Page 1 of 2 12 LastLast
Results 1 to 16 of 28

Thread: Reviews - Sapphire Radeon HD 7970 OC Dual-X 3GB

  1. #1
    HEXUS.admin
    Join Date
    Apr 2005
    Posts
    31,709
    Thanks
    0
    Thanked
    2,073 times in 719 posts

    Reviews - Sapphire Radeon HD 7970 OC Dual-X 3GB

    Challenger to the Kepler throne, enter!
    Read more.

  2. #2
    IQ: 1.42
    Join Date
    May 2007
    Location
    old trafford
    Posts
    1,340
    Thanks
    132
    Thanked
    94 times in 80 posts
    • Tunnah's system
      • Motherboard:
      • Asus somethingorother
      • CPU:
      • 3700X
      • Memory:
      • 16GB 3600
      • Storage:
      • Various SSDs, 90TB RAID6 HDDs
      • Graphics card(s):
      • 1080Ti
      • PSU:
      • Silverstone 650w
      • Case:
      • Lian-Li PC70B
      • Operating System:
      • Win10
      • Internet:
      • 40mbit Sky Fibre

    Re: Reviews - Sapphire Radeon HD 7970 OC Dual-X 3GB

    Poor AMD. Yes it may overclock well but the price you pay is ridiculous. £40 more, a lot more power and heat usage, and still can't beat a stock clocked 680.

    Only thing they can do now is reduce the price and hope people will rather save a couple of quid against gaining a few FPS

  3. #3
    Senior Member Hicks12's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2008
    Location
    Plymouth-SouthWest
    Posts
    6,586
    Thanks
    1,070
    Thanked
    340 times in 293 posts
    • Hicks12's system
      • Motherboard:
      • Asus P8Z68-V
      • CPU:
      • Intel i5 2500k@4ghz, cooled by EK Supreme HF
      • Memory:
      • 8GB Kingston hyperX ddr3 PC3-12800 1600mhz
      • Storage:
      • 64GB M4/128GB M4 / WD 640GB AAKS / 1TB Samsung F3
      • Graphics card(s):
      • Palit GTX460 @ 900Mhz Core
      • PSU:
      • 675W ThermalTake ThoughPower XT
      • Case:
      • Lian Li PC-A70 with modded top for 360mm rad
      • Operating System:
      • Windows 7 Professional 64bit
      • Monitor(s):
      • Dell U2311H IPS
      • Internet:
      • 10mb/s cable from virgin media

    Re: Reviews - Sapphire Radeon HD 7970 OC Dual-X 3GB

    remember though the Nvidia card isnt what youd call stock clocked... its probably hitting 1100mhz iirc? Nvidias boosting method means that stability and product life could be severely reduced, the fact that you can get a 7970 to 1200mhz shows its possible, i think that the energy effciency is being mishaped by the game used for that benchmark, i think i mentioned it last time but you guys should really switch back to whatever game you used to stress it for power, or atleast switch to a more neutral game like BF3.

    Id love to shove one of these cards in my water loop, im sure it would kick the 680s ass then . Ideally AMD need to improve yield as im thinking they are having to widen their testing to let other batches in, they need to manage a stock clocked chip to come out to retail at 1200mhz with about 5% better power efficiency, it can be done but i think it will take the guys at the labs a bit longer.

    We need a similar 4890, or at the very least they need to turn the work put into the 7870 chip and expand it, that is the truely epic beast... overclocking to 1.2ghz gives between 7950/70 levels (mostly at 70 levels) and still only uses the power of less than a gtx460 448!. If they could expand it a touch more with a bit of bandwidth and some more ROPS or just in general a less severe cut back in units then it would be the best gaming chip ever.

    Core clock now adays brings more performance than more cores or anything unfortunately, this is pretty much like what we were vs single/dual/triple/quad... it was hard to say more cores is better due to games performing better with a single chip running at 4ghz vs a dualcore running at 2 .
    Quote Originally Posted by snootyjim View Post
    Trust me, go into any local club and shout "I've got dual Nehalem Xeons" and all of the girls will practically collapse on the spot at the thought of your e-penis

  4. #4
    Senior Member
    Join Date
    Jul 2003
    Posts
    12,113
    Thanks
    906
    Thanked
    580 times in 405 posts

    Re: Reviews - Sapphire Radeon HD 7970 OC Dual-X 3GB

    At this point my next card would be the 680, I dont run the resolutions that these things are benched at and I run with vsync turned on, nvidia's new features that adjust the clock of the card on the fly based on required output win it for me simple as..

