HIS Radeon HD 7970 3GB Review

HIS are a leader in producing some of the fastest Radeon graphics solutions available. Today we see their interpretation of the flagship AMD HD7970.

Product on Review: HIS HD7970 3GB
Manufacturer and Sponsor: HIS
Street Price: £459 inc. VAT (GBP)

The HD7970 has had a mixed reception from the enthusiast community. On the one hand, many are not impressed with the AMD HD7970 with most disappointed at the high retail price. For £100 less someone could buy NVIDIA’s GTX580. While the GTX580 doesn’t have the same performance it is hardly a slouch. On the other hand others are happy to see that the HD7970 has taken back the performance crown and given NVIDIA food for thought. Either way, there can be no doubting the HD7970’s performance and performance three fold: speed, power consumption and cooling. AMD it seems, have got the balance just right save for the price. So if it is not broken, why change it? That seems to be the philosphy behind the HIS version of the HD7970 as on the face of it at least, it is identical in terms of both aesthetics and cooling by using the same heatsink/cooling design as the vanilla HD7970/7950.

HIS are renown for implementing some very distinctive, inovative coolers. Take for example their IceQ range. Excellent cooling ability it may have but the design was not to everyone’s tastes. So then, in this example at least, HIS have decided to go with the stock AMD cooler with little more than a sticker to identify the brand. Many manufacturers take this approach so HIS cannot be criticised for using the reference design and as we have seen, the AMD cooler is much improved so it makes sense, especially this early in the production line. No doubt we will see HIS implement their own cooling design and perhaps a customised PCB later in the year but for now, the HIS card we have for review today is a reference design.

About HIS
HIS is proud to be AMD’s Authorized 1st Tier AIB Partner, Certified Partner and Launching Partner. Long term and favourable relationship with AMD, enable HIS to work closely with AMD to promote the HIS AMD Graphics Board; and to strive for best value on the marketing and sales of HIS AMD Product Line. In Sept 2003, HIS incorporated the state-of-the art Supreme Cooling Technology in the award winning HIS 9800Pro IceQ, which caught the attention of worldwide media. Since then, HIS IceQ series and the latest IceQ X series has been the limelight in the market for its outstanding performance and features over the other rivals. Today, HIS continues its avid commitment to quality product and service. HIS is certain to be Your Choice of Graphics Board Supplier.

Specification

The HD7900 series features the new Tahiti core which is the successor to the Caymen core of the HD6900 family. The Caymen core was based on a 40nm manufacturing process so it is fair to say that perhaps the biggest improvement to the Tahiti core is the reduction to 28nm process. This has enabled AMD to cram 4.31 billion (4,312,711,873) transistors into the new HD7970 core as opposed to the 2.64 billion on the HD6970 Caymen XT.

Comprising of what AMD calls ‘Graphics Core Next (GCN)’ archetecture which is optimised for heterogeneous computing, the new Tahiti core has upto 32 CU’s (compute units) with dual geometry engines along with 8 back-ends comprising of 32 colour ROPs per clock and 128 Z/Stencil ROPs per clock. Each CU has a Vector unit and Scaler Co-Processor and can execute instructions from multiple kernels.

The VLIW4 SIMD has evolved to the GCN quad SIMD which equates to similar computational power yet grants better performance, threading and simplification. The GCN also has a new Cache hierarchy with 16KB instruction Cache and32KB Scaler Cache shared between 4 CU’s. The L2 Cache is accessible by each CU with it’s own separate process to ensure coherency. These changes increase the GFLOPs by 140%.

Tesselation on the Tahiti core is also enhanced by increased Vertex re-use off-core which theoretically at least, means the 7900 series has 4 times the throughput of the 69XX series. The are improved ansioscopic filtering algorithms too which come at no performance cost allegedly. These new algorithm improvement will allow the use of Forward Rendering with 1000’s of potential light sources and will also mean MSAA can be rendered easily.

Looking at the schematics above, we can identify the bulk of the GPU is taken up with the 32 CU’s. Above these are the geometry engines. To the left and right are the 8 Render back-ends, 4 each side. There’s 768KB of L2 cache along with 6x64bit dual channel memory controllers making a 384-bit GDDR5 memory interface capable of delivering up to 264GB/sec. All of technology coupled together is transferred through a fully compatible PCI Express 3.0 x16 bus interface. Have no fear though because the cards are backwards compatible with PCIe 2.0.

