XFX Double D HD 7970 GHz Edition Video Card Review @ [H]

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FrgMstr

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XFX Double D HD 7970 GHz Edition Video Card Review - With continuous AMD price drops the XFX Double D HD 7970 GHz Edition video card has dropped into line with many of NVIDIA's GeForce GTX 670 video cards. Find out if the XFX's Double Dissipation technology will excel this video cards overclocking potential when we put it head to head with a GeForce GTX 680 and an overclocked GeForce GTX 670.
 
Why are you using the 12.9 betas? That's major fail right there.

Go get the 12.11 beta drivers; they boost performance significantly across the board for HD 7xxx series cards.
 
I'd imagine those drivers dropped too late for the review. Would have been nice to see what they did for BF3 performance but otherwise can't fault the review. Excellent as always.
 
I will just add the extra performance in me head, that is missing from the 12.9 drivers. ;) looking good!
 
BigMack70 said:
Why are you using the 12.9 betas? That's major fail right there.

Go get the 12.11 beta drivers; they boost performance significantly across the board for HD 7xxx series cards.
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This review was started and worked on before the new drivers were released.
 
BigMack70 said:
Why are you using the 12.9 betas? That's major fail right there.

Go get the 12.11 beta drivers; they boost performance significantly across the board for HD 7xxx series cards.
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Yeah the 12.11 beta drivers have been available from 23rd. for a review which is published on 30th definitely the 12.11 beta should have been used.

Also why is the game suite changing from one review to another. The ASUS HD 7970 Ghz Matrix Platinum was tested with Dishonored, Max Payne3, BF3 singleplayer, Sleeping Dogs, Batman AC, Skyrim.

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2012/10/16/asus_matrix_hd_7970_platinum_video_card_review/10

For this review the games are Max Payne 3, BF3 singleplayer, BF3 multiplayer , Batman AC, Witcher 2.

There is quite a bit of inconsistency in the reviewing methodology. ASUS HD 7970 Ghz which costs 500 dollars and overclocked to 1310 Mhz was given a GOLD rating. the XFX HD 7970 Ghz which costs 455 (425 after rebates) and overclocked to 1210 Mhz and there is not even a SILVER RATING for the XFX card. the DD cooler performs very well according to their testing.

To tell very frankly this entire review with 12.11 beta would have been an absolute win for HD 7970 Ghz as multiple reviews have shown. The game bundle is the best to have ever been sold. Sleeping Dogs is already the sleeper hit of the year. Farcry 3 and Hitman Absolution are hotly anticipated titles. a very disappointing review.
 
Brent_Justice said:
This review was started and worked on before the new drivers were released.
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But clearly you would have known before hand that the 12.11 beta was releasing. multiple press sites had reviews up on 22nd. which means the drivers were sampled sometime before for these sites to test and publish data. the absence of a review of 12.11 beta from hardocp on Oct 22nd was quite a surprise. but this review is just not a objective representation of the current competitive situation.
 
Our gaming suite is always evolving, and often times when new games come out there is overlap between what has been worked on, and implementing that new game into the review across all video card editors. In this case, there is some overlap, this reflects the gaming suite we were using previously, as I have to coordinate the new games with our editors, get them to the place where the run-through is at in them, and let them practice and get the run-through right for new games, it takes time sometimes for new games to trickle down from me, to our editors. It is also the case that it's ok for different games to be used with different cards, as they are relevant to that card being evaluated.

Rest assured all the gameplay data we have shown you today in this review is relevant. BF3 Multiplayer maintains itself as a popular game, and continues to be more graphically intense than single player. The Witcher 2 maintains itself as being a graphically challenging game that pushes hardware. The rest of the games are the same that I use.

This, btw, was the last review to use the previous gaming suite, the gaming suite will be updated for all following reviews. We had some lag time on this specific review due to a hardware issue that we had to get replaced (not related to the video card). This review was unfortunately delayed 1 week from its intended launch. Therefore, overlap has occurred on both drivers and gaming suites. Again, I am 100% confident in the results shown and its relevance to the gameplay experience.
 