    Not had an Nvidia card in my machine for as long as I can remember, infact the last nvidia card that I wanted was the original Geforce DDR card back, erm 12/13 years ago (!?!?) think I've been ATi/AMD since then...

  5. #5
    Moosing about! CAT-THE-FIFTH's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2006
    Location
    Not here
    Posts
    32,039
    Thanks
    3,910
    Thanked
    5,224 times in 4,015 posts
    • CAT-THE-FIFTH's system
      • Motherboard:
      • Less E-PEEN
      • CPU:
      • Massive E-PEEN
      • Memory:
      • RGB E-PEEN
      • Storage:
      • Not in any order
      • Graphics card(s):
      • EVEN BIGGER E-PEEN
      • PSU:
      • OVERSIZED
      • Case:
      • UNDERSIZED
      • Operating System:
      • DOS 6.22
      • Monitor(s):
      • NOT USUALLY ON....WHEN I POST
      • Internet:
      • FUNCTIONAL

    Re: Reviews - Sapphire Radeon HD 7970 OC Dual-X 3GB

    Actually although I originally thought that the Nvidia Turbo technology had a preset upper limit,it increasing does not seem that way from what I gather.

    Some people are reporting 8 bins of 13MHZ as the maximum boost level but others are reporting higher boost levels.

    From HardOCP:

    "This means the GPU clock speed could increase from 1006MHz to 1.1GHz or 1.2GHz or potentially even higher. (Kyle saw a GTX 680 sample card reach over 1300MHz running live demos but it could not sustain this clock.) The actual limit of the GPU clock is unknown."

    1.)It means the maximum percentage is determined by things such as heat(not just a simple case of whether the boost hits the maximum preset value or not).

    It will be interesting to see dependent on the conditions,how high and how high many times the boost is activated.

    2.)The maximum boost number will also be determined by the quality of your GPU,ie,like if you were to overclock it manually. It would mean even under the same conditions it would vary from card to card and batch to batch.

    3.)If the 28NM process improves newer cards might end up faster than old ones,unless binning is less stringent later on.

    Unless you disable the boost you cannot get an accurate baseline speed for the card,as dependent on the sample it might boost a small amount or a larger amount. It seems you cannot disable the boost.

    It will be interesting to see how this pans out TBH,as I suspect the GTX670 and GTX670TI will have similar technology.

    The GTX670 against the HD7870 battle is going to be interesting. Before my current HD5850 1GB my previous fastest card was a 8800GTS 512MB. Nvidia has far better support for games under Linux,so it I will be excited to see how it goes.
    Last edited by CAT-THE-FIFTH; 27-03-2012 at 05:54 PM.

  6. Received thanks from:

    Hicks12 (27-03-2012)

  7. #6
    Team HEXUS.net
    Join Date
    Jul 2003
    Posts
    1,396
    Thanks
    75
    Thanked
    411 times in 217 posts

    Re: Reviews - Sapphire Radeon HD 7970 OC Dual-X 3GB

    Quote Originally Posted by Hicks12 View Post
    ...think that the energy effciency is being mishaped by the game used for that benchmark, i think i mentioned it last time but you guys should really switch back to whatever game you used to stress it for power, or atleast switch to a more neutral game like BF3.
    GTX 680 power figures are lower in each of our games. We use Batman because it, for now, gives the most consistent results.

  8. Received thanks from:

    Hicks12 (27-03-2012)

  9. #7
    Senior Member Hicks12's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2008
    Location
    Plymouth-SouthWest
    Posts
    6,586
    Thanks
    1,070
    Thanked
    340 times in 293 posts
    • Hicks12's system
      • Motherboard:
      • Asus P8Z68-V
      • CPU:
      • Intel i5 2500k@4ghz, cooled by EK Supreme HF
      • Memory:
      • 8GB Kingston hyperX ddr3 PC3-12800 1600mhz
      • Storage:
      • 64GB M4/128GB M4 / WD 640GB AAKS / 1TB Samsung F3
      • Graphics card(s):
      • Palit GTX460 @ 900Mhz Core
      • PSU:
      • 675W ThermalTake ThoughPower XT
      • Case:
      • Lian Li PC-A70 with modded top for 360mm rad
      • Operating System:
      • Windows 7 Professional 64bit
      • Monitor(s):
      • Dell U2311H IPS
      • Internet:
      • 10mb/s cable from virgin media

    Re: Reviews - Sapphire Radeon HD 7970 OC Dual-X 3GB

    Well that shot down my theory . Appreciate that, if its more consistent then yeah it makes more sense .

