AMD Radeon HD 7970 3GB 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 timedemos 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.


Test System

• Intel Core i5-2500K (operating at 3.3GHz – 33 x 100MHz)
  
• Asus P8P67-M 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 (925MHz GPU, 5.5GHz memory) (overclocked 1,125MHz GPU, 6.3GHz memory) (Catalyst 11.12)
  
• AMD Radeon HD 6990 4GB (2 x 830MHz GPUs, 2 x 5GHz memory) (Catalyst 11.12)
  
• AMD Radeon HD 6970 2GB (840MHz GPU, 4.2GHz memory) (Catalyst 11.12)
  
• AMD Radeon HD 6950 2GB (800MHz GPU, 5GHz memory) (Catalyst 11.12)
  
• AMD Radeon HD 6950 1GB (800MHz GPU, 5GHz memory) (Catalyst 11.12)
  
• AMD Radeon HD 6870 1GB (900MHz GPU, 4.2GHz memory) (Catalyst 11.12)
  
• AMD Radeon HD 6850 1GB (725MHz GPU, 4GHz memory) (Catalyst 11.12)

Nvidia graphics cards

• Nvidia GeForce GTX 590 3GB (2 x 607MHz GPUs, 1,214MHz stream processors, 4114MHz memory) (GeForce 290.36 beta)
  
• Nvidia GeForce GTX 580 1.5GB (772MHz GPU, 1,544MHz stream processors, 4,080MHz memory) (GeForce 285.62 WHQL)
  
• Nvidia GeForce GTX 570 1280MB (732MHz GPU, 1,464MHz stream processors, 3,800MHz memory) (GeForce 285.62 WHQL)
  
• Nvidia GeForce GTX 560 Ti 448 (732MHz GPU, 1,464MHz stream processors, 3,800MHz memory) (GeForce 285.62 WHQL)
  
• Nvidia GeForce GTX 560 Ti 1GB (820MHz GPU, 1,640MHz stream processors, 4,000MHz memory) (GeForce 285.62 WHQL)
  
• Nvidia GeForce GTX 560 1GB (810Mhz GPU, 1,620MHz stream processors, 4,000MHz memory) (GeForce 285.62 WHQL)

Games Tested

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