HD 7970 and HD 7770 Catalyst 12.3 vs. 12.2 Performance Analysis

Test Configuration & Driver Release Notes

Test Configuration

Test Configuration – Hardware

• Intel Core i7 920 (reference 2.66 GHz and overclocked to 4.2 GHz); Turbo is on (21x multiplier) 
• Gigabyte EX58-UD3R (Intel X58 chipset, latest BIOS, PCIe 2.0 specification; CrossFire/SLI 16x+16x).
• 6 GB OCZ DDR3 PC 18000 Kingston RAM (3×2 GB, tri-channel at 1200MHz; 2×2 GB supplied by Kingston)
• Sapphire Radeon HD 7770 GHz OverClock Edition  (1GB, 1000/1250MHz) supplied by Sapphire
• PowerColor Radeon HD 7970 (3GB, reference clocks, 925/1375MHz) 
• Onboard Realtek Audio
• 500 GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 hard drive
• Thermaltake ToughPower 775 W power supply unit supplied by Thermaltake
• Thermaltake Element G Case supplied by Thermaltake
• Thermaltake Frio OCK CPU cooler, supplied by Thermaltake
• Philips DVD SATA writer
• HP LP3065 2560×1600 thirty inch LCD

Test Configuration – Software

• ATi Catalyst 12.2 and 12.3 drivers for the HD 7770 and HD 7970; highest quality mip-mapping set in the driver; use application settings; surface performance optimizations are off
• Windows 7 64-bit; very latest updates
• DirectX July/November 2010
• All games are patched to their latest versions.
• vsync is forced off in the control panel.
• Varying AA enabled as noted in games and all in-game settings are specified with 16xAF always applied; 16xAF forced in control panel for Crysis.
• All results show average frame rates.
• Highest quality sound (stereo) used in all games.
• Windows 7 64, all DX9 titles were run under DX9 render paths, DX10 titles were run under DX10 render paths and DX11 titles under DX11 render paths.

The Benchmarks

Please note that we are using the same settings that we used from our Sapphire HD 7770 evaluation for the HD7770. We use higher settings to test the HD 7970 as in our last major evaluation, The GTX 680 Arrives!, and the differences are marked on the charts. The performance changes result solely from upgrading each driver from the previous one.

• Vantage
• 3DMark 11
• Heaven 3,0
• Serious Sam 3 (& Second Encounter 2010)
• Wolfenstein
• Left 4 Dead 1 and 2
• Crysis
• World in Conflict
• Far Cry 2
• Just Cause 2
• Resident Evil 5
• Alien vs. Predator
• Battleforge
• STALKER, Call of Pripyat
• F1 2010
• Metro 2033
• Lost Planet 2
• H.A.W.X. 2
• Civilization 5
• Total War: Shogun II
• DiRT 3
• Deus Ex: Human Revolution
•  Batman: Arkham City

Lets look at the Catalyst 12.3 release notes from AMD before we head to performance testing.

Release Notes for Catalyst 12-3

Always start here to download AMD graphics drivers.

Highlights of the AMD Catalyst 12.3 Windows release includes: 

NEW FEATURES

Full Support for AMD Radeon HD 7000 series of products 

• Catalyst 12.3 now fully supports the AMD Radeon HD 7900, AMD Radeon HD 7800 and AMD Radeon HD 7700 series of products 

RESOLVED ISSUES

Resolved Issues for the Windows 7 Operating System

This section provides information on resolved known issues in this release of the AMD Catalyst 12.3 software suite for Windows 7. These include:

• AMD Catalyst Control Center startup issues/ delays have been resolved
• Tom Clancy HAWX: No longer crashes after task switching with MLAA (Morphological Anti-Aliasing) and Anti-Aliasing enabled
• Furmark Benchmark: No longer crashes when launched in High Performance mode.
• Quake 4: No longer display corruption after task switching when run in High Performance mode
• XPlane: Textures no longer exhibit flicker and corruption
• Skyrim: No longer displays flickering and texture corruption.
• Alan Wake: A system crash is no longer experienced when running the game in DirectX 9 mode with Crossfire enabled
• Far Cry 2: A random system hang is no longer experienced when running the game at high in game setting

Resolved Issues for the Windows Vista  Operating System

This section provides information on resolved known issues in this release of the AMD Catalyst™ 12.3 software suite for Windows Vista. These include:

• AMD Catalyst Control Center startup issues/ delays have been resolved
• Enemy Territory Quake Wars : no longer exhibits random corruption

KNOWN ISSUES
Known issues under the Windows 7 operating system

The following section provides a summary of open issues that may be experienced under the Windows 7 operating system in the latest version of AMD Catalyst. These include:

• Vsync may be disabled after task switching when playing Rage
• Enemy Territory Quake Wars may crash when launched in High Performance mode
• Crysis 2 may hang randomly when run in DirectX 11 mode.

Known issues under the Windows Vista operating system

The following section provides a summary of open issues that may be experienced under the Windows Vista operating system in the latest version of AMD Catalyst™. These include:

• The Catalyst Control Center may not display if launched while using WinDVD to play a BluRay disc.

Known issues under the Windows XP operating system

The following section provides a summary of open issues that may be experienced under the Windows XP operating system in the latest version of AMD Catalyst™. These include:

• The system may hang when playing Dirt 3 at maximum in-game settings
• The system may hang when launching Crysis – Warhead at maximum in game settings
• Dragon Age 2 may display random graphics corruption.

Let’s head to the charts and see if there are any improvements in 22 games and 3 synthetic benches since we tested last.