Yesterday, a GPU industry has warmly welcomed a refreshed Tahiti XT2 chip with Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition launch. Supposedly, card was to offer better overclocking potential, through better stability at higher voltages and therefore, allowing to set increased clocks. So did the company managed to fill the gap to GTX 680’s performance?
Most of the reviews are very positive about this card. The GHz Edition is offering similar performance to GeForce GTX 680, only with slightly higher power consumption. AMD has also implemented a new feature called Boost, which is basically the auto-scaled GPU clock. It’s worth mentioning that it’s not very useful feature, for instance, at a default clock set to 1200 MHz, Boost remains at 1050 MHz. So there is not much room for Boost to be manually manipulated (while it depends on TDP and GPU usage).
Before I present to you how did Radeon HD 7970 GHz perform in comparison to half-year old original Radeon HD 7970, take a look at the specs.
Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition Specification
| AMD Radeon HD 7970 | AMD Radeon HD 7970 “GHz Edition” | nVidia GeForce GTX 680 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| GPU | 28nm Tahiti XT2 | 28 Tahiti XT | 28 Kepler GK104 |
| Transistors Count | 4.3 billion | 4.3 billion | 3.54 billion |
| Die Size | 365mm² | 365mm² | 294mm² |
| Stream (CUDA) Processors | 2048 | 2048 | 1536 |
| Texture Mapping Units | 128 | 128 | 128 |
| Raster Operating Units | 32 | 32 | 32 |
| Core Clock | 925 MHz | 1000 MHz | 1006 MHz |
| Boost Clock | NA | 1050 MHz | 1058 MHz |
| Memory Clock | 1375 MHz | 1500 MHz | 1508 MHz |
| Memory Type | 3072 MB GDDR5 | 3072 MB GDDR5 | 2048 MB GDDR5 |
| Memory Interface | 384-bit | 384-bit | 256-bit |
| PCI Express | 1.x/2.0/3.0 | 1.x/2.0/3.0 | 1.x/2.0/3.0 |
| Length | 281mm | 281mm | 26cm |
| Power Connectors | 1x 6-pin + 1x 8-pin | 1x 6-pin + 1x 8-pin | 2x 6-pin |
| TDP | 250W | 250W | 195W |
| Idle Power Consumption | 14W | 13W | 14W |
| Gaming Power Consumption | 211W | 254W | 180W |
| MSRB Price | 429$ | 499$ | 499$ |
Source: 3DCenter.org
Power Consumption
| Idle | Multi Display | Gaming | FurMark | TDP | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Radeon HD 6950 2GB | 22W | 58W | 163W | 206W | 200W |
| Radeon HD 6970 | 22W | 66W | 205W | 267W | 250W |
| Radeon HD 7850 | ~12W | ~30W | ~110W | ~135W | ? |
| Radeon HD 7870 | 13W | 31W | 127W | 159W | ? |
| Radeon HD 7950 | 16W | 52W | 154W | 208W | 200W |
| Radeon HD 7970 | 14W | 49W | 211W | 296W | 250W |
| Radeon HD 7970 “GHz Edition” | 13W | 49W | 254W | 351W | 250W |
| GeForce GTX 560 Ti | 16W | 57W | 153W | 193W | 170W |
| GeForce GTX 560 Ti 448 Core | 25W | 74W | 197W | 243W | 210W |
| GeForce GTX 570 | 24W | 70W | 199W | 247W | 219W |
| GeForce GTX 580 | 31W | 92W | 238W | 318W | 244W |
| GeForce GTX 670 | 14W | 17W | 170W | 184W | 170W |
| GeForce GTX 680 | 14W | 23W | 180W | 194W | 195W |
Source: 3DCenter.org
Overclocking Roundup
| Overclocking Roundup | AMD Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition | AMD Radeon HD 7970 | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Core Clock | Memory Clock | Core Clock | Memory Clock | |
| Anandtech | 1150 MHz | 1600 MHz | 1100 MHz | 1575 MHz |
| TechPowerUP | 1185 MHz | 1635 MHz | 1075 MHz | 1715 MHz |
| Hexus | 1150 MHz | 1650 MHz | 1075 MHz | 1525 MHz |
| PC Perspective | 1150 MHz | – | 1025 MHz | 1375 MHz |
| Guru3D | 1200 MHz | 1625 MHz | 1052 MHz | 1450 MHz |
| Tom’s Hardware | 1175 MHz | – | 1125 MHz | 1575 MHz |
| HardOCP | 1180 MHz | 1600 MHz | – | – |
| HotHardware | 1195 MHz | 1550 MHz | – | – |
| Hardware Heaven | 1256 MHz | 1648 MHz | 1110 MHz | 1505 MHz |
| Hardware Canucks | 1156 MHz | 1561 MHz | 1078 MHz | 1554 MHz |
| SweClockers | 1150 MHz | 1600 MHz | 1180 MHz | 1600 MHz |
| Benchmark | 1150 MHz | 1580 MHz | 1125 MHz | 1575 MHz |
| PC Games Hardware | 1150 MHz | 1750 MHz | – | – |
| HT4U | 1150 MHz | 1700 MHz | 1070 MHz | 1500 MHz |
| Pclab | 1190 MHz | 1610 MHz | 1125 MHz | 1575 MHz |
| Average Clock | 1172 MHz | 1624 MHz | 1095 MHz | 1544 MHz |
Conclusion
AMD did a great job at preparing their refreshed Radeon HD 7970. The new Tahiti XT2 GPU can now be overclocked to an average 1175 MHz, which 7% higher than its original version. Also memory seems to be handling new clock speeds quite well, with the average 1624 MHz (5% better). So yes, card is a very good solution for high-end setups, but it’s up to you to decide whether you need highly overclockable card (Radeon HD 7970 is on the top positions in almost every benchmark record), or just the GeForce GTX 680, which is not that power hungry as AMD’s card.
Both cards are now offered at similar price. The only problem is the availability of the GTX 680, but NVIDIA has still few weeks before GHz Edition officially launches in stores.
