10 Aug 2021 - Graphics card reviewed

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

This card meets game requirements up to DirectX 11.

What FPS performance can the Radeon HD 7970 OC GigaByte 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. This card runs recommended graphics requirements of 189 games from the top 1000 most demanding games being played today.

The 1080p FPS on Ultra for the Radeon HD 7970 OC GigaByte Edition shows us that Forza Horizon 5 is getting a weak result of 14 FPS, and then we are seeing Far Cry 6 returning a weak 0 FPS while another game on our list is the Resident Evil 8 which is getting 0 frames per second at Ultra 1080p.

As the PC gaming masses explore larger screen resolutions we decided to run some game checks at 1440p across a few popular games. We discovered the Radeon HD 7970 OC GigaByte Edition ran Far Cry 6 to a weak performance level. Results across the graphics settings looked like this, Low: 0 FPS, Medium: 0 FPS, High: 0 FPS and Ultra: 0 FPS. Another game tested was Resident Evil 8, L: 0FPS, M: 0FPS, H: 0FPS, U: 0FPS. And then we checked graphics card performance on Forza Horizon 5, which returned L: 28FPS, M: 22FPS, H: 15FPS, U: 11FPS at 1440p. Gaming at 1440p with the Radeon HD 7970 OC GigaByte Edition is not going to be able to maintain a playable game at this resolution.

How many years will the Radeon HD 7970 OC GigaByte Edition graphics card play newly released games and how long until you should consider upgrading the Radeon HD 7970 OC GigaByte Edition in your PC? There is around 6-12 months of top end gaming left in this card, at which point its graphics card replacement time, assuming the Radeon HD 7970 OC GigaByte Edition is part of your PC gaming machine.

Whats a good PC graphics upgrade for the Radeon HD 7970 OC GigaByte Edition? A good choice when looking to upgrade the Radeon HD 7970 OC GigaByte Edition would be the RX 5000 Series Radeon RX 5500 XT 8GB which meets 716 of the 1000 top game’s recommended system requirements and has 63% better performance. Alternatively if you want an upgrade suggestion for the Radeon HD 7970 OC GigaByte Edition then a good choice would be RX 5000 Series Radeon RX 5300 as this is better than 300 of the top 1000 most demanding game requirements with 31% better performance as well.