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In Depth: Gigabyte AMD Radeon HD 7970 OC

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tonymacx86

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5489_big.jpgLast month, Apple included AMD Radeon 7xxx drivers in the latest build of 10.8.3 Mountain Lion. Because there have been no Apple products released using these devices, they can be more difficult to configure. However, they do compare favorably to NVIDIA's GeForce 6xx offerings in benchmarks. If you're looking for one of the top performing graphics cards on the market, the Gigabyte AMD Radeon HD 7970 OC is definitely worth checking out.

sm.jpg Gigabyte
AMD Radeon HD 7970 OC
3GB DVI-I/HDMI/2x Mini-DP
Amazon US
(CAN UK DE ES FR IT)
Newegg


First, let's take a look at the card itself. It's got a DVI-I port, HDMI, and two mini-Displayports. The card's factory overclock is 1000MHz, from stock Core Clock of 925MHz. It can run 4 simultaneous monitors. It's a high powered card, however Gigabyte's "Triangle Cool" fans keep noise to a minimum. As expected the fans do spin up noticeably under heavy load, but during normal use the card maintains a low noise level.

Enabling AMD 7xxx cards fully in OS X is possible, but requires more work, hence why we do not currently recommend them officially in our monthly Buyer's Guide. We've outlined a number of tips and tricks here. The Gigabyte Radeon HD 7970 OC's device ID is recognized natively starting in OS X 10.8.3.

Gigabyte's AMD Radeon HD 7970 OC is a beast of a card for gaming, handling Ultra settings with extremely high frames-per-second. The only other cards that beat this one are the highest end Radeon HD 7990, GTX 690, and TITAN, which are upwards of $1000. For a single card, single GPU solution, that works with OS X, the Radeon HD 7970 and the NVIDIA GTX 680 are the two best for gaming performance. Pricewise it's definitely not a budget card, rather it's a long term investment in top level performance. In addition, for a limited time, AMD is giving away free games: Far Cry 3 Blood Dragon, Crysis 3 & Bioshock with purchase.

Screen Shot 2013-04-24 at 3.23.20 PM.png
Screen Shot 2013-04-24 at 3.33.55 PM.png Screen Shot 2013-04-24 at 3.26.26 PM.png


If you've tested a 7xxx card, let us know in the comments. Post your benchmarks here.

Related:
AMD Radeon HD 7xxx Graphics Support in OS X 10.8.3
AMD Performance Benchmarks - 10.8.3 - Radeon HD 75xx to 79xx Cards
tonymacx86's Album: Gigabyte Radeon HD 7970 Screenshots
 
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I have an XFX 7870 2GB. I have to say that on ML this card absolutely screams. I can only imagine a 7970 OC. Configuring it was fairly straightforward. The only thing that really needs to be done is an update to Chimera so I can boot with PEG and therefore be able to boot into Windows when I want and not have to blind boot straight into the OSX desktop. Unplugging SATA cables and changing BIOS settings is getting tedious!!
 
Small correction:

>The only other cards that beat this one are dual GPU cards such as the HD 7990, GTX 690, and TITAN, which are upwards of $1000.

Titan is a single GPU part.
 
Article: In Depth: Gigabyte AMD Radeon HD 7970 OC

Thanks frnskfk- I've made the correction. :thumbup:
 
would any 7970 OC work? or specifically the gigabyte
 
I'm interested in the 6GB version of this.
 
Article: In Depth: Gigabyte AMD Radeon HD 7970 OC

would any 7970 OC work? or specifically the gigabyte

i dont believe theres anything special about the gigabyte card. had no issues getting my visiontek to work.
 
This looks like the answer to my problems. One question, since I'm still new to the hackintosh community. You say this card supports 4 monitors. Are all 4 presented to the system for configuration, or do they show up as one large monitor?
 
Hi

Im thinking about buying this card, but Do I have to configure something? Do I need to do some tricks so I could get it to work perfectly ? I have read that the gigabyte version is recognized natively, but Im confused....I already have an nvidia gtx660 oc, but Im really disapointed with the results.....Any suggestions?

Thanks
 
Article: In Depth: Gigabyte AMD Radeon HD 7970 OC

I have an XFX 7870 2GB. I have to say that on ML this card absolutely screams. I can only imagine a 7970 OC. Configuring it was fairly straightforward. The only thing that really needs to be done is an update to Chimera so I can boot with PEG and therefore be able to boot into Windows when I want and not have to blind boot straight into the OSX desktop. Unplugging SATA cables and changing BIOS settings is getting tedious!!


Can only confirm that, unsing the same card SC2, D3, all running as high and smooth as it gets.
as soon as chimera is updated, there is no stoping the radeon cards.
7870 really is a good deal for everybody how doesn't want to spend a fortune.

for now, dual booting works fine just using the iGPU and switching screen source.
 
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