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raghu78 said:
But clearly you would have known before hand that the 12.11 beta was releasing. multiple press sites had reviews up on 22nd. which means the drivers were sampled sometime before for these sites to test and publish data.
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Negative, I had no forewarning of these drivers being released, and as stated, this review was worked on and all the testing done before the new drivers dropped. Read above, as we had a hardware issue which caused some overlap. The drivers used were the latest drivers at the time of testing.

All reviews from here on out, will use the new drivers.
 
Brent_Justice said:
Negative, I had no forewarning of these drivers being released, and as stated, this review was worked on and all the testing done before the new drivers dropped. Read above, as we had a hardware issue which caused some overlap. The drivers used were the latest drivers at the time of testing.

All reviews from here on out, will use the new drivers.
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I have a question. Would hardocp have come to a different conclusion for this review or a stronger recommendation for the HD 7970 Ghz using the 12.11 beta drivers. If its a yes that needs to be reflected in this review.

hardocp is considered one of the very best sites and we really appreciate your rigorous testing methodology. Before publishing the review you would have known the significance of the 12.11 beta drivers. AMD addressed BF3 performance in a big way. This was a weak point. Why was it not considered important to re-do the tests with 12.11 beta and publish.
 
i am going to guess that we will never see a 7970 reviewed here with 12.11 or later drivers.

just my opinion. i hope i am wrong.
 
I'll let you guys in on what was originally intended, and why you see is what you see this week. The original publication date for this article was 1 week ago, October 22nd, which would have put it out before the new driver release. Unfortunately, the hardware issue we encountered (it was a motherboard issue) delayed us a week, and the review was published post-drivers. Now typically, we don't backtrack. We move forward with the latest driver that was used at the time the review was started. If we had to backtrack for every new software release that came down the pike, we'd never get things done, and there would always be delays.

In this case, it is an unfortunate state of circumstances. However, I still stand by our results 100%, note we didn't use the new 310.33 NV driver either, so the data is very comparable, and there are probably still people on the previous drivers who have not moved over to new "Beta's" yet, and we must remember, the drivers are BETA, and some are hesitant to move forward to new Beta drivers. If we re-tested with AMD, we'd also have to re-test with NV, to be fair.
 
Brent_Justice said:
I'll let you guys in on what was originally intended, and why you see is what you see this week. The original publication date for this article was 1 week ago, October 22nd, which would have put it out before the new driver release. Unfortunately, the hardware issue we encountered (it was a motherboard issue) delayed us a week, and the review was published post-drivers. Now typically, we don't backtrack. We move forward with the latest driver that was used at the time the review was started. If we had to backtrack for every new software release that came down the pike, we'd never get things done, and there would always be delays.

In this case, it is an unfortunate state of circumstances. However, I still stand by our results 100%, note we didn't use the new 310.33 NV driver either, so the data is very comparable, and there are probably still people on the previous drivers who have not moved over to new "Beta's" yet, and we must remember, the drivers are BETA, and some are hesitant to move forward to new Beta drivers. If we re-tested with AMD, we'd also have to re-test with NV, to be fair.
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understood. but its clear that even with the latest Nvidia 310.33 drivers, the AMD HD 7970 Ghz is the fastest card without a doubt. In fact at 1440p the HD 7970 Ghz leads the GTX 680 significantly. I know you do your own objective testing. But multiple sites have said the GTX 680 does not compete against HD 7970 Ghz at 1440p.
 
For the BF3 multiplayer test I see motion blur was disabled for the 670, now was this done purely to not shine a negative light on Nvidia? I want answers.
 
Alpert said:
For the BF3 multiplayer test I see motion blur was disabled for the 670, now was this done purely to not shine a negative light on Nvidia? I want answers.
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Read the first paragraph under the highest playable settings graphs. It explains exactly why we found each setting to be playable, and why motion blur was disabled as the highest playable setting.
 
disappointed not to see the latest drivers from both camps used, but it's understandable. shit happens. nice review Grady and Brent.
 
