Introduction and Package

VIEW GALLERY - 29 IMAGES

AMD's Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition has become quite a funny model with companies not jumping on it quite as quickly as we would've thought they might have done. The slow pickup meant that I felt it was time to do a little investigating to see what exactly was going on with the model. The general thought process was that the lack of chips available meant that companies couldn't get the quantities they want, but it doesn't seem to be the main reason.

It seems that partners aren't all that happy with AMD when it comes to the HD 7970 GHz Edition; especially those that put in a lot of time and effort when it came to making special versions of the normal HD 7970. With companies still having stock and also not wanting to put more time into R&D, some are choosing to not worry about the HD 7970 GHz Edition.

Combine this with the fact that a lot of partners offer both NVIDIA and AMD based cards; those particular ones can just concentrate on the NVIDIA based GTX 680. This makes a whole lot of sense when you consider the two companies who have promoted the new model the most are Sapphire and HIS, both of who are AMD only partners.

With a bit more known about why we're not seeing companies jump straight on the HD 7970 GHz Edition, let's find out what's so special about the Sapphire video card we're looking at today. As always the first thing we're going to do is take a look at the package and cover some of the main feature highlights.

Once we've gone over the bundle we'll move into the card and the specification side of things. We'll also be taking the time to overclock the card so in the specification area we'll see what kind of overclock we managed to achieve today. Once we've done that we'll quick cover our testbed, talk about the cards we'll be using today and get into the performance side of things.

Package

Sapphire has put together some great boxes lately and the new Vapor-X packaging looks fantastic. Looking to the right we can see the three main features that are promoted here including the Vapor-X Cooling system, EZ OC Boost and 28nm technology. Turning the box over gives us a bit of a blurb, but it also goes into some of the more specific AMD features, while also giving us a slight run down on them.

Looking above you can see that the package is very Sapphire with a Sapphire Select Club key, Quick Install Guide, driver CD, DVI to VGA connector, CrossFire bridge, dual Molex to 8-pin PCIe, Molex to 6-pin PCIe and the standard HDMI cable that we see Sapphire offer us a lot.

The Card and Specifications

The Card

Straight away the first thing we notice is the massive cooler with the two large 90mm fans that should do a good job of cooling. Looking carefully, though, we can see four heatpipes coming out the bottom, a massive aluminum heatsink in the background and behind that we can actually see the copper plate. We'll find out soon enough if this Vapor-X cooler performs as well as it looks.

Moving around you can see at the back we've got an 8-pin PCIe and 6-pin PCIe power connector. This is slightly different to the TOXIC model which used the more aggressive dual 8-pin setup we see on higher end variants of these top-end cards. Closer to the front you can see we've got our two CrossFire connectors and the EZ OC Boost button which at a click boosts the speed. We'll cover this in a little more detail when we look at the specifications.

Finishing up with the I/O side of things you can see at the top we've got a vent alongside a Single-Link DVI connector. Below that we've got a Dual-Link DVI connector along with a HDMI port and a DisplayPort to round off the connectivity side of things.

Specifications

Out of the box if you don't touch the EZ OC Boost button that's present you'll get a core clock of 1000MHz while the 3GB of GDDR5 comes in at 6000MHz QDR. If you hit the EZ OC Boost button you won't see a change on the memory, but the core will be pushed to 1050MHz.

Using MSI Afterburner we managed to push the core up to 1205MHz while the memory saw very little wiggle room coming in at only 6100MHz QDR.

These clocks are similar to the recently reviewed Sapphire HD 7970 GHz Edition TOXIC 6GB, the main difference, though, was that we managed to get a massive overclock out of the card, which saw it come in at 1280MHz on the core and 7000MHz QDR on the 6GB of GDDR5.

Benchmarks - Test System Setup

We would like to thank the following companies for supplying and supporting us with our test system hardware and equipment: Intel, ASUS and Corsair.

Looking above you can see our testbed and in normal fashion we won't go into too much detail as everything is really covered in the above image. What we will quickly do, though, is cover the video cards that we'll be using today.

