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Five Radeon HD 7970 3 GB Cards, Overclocked And Benchmarked

Five Radeon HD 7970 3 GB Cards, Overclocked And Benchmarked
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GeForce GTX 680 cards are nowhere to be found, and the Radeon HD 7970 recently dropped to a much more attractive price. We thought it was time to round up a handful of Tahiti-based cards to see how board partners are improving upon AMD's original recipe.

After a handful of price drops on AMD's highest-end graphics cards, the Radeon HD 7970 is now more attractive than it was immediately after the introduction of Nvidia's GeForce GTX 680. Particularly because Nvidia's flagship card is still very difficult to find more than a month after its launch. 

With that in mind, added to the fact that AMD's board partners have had ample time to make their own improvements to the company's top-end model, we have a great opportunity to revisit the Radeon HD 7970. Five different vendors sent models for us to consider, resulting in an impressive round-up of Tahiti GPU-based graphics cards.


Gigabyte
R797OC-3GD
HIS IceQ X2
Turbo (Turbo X)
MSI R7970
Lightning
Sapphire HD 7970
OC (Alt. BIOS)
VisionTek
HD 7970
Graphics
Clock
1000 MHz1050 MHz
(1120 MHz)
1070 MHz
950 MHz
(1000 MHz)
925 MHz
Memory
Clock
1375 MHz1400 MHz
1400 MHz
1425 MHz
(1450 MHz)
1375 MHz
GDDR5
Memory
3 GB
3 GB3 GB3 GB3 GB
Cooler
Windforce
IceQ X2
Twin Frozr IV
Dual-X
Reference
Size
(PCB & Cooler)
10.5" x 4.75" x 1.5"
12" x 5.5" x 1.5"11.75" x 5.5" x 1.5"11.5" x 5" x 1.75"12" x 5.5" x 1.5"
Weight
1 lb 10.6 oz
2 lb 1.3 oz
2 lb 7.6 oz
1 lb 14.1 oz
2 lb 1.3 oz
Connectors
1 x DL-DVI,
1 x HDMI
2 x mDP
1 x DL-DVI,
1 x HDMI
2 x mDP
2 x SL-DVI,
4x mDP
1 x DL-DVI,
1 x HDMI
2 x mDP
1 x DL-DVI,
1 x HDMI
2 x mDP
Form Factor
Dual-slotDual-slotDual-slotMore than
Dual-slot
Dual-slot
GPU Voltage
Adjustment
MSI Afterburner
HIS iTurbo
MSI Afterburner
Sapphire TriXX
MSI
Afterburner
Special
Features
And Software
N/AN/AN/AN/AN/A
Warranty
3-Year
2-Year
3-Year
2-Year
Limited Lifetime
Price
£399.99
(Dabs)
$499.99 MSRP
($519.99 MSRP)
(UK Price Not Available)
£439.99
(Overclockers)
£399.99
(Dabs)
$479.99
(Newegg, UK Price Not Available)


Note that HIS has two models represented on the chart. We were sent the company's "Turbo X" model for testing, and we believe it has the highest factory core overclock of any Radeon HD 7970 in the world at 1120 MHz. Unfortunately, though, this product is not expected to be available in the U.S. (only in Europe and Asia). Instead, we'll be getting the "Turbo" model, with no X and a 1050 MHz core clock. Thus, we benchmarked the card a second time with HIS' more conservative specification to demonstrate what North America can expect.

In lieu of HIS' Turbo X, MSI's 7970 Lightning sports the highest-clocked core available for sale to our U.S. audience, running at 1070 MHz. Sapphire's HD 7970 OC enjoys the distinction of shipping with the fastest memory compared to all other Radeon HD 7970s. However, its core operates a more modest 1000 MHz.

Operating frequencies aren't the only variables affecting our decision of what Radeon HD 7970 to recommend, though. Software bundles, acoustics, thermals, price tags, support, and overclocking headroom all come into play. Let's break down each model and explore what these five vendors offer.

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  • 0 Hide
    vmem , 2 May 2012 23:17
    Proud owner of the sapphire card here, and I must say, at least for my mobo (Asus z68-v/gen3), the sapphire card doesn't cover the actual interface part of the 3rd PCI slot, so it IS possible to use that slot for things like SATA/USB controllers, and some short sound cards.

    Great article overall, thanks for all the info! and out of curiosity, does the sapphire card have the same problems with MSI afterburner that the HIS card has? thanks
  • 0 Hide
    damian86 , 3 May 2012 08:46
    I always wonder why you don't include a picture quality comparison when you review graphic cards.
  • 0 Hide
    mi1ez , 4 May 2012 15:09
    damian86I always wonder why you don't include a picture quality comparison when you review graphic cards.

    That's been covered in other articles and I assume they don't anticipate differences between cards using the same GPU.
  • -1 Hide
    naveenk , 5 May 2012 10:21
    How can you do this benchmard and not compare with GTX 680 ?