    Thanks for pointing that out cat, clearly i havent read enough into Nvidias new systems .
    Quote Originally Posted by snootyjim View Post
    Trust me, go into any local club and shout "I've got dual Nehalem Xeons" and all of the girls will practically collapse on the spot at the thought of your e-penis

  10. #8
    Senior Member
    Join Date
    Mar 2009
    Posts
    780
    Thanks
    30
    Thanked
    49 times in 38 posts

    Re: Reviews - Sapphire Radeon HD 7970 OC Dual-X 3GB

    Quote Originally Posted by Tunnah View Post
    Poor AMD. Yes it may overclock well but the price you pay is ridiculous. £40 more, a lot more power and heat usage, and still can't beat a stock clocked 680.

    Only thing they can do now is reduce the price and hope people will rather save a couple of quid against gaining a few FPS
    Depends on resolutions and whether or not you sli/crossfire, and how far you are willing to push both cards.

    http://www.hardwareheaven.com/review...lefield-3.html

    You can see that the 7970 just can't catch up at 1920x1080 but it starts to get quite dominating at 5760x1080.

    In sli vs crossfire it's a total massacre in any game AMD isn't having driver problems with - quite often 3 7970's beat 4 680's - http://nl.hardware.info/reviews/2641...nglish-version

    Sadly it's having driver issues with half of them. AMD needs to get their drivers fixed and everything will be fine. It'll never be fast enough at 1080p but the card wasn't meant to be 1080p. That's firmly in the mainstream now, enthusiast cards are eyefinity resolution cards. I just don't understand people who are spending £450 on a graphics card when they only have one 1080p screen.

  11. #9
    Headless Chicken Terbinator's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2009
    Posts
    7,670
    Thanks
    1,210
    Thanked
    727 times in 595 posts
    • Terbinator's system
      • Motherboard:
      • ASRock H61M
      • CPU:
      • Intel Xeon 1230-V3
      • Memory:
      • Geil Evo Corsa 2133/8GB
      • Storage:
      • M4 128GB, 2TB WD Red
      • Graphics card(s):
      • Gigabyte GTX Titan
      • PSU:
      • Corsair AX760i
      • Case:
      • Coolermaster 130
      • Operating System:
      • Windows 8.1 Pro
      • Monitor(s):
      • Dell Ultrasharp U2711H
      • Internet:
      • Virgin Media 60Mb.

    Re: Reviews - Sapphire Radeon HD 7970 OC Dual-X 3GB

    My only issue with people banding the 5760*1080 results around is that there still at the scrub-tier of 30FPS.

    Its beyond me why anyone would drop an insane amount of money for what is essentially, sub-par performance.
    Kalniel: "Nice review Tarinder - would it be possible to get a picture of the case when the components are installed (with the side off obviously)?"
    CAT-THE-FIFTH: "The Antec 300 is a case which has an understated and clean appearance which many people like. Not everyone is into e-peen looking computers which look like a cross between the imagination of a hyperactive 10 year old and a Frog."
    TKPeters: "Off to AVForum better Deal - £20+Vat for Free Shipping @ Scan"
    for all intents it seems to be the same card minus some gays name on it and a shielded cover ? with OEM added to it - GoNz0.

  12. #10
    Senior Member
    Join Date
    Mar 2009
    Posts
    780
    Thanks
    30
    Thanked
    49 times in 38 posts

    Re: Reviews - Sapphire Radeon HD 7970 OC Dual-X 3GB

    Quote Originally Posted by Terbinator View Post
    My only issue with people banding the 5760*1080 results around is that there still at the scrub-tier of 30FPS.

    Its beyond me why anyone would drop an insane amount of money for what is essentially, sub-par performance.
    I'm guessing most people buying these cards for those kinds of resolutions would generally be buying two, or they'd drop down some AA to keep the fps high enough.

    There's no doubt that the 680 is a great 1080p card but I sure wouldnt pay £450 for any 1080p card. It feels like a very fast midrange card with enthusiast pricing.