Comparing the HD7970 against it’s closest competitor, the GTX580, the AMD card has 4x more processors twice as many texture units but less ROPs. No change with AMD clockspeeds being higher than the green team and with the HD7970 being clocked to a blistering 925MHz I worry about how much is left in the bank to allow us any worthwhile overclocking. As usual, we will investigate this later in the review in the overclocking section. A big change for the AMD card is the leap towards a 320-bit memory interface which AMD have traditionally played second fiddle to NVIDIA. The texture fill rate which has always been a strong point for AMD is increased to a mind boggling 118.4 billion/sec compared to the GTX580’s miserly 49.4 while the HD7970 trails slightly in the pixel fill rate stakes ever so slightly. AMD have fired a warning shot across NVIDIA’s bow too with a huge 3GB of GDDR5 which should put paid to any difficulties running this card at high resolutions with filters applied.

On paper then, it appears AMD have been squireling away to create a graphics card behemoth capable of besting NVIDIA’s flagship single core GPU. I have little doubt that it would be faster but AMD would do well to keep an eye on the horizon as traditionally, the pendulum swings from one manufacturer to the other in a very short time. For now though, AMD have manufactured a card that is by far the most powerful card on test, on paper at least. We have seen many times in the past though that specifications mean very little if the GPU runs like a 3 legged donkey, how this transpires today we will see later in the benchmarks tests…

*Note: Credit to Suicidal Zebra for much of the info in this section.

Features

AMD CrossFire™ Technology
The AMD Radeon™ HD 7970 GPU supports AMD CrossFire™ Technology and provides excellent multi GPU scaling. With the introduction of the AMD Radeon™ HD 6900 Series Graphics, AMD began delivering improved AMD CrossFire™ Technology scaling when using two GPUs. AMD is proud to continue to offer that amazing performance with its newest AMD Radeon™ HD 7000 series graphics products.

AMD Eyefinity Technology
AMD Eyefinity Technology provides advanced multiple monitor technology enabling an incredibly immersive graphic and computing experience with innovative display capabilities, supporting massive desktop workspaces and super-high resolution gaming environments. AMD Eyefinity technology with DisplayPort connectivity enables a single GPU to support up to six independent display outputs simultaneously, depending on the OEM implementation.
AMD Eyefinity technology works with games that support non-standard aspect ratios, which is required for panning across multiple displays. To enable more than two displays, one of two cases must be satisfied:

1) Additional panels with native DisplayPort™ connectors are used;
2) Certified DisplayPort™ adapters to convert your monitor’s native input to your cards

DisplayPort™ or Mini-DisplayPort™ connector(s) are used.
With the introduction and wide availability of DisplayPort™ to single-link DVI dongles, option 2 above is a low cost way to convert a set of already-owned monitors into an AMD Eyefinity technology ready display configuration.

Unlike a similar multi monitor gaming solution offered by NVIDIA, AMD Eyefinity technology does not require two graphics cards to work. Therefore, AMD offers a multi monitor gaming solution with potential for a lower setup cost. A single AMD Radeon™ 7970 GPUs can employ AMD Eyefinity technology and AMD CrossFire™ technology to provide an outstanding multi monitor gaming experience. The following chart shows the AMD Radeon™ HD 7970 graphics in a dual AMD CrossFire™ configuration versus the NVIDIA SLI GTX 580 in three monitor gaming scenario’s.

Improved Tessellation
The latest iteration of architecture in the AMD Radeon™ HD 7970 GPU features a brand new Generation of Tesselator (Gen 9) in its Geometry Engine. This features optimizations such as; Increased vertex re-use, Off-chip buffering improvements and larger parameter caches. This helps Improve performance at all tessellation factors at up to 4x the throughput of AMD Radeon™ HD 6900 series graphics (Gen 8 ).

AMD HD3D Technology
AMD HD3D Technology is supported by an advanced and open ecosystem that, in conjunction with specific AMD hardware and software technologies, enables 3D display capabilities for many PC applications and experiences.

