Performance Retrospective: AMD’s Radeon HD 7970M
by Jarred Walton on June 21, 2013 5:25 PM ESTMainstream/High 1600x900 Gaming Performance
Moving up to our “Mainstream” gaming tests (high detail, no 4xAA, 1600x900 resolution), there’s a lot more demanded of the GPU this time around, so CPU and platform limitations aren’t likely to be as large of a factor. Integrated graphics solutions (outside of perhaps Intel’s Iris Pro Graphics) are also going to prove insufficient for our test suite in nearly all of these games. Let’s look at round two of the 7970M performance.
Despite the increase in graphics complexity, at least on the Alienware M17x R4 the use of Enduro is still bringing a performance penalty in some titles. On average, switching to discrete mode improves performance by 14%, slightly less than we saw with our Value settings; however, the individual games show varying amounts of separation. Bioshock is now nearly the same, with only a 5% performance increase, and in fact most of the games show less than a 5% increase by using discrete mode (though again it’s worth mentioning the rendering errors on DX9 titles with the 13.6 beta drivers). The two titles that show a significant performance increase by using discrete mode are GRID 2 (42%) and Sleeping Dogs (46%); interestingly, Tomb Raider is actually slightly faster with Enduro at these settings, though the 1% difference is within the margin of error.
The Intel Enduro vs. AMD Enduro results are much closer this round, though Intel still holds a commanding lead. No longer is the Core i7 offering twice the frame rates in most games; at 900p High it’s “only” 62% faster on average—but that’s mostly due to the closer performance in two of the seven games. Skyrim, Sleeping Dogs, and StarCraft II are still the big losers, with more than twice the performance on Intel’s CPU, but GRID 2 and Metro are nearly as bad at 83% and 91% performance improvements, respectively. In fact, of those five titles, Skyrim and Sleeping Dogs flirt with the 30FPS “playable” boundary, and Metro and StarCraft II actually fall below 30FPS. Getting to the last two games, Bioshock isn’t too bad, showing a mere 35% performance increase, and Tomb Raider is the one exception where platform doesn’t make much of a difference. Tomb Raider has proven to be almost wholly dependent on GPU performance, and the advantage for the Intel platform is an insignificant 8%. At our Mainstream presets, the 7970M also proves much faster than the 7660G, as it should; this time, it’s nearly three times as fast.
Finally, the NVIDIA vs. 7970M matchup continues to be quite close on average. The GTX 680M leads by 3% overall, with the only significant lead coming in Skyrim (38%); the 680M also claims smaller (<10%) leads in StarCraft II and Tomb Raider (that last one being an AMD title). Meanwhile, the 7970M holds small leads in Bioshock, GRID 2, Metro: Last Light (an NVIDIA title, so turnabout is fair play), and Sleeping Dogs. The 780M continues to be hamstrung by CPU throttling in the GT70, and we hope to have a new test notebook shortly to see what the 780M can really do when it’s allowed to stretch its legs. For now, the lead over the 7970M is 5% on average, with a smaller lead in Skyrim and only two small losses (GRID 2 and Sleeping Dogs).
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junky77 - Saturday, June 22, 2013 - link
thanks Jarreddid you happen to check if the integrated 7660G is loaded in the GX60? Maybe there is some problem with the dual GPU thing
Any comment from AMD?
huaxshin - Saturday, June 22, 2013 - link
Sigh. Please tell me Anandtech, what is the purpose with including a broken system with the GTX 780M, on a article that investigates 7970M?You could have easily have ditched the GTX 780M results, and only presented the GX60 vs the Enduro vs the Non Enduro enabled system.
huaxshin - Saturday, June 22, 2013 - link
Its pretty much well known all over the internet now that the whole Dragon Edition 2 review you done, was BS. Including the GTX 780M benches.JarredWalton - Saturday, June 22, 2013 - link
It's pointed out in the Dragon review text that it performs poorly, far worse than expected, and it's pointed out again here, numerous times. Why include it, then? There are cases where the GTX 780M actually shows some of its potential, and interestingly it's in those same cases that the APU + 7970M does best as well. Even if the Dragon is CPU throttling, whether due to a BIOS issue or a QA issue isn't really important -- MSI is to blame in either case. This review is tagged MSI as well, so perhaps people looking at an MSI laptop might like to read about both systems? Sorry if you work for MSI and that concerns you, but then if you work for MSI you should be even more concerned about systems like this ending up in the hands of paying customers. That's what we're concerned about at least.dwade123 - Saturday, June 22, 2013 - link
Awful touch pad position.Hrobertgar - Monday, June 24, 2013 - link
I viewed the flicker vdeo, and I sometimes get a similar problem on my 3 year old Dell Inspiron1501 - i5-560M + 420M dGPU. When I switch beteen WoW (a Blizz product which you mnetioned ) and desktop/internet it will sometimes induce a flicker that also reduces the computer's ability to recieve input. (This seems to occurr if I am doing a lot of alt-Tabbing while I am checking on something. Sometimes it affects only Windows first and then later also impacts the game) The only solution I have found is a full shutdown and reboot - but that ALWAYS takes care of it.Sometimes I also get an issue where my keyboard will be partially remapped and again a full shutdown is the only soloution. I encounter the flicker about once every month or so, and the keyboard issue sometimes more than once per week. Hopefully my next system/games will behave better.
wow&wow - Friday, July 5, 2013 - link
What is the point comparing a ~$1K product with a ~$2K one? Can we spend time in somethimg more practical and useful?Wolfpup - Monday, July 8, 2013 - link
There's no way you could be overstating driver issues. This is messed up, and there aren't enough people in the press going to bat for us, the people actually buying these systems.Also messed up that the newer drivers don't even support something as recent as Llano. Nvidia's drivers support their first gen Direct X 10 parts, if not earlier, and AMD's is dumping support for something still sold LAST YEAR?
I REALLY want AMD to do well, as we need them, and I've got an AMD Bobcat system right now, but geez, their drivers need to get it together, and there have been problems since...the 90s, frankly.