AMD Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition: Taking Back the Crown 132
An anonymous reader writes "The benchmarks are in for the Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition. Starting at $500, AMD's new single-GPU flagship boosts the original 7970's clock speed from 925 MHz to 1 GHz (1050 MHz with Boost). The GHz Edition also sports 3 GB of faster 1500 MHz GDDR5 memory, pushing 288 GB/s as opposed to 264 GB/s. While the AMD reference board runs hot and loud, retail boards will use different cooling solutions. A simple test of aftermarket GPU coolers shows that any other option will shave degrees and slash decibels. But it's the Catalyst 12.7 beta driver that really steals the show for AMD, pushing FPS scores into overdrive. With the new Catalyst, Nvidia's GeForce GTX 670 can no longer beat the original Radeon HD 7970, and the GHz Edition outmaneuvers the GeForce GTX 680 in most cases. However, when factoring price and possible overclocking into the equation, the original Radeon HD 7970 and GeForce GTX 670 remain the high-end graphics cards to beat."
Re:One word, "BITCOIN" (Score:1, Insightful)
For the 3 people that care about shitcoin?
5% more shiniez? I *must* have one! (Score:5, Insightful)
Why does anyone care that the two major card makers are still in their dick-waving war? Is it just to keep the review sites in business? Hey, look, another new top-of-the-range GFX card, not totally dis-similar to the one we reviewed last month, only we got it for free, and you'll have to part with some serious wedge if you want to have the same toys as the cool kids!
There have been no real, serious differences between any of the last dozen iterations of hardware. Anything made in the last couple of years should run any game on the market at full shiniez at decent resolution. It won't, sadly, make the gameplay any better.
Re:I'm done with spendy, top of the line cards (Score:3, Insightful)
There are differences between the professional lines (Quadro, Tesla, FireGL, Firestream) and the consumer lines (GeForce and Radeon). The professional lines are built for the GPU manufactures to controlled specs and designed for longer life. The consumer lines are built by OEMs from a reference design with incentives to push clock speeds and component specs to the limit.
Your experience likely has more to do with the old card being a Quadro than it does with newer cards being more fragile.