Your PC has evolved, offering unprecedented amount of games, photos and movies for you to play, watch, design, create, share and download in 3D. With the arrival of the latest in 3D technology you can now enjoy an enhanced visual experience on Stereo 3D-capable desktops and notebooks powered by AMD HD3D Technology.

HDMI 1.4a
More bandwith than standard HDMI allows full implementation of 60Hz Stereo 3D. Standard HDMI ports do not have adequate bandwidth for more than 3D 1080p at 24fps.

Ultra-high resolution (4k Panels)
– Current implementations currently use 4*DVI or 2*DP 1.1, which is expensive and unwieldy.
– AMD will move to a single-connector output for 4k via DP 1.2 HBR2 and HDMI 1.4a 3GHz mode.

AMD Quad Buffer SDK
– Native 3D support for Developers.
– functions with Dx9, 10 and 11
– Native support scheduled for Windows 8
Nearly 600 games support AMD’s implementation of 3D either natively or through middleware partners. Also support for many 3D displays already on the market including Samsung and LG’s proprietry implementation.

Video Codec Engine (VCE)
– H.264 HD Encoder
– Power efficient
– faster than realtime 1080p @ 60 FPS
– Variable Compression Quality
– Multiple Input Options:- (1) Frame Buffer, (2) GPU Display. (2) is useful for wireless displays.

AMD ZeroCore Power

When a discrete GPU is in a static screen state it works to minimize idle power by enabling a host of active power saving functions including (but not limited to); clock gating, power gating, memory compression, and a host of other features. However, GPUs with AMD’s exclusive ZeroCore Power technology can take energy savings to entirely new heights by completely powering down the core GPU while the rest of the system remains active.

Nearly all PCs can be configured to turn off their displays after a long period of inactivity. This is known as the long idle state; where the screen is blanked but the rest of the system remains in an active and working power state (ACPI G0/S0). As soon as the system goes into long idle state and applications are not actively changing the screen contents, the GPU enters the ZeroCore power state. In the ZeroCore power state, the GPU core (including the 3D engine / compute units, multimedia and audio engines, displays, memory interfaces, etc.) is completely powered down.

However, one cannot simply remove the GPU and its associated device context completely; particularly when it is the only GPU in the system as is the case in many enthusiast platforms. The operating system and SBIOS must still be aware that a GPU is still present in the system. For this reason, the ZeroCore Power state maintains a very small bus control block to ensure that GPU context is still visible to the operating system and SBIOS. The ZeroCore power state also manages the power sequencing of the GPU to ensure that the power up/down mechanism is self-contained and independent of the rest of the system.

The enablement of the ZeroCore Power feature is controlled by the driver. The driver monitors the display contents and allows the GPU to enter the ZeroCore Power in the condition that the GPU enters long idle and subsequent work requests are no longer being submitted to the engine. If any applications update the screen contents, ZeroCore Power technology can periodically wake the GPU to update the framebuffer contents and put the GPU back into the ZeroCore Power state. Furthermore, applications such as Windows 7 desktop gadgets are architected to minimize activity and save power in the long idle state. These applications are active during screen-on mode to display dynamic content such as weather, RSS feeds, stock symbols, system status, etc. but also have the intelligence to suspend any updates and activity when the system enters long idle. These applications will not wake the GPU from the ZeroCore Power state in long idle.

AMD ZeroCore Power technology delivers tremendous energy savings. Many PCs remain in the long idle state for a variety of use cases that are highly relevant to everyday consumers, enthusiasts and professionals. In ZeroCore Power mode, users can still enjoy non-graphics activities such as file serving/streaming, motherboard audio and music, and remote access while the GPU core is essentially powered off.

ZeroCore Power technology also scales with AMD CrossFire™ technology. With an AMD CrossFire platform, all non-primary GPUs are in the ZeroCore Power state when not in use. For AMD CrossFire workloads, the driver will engage the non-primary GPUs to deliver full performance on-demand. The primary GPU can also enter the ZeroCore Power state during long idle as well. This delivers scalable benefits for the enthusiast. First, it effectively removes the power increase for users of AMD CrossFire under idle and light (single GPU) workloads. Second, it removes the noise penalty multiGPU users have always had to endure since the GPU fans are off in ZeroCore Power mode.