Of course we've got the Sapphire HD 7970 GHz Edition Vapor-X 3 GB overclocked, but alongside that we've got the older non GHz Edition of the HD 7970 along with the new GHz Edition. We've also included the TOXIC variant of the GHz Edition from Sapphire which did an excellent job of impressing us with it's massive out of the box clocks of 1200MHz on the core and 6400MHz QDR on the 6GB of GDDR5. These numbers are very close to what we saw out of the Vapor-X model today so performance between the two cards should be quite similar.

Along with those AMD cards we've also got some NVIDIA cards included in our line up today which include three variants of the GTX 680. We've got the reference 2GB model, the 4GB model from Palit under the Jetstream name and finally the pre-overclocked 2GB version from Gainward under the Phantom name.

Let's get started!

The FPS Numbers Explained

When we benchmark our video cards and look at the graphs, we aim to get to a certain level of FPS which we consider playable. While many may argue that the human eye can't see over 24 FPS or 30 FPS, any true gamer will tell you that as we climb higher in Frames Per Seconds (FPS), the overall gameplay feels smoother. There are three numbers we're looking out for when it comes to our benchmarks.

30 FPS - It's the minimum number we aim for when it comes to games. If you're not dropping below 30 FPS during games, you're going to have a nice and smooth gaming experience. The ideal situation is that even in a heavy fire fight, the minimum stays above 30 FPS making sure that you can continue to aim easily or turn the corner with no dramas.

60 FPS - It's the average we look for when we don't have a minimum coming at us. If we're getting an average of 60 FPS, we should have a minimum of 30 FPS or better and as mentioned above, it means we've got some smooth game play happening.

120 FPS - The new number that we've been hunting down over recent months. If you're the owner of a 120 Hz monitor, to get the most out of it you want to get around the 120 FPS mark. Moving from 60 FPS / 60 Hz to 120 FPS / 120 Hz brings with it a certain fluidity that can't really be explained, but instead has to be experienced. Of course, if you're buying a 120 Hz monitor to take advantage of 3D, an average of 120 FPS in our benchmark means that in 3D you will have an average of 60 FPS, which again means you should expect some smooth gameplay.

Benchmarks - 3DMark 11

3DMark 11

Version and / or Patch Used: 1.1

Developer Homepage: http://www.futuremark.com

Product Homepage: http://www.3dmark.com/3dmark11/

Buy It Here

3DMark 11 is the latest version of the world's most popular benchmark. Designed to measure your PC's gaming performance 3DMark 11 makes extensive use of all the new features in DirectX 11 including tessellation, compute shaders and multi-threading. Trusted by gamers worldwide to give accurate and unbiased results, 3DMark 11 is the best way to consistently and reliably test DirectX 11 under game-like loads.

Starting off with 3DMark 11 you can see our numbers line up very close to the TOXIC offering from Sapphire. This is only a good thing as we see the card hold itself extremely well against the NVIDIA offerings under 3DMark 11.

Benchmarks - Unigine Heaven Benchmark

Unigine Heaven Benchmark

Version and / or Patch Used: 2.5

Developer Homepage: http://www.unigine.com

Product Homepage: http://unigine.com/press-releases/091022-heaven_benchmark//

New benchmark grants the power to unleash the DirectX 11 potential in the gift wrapping of impressively towering graphics capabilities. It reveals the enchanting magic of floating islands with a tiny village hidden in the cloudy skies. With the interactive mode emerging experience of exploring the intricate world is ensured within reach. Through its advanced renderer, Unigine is one of the first to set precedence in showcasing the art assets with tessellation, bringing compelling visual finesse, utilizing the technology to the full extend and exhibiting the possibilities of enriching 3D gaming.

Looking under Heaven we again see some really strong performance, but the heavy focus on Tessellation here means that the GTX 680 offerings do look extremely good thanks to the better optimization on this technology from NVIDIA.

Benchmarks - Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X. 2

Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X.2

Version and / or Patch Used: Benchmark Demo

Timedemo or Level Used: Built-in Test

Developer Homepage: http://www.ubi.com/UK/default.aspx

Product Homepage: http://www.hawxgame.com/

Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X. 2 is an arcade-style flight action game developed by Ubisoft Romania and published by Ubisoft. The game is the sequel to Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X., released in 2009.

