Thread: Radeon HD 7970

Radical Reconstruction AMD has revamped the new graphics chip generation Radeon HD 7970 introduces new techniques such as total and PCI Express 3.0, DirectX 11.1 and 2.0 Eyefinity.The PC World Test is the most complex graphics monster in detail.


AMD has in his brand new graphics processor generation Radeon HD made 7000 significant changes: Code-named Southern Islands, AMD remains a completely revamped graphics chip architecture and introduces new technologies such as DirectX 11.1, PCI Express 3.0, Eyefinity 2.0 and the energy management of AMD zero core Power Technology one. Even the bare technical data of the new flagship Radeon HD 7970 impress:


With around 4.3 billion transistors, the 7970 chip (codenamed Tahiti) is now the most complex graphics processor from Nvidia GF110 with the 3 billion. AMD makes the 7000 generation, the addition of the Radeon HD 7970 even the smaller model AMD HD adeon 7950 , the Taiwanese contract manufacturer TSMC in the advanced 28-nanometer process finished - state of the art GPUs were previously 40 nanometers.


This explains the extremely high number of transistors that Intel brings to an area of just 380 square millimeters. For comparison: At about the same size chip area of the predecessor Radeon HD 6970 AMD took only just over half among so many circuits.




The Tahiti-GPU works at the factory with a core clock speed of 925 MHz. About a second BIOS module can be programmed, however, higher frequencies. According to AMD, the GPU is one gigahertz tolerated without complaint. The 384-bit wide memory interface controls to 3 gigabytes of GDDR5 video memory, which works from the factory with a physical clock of 1375 (effective 5500) MHz.


Providing the extra power supply has the high-performance graphics card has a 6 - and 8-pin PCI-Express one power connector. Thus the maximum power consumption of the Radeon HD 7970 for up to 300 watts is designed. With the factory settings, the power consumption of the graphics card is around 200 watts, so that for overclockers is still much room for improvement here.


The energy management Powertune Technology AMD has improved with the Radeon HD 7970 and introduces the most economical mode zero-core AMD Power Technology. This enables the AMD graphics chip in a kind of stand-by mode and provides only the PCI Express slot with power. This drastically reduces the power consumption of 3 watts.


Interestingly, the zero-core mode, for example, if the PC also has an integrated graphics solution. Which can then take over when writing letters or surfing the Internet imaging, sleep during the 7970 graphics card inserted. It makes sense to zero core but also in a Crossfire-or multi-display systems, which can then turn off all unneeded graphics cards.