Having successfully launched their kickoff 28nm GPU final January, AMD went on to release an entire family of Radeon HD 7000 GPUs over the next few months. The last of the series were the Radeon HD 7870 and 7850 graphics cards, which were closely followed past the launch of Nvidia's next generation flagship function, the GeForce GTX 680.

It didn't take long for the GTX 680 a.k.a. Kepler to knock the Radeon HD 7970 off its perch, becoming the earth's fastest single GPU solution. AMD attempted to lessen the accident by cutting pricing of their 7900 and 7800 series lineups. Yet in the end, maybe the all-time news for AMD came from the near complete lack of GTX 680 stock.

In fact even today getting your hands on a GeForce GTX 680 is no easy task and those that accept, probable paid more than than the retail list $499 price. This didn't stop Nvidia from going on to release the GeForce GTX 670 ii months later, at a very attractive $399 price point. At that toll the GTX 670 toll less than the Radeon Hard disk 7970 and provided the same level of functioning.

Meanwhile, Nvidia's flagship was on average 5% faster than the Radeon Hard disk drive 7970, with brief bright moments where it could exist as much every bit 30% faster. And this is why the 7970 was cut downwardly from $549 to it'due south current $449.

Fast frontwards to the present day and it'd appear that AMD is drastic to claim the bragging rights of offering the single fastest GPU money tin buy. As the name suggests the Radeon Hard disk drive 7970 GHz Edition features a core clock speed of 1GHz, along with overclocked GDDR5 retentivity running at 1500MHz. AMD plans to charge a small premium for the GHz cards at $499, simply is information technology worth information technology?

7970 GHz Edition in Particular

For those familiar with the Radeon Hd 7970 there isn't much you haven't seen before. Essentially this is the same graphics card with a niggling factory overclocking and a larger cost tag.

Whereas the standard Radeon Hard disk drive 7970 graphics cards feature a core clock of 925MHz and a retentiveness frequency of 1375MHz, the GHz Edition has been bumped to 1000MHz/1500MHz. This comes up to be a ~8% core overclock and 9% retentiveness overclock, which isn't quite in line with the 11% price increase versus a standard HD 7970 carte du jour.

More surprising is the fact that users tin can already purchase Radeon HD 7970 cards which have been factory overclocked to 1GHz and beyond. The PowerColor PCS+ AX7970 comes clocked at ane.1GHz (core), while the retentivity is only slightly lower at 1425MHz and it costs just $490.

AMD feels confident that such a minor overclock will be enough to take on the GeForce GTX 680, and today we programme to find out just that.