The game begins with Colonel David Crenshaw participating in a routine patrol mission in the Middle East. After halting an insurgent attack, a volley of missiles is fired at the Air Force base that Crenshaw was stationed at, with one of the missiles disabling Crenshaw's aircraft, resulting Crenshaw being in enemy captivity. A joint strike force composed of the U.S. Navy, U.S. Air Force, and a Ghost Recon squad executes an operation to rescue Crenshaw. In Scotland, Royal Navy Pilot Colin Munro encounters an unidentified passenger aircraft that explodes from an on-board bomb when undergoing training exercise. In Russia, an air force squadron led by Colonel Denisov and Captain Dmitri Sokov engages separatist aircraft but is ordered to retreat from the region after numerous Russian military installations have been attacked.

H.A.W.X. 2 has always favored our NVIDIA offerings and we see that again here. The good news is that we've got extremely strong performance at every resolution here out of our AMD offerings and that is ultimately the most important result to get.

Benchmarks - Mafia II

Mafia II

Version and / or Patch Used: Latest Steam Update

Timedemo or Level Used: Built in Benchmark

Developer Homepage: http://www.2kczech.com/

Product Homepage: http://www.mafia2game.com/

Buy It Here

Mafia II is a third-person action-adventure video game, the sequel to Mafia: The City of Lost Heaven. It is developed by 2K Czech, previously known as Illusion Softworks, and is published by 2K Games. The game is set from 1943 to 1951 in Empire Bay (the name is a reference to New York's state nickname "The Empire State"), a fictional city based on San Francisco and New York City, with influences from Chicago and Detroit. The game features a completely open-ended game map of 10 square miles. No restrictions are included from the start of the game. There are around 50 vehicles in the game, as well as licensed music from the era.

Mafia II performance looks great and you can see our numbers line up almost identically with the TOXIC version from Sapphire. Against the NVIDIA cards you can see AMD continue to shine at the highest resolution.

Benchmarks - Lost Planet 2

Lost Planet 2

Version and / or Patch Used: Benchmark Demo

Timedemo or Level Used: Built in Benchmark - Test A Scene 1

Developer Homepage: http://www.capcom.com/

Product Homepage: http://www.lostplanet2game.com/

Lost Planet 2 is a third-person shooter video game developed and published by Capcom. The game is the sequel to Lost Planet: Extreme Condition which is also made by Capcom, taking place ten years after the events of the first game, on the same fictional planet. The story takes place back on E.D.N. III 10 years after the events of the first game. The snow has melted to reveal jungles and more tropical areas that have taken the place of more frozen regions. The plot begins with Mercenaries fighting against Jungle Pirates. After destroying a mine, the Mercenaries continue on to evacuate the area, in which a Category-G Akrid appears and attacks them. After being rescued, they find out their evacuation point (Where the Category-G appeared) was a set-up and no pick up team awaited them. The last words imply possible DLC additions to the game, "There's nothing to be gained by wiping out snow pirates... unless you had some kind of grudge."

Overclocked you can see the Vapor-X sits in line with the 4GB GTX 680 at the highest resolution with a very playable number. Moving down the resolution table we can see that the NVIDIA cards manage to pull ahead, but of course with playable numbers at 2560 x 1600, we also have playable ones at lower resolutions.

Benchmarks - Aliens vs. Predator

Aliens vs. Predator

Version and / or Patch Used: Standalone Benchmark

Timedemo or Level Used: Built in Benchmark

Developer Homepage: http://www.rebellion.co.uk/

Product Homepage: http://www.sega.com/games/aliens-vs-predator/

Aliens vs. Predator is a science fiction first-person shooter video game, developed by Rebellion Developments, the team behind the 1999 original PC game, and published by Sega for Microsoft Windows, the PlayStation 3 and the Xbox 360. The game is based on the Alien vs. Predator franchise, a combination of the characters and creatures of the Alien franchise and the Predator franchise. There are three campaigns in the game, one for each race/faction (the Predators, the Aliens and the Colonial Marines), that, while separate in terms of individual plot and gameplay, form one overarching storyline.

Following the storyline of the campaign modes comes the multiplayer aspect of the game. In this Multiplayer section of the game, players face off in various different gametypes in various different ways.

NVIDIA hasn't done great under Aliens vs. Predator with the latest line up of cards and you can see only the pre-overclocked GTX 680 is able to skim in a playable number at 2560 x 1600.

