Finally, it has arrived- a little late may be for most of our liking; nonetheless, it did arrive! The last 5 years or so witnessed the chip giants AMD and NVidia introducing a handful of minor makeovers in their respective GPU architectures. But when it came to dishing out something entirely different- something that can be termed as groundbreaking, well, neither of the companies really had much to offer. In fact, it was 2006/07 when both NVidia and AMD last rolled out something monumental- something that gave a new direction to their GPU architectures. But then, the wait is finally over with the arrival of the AMD Radeon HD 7970 Graphics Card- the newest addition to the AMD family of Radeon GPUs. And needless to say, the offering has sparked massive anticipation and a sense of joy in the tech streets all around. Quite understandably so, after all this happens to be the first ever graphics card in the market with Microsoft DirectX 11.1 API compatibility and the first 28nm GPU , and it is going to accompany Redmond’s next big offering in the OS market- Windows 8 when it finally arrives.
Also, the HD 7970 happens to be the first ever card to be exploiting the PCI Express 3.0 x16 bus to boost its performance by doubling the system interface bandwidth to as high as 32 Gbps. And as one could expect, it has been already rewarded with the “next big thing since the introduction of PCI” tag by motherboard vendors from all over.
Now, let’s have a look at the specification of the HD 7970: AMD has blessed the product with a clock speed of 925 MHz, meaning the computing performance on paper is somewhere around 3.79 TFLOPs in comparison to the older VLIW4 architecture’s 2.7 TFLOPs. The 384 bit GDDR5 on the other hand, stands at 1.375 GHz- the data rate being 5.5 GHz. The configuration makes sure that users are provided with 264 Gbps memory bandwidth- significantly higher than 176 Gbps of the 6970 family.
In addition to these high-end specs, the HD 7970 is also equipped with a handful of other exciting elements. For example, it brings you an outstanding 8 ROP partitions that facilitates 32 ROPs per clock. Also, the 128 texture units are divided into 32 distinct CUs (Compute Units) apart from a fixed function pipeline featuring two ninth-generation geometry engines from the company.
Now, it does not require rocket science to understand that with all these specs on board, the power consumption factor is bound to be on the fatter side. But then, luckily for you, it is not so- all thanks to the advanced technology deployed by the TSMC 28nm processor which keeps the power-usage by the card totally in check.
Though AMD has so far refrained from disclosing the exact figure, the power consumption in the product is estimated to be somewhere around 220 watt- the absolute PowerTune threshold being 250 watt. And then, while in the idle phase, and ZeroCore Power (yes- that’s a brand new technology in offering from AMD) is in action, the power consumption level shrinks all the way to just 3 watt.
About the architecture, the HD 7970 is the first product in offering from the company to have equipped with an all new GPU architecture. Dubbed Tahiti, the product succeeds Cayman- the chip responsible for powering the company’s Radein HD 6900 family line, as well as the dual GPU HD 6990.
Tahiti’s build is primarily based on the brand new 28 nm silicon fabrication from TSMC. With this new architecture, the chip giant is definitely on its way to renovate a lot in its future GPUs- have no doubt about that! In fact, it happens to be the first major step taken by the company after the launch of HD 2000 line up.
The HD 2000 family line embraced the "Graphics Parallel Core" architecture whose most advantageous aspect was the VLIW "very long instruction words. While AMD’s older variant of Graphics Parallel Core was reliant on two pair of simple stream processors alongside a single, higher-end complex stream processor, the Cayman architecture comprised of a more sophisticated design which was based on 4 equipotent stream processors.
When it comes to the physical size, the HD 7970 is hardly distinguishable from its older sibling HD 6970, both measuring approximately 27.5 cm. And then, about the connectivity, the card comes with 1 DVI port, a pair of mini Display interfaces, as well as a full size HDMU port. The most exciting part is that all the outputs can be exploited simultaneously at the same time, which indeed ensures some serious flexibility.
It is worth noting here that all the connectors are located on the 1st slot, thereby facilitating you the second one for a highly effective cooling solution. You could also use the same for deploying the card with a single slot set up, alongside a waterblock for cooling purposes.
The card is also blessed with a built in HDMI sound device, compatible with HDMI 4.4a and with support for Blu-ray 3D movies. You can also use hubs as well as multi stream transport with the Display Port (version 1.2).
Now let’s have a look at all the pros and cons of the product: The card facilitates a high-end, and solid performance. The power consumption is pretty low compared to all its predecessors. The overclocking potential is also reportedly pretty much excellent. In addition, you can also make the full out the built in full size HDMI and DisplayPort output. It is also equipped with dual BIOS, making it far more reliable. And then, not to forget about the 3GB memory alongside PCI Express 3.0 and DIrectX 11.1 compatibility.
Some Benchmarks (1920x1080)
About the cons, the only couple of could we could find is it makes a little bit of annoying noise while working with 3D stuffs, and then its over-the-top costly price. Other than that, it’s a must have for any tech enthusiast who can afford to spend a few extra buck.
If you are interested in top quality gaming PCs, you should certainly take a look at the amazing range of
AMD Radeon HD 7970 Series DX11 Gaming PCs. We offers some of the most powerful, yet low-cost gaming PCs in the market today.
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