Packaging & Accessories

Box Front

The front of the HIS retail packaging is nicely presented with the product title beneath a picture of a sword striking rock. The main features are also displayed on the front of the package being PCI 3.0. 3GB of GDDR5, 4k x 2k Quad HD and HDMI compatible.

Box Rear

The rear of the package has a full breakdown of the HD7970 features as previously covered including the capability to display Eyefinity over 6 screens.

Inner Box

After removing the thin outer sleeve we are presented with a thick cardboard box with the HIS emblem amidst a black backdrop.

Inner Packaging

Opening up the inner box we find that the HIS HD7970 is held fast in place thanks to the Styrofoam inserts. This highly protective method should ensure your product reaches you in perfect condition.

Accessories

The accessory list is par for the course for a graphics card of this nature featuring DVI-VGA convertor, Crossfire bridge, HDMI to DVI convertor and mini DisplayPort to DVI convertor. Also included is a GPU ‘jack’. This handy little device takes the pressure of the PCIe port by means of jacking the card up rather than relying solely on the PCIe port to hold the card in position. Obviously every case and motherboard is different so this device can be adjusted to suit every setup.

Closer Look

Spot the difference

Well can you? We couldn’t either save for the obvious. HIS have opted to use the reference design for the first entry into the HD7970 foray. While this is not a problem, it was perhaps a little disappointing that they haven’t included their own funky cooling design as we have become accustomed with HIS. The cooler sticker on our sample was also placed upside down which doesn’t breed much confidence in the attention to detail. Sure, it’s only a sticker and I sare say someone at HIS will be reprimanded but when you pay £360 you at least expect the simple things to be done right.

I/O Area

The I/O area is also identical to the HD7970 design having a single DVI, HDMI and twin mini Display Ports which are capable of displaying up to 6 screens via Eyefinity.

Crossfire Support

The HD7970 has twin Crossfire tabs capable of multi-GPU configurations. In testing we tried hooking up a further HD7970 along with 2x HD7950’s and everything went swimmingly so it appears that like previous generations, the HD7970 can be coupled up to other cards from the same core family.

PCIe Power Ports

The HIS HD79790, being a reference card has a 6pin PCIe (75W) and 8pin PCIe (150W) power ports. HIS recommend a PSU capable of delivering 500W and most people who have this card will have such a PSU but as we will see in the power consumption tests you could theoretically have a PSU with a lower value and still be within the realms of compatibility.

Cooling Vent

The redesigned cooler is a far cry from the noisy cooler of the previous generation. The new fan design draws air in, passes this cool air over the components and blows it out of both the I/O area and front vent.

Overview

Apart from the stickers then, the HIS version of the HD7970 is pretty much identical to the reference design. The same twin BIOS chip is also there so those looking to modify the reference BIOS or flash the card to a different OEM can do so in relative safety, safe in the knowledge that the stock BIOS is recoverable at the flick of a switch.

We have covered the internals of the reference in our previous reference AMD HD7970 review but if you missed it, you will find it on the next page…

Closer Look Pt.2

HD7970 Cooler

Removing the cooler was more involved than the 6000 series due to the number of screws but with slight of hand and a raised pulse the cooler thankfully came away after gentle persuasion. The shroud comes in two parts, the plastic shell and main frame heatsink which serves to hold the vapor chamber and the fan assembly. The memory is cooled via individual thermal sticky pads while the VRM has a more traditional ‘grey’ TIM pad.

HD7970 Heatsink

The heatsink itself is a combination of a copper vapor chamber and aluminium longitudinal finned heatsink leading from front to back. From the picture above, air would be sucked in from both the vents nearest the fan end along with the fan itself. The cool air would then be passed through the heatsink and exhausted to the rear of the card.

HD7970 Fan

The fan is identical to previous incarnation and is VERY loud when running at 100%. Thankfully, the fan never got anywhere near this speed during testing and rarely budged above 40% which surprisingly was relatively quiet. Overall, the new cooling design looks very good. ‘Custom cooler’ quiet it isn’t but it’s a definite improvement, at least in terms of volume over previous versions.