Well you know there are these things called deadlines that have to be adhered to so that people that are employed can finish projects so they can get paid. At least we know that the next tests will use at least the 12.11's and 310's. Change happens a lot with software updates and these guys aren't running static benchmarks. Hitting loop on a benchmark while making a sandwich is easy mode testing and can be replicated at any website on the web. Sitting at the computer playing a level for an hour or more, running into a scenario where the card just can't keep up and lowering different settings, then starting over again until it runs right is time consuming and costs money.

Thanks for taking the time to test the hardware for us once again in a real world situation. Can't wait for the next review with the AMD miracle drivers. :)
 
I bet these reviews arent just done during a lunch break. That many games, benchmarks and all the writing that goes into it would take several days I'd assume. If new drivers come out the same time as publication, its not easy to just scrap a week+ worth of work to redo the entire review with updated drivers. So I don't have a problem with the latest drivers not being used. That's not to say I wouldn't love to see a review with the new drivers eventually tho.
 
I bet another mini-review is coming comparing the newer drivers for all the cards is coming...
 
I wonder how it performs in eyefinity. :mad: I am going to keep saying that till Brent or Kyle say somthing.:D

That being said.....The amd is $50 more but if i am not mistaken you can play games with it in eyefinity mode with the single card. And if I am not mistaken you can not do the same with a Nvidia card, you would have to buy 2 cards. Yeah you may have to turn down some of the aa or somthing but it can be done and still have decent gameplay and quality.
 
Seiuchi said:
I wonder how it performs in eyefinity. :mad: I am going to keep saying that till Brent or Kyle say somthing.:D

That being said.....The amd is $50 more but if i am not mistaken you can play games with it in eyefinity mode with the single card. And if I am not mistaken you can not do the same with a Nvidia card, you would have to buy 2 cards. Yeah you may have to turn down some of the aa or somthing but it can be done and still have decent gameplay and quality.
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Yes, you would be very, very mistaken--the NV 6-series cards support surround gaming on a single card.
 
Jesus, can't please everyone it seems. Too many complaints about the damn drivers used for this review.
 
Great review as always.

Are you guys going to be picking up a monitor that supports 4096x2160 in the near future to bench on?
 
If new drivers come out the same time as publication, its not easy to just scrap a week+ worth of work to redo the entire review with updated drivers.
Click to expand...

Yep, but life is hard...

Normally, for practical reasons it may makes sense to ignore recent latest drivers since they usually offer very minor general performance increase.
Now, the 12.11 drivers are a game changer. Ignoring these at this point in time make [H] review pretty much irrelevant I would say.

I am surprised that [H] decided to use 12.9 drivers while knowing that 12.11 would come out shortly. Does that mean that [H] was not aware of the impact of 12.11? I would have thought that [H] would have tight relation with key industry players such as AMD.

Nevertheless, [H] remains my preferred website. They just dropped it on this one. It happens...
 
Lol so much complaining over a review for a product 90% of the people who are posting in this thread will not buy.
 
anubis44 said:
The whole Kepler love-in here at [H] is simply because Kyle is pissed off at AMD for some reason. They've been over promising and under-delivering, it's true, so it's somewhat understandable. That's probably also why the GTX660 Ti review is featuring a 3Gb, overclocked card vs. a stock, default (underclocked, really, since nobody who buys a 7950 is going to leave it at 800MHz) 7950. I really think [H] is trying to get under AMD's skin with this kind of bias. I am also getting pretty sick of hearing criticism for AMD's graphics drivers, and nothing but glowing praise for nVidia's reliability. The only graphics cards I've seen since about 2000 that have died have all been nvidia-powered (nvidia AIB partners have always been infamous for using chintsier/cheaper components than ATI/AMD AIBs), my nvidia 6200 chip in my Toshiba Tecra burned itself out due to nvidia's failure to equip the chip with adequate cooling, and I had a hair-pulling experience setting up a 3 monitor configuration with my current GTX670 card, while the AMD 7850 I had temporarily just set up an eyefinity 3 monitor group in about 5 minutes. Every time install a new nvidia driver update, the same crap happens all over again, too. If those are 'rock-solid' drivers, I'd hate to see nvidia's idea of a f*ck-up.

