The Radeon 7970 officially launched In the last week of 2011, but we didn't cover it in detail until 2012, when stock finally became available for the average punter. While NVIDIA was wallowing In product delays, Radeon HD 7970s flooded the market, delivering a level of performance far in excess of anything else on the market. NVIDIA eventually caught up with the launch of the GTX 680 in late March, a graphics card that offered even better performance while using less energy. Usually, that's where the story would end, with NVIDIA back as top dog while AMD made all Its money off mid-range and budget products.
Except AMD wasn't content to let that happen. In June, the company launched an updated version of the 7970 known as the 7970 GHz edition, making the most of manufacturing improvements to squeeze even more speed out of the new Graphics Core Next design at the heart of the 7970. The 7970 GI-Iz edition brought AMD's top end within spitting distance of NVIDIA, but it wasn't quite powerful enough to give it a convincing performance lead. However, where the GTX 680 was rarer than salad at a LAN, the 7970 GHz had widespread availability, not to mention more competitive pricing. We were torn about which card to recommend — if you had the extra bucks and didn't mind waiting a month for samples to land, the GTX 680 still got the nod, while the 7970 GHz edition offered better value for money and instant availability.
It was a super close race, and yet again we thought it would remain this way until the launch of the next generation of graphics cards in 2013. Then, AMD surprised us all again in October with a double whammy attack on NVIDIA that made the 7970 GHz edition — not to mention other cards In the Radeon HD 7000 series — an irresistible buy. The first prong of the attack was a powerful new driver set that boosted performance over and above the GTX 680, only possible after a year of tinkering with the new Graphics Core Next design. In one fell swoop, AMD had the fastest GPU on the planet, at a lower price than the competition and with wider availability. The knockout blow was the Introduction of the Never Settle bundle, with all 7970 GHz buyers receiving three free games with their new graphics card. However, unlike past bundles that featured old games that nobody wanted to buy, AMD had secured three of 2012's biggest hits: Far Cry 3, Hitman: Absolution and Sleeping Dogs. Mars around $250 worth of games, for nothing.
We have to hand it to AMD. Not only did the company launch a great product in the Radeon HD 7970 GHz, but It continued to pour resources into the card post-launch. It has taken the company 12 months of hard work to keep the Radeon HD 7970 GHz competitive, and it will undoubtedly continue to improve in the future. With news of a refreshed Never Settle bundle (see our Q&A on the following page) just around the corner, and further major driver improvements in the near future, the Radeon HD 7970 GHz will continue to be the best graphics card until the next generation launches some time in 2013. Well, unless NVIDIA decides it doesn't want to settle, either...
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