HD 7970 Gaming Benchmark Results Update

After reviewing Haswell and a few GTX 770 cards, we noticed that there may have been something wrong with a few of our HD 7970 game results used for comparisons. The results in question were Battlefield 3, Civilization 5, and DiRT 3 using the MSI HD 7970. Our results showed it performed 24% better than a similar ASUS 7970 in Battlefield 3 and DiRT 3, that’s ~19% higher than we would expect taking the 5% clock difference into account. The same type of variance showed up in Civilization 5 as well, but not to as great of an extent, the MSI results were ~10% higher than expected. In the chart below, the Performance Difference minus Clock Difference column takes the 5% clock difference and assumes linear score scaling with core clock by subtracting it out of the relative performance numbers. Of course, scores don’t always scale nice and linearly, so we can still get some differences in that column, but expected the variation to be small. So, we re-tested those benchmarks with a large variation to make sure we didn’t have something set incorrectly.

result_update_3

The results of the retest brought the Battlefield 3 and Civilization V results down to where they should be making the difference in the two HD 7970s almost non-existent after considering the 5% clock difference. This closed the gap between the HD 7970 and GTX 770 in BF3 and extended the GTX 770’s already large lead in Civ 5. However, DiRT 3 results didn’t change much after the re-test, keeping the HD 7970 ~6% ahead of the GTX 770.

The new comparisons between the HD 7970 and the GTX 770 are as follows:

result_update_2

The HD 7970 still clearly beats or matches the GTX 770 in all of the benchmarks except for Civ 5 and HWBot Heaven Xtreme. So, my personal opinion of the GTX 770 doesn’t change in light of the new results. The GTX 770 costs the same, but performs worse than the HD 7970 on average. If one needs some of NVIDIA’s exclusive features in the $400 price range, then the GTX 770 is the card to get. Otherwise, a little more performance can be had from the HD 7970.

We’ll be updating the charts in the following recent reviews over the next few days.

– Matt T. Green (MattNo5ss)

About Matthew Green 57 Articles
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Avatar of hokiealumnus
hokiealumnus

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16,557 messages 20 likes

As a side note, I left a redirect from the NVIDIA sub-forum since this does affect the results in the GTX 770 reviews (if not the outcome).

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Avatar of Kemosabe89
Kemosabe89

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Awwwwww Damnnnnn!!!! AMD baby.. :attn:

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Avatar of hokiealumnus
hokiealumnus

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16,557 messages 20 likes

Um...ok? Whatever your post means, let no one say you aren't enthusiastic.

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Avatar of NeonCancerCandy
NeonCancerCandy

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Um...ok? Whatever your post means, let no one say you aren't enthusiastic.

lol'd

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Avatar of trueblack
trueblack

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sooo.. can we say:

at the $400-$450 Range GPU

performance per dollar:

770 > 7970 Ghz?

cause I think the 7970Ghz is around 12-15% more expensive.
and judging from the table, the 7970Ghz has roughly 5-10% more performance than 770.

TechpowerUp just did a similar comparison too.
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/GTX_770_Lightning/26.html

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f
flopper

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223 messages 0 likes

been extremely happy with my 7970 a year down the road.
1200mhz and runs my set up superb.
5040x1050 gaming.

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Avatar of MattNo5ss
MattNo5ss

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Performance per dollar, the 7970 still wins. The GTX770 performs worse than or equal to the 7970 is all our tests besides Civ 5, and both cards used in my comparison are $400. My reference GTX770 runs at 1124/1753 MHz, and the MSI 7970 I compared it to ran at 1050/1375 MHz.

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B
Bisquit

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Prices overall are roughly the same in my country, between the 7970 and gtx770 cards.

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Avatar of Hippogriff
Hippogriff

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What has actually changed? Because it's difficult to find a review that put a 7970 (non GhZ) in front of a 770 in, for instance, Battlefield 3.

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Avatar of MattNo5ss
MattNo5ss

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The performance gap between the GTX770 and HD7970 has shrunk in BF3, putting the GTX770 closer to the HD7970, but not beating it. The performance gap widened in Civ 5, putting the GTX770 further ahead of the HD7970 than it already was.

That's it.

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