Official Radeon 7970 Review and discussion thread

[shadow001]

Originally Posted by i SPY

And its cooler compared to 40nm


7970 Thermal test
http://www.hardware.fr/articles/848-...nfrarouge.html






Now if it were 1125mhz by default then it would own really bad

But still 200mhz OC with default voltage is amazing imo.

My GTX580's are running at 950 Mhz clock, but it is with a voltage bump and water cooled, not the stock cooler ...There probably wouldn't be a huge difference in performance with the HD7970 if it's running at stock clocks now that i think about it..


That actually brings up a point about architecture efficiency overall, since both my GPU's(being water cooled) and the Tahiti are running at roughly the same clock, they both use a 384 bit memory bus, though tahiti's memory is rated for higher speeds and has higher memory bandwith, but the performance gap seen compared to a stock GTX580 would be smaller(they run at 772 Mhz for the core afterall), and keep in mind that Tahiti has a billion or so extra transistors in it's core over fermi.


I fully realise that the HD7970's are on their first offcial driver release and the card will get faster by the time Kepler releases, and the drivers for the GTX580 are mature and extracting pretty much all the speed the core has by now(so it's a large advantage there), but it makes me wonder that Nvidia wouldn't need to pull a miracle to make something faster than an HD7970 either....


A higher clocked Fermi, with the same amount of shaders, same transistor budget and same 384 bit bus but running with faster GDDR5, clocked at 1 Ghz core using the 28nm process would be a pain in the ass for the HD7970, never mind adding more shaders, texture units, rops or moving to a wider bus.....

[Rollo]

Originally Posted by shadow001

Well, i ordered 3 of the new samsung SyncMaster LS27A850DS 27IN Widescreen LCD's that support 2560*1440 resolution, wich uses their PLS display tech wich is comparable to e-IPS panels for image quality, color accuracy, viewing angles and backlight bleed, and uses LED backlighting rather than CCFL, like the Dell U2711.


Each cost me 849$ so cheap they are not(2600$ total with shipping and insurance), and as a final hail to what 3 GTX580's in triple SLI, water cooled can really do, i intend to push them to the limit, benchmarking games at 7680*1440 resolution at the highest possible quality settings while aiming for 60 Fps average results....


Keep in mind my cards are running at 950 Mhz clocks, so not the garden variety air cooled super clocked editions running at 850 Mhz here, so it's pretty much the best case scenario barring hitting memory limitations as they are 1.5 GB versions, wich i expect to see once i crank on the AA on top of that insane resolution anyhow...


This is not just for information for general purposes in this forum, but also to set a baseline for myself once the GTX580's are replaced and i perform the same acid test on the new cards too, and see the differences and how large they are....I've had enough of benchmarking with monitors that "only" do 1920*1080 thanks(even if it's 3 of them), so it's time to crank that up a couple of notches....

You will only prove that for the .00000001% of users who have $2600-$3500 worth of monitors it's handy to have 3GB of VRAM. (which we all knew anyway)

Should be a nice surround set though!

[shadow001]

Originally Posted by Rollo

You will only prove that for the .00000001% of users who have $2600-$3500 worth of monitors it's handy to have 3GB of VRAM. (which we all knew anyway)

Should be a nice surround set though!

Then why get all worked up with having as much memory on a video card as possible when using only a single display?...


I know i'll use a lot more memory for frame buffer, and AA and probably textures too, and it will force the GPU's much harder, but it's in the most difficult scenarios where you really see wich is more powerfull overall, and the need for faster GPU's presents itself the most.


But you are right that displays like these are expensive and apply to a very small minority unfortunately....Hopefully they'll get more affordable as time goes on, as display makers have been content on 1080p for years now, and the funny part of it is that 3rd generation tablets are probably going to be pretty close to 1080p resolutions, yet they're only 12 inches across and are relatively cheap since it's a full working conputer for under 1000$....


How about using some of that display technology used in tablets on a 24 or 27" screen, wich is what Samsung did with the displays i'm getting, as it's the same display technology used on the galaxy tab 10.1 tablet....Heck even the ipad 2 tablet uses an IPS display made by LG and both have gorgeous image quality that way better than TN based panels.

[shadow001]

Originally Posted by slaWter

btw, why did you get screens like that with such a panel and LED?
You're already spending quite a bit of money, why not get a semi-professional screen?

WLED is usually not ideal for color accuracy. I haven't seen any reviews of that Samsung screen but I doubt it'll match the color accuracy of a Dell U2711 or NEC PA271W.

Is it because of the faster response time?