On the other hand you can see strong numbers across the board from our Sapphire HD 7970 GHz Edition Vapor-X 3GB with a solid 70 FPS being seen at the highest resolution.

Benchmarks - Just Cause 2

Just Cause 2

Version and / or Patch Used: 1.0.0.2

Timedemo or Level Used: Dark Tower

Developer Homepage: http://www.eidos.com/

Product Homepage: http://www.justcause.com/

Just Cause 2 employs the Avalanche Engine 2.0, an updated version of the engine used in Just Cause. The game is set on the other side of the world from the original Just Cause, on the fictional island of Panau in Southeast Asia. Panau has varied terrain, from desert to alpine to rainforest. Rico Rodriguez returns as the protagonist, aiming to overthrow the evil dictator Pandak "Baby" Panay and confront his former mentor, Tom Sheldon.

Just Cause 2 performance across the board looks extremely strong against the NVIDIA offerings and you can see we manage very strong FPS at every resolution including the highest 2560 x 1600 option.

Benchmarks - Metro 2033

Metro 2033

Version and / or Patch Used: Latest Steam Update

Timedemo or Level Used: Built in Benchmark

Developer Homepage: http://www.4a-games.com/

Product Homepage: http://www.thqnordic.com/

Metro 2033 is an action-oriented video game with a combination of survival horror and first-person shooter elements. The game is based on the novel Metro 2033 by Russian author Dmitry Glukhovsky. It was developed by 4A Games in Ukraine and released in March 2010 for Microsoft Windows and Xbox 360.[3] In March 2006, 4A Games announced a partnership with Glukhovsky to collaborate on the game.[4] The game was announced at the 2009 Games Convention in Leipzig;[5] a first trailer came along with the announcement.[6] A sequel was announced, currently titled Metro: Last Light.

Metro 2033 is another super intensive game engine and you can see no matter what resolution we throw at our overclocked HD 7970 GHz Edition Vapor-X offering we get playable FPS with the pre-overclocked GTX 680 again being the only NVIDIA option that is able to scrape in a 60 FPS average at the highest resolution.

Benchmarks - Dirt 3

Dirt 3

Version and / or Patch Used: Latest Steam Update

Timedemo or Level Used: Built in Benchmark

Developer Homepage: http://www.codemasters.com/

Product Homepage: http://www.dirt3game.com/

DiRT 3 boasts more cars, more locations, more routes and more events than any other game in the series, including over 50 rally cars representing the very best from five decades of the sport. With more than double the track content of 2009's hit, DiRT 3 will see players start at the top as a professional driver, with a top-flight career in competitive off-road racing complimented by the opportunity to express themselves in Gymkhana-style showpiece driving events.

Dirt 3 performance across the board is strong on all our cards here, but we again see at the highest resolution the Sapphire options are able to offering stronger numbers than what we're seeing out of the NVIDIA cards.

Benchmarks - Far Cry 2

Far Cry 2

Version and / or Patch Used: 1.01

Timedemo or Level Used: Ranch Long

Developer Homepage: http://www.ubi.com/

Product Homepage: http://www.farcry2.com/

Buy It Here

The Dunia Engine was built specifically for Far Cry 2 by the award-winning Ubisoft Montreal development team. It delivers the most realistic destructible environments, amazing special effects such as dynamic fire propagation and storm effects, real-time night-and-day cycle, dynamic music system, non-scripted enemy A.I. and so much more.

As you'd expect on these high-end cards, we've got very solid numbers out of Far Cry 2 at every resolution.

Benchmarks - High Quality AA and AF

High Quality AA and AF

While we test all our games with maximum in-game settings, turning on Anti-Aliasing (AA) and Antistrophic Filtering (AF) helps take the intensity of our testing to another level.

Here we see video cards go from playable FPS to an unplayable FPS and the real power houses continue to help break that 60 FPS mark we always aim for to provide a smooth gaming experience.

Starting off with Mafia II we can see that all our cards have no problem dealing with the game when AA and AF is turned on. Moving to 2560 x 1600, though, you can see we're only able to break the 60 FPS barrier with the highly clocked HD 7970 GHz Edition cards.

