AMD Radeon 7970 3GB GHz Edition Review

How We Tested

As always, we did our best to deliver a clean set of benchmarks, with each test repeated three times, and an average of those results is what we’re reporting here. In the rare case where performance was inconsistent, we continued repeating the test until we obtained three results that were consistent.

The tests performed are a mixture of custom in-game time demos and manually-played sections, using FRAPS to record the average and minimum frame rates. We strive to not only record real-world performance you will actually see, but also present the results in a manner that is easy to digest.


Due to AMD's new driver, Catalyst 12.7 beta, carrying significant performance improvements, we've chosen to re-test AMD's 7-series GPUs with this new driver to offer better comparable results. To be fair, we've also retested Nvidia's 6-series drivers with its latest GeForce 304.48 beta driver too. However, we've not been able to retest every card in our labs with these new drivers, so there are fewer comparison results from previous generations.

Test System

• Intel Core i5-2500K (operating at 3.3GHz – 33 x 100MHz)
  
• Asus P8P67 motherboard (Intel P67)
  
• 2 x 2GB Corsair 1,600MHz DDR3 memory
  
• PC Power & Cooling Silencer 750W PSU
  
• Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit

AMD graphics cards

• AMD Radeon HD 7970 3GB GHz Edition (1,000-1,050MHz, 6GHz memory) (Catalyst 12.7 beta)
  
• AMD Radeon HD 7870 2GB (1,000MHz GPU, 4.8GHz memory) (Catalyst 12.7 beta)
  
• AMD Radeon HD 7850 2GB (860MHz GPU, 4.8GHz memory) (Catalyst 12.7 beta)
  
• AMD Radeon HD 7950 3GB (800MHz GPU, 5GHz memory) (Catalyst 12.7 beta)
  
• AMD Radeon HD 7950 3GB (800MHz GPU, 5GHz memory) (Catalyst 12.7 beta)
  
• AMD Radeon HD 7970 3GB (925MHz GPU, 5.5GHz memory) (Catalyst 12.7 beta)

Nvidia graphics cards

• Nvidia GeForce GTX 670 2GB (915MHz, boosting to 1,084MHz, 6GHz memory) (GeForce 304.48 beta)
  Nvidia GeForce GTX 690 4GB (915MHz, boosting to 1,084MHz, 6GHz memory) (GeForce 304.48 beta)
  Nvidia GeForce GTX 680 2GB (1,006MHz, boosting to 1,110MHz, 6GHz memory) (GeForce 304.48 beta)

Games Tested

• Arma II: Operation Arrowhead (DX9)
  
• Battlefield 3 (DX11)
  
• Dirt 3 (DX11)
  
• The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (DX9)