Look at the hardware canucks review, and it's normal that you haven't seen them since they only hit retail last month, and use Samsumg's PLS tech, wich is pretty much equivalent to E-IPS displays, but with a faster response time and higher contrast and almost perfect color accuracy at factory stock, as only need to lower the red a little bit to be sRGB perfect..


It's Samsungs solution to IPS rivals in fact....You have a pair of Dell's in that comparison, wich are IPS panels and didn't find much to complain about in the conclusions...


http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum...or-review.html

[shadow001]

Originally Posted by slaWter

Hopefully Anandtech or PRAD will review them soon. Those are very interesting screens for sure!

I just thought that when you're already investing heavily in new displays, you'd consider getting better ones, for example 10 bit S/P-IPS panels. And not just something that is equivalent to entry level IPS panels.
But of course they're faster, that's important as well.

I tried to find a compromise by getting the HPs - superb panel and no image processor (meaning no lag, which is usually higher than the response time anyway).

Hardware canucks were pretty impressed with them, and the review was pretty extensive and even though samsung rates them at conforming to 100% sRGB, they actually exceed it and have the best contrast of any panel they've reviewed, and very consistent in the variations in backlighting across the entire panel too(only 14%)


Add the 5 Ms response time and nearly perfect gamma and wide viewing angles.....I don't mean to say they're the best, but they are aimed for the professional market( including photography using a colorimeter) and pretty well suited for gaming as an extra bonus, and as the review stated, buyers would be hard pressed to find better for under 950$...That's saying a lot right there.


I'm sure your displays are awsome too, as they're intended for the most demanding and precise work possible....No more TN crap for me either, even if it's much cheaper..

[shadow001]

Ouch if this is true....That HD7990 is really going to be steep price wise: 850$...







About the only good thing is the release date for it, march 12th so roughly 2 months after the single GPU versions hit retail stores( january 9th)....

[KasuCode]

Im waiting for the 7990. I wont have the money until around march and that will be a perfect upgrade for my 5970.

[shadow001]

Originally Posted by KasuCode

Im waiting for the 7990. I wont have the money until around march and that will be a perfect upgrade for my 5970.

It does have me thinking of a cheaper aproach to a triple crossfire setup though, wich i initially thought about 3 seperate HD7970's, and that totals 1650$ going by the MSRP prices.


But it's also possible to use a dual GPU HD 7990(850$), with a single HD7970 card(550$) and get triple crossfire that way for 1400$ even, wich saves 250$ right there wich can easily cover the cost of the water blocks for the cards, and there shouldn't be much difference between either setup in practical performance terms, as the GPU's and memory on the HD7990 aren't clocked that much lower anyhow...

[shadow001]

Originally Posted by slaWter

Nothing against that review but it's not as good as other monitor reviews. They lack the proper competition and Adobe RGB comparisons. That's why I'm interested in more reviews.

Targeting the professional market with 8-bit panel and WLED? No way. Professional market uses 10-bit and RGB LED (or CCFL), those very rare 30" screens are still in the $3500+ range. 10-bit and CCFL still works great for the semi-professional market because it's not that expensive but still, especially when it comes to color gamut, much better than WLED, which is fine for entry level IPS screens. That's why so many TN panels use WLED but promote it as a feature

The Dell and this Samsung cost about the same here, for me the Dell would be the better choice.

Still, I'm sure you'll be very, very pleased with those screens if you're coming from TN panels Enjoy them! Those are an awesome Christmas present

Don't get me wrong here, i know there are some amazing displays with even better color fidelity than these obviously and i wasn't comparing them to those at all, as if nothing else the latter cost a huge amount of money and have even higher specs overall...


But for the money, wich across 3 screens is already fairly hefty(2700$), it's definitely a big step up over the budget stuff most use, competes nicely with IPS and E-IPS panels from other brands that sell within that same price range, and offers almost the highest possible resolution available on a computer display, at anything even remotely considered affordable, so in that sense i'm sure i'll be pretty happy with them...


Wich Dell were you referring to?.... The U2711?

[fasedww]

I'll be getting a couple sapphire 7970's tommorrow there shipping should have them by friday I hope. Going to put them in my rig# 2 in sig that has 2600K cpu and replace the Evga 470's with these 7970's. Yeah I'm going PC Crazy again.

[Muppet]

I thought they weren't being released until the 9th.

[fasedww]

Originally Posted by Muppet

I thought they weren't being released until the 9th.

yeah there is places that our getting some in earlier but you pay a little more. I contacted them and the guy personnaly emailed me that it's in stock and will be shipping out tommorrow because ther closed today.