Last monthwe compared half a decade's worth of DirectX 11-capable GeForce cards in the latest and the erotice travelergreatest PC games to see where Nvidia has made the biggest performance leaps and which GPUs have aged the best.
We had never compared so many GPU generations under the same conditions and the results were fascinating. So naturally folks using AMD Radeons were also curious to see how their single-GPU flagship parts have held up.
Equipped with five years of Radeon technology and the latest Catalyst driver, we set to benchmark major AMD architectures released between late 2009 and October 2014: Evergreen (HD 5870), Northern Islands (HD 6970), Southern Islands (HD 7970) and the company's most recent GPU architecture, Sea Islands (R9 290X).
The HD 7000 series was a big deal for AMD as it saw the move from 40nm to a 28nm fabrication process. Moreover, it was the company's first truly new architecture in five years since the HD 2000 series.
Known as 'Graphics Core Next' (GCN), the HD 7000 range featured a RISC SIMD architecture that required considerably more transistors than before but offered advantages for GPU computation and also lead to better efficiency. Most of the GPUs in the HD 7000 series were based on the GCN 1.0 architecture, though the HD 7790 featured an improved GCN 1.1 logic, which added AMD TrueAudio and a revised version of AMD's Powertune technology.
GCN 1.2 launched along AMD's Radeon R9 285, featuring improved tessellation performance, lossless delta color compression to reduce memory bandwidth usage, an updated and more efficient instruction set, a high quality scaler for video, and a new multimedia engine for video encoding and decoding.
AMD's upcoming Radeon 300 seriescode-named 'Pirate Islands' is expected to be based on similar GCN 1.2 architecture.
| Radeon | HD 5870 | HD 6970 | HD 7970 | HD 7970 GHz | R9 290X |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Codename | Cypress XT | Cayman XT | Tahiti XT | Tahiti XT2 | Hawaii XT |
| Fab (nm) | 40 | 40 | 28 | 28 | 28 |
| Transistors (Billion) | 2.15 | 2.64 | 4.31 | 4.31 | 6.2 |
| Die size (mm2) | 334 | 389 | 352 | 352 | 438 |
| SPU | 1600 | 1536 | 2048 | 2048 | 2816 |
| TAU | 80 | 96 | 128 | 128 | 176 |
| ROP | 32 | 32 | 32 | 32 | 64 |
| Memory (MB) | 1024 | 2048 | 3072 | 3072 | 4096 |
| Bus width (bit) | 256 | 256 | 384 | 384 | 512 |
| Bandwidth (GB/s) | 153.6 | 176.0 | 264 | 288 | 320 |
| Release date | Sept-09 | Dec-10 | Jan-12 | June-12 | Oct-13 |
| Price at release | $380 | $370 | $550 | $500 | $550 |
The Radeon HD 5870 and HD 6970 were clearly the single-GPU flagships for their series, while the 7970 was replaced after only five months with an overclocked version known as the 7970 GHz Edition, which went on to be the single-GPU flagship for 16 months.
The 7970 GHz was released out of necessity as it allowed AMD to retain the performance crown over Nvidia's GTX 680 – if only barely. This was AMD's answer to avoid immediate price cuts, a move often forced on graphics chip makers after the competition undercuts them in price vs. performance offered. Still, we didn't like the 7970 GHz Edition when it landed as it was more expensive than the standard 7970 and only offered a modest factory overclock. We've included both the 7970 and the 7970 GHz Edition since both were Radeon HD 7000 flagships at a given point.
Let's explore how Radeon GPUs have scaled from one generation to the next over the past few years...
Best Presidents' Day deal: Save $250 on Peloton Bike
The 10 most streamed movies of the week. Half are...extremely average.
'Wordle' today: Here's the answer, hints for April 12
'Our Flag Means Death' heals the wounds of SuperWhoLocke queerbaiting
Apple MacBook Air deal: $899 at Best Buy
The 10 most unhinged parts of Omarosa's 'Unhinged'
'The Office' episodes, ranked. (All 185 of them.)
A bird pooped on someone's laptop then died in front of them
Best Buy's 3
'Stranger Things 4': 5 big questions we had watching the trailer
Best spring break deal: Southwest flights start at just $69
Ryan Reynolds just tweeted 12 words to describe his gin, and they're ridiculously perfect
Coach Taylor to Tim Riggins: 'Friday Night Lights' crushes, ranked
Kimberly Guilfoyle's pet name for Don Jr. is apparently 'Junior Mint'
Greenpeace activists charged after unfurling 'Resist' banner at Trump Tower in Chicago
Watch Elon Musk's TED talk, in which he explains his Twitter bid
Meta will stop users from sharing private residential information
The 5 most common complaints people tweet at Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey
Best iPad deal: Save $70 on 10th Gen Apple iPad
Please adopt this wonderful, incredibly high
Matt Ryan may have just made the greatest nonWatch Katy Perry valiantly attempt to vote nude in new videoDanny Brown released 'Atrocity Exhibition' early because he couldn't wait'Hearthstone's most frustrating cards are getting nerfed in coming updatesFaster Amazon Fire TV Stick now comes with an Alexa remote controlSerena Williams on police violence: 'I will not be silent'Everyone is making the same joke about the England football manager's resignationPippa Middleton's hacked iCloud photos banned from publicationKim Kardashian wants to help find a bone marrow match for a friendGoogle Play Music store finally goes live in IndiaTim Tebow hit a home run on the first pitch of his first atSelena Gomez wins the race to 100 million Instagram followersNo music taste? Spotify's 'Daily Mix' will just curate some for you.We need to talk about Colin Kaepernick becoming the 49ers starting quarterbackThe first presidential debate was the most watched in American historyLittle kid leaves a very thoughtful warning on their spelling testTim Tebow hit a home run on the first pitch of his first atTea in a spray can is the weirdest way to make your daily cupSurfer gets surprise of his life when dolphin jumps onto his boardSerena Williams on police violence: 'I will not be silent' How to add a movie to your watchlist on Letterboxd Tesla bumps up Model S price American Airlines now offers free inflight access to TikTok '#MeToo, Now What?' asks where we go from here in a five Millie Bobby Brown wants people to know that hair does not equal beauty Taylor Swift drops cryptic 'Red' video, unscrambling chaos ensues Dan the Ref has the best seat in the house at Puppy Bowl XIV Study confirms Americans don't trust the news, social media to blame TikTok beauty filters can be super realistic—unless you're a person of color Here's who will win big at Trump's 'Fake News' award show Google Maps dark mode and live location updates coming to iPhone A bunch of truly annoyed cats (and one sad chug) looking sharp on Dress Up Your Pet Day Matt Damon talks with 'Today' about speaking out about sexual misconduct Facebook just became the ultimate dystopia FALSE ALARM: Panic ensues as Emergency Alert Service issues missile threat for Hawaii 'This place is a shithole' projection appears on Donald Trump's D.C. hotel Have an ancient Android phone? You won't be able to sign into Google after September 27. Apple AirTags secretly used to show city contractor up to no good HBO Max's Woodstock '99 doc traces back the roots of white, male rage Apple's watchOS 7.6.1 update includes a crucial security fix
2.7482s , 10196.609375 kb
Copyright © 2025 Powered by 【the erotice traveler】,Wisdom Convergence Information Network