HD7970 Naked

Immediately noticeable on the HD7970 is the partial integrated heatspreader. This is a new move from AMD who traditionally have never shielded their GPU’s. Unlike NVIDIA who use a full cover heatspreader to protect the delicate silicon beneath AMD have added a frame while still leaving the core exposed. Despite my own experience, I have killed a few cards by ‘nibbling’ the core with waterblocks which trust me is soul destroying so to see AMD afford some protection for clumsy folk like me is fantastic.

Surrounding the core are 12 x 256MB modules of GDDR5 from Hynix and to the right the 5+1 phase design.

HD7970 VRM

The VRM consists of Coiltronics ferrite core lo profile surface mount inductors (1007R3-R15) and solid caps which should ensure a smooth, efficient and reliable power delivery.

HD7970 ‘CHiL’ Regulator

The VRM discussed above is managed by the CHiL 8228G controller but save for AMD’s own overdrive utility allowing power control from -20% to +20% our favourite overclocking utility, MSI’s afterburner would not allow voltage adjustments at this time. I would expect this to change in later revisons though thanks to the inclusion of the CHiL controller.

HD7970 GDDR5 Memory

The memory used on the HD7970 hails from HYNIX which is great news as HYNIX memory usually grants good overclocking results. The product number of the memory IC’s is H5GQ2H24MFR R0C which is rated at 6GBps at 1.6v.

HD7970 Paste application Regulator

AMD recommended that we did not replace the paste of the HD7970 stating instead that the cooling properties would be affected and that replacement was unnecessary. However, looking at the picture above I don’t believe this particualr card had the best contact with the vapour chamber. We did however do as AMD suggest and tested the card in ‘stock’ form. Replacing the TIM with MX-4 saw a load temp decrease of 2c idle and 5c load so despite AMD’s claims, I may be tempted to replace the paste should you feel confident and competent in doing so.

HD7970 ‘Tahiti’ Core

Finally we reach the beating heart of the AMD HD7970, the GPU core codenamed Tahiti. Unlike older AMD/ATI cores, there were no markings whatsoever on the silicon itself with the product information instead being found on the IHS frame.

That pretty much rounds off the discussion of the card so let’s take a look at the test setup we will be using today…

Test Setup

With the latest Intel chipset release we decided to update our ageing X58 setup to the new X79 chipset. Not only that but we will be using the flagship Core i7-3960X Extreme Edition processor clocked to 4.5GHz to ensure we have no CPU bottlenecks. With 16GB of ram on board there should be minimal paging so the benchmarks we run today will hopefully give a true reflection of the graphics card’s performance.

Some of the components for our test bench were kindly donated by CORSAIR who provided the majority of components without whom we would not have been able to bring you this review so a big thanks to them.

Graphics cards on test:

HIS HD7970 3GB GDDR5

XFX DD Radeon R7950 3072MB GDDR5
PowerColor PCS+ Radeon HD7950 3072MB GDDR5
AMD Radeon HD7950 3072MB GDDR5
AMD Radeon HD7970 3072MB GDDR5
ZOTAC GTX570 AMP! 1280MB GDDR5
NVIDIA GTX570 1280MB GDDR5
MSI GTX560Ti-448 Twin Frozr III 1280MB GDDR5
MSI GTX560Ti-384 Twin Frozr III 2GB GDDR5

For this review we will be using the very latest CAT 11.12 drivers.

Motherboard: ASRock X79 Extreme4-M
CPU: Intel Core i7-3960X Extreme Edition @ 4.5GHz
RAM – 16GB (4x4GB) Corsair Vengeance (Red) DDR3 @ 1866MHz 9-10-9-27
Power Supply – ANTEC High Current Pro 1200W
Hard Drive – Hitachi SATA II 250GB
Samsung F3 1TB
Cooler – Corsair H100

Benchmarks
We have also updated our range of benchmarks to include the following games which will give the graphics cards a challenge and sort the wheat from the chaff. Each benchmark will be run at both stock and maximum overclock settings and utilise 1920×1080 and 2560×1600 resolutions along with AA at various levels (application dependent):

