4 the power usage complaints lol.

 

[Elfear]

Hmm. May want to amend the title to say manually-overclocked 7970 crushes stock 680. At out-of-the-box speeds, the 680 is still leading by a smidgen, at least from the posted graphs.

Looks like overclocking adds about 90W to the power draw. Not really that bad for the massive oc. Wish they would have included power consumption numbers with the card at 1150/1860 without voltage tweaks.

 

[toyota]

wow what a misleading title. sure the Sapphire HD 7970 "crushes" the stock gtx680 when its overclocked by 35%.

 

[Contra9]

Crushing it when set to an overclock that is not necessarily going to be reached by every card while making it more competitive at its stock clocks but still losing to the 680. All while drawing ~100 watts more when over-overclocked.

I don't like the notion that overclocking is guaranteed performance. It is a bonus and luck of the draw, but too often it is treated like its part of the package.

That said it is a nice card. I like their coolers a lot.

 

[notty22]

A nit pick, a noisy capacitor was noted in the conclusion.

One thing to note about operating noise was a capacitor hum that came and went through out all of our testing on the Sapphire HD 7970 OC Edition. This could be from just one bad capacitor on this one board. The noise was not always loud and overbearing but came and went 2 or 3 times per run through. Our test bench is an open system so the sound was in no way suppressed. The sound was not as much louder than normal operating noises but had a distinguishable buzz that could be identified.

This was also noted and heard in Linu's youtube video (7.50). How many buy this expensive card and return it because of that?
IMO, it's a design issue that should be caught, because it may not functionally effect the card's lifetime performance, some are going to just keep shipping noisy units back, driving up prices of these cards even more.

 

[Subyman]

Wow, what a bogus thread title. I was expecting something interesting and I get OC versus default clocks.

 

[Ferzerp]

Wow, blantant lies in the thread title much?

Stock vs. OC. But then, you knew that, didn't you?

 

[TidusZ]

Wait a sec, hold up.

Overclocking makes hardware faster?

IT ALL MAKES SENSE NOW

 

[Atomic Playboy]

Was the thread title intended as sarcasm? I'm a little surprised that the factory OC still loses out to the GTX 680 in most cases, but since all of them are averaging 60+ in everything except BF3, it doesn't matter much.

 

[SirPauly]

Well, it's a highly over-clocked HD 7970 vs a default GTX 680.

 

[blackened23]

Wow, blantant lies in the thread title much?

Stock vs. OC. But then, you knew that, didn't you?

Doesn't the 680 overclock itself with GPU boost?

 

[Ferzerp]

Doesn't the 680 overclock itself with GPU boost?

That's like saying anything nehalem+ "overclocks" itself because of turbo boost. Those are specifically the stock clocks. Are you claiming that the boost takes it to arbitrary clocks? It's only 50Mhz on most models. The default reference is 1006Mhz with the potential to run 1056Mhz. I can't see how in good conscience you can claim that is it "overclock[ing] itself".

 

[Subyman]

Doesn't the 680 overclock itself with GPU boost?

Lol here we go...

 

[blackened23]

I should have increased the response template

 

[Ferzerp]

Are you admitting you're just trolling?

 

[bunnyfubbles]

yet HardOCP only gives it a silver award but they gave the 680 a gold, apparently the 680 wasn't crushed hard enough

 

[chimaxi83]

Yea, 680 still has 7970 beat on price and stock performance. My 680 at OC performs basically equal to this OC 7970. Price is determining factor, really.

 

[Elfear]

That's like saying anything nehalem+ "overclocks" itself because of turbo boost. Those are specifically the stock clocks. Are you claiming that the boost takes it to arbitrary clocks? It's only 50Mhz on most models. The default reference is 1006Mhz with the potential to run 1056Mhz. I can't see how in good conscience you can claim that is it "overclock[ing] itself".

In [H]'s initial review their 680 clocked up to 1200Mhz in some games so it's not 50Mhz as you make it out to be. That said it is a manually overclocked card against an out-of-the-box card so not really apples to apples.

 

[Ferzerp]

yet HardOCP only gives it a silver award but they gave the 680 a gold, apparently the 680 wasn't crushed hard enough

Probably because they only base that stuff on stock vs stock, and they didn't intend the OC numbers to be compared with the 680 as some justification that it is better than the 680 (else they would have included an OC 680 in the review, but few sites do OC vs OC because it's so much of a gamble).

 

[Ferzerp]

In [H]'s initial review their 680 clocked up to 1200Mhz in some games so it's not 50Mhz as you make it out to be. That said it is a manually overclocked card against an out-of-the-box card so not really apples to apples.

I think you need to go back and re-read the review you just linked because nowhere does it state that.

All the cards have a base clock and a boost clock based on the model. The boost clock it typically only 50Mhz more, but you can raise it (and that how you overclock these).

Here, newegg explicitly lists the max boost clock per model that they sell. Looks like the standard is a whole 52Mhz, but some special models have as much as 75Mhz (on the water cooled EVGA). Not sure where this misinformation comes from, but it is totally wrong. GPU boost, functionally, is almost identical to CPU turbo boost (with some slight nuances).

 

[Keysplayr]

Tempered1, why would you even consider a thread title such as this? I mean, considering the content?

 

[Elfear]

I think you need to go back and re-read the review you just linked because nowhere does it state that.

All the cards have a base clock and a boost clock based on the model. The boost clock it typically only 50Mhz more, but you can raise it (and that how you overclock these).

Here, newegg explicitly lists the max boost clock per model that they sell. Looks like the standard is a whole 52Mhz, but some special models have as much as 75Mhz (on the water cooled EVGA). Not sure where this misinformation comes from, but it is totally wrong. GPU boost, functionally, is almost identical to CPU turbo boost (with some slight nuances).

From the review I linked:

"GPU Boost is guaranteed to hit 1058MHz in most games. Typically, the GPU will be going much higher. We experienced clock speeds in demo sessions that would raise to 1.150GHz and even 1.2GHz in such games as Battlefield 3. With a GPU frequency increase of that much over base clock you can rest assured it will be a noticeable performance difference." :hmm:

 

[SickBeast]

Can I ask how it's fair to compare an overclocked 7970 to a stock GTX 680?

That said, for AMD fans, the 7970 is a good card and it's not much worse than a GTX 680.

Just please realize that the GTX 680 has ~20% untapped potential via overclocking that this "review" glosses over.

 

[blackened23]

Can I ask how it's fair to compare an overclocked 7970 to a stock GTX 680?

That said, for AMD fans, the 7970 is a good card and it's not much worse than a GTX 680.

Just please realize that the GTX 680 has ~20% untapped potential via overclocking that this "review" glosses over.

I could be crazy but I think this article was focused solely on the strengths and weaknesses of the dual x 7970 product. It is a product review, not a 680 vs 7970 showdown.

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2012/04/04/nvidia_kepler_geforce_gtx_680_overclocking_review

That article is intended as a direct comparison, however i'm pretty certain the review mentioned by the OP wasn't intended as a 680 vs 7970 battle royale -- but instead focused on the dual x 7970 itself, the strengths and weaknesses of it. I believe everyone is well aware at stock the gtx 680 is a better card.