With AA and AF on we can see all our AMD offerings manage to offer us playable FPS with the best coming from our highly clocked GHz Edition cards again. At 2560 x 1600, though, you can see it's just not an option on any of the single GPU models we have here.

Looking at our Far Cry 2 AA and AF numbers you can see that we don't run into the same kind of issues as we did with the other cards. We've got playable numbers across the board here at both resolutions from all cards.

Under Metro 2033 we can see that all our cards offer playable FPS at 1920 x 1200 when AA and AF is turned on. The difference is you can see the NVIDIA offerings manage to only scrape in the numbers we need for a solid gaming experience, while the AMD numbers look a lot more convincing with the Vapor-X only falling behind the TOXIC. Moving to 2560 x 1600, though, sees all cards fall below that 60 FPS number we want to see.

Finally we finish with Just Cause 2 and we can see 1920 x 1200 is perfect, while 2560 x 1600 falls behind that 60 FPS mark by only a single FPS.

Temperature Test

The temperature of the core is pulled from MSI Afterburner with the max reading used after a completed run off 3DMark Vantage and the Performance preset.

Looking at the temperature numbers you can see that load is identical to that of the TOXIC model we looked at while idle comes in a little lower. Overall considering the power coming out of the card, these are impressive temperature numbers.

Sound Test

Pulling out the TES 1350A Sound Level Meter we find ourselves quickly yelling into the top of it to see how loud we can be.

After five minutes of that we get a bit more serious and place the device two CM away from the fan on the card to find the maximum noise level of the card when idle (2D mode) and in load (3D mode).

Noise numbers look great and come in lower then the TOXIC model in this instance. Again, considering the amount of power the model puts out, we've got some pretty impressive numbers from the trusty TOXIC cooler.

Power Consumption Test

Using our PROVA Power Analyzer WM-01 or "Power Thingy" as it has become quickly known as to our readers, we are now able to find out what kind of power is being used by our test system and the associated graphics cards installed. Keep in mind; it tests the complete system (minus LCD monitor, which is plugged directly into AC wall socket).

There are a few important notes to remember though; while our maximum power is taken in 3DMark06 at the same exact point, we have seen in particular tests the power being drawn as much as 10% more. We test at the exact same stage every time; therefore tests should be very consistent and accurate.

The other thing to remember is that our test system is bare minimum - only a SSD hard drive is used with a single CD ROM and minimal cooling fans.

So while the system might draw 400 watts in our test system, placing it into your own PC with a number of other items, the draw is going to be higher.

Overclocked and just generally a high-end video card makes for some higher power draw numbers, but really the draw we get out of these HD 7000 and GTX 600 cards are quite impressive.

Final Thoughts

One of the biggest concerns for Sapphire I had testing the HD 7970 GHz Edition Vapor-X 3GB wasn't how good it would look and work, but more that it would make the more expensive TOXIC 6GB version look bad if it was able to achieve an overclock that lined up with the more expensive TOXIC version.

Today, though, you can see what we're able to get out of the Vapor-X 3GB is performance that matches the TOXIC 6GB video card when it's pulled out of the box. The good news is that if you want even more performance, the TOXIC is able to take us to another level again with an even stronger core and memory clock being available.

Sapphire as always has put together a really nice video card that ticks all the right boxes. Out of the box you're going to get some strong performance with the default GHz Edition clocks and with a simple push of a button, you can bump that core by a further 50MHz.

The bundle in typical Sapphire fashion is strong and there's no reason you should find yourself disappointed with what's going on in that department. Of course we don't need any Mini-DP to DP connector due to the fact we've got a full size DisplayPort connector on the card itself, so that's not a concern.

One of the brightest parts of the video card, though, in typical fashion, is the Vapor-X cooler, which does a fantastic job. You can see it not only helps us achieve an excellent overclock, but manages to keep the core running at a reasonable heat level, while noise levels also stay extremely attractive.

At $469.99 we're not talking about a cheap video card here, but we are talking about a good quality one. You can see AMD continue to do extremely well when it comes to high resolution benchmarking and if that's what you're going to be gaming at, then this is a video card you should be looking at over the GTX 680.

If this is the kind of money you want to spend it is safe to say you're not going to be disappointed with what AMD and Sapphire is offering here. If you're after some serious power under the $500 mark, then this is a video card you need to be keeping an eye on.