  13. #11
    Senior Member Brewster0101's Avatar
    Join Date
    Dec 2007
    Location
    UK
    Posts
    2,614
    Thanks
    45
    Thanked
    54 times in 44 posts
    • Brewster0101's system
      • Motherboard:
      • Asus m5a99x evo
      • CPU:
      • AMD FX 8350
      • Memory:
      • 8GB (2x4) Corsair Vengence DDR3 1600mghz
      • Storage:
      • Western Green 3TB + Samsung 850Evo 512MB SSD, + 2TB NAS
      • Graphics card(s):
      • MSI 280X
      • PSU:
      • Corsair AXi760
      • Case:
      • Corsair 650D
      • Operating System:
      • Windows 10 Pro
      • Monitor(s):
      • LG 27" 27EA63 IPS LED
      • Internet:
      • 120Mb Bt

    Re: Reviews - Sapphire Radeon HD 7970 OC Dual-X 3GB

    Quote Originally Posted by Jimbo75 View Post
    There's no doubt that the 680 is a great 1080p card but I sure wouldnt pay £450 for any 1080p card. It feels like a very fast midrange card with enthusiast pricing.
    So its the fastest single GPU on the market but you think its a midrange card....

    The 680 is a good indication to what the midrange 660 will bring.. I think Nvidia will come in for the kill on this and price it way under the 7850 and perform alot better. Much like the 6600gt did in its day.

    I think AMD will have to clearly reduce prices now and go in for price/performance power.

  14. #12
    Moosing about! CAT-THE-FIFTH's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2006
    Location
    Not here
    Posts
    32,039
    Thanks
    3,910
    Thanked
    5,224 times in 4,015 posts
    • CAT-THE-FIFTH's system
      • Motherboard:
      • Less E-PEEN
      • CPU:
      • Massive E-PEEN
      • Memory:
      • RGB E-PEEN
      • Storage:
      • Not in any order
      • Graphics card(s):
      • EVEN BIGGER E-PEEN
      • PSU:
      • OVERSIZED
      • Case:
      • UNDERSIZED
      • Operating System:
      • DOS 6.22
      • Monitor(s):
      • NOT USUALLY ON....WHEN I POST
      • Internet:
      • FUNCTIONAL

    Re: Reviews - Sapphire Radeon HD 7970 OC Dual-X 3GB

    Quote Originally Posted by Brewster0101 View Post
    So its the fastest single GPU on the market but you think its a midrange card....

    The 680 is a good indication to what the midrange 660 will bring.. I think Nvidia will come in for the kill on this and price it way under the 7850 and perform alot better. Much like the 6600gt did in its day.

    I think AMD will have to clearly reduce prices now and go in for price/performance power.
    BTW,more news on the rest of the Kepler range:

    http://forums.hexus.net/2371201-post523.html

    The GTX670 is arriving in April/May and will be slightly faster than a GTX570 at around £240(probably around HD7870 level performance or slightly better). There is also the more expensive GTX670TI.

    The GTX660 will be slightly below GTX570 level performance or around the same at around probably £170 to £200 I suspect. According to Gibbo,it seems these cards will be launched later in the year after May.

    The cards below that will be be Fermi re-brands according to him.

    Both the GTX460 1GB and GTX560TI 1GB launched at around £200. None of the AMD or Nvidia 28NM cards seem to be anything comparable to the effect the 6600GT,8800GT,HD4850 or even the HD5850 had at the time when launched(although the HD5850 1GB did go up in price after a short period which decreased its price/performance). These cards were as fast(or nearly as fast) as the previous high end card and yet were affordable.
    Last edited by CAT-THE-FIFTH; 27-03-2012 at 11:18 PM.

  15. #13
    Senior Member Hicks12's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2008
    Location
    Plymouth-SouthWest
    Posts
    6,586
    Thanks
    1,070
    Thanked
    340 times in 293 posts
    • Hicks12's system
      • Motherboard:
      • Asus P8Z68-V
      • CPU:
      • Intel i5 2500k@4ghz, cooled by EK Supreme HF
      • Memory:
      • 8GB Kingston hyperX ddr3 PC3-12800 1600mhz
      • Storage:
      • 64GB M4/128GB M4 / WD 640GB AAKS / 1TB Samsung F3
      • Graphics card(s):
      • Palit GTX460 @ 900Mhz Core
      • PSU:
      • 675W ThermalTake ThoughPower XT
      • Case:
      • Lian Li PC-A70 with modded top for 360mm rad
      • Operating System:
      • Windows 7 Professional 64bit
      • Monitor(s):
      • Dell U2311H IPS
      • Internet:
      • 10mb/s cable from virgin media