Battlefield 3
Crysis 2
Crysis Warhead
Metro 2033
Batman: Arkham City
Elder Scrolls: Skyrim
DiRT 3
Futuremark 3DMark 2011
Unigine: Heaven 2.5

Let’s see how today’s test sample performed…

Overclocking, Temperature & Power Consumption Analysis

Overclocking
Overclocking graphics cards has never been easier. There are a variety of overclocking tools available on the internet and some included with the actual driver, in this case, the AMD ‘Overdrive’ Utility. Our favourite overclocking utility though is the excellent Afterburner from MSI which we use for all of our GPU overclocking exploits.

As with the card itself, the clockspeeds are also identical measuring 925MHz on the core with the memory set at 1375MHz (5500 effective).

I know this is getting repetative but the Overclock of the HIS HD7970, given that it is identical to the reference design was also pretty much identical. We did manage to get an extra 5mhz on the memory overclock stable but in the greater scheme of things, both the reference and HIS designs produced identical results, as expected. Unfortunately both MSI Afterburner and AMD Overdrive utility sliders were maxed out at 1125MHz but any variation in overclock is likely to be down to the silicon rather than any cooling ability.

Power Consumption
To test for power consumption we do not use anything to technical, just a wall meter which measures the total system power draw minus the monitor.

Anyone see a pattern here? Again we see a replication of results of the AMD HD7970 with the HIS version hitting the same figures as the reference design.

Temperature

To test temperatures we measured idle temperatures after booting windows, letting all applications finish loading and ran a few benchmarks. Once the benchmarks were complete we left the card to reach a cooling plateau where we then took the idle temperatures. For the load tests, we ran Furmark for 20 minutes, taking the absolute maximum temperature attained.

Again, the card matched the AMD reference design in load conditions when overclocked but was slightly hotter at stock clockspeeds.

Let’s move on to our suite of benchmarks…

Battlefield 3

Battlefield 3 leaps ahead of its time with the power of Frostbite™ 2, the next instalment of DICE’s cutting-edge game engine. This state-of-the-art technology is the foundation on which Battlefield 3 is built, delivering enhanced visual quality, a grand sense of scale, massive destruction, dynamic audio and incredibly lifelike character animations. As bullets whiz by, walls crumble, and explosions throw you to the ground, the battlefield feels more alive and interactive than ever before. In Battlefield 3, players step into the role of the elite U.S. Marines where they will experience heart-pounding missions across diverse locations including Paris, Tehran and New York.

Average and minimum frames per second were measured using Fraps during the parking lot scene on Operation Sword Breaker. High and Ultra presets were loaded at both resolutions.

Crysis 2

Crytek took an internet beating from its loyal fans due to the fact that they pandered to the console masses and dumbed down the graphics to DirectX 9. Fortunately, fans of the PC version of Crysis managed to force Cryteks hand and they have since developed a DX11 patch and have also enhanced the textures with added tesselation. It is for this reason that we have decided to include it in our suite of benchmarks.

To test the cards we used the Crysis 2 benchmark courtesy of Adrenaline with both the 1.9 patch, DX11 update and Hi-res texture pack. Settings were manually placed to Ultra, DX11 and tessellation enabled with the Central Park map being run 3 times per resolution benchmark test.

Crysis Warhead

Following the success of Crysis, the stand alone expansion “Warhead” was hotly anticipated to bring more game play, more weapons, improved visuals whilst maintaining better performance, the latter being what gamers wanted most. After all how many people upgraded their rigs just to play this game… In the game, you play as the upbeat Brit Sergeant “Psycho” Sykes, chasing down a Korean nuclear warhead. Throw in some ice shooting aliens and we’re bound to have a great game. It sure delivered.

Testing was done using Framebuffer’s Crysis Warhead benchmarking tool. The tests were configured to DirectX 10 at Enthusiast levels. Each test on the Ambush map was looped three times from which the average FPS was recorded.

