AMD kick-started 2022 with the release of the Radeon Hd 7970, the first member of the Radeon HD 7000 GPU series. This launch marked the introduction of the first-ever graphics card to be made on a 28nm design process, representing the visitor'south most circuitous GPU to engagement, with 4,313 million transistors in a 352mm2 die.

Following this release, through the year AMD shipped seven additional 28nm Hard disk drive 7000 cards targeting price ranges from $100 through to $400, which is where the Hard disk 7970 sits today (nearly 30% below its debut price). Most of AMD'due south lineup has undergone like price cuts to address stiff competition from Nvidia's own 28nm GPU offerings.

Nvidia arrived slightly afterward to the party, roughly two months after the HD 7970 debut, the GeForce GTX 680 at $500 was cheaper and faster than the Hard disk drive 7970, forcing AMD to brand swift price cuts fifty-fifty though the GTX 680 remained in very limited supply for many months.

This price state of war of sorts continued as Nvidia dribbled out new GTX 600 parts over the next five months. Discontent with reactively slashing prices, AMD made an endeavor to improve margins by releasing overclocked versions of its two top models: the Hard disk drive 7970 GHz Edition and the HD 7950 Boost.

By mid-September things had settled downwardly and models had been consolidated. We finally had a improve thought of where things were going to stand up in terms of cost and performance, and neither company seemed to have some other major release in the works. And then, AMD threw us a curve ball.

The new Catalyst 12.11 beta drivers delivered major performance gains in many pop games such as Battlefield 3, Borderlands two, Civilization V, Skyrim, Sleeping Dogs and StarCraft II. While nearly titles ran effectually x% faster depending on their settings, Battlefield 3 was 20 to 30% faster.

Effectually the aforementioned fourth dimension, Nvidia released a new beta driver of its ain (GeForce 310.33) which claimed modest gains for the GTX 680 and GTX 660 in several titles, and this commuter has since been replaced by the GeForce 310.61 update, which made farther performance enhancements. This is what we'll be testing today.

With updated pricing and performance across the board, nosotros figured it would be worth revisiting both company's offerings to run into where you should spend your hard-earned greenbacks this holiday season and into early side by side year.