10 Aug 2021 - Graphics card reviewed

The Radeon HD 7970 Lightning Edition is a very low performing piece of gaming hardware and can probably only run indie system requirements.

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

We take a look at game performance achieved on this graphics card when running 2022 popular games. This short Radeon HD 7970 Lightning Edition game hardware review looks at the graphics card frame rate performance on Ultra graphics settings at 1080p, 1440p and 4K screen resolutions. This graphics hardware can run 228 of the 1000 most demanding PC games played today.

Now onto the frame rates achieved at 1080p. We are seeing Days Gone getting 28 FPS with the Radeon HD 7970 Lightning Edition, Grand Theft Auto VI predicted to get 0 FPS and FIFA 22 getting 66 frames per second. All run on Ultra at 1920x1080 screen res.

With PC gamers looking for larger screen sizes like 1440p we tested the Radeon HD 7970 Lightning Edition by playing Days Gone which yielded a weak performance. Its FPS results for the graphics settings are as follows - L: 56FPS, M: 44FPS, H: 30FPS, U: 21FPS. Another popular game we researched with this card was Grand Theft Auto VI and that was weak. This graphics card is predicted to deliver 0 FPS at Ultra 1440p. Another popular title was FIFA 22 which gets reasonable results with a 50FPS on Ultra 1440p. Looking at a few of these 1440p results for the Radeon HD 7970 Lightning Edition we get the impression that it is not a first choice gaming resolution. While this graphics card would likely be more suited to 1080p gaming, you may be able to make some graphical tweaks in the game options to improve your stability at 1440p.

How many years will the Radeon HD 7970 Lightning Edition graphics card play newly released games and how long until you should consider upgrading the Radeon HD 7970 Lightning Edition in your PC? 12-18 months of top end gaming is still left in this graphics card

Whats a good PC graphics upgrade for the Radeon HD 7970 Lightning Edition? Are you looking to upgrade a Radeon HD 7970 Lightning Edition? Then we would suggest getting a RX 5000 Series Radeon RX 5500 XT 8GB, as it can run 725 of the top 1000 demanding game requirements today with 56% increased graphics performance. Alternatively if you want an upgrade suggestion for the Radeon HD 7970 Lightning Edition then a good choice would be RX 5000 Series Radeon RX 5300 as this is better than 304 of the top 1000 most demanding game requirements with 25% better performance as well.