The fact that AMD has also just authorized everybody to flash their 800MHz 7950s with a new powertune bios that has an 850MHz default clock rate has also been all but utterly ignored by [H]. This is an unprecedented event as far as I can remember. No graphics chip maker has ever condonned an end-user bios flash, and my memory goes back to the early 1990s for PC graphics; back to my first ever PC graphics card: an ATI Mach32 ISA. I think this is pretty cool, and AMD should be lauded for this kind of after-sale support for existing users.

Even Anandtech included the bios-flashed 7950 results, while chiding AMD for releasing this bios update just on the eve of the GTX660 Ti's release. That's fair.

Still, I love the no-nonsense ATTITUDE of the [H] site, and since it's only a matter of time before Jen-Hsun pees in Kyle's corn flakes, I'm still going to frequent the site.
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This is pretty much my take on the matter. AMD is outright superior in both absolute performance and performance per dollar, and this really isn't being communicated in the [H] reviews.

I appreciate the effort and dedication that goes into making these reviews. At the same time, I feel that the reviews this entire generation have been quite misleading.
 
wabbitseason said:
This is pretty much my take on the matter. AMD is outright superior in both absolute performance and performance per dollar, and this really isn't being communicated in the [H] reviews.

I appreciate the effort and dedication that goes into making these reviews. At the same time, I feel that the reviews this entire generation have been quite misleading.
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yeah well the bias accusations flip flop from generation to generation. according to the accusers [H] has been ATI, Nvidia, AMD, Intel, and Heineken bias at any given point in time. i don't think they're moody and bias the review according to who they're 'pissed at' at the time. i'm not defending them for the sake of brown-nosing on the [H] forums. i think it's a moronic claim and i'd say that on any forum.
 
AMD is outright superior in both absolute performance and performance per dollar, and this really isn't being communicated in the [H] reviews
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You are aware that the 12.11 drivers have only been released recently, right? :confused:
 
Porter_ said:
yeah well the bias accusations flip flop from generation to generation. according to the accusers [H] has been ATI, Nvidia, AMD, Intel, and Heineken bias at any given point in time. i don't think they're moody and bias the review according to who they're 'pissed at' at the time. i'm not defending them for the sake of brown-nosing on the [H] forums. i think it's a moronic claim and i'd say that on any forum.
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Oh of course how silly of me, nonsense in the past and insulting me is totally relevant.

If you don't have anything in response to the issue at hand, don't bother saying anything.
 
wabbitseason said:
Oh of course how silly of me, nonsense in the past and insulting me is totally relevant.

If you don't have anything in response to the issue at hand, don't bother saying anything.
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i'm not insulting you, don't take it that way. i'm insulting the notion that they're biased. i did give a response to the 'issue' you bring up. it's a moronic claim. that's my response.
 
I know you guys are upset about the driver issue with this review. We have addressed it and it will not happen again. This one got away from us for various reasons. It is ultimately 100% my responsibility. I apologize for the shortcoming.
 
Porter_ said:
disappointed not to see the latest drivers from both camps used, but it's understandable. shit happens. nice review Grady and Brent.
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+1, but I'm not surprised. The last time I read a review of an AMD product on this site that sounded even remotely even-handed was before the release of Bulldozer. I have been a member on this forum since 1999 (despite the fact that my user profile was reset 4 or 5 years ago) and I have historically based many of my buying decisions on Kyle or Brent's recommendations over the years. Kyle's article on eyefinity being the most exciting new technology in gaming at the time (rather than ignoring it as some silly gimmick) was the catalyst (if you'll excuse the pun) behind me saving up and slowly finding the money for buying 3 monitors and a Radeon 7950 video card.