Metro 2033

Based on the novel by the same name, Metro 2033 is a first person shooter with elements of survival horror. As Artyom, you trawl through the mutant infested metro systems of post-apocalyptic Moscow. The game delivers presents a grim ambience that reflects on the overall atmosphere of the underground setting. Metro 2033 uses the setting as a back drop to showcase some of the best visuals of any games out now, making it the ideal benchmark for those looking for the best graphics card.

The bundled benchmarking tool was used on Metro 2033, configuring the settings to High and making use of DirectX 11. The frontline scene was looped 3 times for each configuration. The average FPS was recorded at the end.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Skyrim is not a direct successor to the very popular Oblivion. Instead it takes place 200 years after the events of Oblivion. The non-linear playing that made the Elder Scrolls such a popular series does however make a return along with the beautiful scenery the encompasses the world of Skyrim.

Average and minimum frames per second were measured using Fraps during the drop down passage to Riverwood. V-sync was disabled to allow fluctuating (higher the 60) FPS for these runs. It is however recommended that v-sync is left enabled during normal gameplay due to the games dynamics.

Batman: Arkham City

Batman: Arkham City builds upon the intense, atmospheric foundation of Batman: Arkham Asylum, sending players soaring into Arkham City, the new maximum security “home” for all of Gotham City’s thugs, gangsters and insane criminal masterminds. Set inside the heavily fortified walls of a sprawling district in the heart of Gotham City, this highly anticipated sequel introduces a brand-new story that draws together a new all-star cast of classic characters and murderous villains from the Batman universe, as well as a vast range of new and enhanced gameplay features to deliver the ultimate experience as the Dark Knight.

The results below were obtained from the builtin benchmark utility from the game. All the settings were set to

DiRT 3

As players race to elevate their global standing, DiRT 3 is back delivering mud, sweat and gears world over: from the intense weather-beaten rally stages of Europe, Africa and the US, to executing performance driving showcases and career challenges where car control is pushed to spectacular limits.

The in-game benchmarking tool was used to test performance. All the display settings were set to the maximum available and DirectX 11 was applied. The average FPS was recorded at the end.

Futuremark: 3DMark 2011

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. The benchmark was run in both Performance and Extreme presets.

Unigine: Heaven 2.5

Heaven Benchmark is a DirectX 11 GPU benchmark based on advanced Unigine™ engine from Unigine Corp. It reveals the enchanting magic of floating islands with a tiny village hidden in the cloudy skies. Interactive mode provides emerging experience of exploring the intricate world of steampunk.

Conclusion

What we have reviewed today is quite simply a reference HD7970 wrapped up in HIS packaging. While there is nothing wrong with that you understand, as it works very well indeed I couldn’t help feeling a little short changed as I am so used to HIS utilising their innovative cooling designs. That said, we were very impressed with the reference HD7970 so we are suitable impressed with the HIS variant. Aside from the sticker placement, there isn’t anything to criticise in the HIS reference HD7970. It does everything the reference design does, imitates it perfectly in fact so if HIS is a brand you are loyal to, then this will be right up your street.

I was happy to see HIS included the GPU jack they used in some of the IceQ version of the 6000 series cards and the overall package was adequate however, I would have preffered HIS to include some other attraction, perhaps a game that would entice buyers to select HIS over other brands which have the same design save for the decals. Alas, they didn’t so there is nothing really to differentiate this card with any other HD7970 reference card from any one of AMD’s partners.

There are many things we could say about the HIS HD7970 but unfortunately, none that we haven’t said about the AMD HD7970 that we reviewed previously so unlike HIS, we will not be duplicating what we produce only that we will conclude that the HIS version of the HD7970 is identical to the AMD reference HD7970 and is priced accordingly. If that’s what you are looking for and value HIS as a brand then I can wholeheartedly recommend this GPU. IT does everything the reference card can but it also has the backing of HIS’s quality warranty, support and RMA service. As such it receives the same awards we gave the reference design. Innovative it isn’t but if it’s not broken, why fix it?

Pros:
+ Amazing GPU core overclocking
+ Good memory overclocking
+ Good cooling
+ Great performance especially at High-res
+ Quiet (when fan below 40%)
+ Good looking design
+ Black PCB

Cons:
– Poor Sticker placement (attention to detail)
– Expensive
– Loud fan above 40%, deafening at 100%
– Only one DVI port