22 May 2020 - Graphics card reviewed

This graphics card offers upper mid level gaming performance. The Radeon HD 7970 GigaByte SOC Edition GPU could struggle if it was to try and run the most demanding games available today, but it meets a lot of game system requirements found in today’s games. Capable of running games with up to a DirectX 11 requirement.

Here is a quick game performance synopsis for the AAA games played in 2020. In particular we focus on how well the Radeon HD 7970 GigaByte SOC Edition runs at Ultra graphics settings and what frames per second it is getting at 1080p, 1440p and 4K monitor resolutions. In terms of performance against the most demanding games today this graphics card can play 120 of the 1000 most demanding PC games beating their recommended requirements.

The Radeon HD 7970 GigaByte SOC Edition graphics card is predicted to return a weak performance on Assassins Creed: Valhalla at 1080p of 0 frames per second at Ultra graphics settings. Another popular title that is good to benchmark graphics cards against is Mount and Blade 2: Bannerlord which we saw got playable frame rates of 29 FPS. A third game we can look at on Ultra at 1080p is the popular Call of Duty Warzone, which was getting 29 FPS under tests.

Increasing resolution to 1440p is something a number of PC gamers are doing today. We tested the Radeon HD 7970 GigaByte SOC Edition at 1440p and researched how Assassins Creed: Valhalla might perform on it leading us to predict a weak set of FPS results. These were, Low: 0 FPS, Medium: 0 FPS, High: 0 FPS and Ultra: 0 FPS. We then checked out Mount and Blade 2: Bannerlord which had a set of graphics results as followed, L: 58FPS, M: 46FPS, H: 31FPS, U: 22FPS. And another popular game was Call of Duty Warzone that returned L: 58FPS, M: 46FPS, H: 31FPS, U: 22FPS at 1440p. Gaming at 1440p with the Radeon HD 7970 GigaByte SOC Edition is not going to be able to keep stable frame rates at all times at Ultra 1440p on modern games.

How many years will the Radeon HD 7970 GigaByte SOC Edition graphics card play newly released games and how long until you should consider upgrading the Radeon HD 7970 GigaByte SOC Edition in your PC? Its time to start researching your next graphics card upgrade as the Radeon HD 7970 GigaByte SOC Edition is failing to meet modern day gaming system requirements. A gpu AAA lifespan of around 6-12 months.

Whats a good PC graphics upgrade for the Radeon HD 7970 GigaByte SOC Edition? A great upgrade graphics card would be a 16 Series GeForce GTX 1660 Ti 6GB, which has 91% better performance and can run 866 of the top 1000 demanding game requirements today. An alternative great upgrade graphics card would be a RX 5000 Series Radeon RX 5500 4GB, which has 50% better performance and can run 707 of the top 1000 demanding game requirements today.