I love this site, and I want to keep turning to it for guidance. I just hope we'll see a review of gaming performance of AMD's graphics card line-up, not only with the latest 12.11 drivers, but also talking about things like the additional value in AMD cards with dual-bioses for bios flashing the 7850 2Gb or cards like my Gigabyte 7950 3Gb. Dual-bioses are much rarer on the nVidia side, and they definitely fall within the purview of an 'enthusiast' feature. In short, thanks for the review Brent, but I hope I will stop having the niggling sensation of anti-AMD bias from the reviews on here, and soon.
 
One thing that you cannot dispute, and in my opinion sets the nvidia card above the AMD card is physx.

Now in the past I would have given two shits about physx and call it a gimmick.

Until Borderlands2.

I have two top end systems running AMD and nvidia cards, and I have to say, the gameplay using an nvidia card setup is striking in Borderlands. the gameplay is night and day different.
For that simple matter I'd give the nod to nvidia cards if the two were on equal ground otherwise.

I also think the turmoil about drivers is nonsense here. Both company's cards were run with the latest drivers available at the time.....it's apples to apples no matter if there are different driver sets out currently or not.
 
You apology is appreciated but not necessary IMHO. This review can serve as a good yardstick to judge relative increases due to the new driver updates for both Nvidia and AMD.

The only issues that is causing confusion for me is the conclusion page. You state the following when comparing prices.

The XFX Double D HD 7970 GHz Edition is about $30 dollars more expensive than the GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 670 OC video card. It provided very similar gameplay experiences without any real advantages in game. When putting them head to head after overclocking each one the XFX Double D HD 7970 GHz Edition ran slightly faster, but for $30 extra dollars we did not see the performance increase we expected.

Considering the modest 14% price increase a for 3GB rather than 2GB card, together with superior performance at 2560x1600 wouldn't the XFX card be a better purchase overall? After all at this resolution the GTX 670 had to have lower settings selected to maintain a playable FPS. Or do we only care about 1080p gaming now? Another error is that the XFX 7970 comes with a free games bundle worth $169 (not the $50 alluded to in the review). The GTX 670 has no bundle at all.

Your bottom line section then goes on to almost totally ignore the graphs you lovingly created in the previous pages by stating the GTX 670 gave identical performance in all games tested while being 30% cheaper. Totally forgetting the fact that your own graphs do not match this conclusion at 2560x1600.

Edit: Adding game-play summary at 2560x1600 comparing the GTX 670 vs 7970 GHz cards in this review (both cards at stock settings).

Max Payne 3 - Identical settings. Draw.
BF3 SP - Identical settings. Draw.
BF3 MP - GTX 670 had to have Motion Blur disabled. Clear win for HD 7970 GHz
Batman - GTX 670 was not tested at this resolution.
Witcher 2 - GTX 670 had to have settings significantly reduced. Clear win for HD 7970.

At 1920x1080 the GTX 670 is a great card, but go with higher resolutions and the HD 7970 is a better purchase for only $30 more. Add in the excellent game bundle currently available and the XFX HD 7970 GHz card is a better choice at any resolution IMHO.
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well said.

Given the current stance of 7970 vs the gtx 670, you would have to be crazy to buy a 670. I rather have the 7970 ghz + 4 free games, and have better performance (12.11 drivers) I guess that is where brand loyality would be the deciding factor not logic.
 
Hmm I haven't updated my drivers in like 9 months, maybe I should get these betas, all this whining must be for something :p
 
No matter the issues that caused the late release this review does lack some degree of relevance... Seeing as the newest drivers will play a role in my next video card purchase I will be forced to look elsewhere for an up to date review.
I'm personally glad Kyle apologized, thank you for the empathy.
 
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