    Re: Reviews - Sapphire Radeon HD 7970 OC Dual-X 3GB

    if its coming in around the 570 levels then i think AMD are fine, if the 7870 can surpass the 580 @ 1.2ghz then im sure AMD would be able to release something near the 1.1 ghz range for the 7850 and put a marginal price increase on it, as currently you can pick one of them up for £190.

    I agree they havent been as much wow as the older gen stuff, and its a shame really .
    Quote Originally Posted by snootyjim View Post
    Trust me, go into any local club and shout "I've got dual Nehalem Xeons" and all of the girls will practically collapse on the spot at the thought of your e-penis

  16. #14
    Senior Member
    Join Date
    Aug 2003
    Location
    Wonderful Warwick!
    Posts
    3,919
    Thanks
    4
    Thanked
    183 times in 153 posts

    Re: Reviews - Sapphire Radeon HD 7970 OC Dual-X 3GB

    most of this lack of wow is due to the manufacturing problems that meant both camps had to get the best out of the old 40nm tech available. I reckon that the next iterations of both cards on 28nm will be much better cards....but of course I could be wrong!
    Old puter - still good enuff till I save some pennies!

  17. #15
    Senior Member
    Join Date
    Mar 2009
    Posts
    780
    Thanks
    30
    Thanked
    49 times in 38 posts

    Re: Reviews - Sapphire Radeon HD 7970 OC Dual-X 3GB

    Quote Originally Posted by Brewster0101 View Post
    So its the fastest single GPU on the market but you think its a midrange card....

    The 680 is a good indication to what the midrange 660 will bring.. I think Nvidia will come in for the kill on this and price it way under the 7850 and perform alot better. Much like the 6600gt did in its day.

    I think AMD will have to clearly reduce prices now and go in for price/performance power.
    It's not the fastest single gpu on the market though, it's merely the fastest at 1080p.

    Think back on every fastest gpu in the past. How many of them were only fastest at 1080p yet fell behind at higher resolutions? None that I can think of.

    Granted you really need to push the cards in order to see it, but the fact is the 7970 is a more powerful card when both cards are pushed to their limits. This never happened with any other top card in history.



    One 680 wins, 2 680's lose vs 2 7970's and 4 680's lose against 3 7970's. The 680 has no legs. This never happened with any other fastest graphics card.

    The 660 will not beat the 7870 either. A lot of people will be scratching their heads wondering what happened and then maybe finally most of them will begin to realise how good the 7870 is.

  18. #16
    Senior Member
    Join Date
    Jun 2005
    Location
    Sunny Bracknell
    Posts
    1,713
    Thanks
    109
    Thanked
    99 times in 93 posts
    • dfour's system
      • Motherboard:
      • Asus Crosshair 8 Hero wifi
      • CPU:
      • Ryzen 7 3700x
      • Memory:
      • 16gb Dark pro @3600
      • Storage:
      • sabrent and wd nvme + 3 TB storage
      • Graphics card(s):
      • Asus Vega 64 Strix water cooled
      • PSU:
      • Fractal design Ion+ 760p
      • Case:
      • Lian Li 011D custom water cooled
      • Operating System:
      • Win 10 64bit
      • Monitor(s):
      • AOC agon 32" + Dell U2311H
      • Internet:
      • Zen Fibre @72 meg

    Re: Reviews - Sapphire Radeon HD 7970 OC Dual-X 3GB

    Quote Originally Posted by Jimbo75 View Post
    The 660 will not beat the 7870 either. A lot of people will be scratching their heads wondering what happened and then maybe finally most of them will begin to realise how good the 7870 is.
    The 7870 is a superb card but the advantage of being second to market is you have a target to aim at and nvidia would be stupid to release a card that is slower than it rival when they have all the data they need to create one that isnt. We will have to wait and see.

    If only I had 2 grand to drop on quad x-fire 7970's to play BF3 at that level. I have to reduce the AA to 2* and the details to high to get a decent frame rate at that res.

Page 1 of 2 12 LastLast

Thread Information

Users Browsing this Thread

There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •