10 Aug 2021 - Graphics card reviewed

Based on current gaming requirements the Radeon HD 7970 PowerColor OC Edition is considered one of the weakest cards and wont meet modern AAA game specs.

DirectX 11 gaming system requirements will be met by this gpu.

What FPS performance can the Radeon HD 7970 PowerColor OC Edition get on latest AAA 2023 games? In particular our game review looks at the FPS achieved running on Ultra graphics settings on the 1080p screen resolution as well as 1440p and 4K. When considering how well this graphics card can run the 1000 most demanding games available today it can best 189 of the games’ recommended graphics requirements.

The Radeon HD 7970 PowerColor OC Edition graphics card is returning a weak performance on Dying Light 2 at 1080p of 0 frames per second at Ultra graphics settings. Another popular title that is good to benchmark graphics cards against is Grand Theft Auto VI which we predict will get weak frame rates of 0 FPS. A third game we can look at on Ultra at 1080p is the popular Resident Evil 8, which was getting 0 FPS under tests.

Next up we increase screen res tests to accommodate the growing in popularity 1440p screen size. So we booted up Dying Light 2 to see how the Radeon HD 7970 PowerColor OC Edition dealt with it. It scored up a weak series of FPS results across these graphics presets - Low: 0 FPS, Medium: 0 FPS, High: 0 FPS and Ultra: 0 FPS. Next we looked at Grand Theft Auto VI which we predict will be weak with a 0 FPS at Ultra 1440p. And finally looked at Resident Evil 8 that got an Ultra 1440p FPS of 0. In summary we feel the Radeon HD 7970 PowerColor OC Edition running at 1440p is not going to be able to maintain a playable game at this resolution.

How many years will the Radeon HD 7970 PowerColor OC Edition graphics card play newly released games and how long until you should consider upgrading the Radeon HD 7970 PowerColor OC Edition in your PC? We think this Radeon HD 7970 PowerColor OC Edition has around 6-12 months until an upgrade should be considered.

Whats a good PC graphics upgrade for the Radeon HD 7970 PowerColor OC Edition? Are you looking to upgrade a Radeon HD 7970 PowerColor OC Edition? Then we would suggest getting a RX 5000 Series Radeon RX 5500 XT 8GB, as it can run 716 of the top 1000 demanding game requirements today with 63% increased graphics performance. Alternatively a suitable upgrade choice for the Radeon HD 7970 PowerColor OC Edition is the RX 5000 Series Radeon RX 5300, which is 31% more powerful and can run 300 of the 1000 most demanding PC games beating their recommended requirements.