AMD Readies Higher-Performance Version of Radeon HD 7970 .

In an attempt to improve competitive positions on the market of high-end graphics boards, Advanced Micro Devices not only plans to release a new dual-chip flagship solution, but also to speed up the existing Radeon HD 7970 graphics card, according to unofficial sources. The company is reportedly preparing Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition with increased clock-speed.
With the launch of AMD Radeon HD 7870 and 7770 graphics card, AMD also introduced "GHz Edition" moniker that should show clock-speed of graphics processing unit on particular graphics card. Back in the days ATI used a similar method to highlight premium parts with "Platinum Edition" and  "XTX" monikers. The rumour has it that AMD is preparing Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition.

In a bid to make the model HD 7970 more competitive against Nvidia Corp.'s GeForce GTX 680 and imminent GeForce GTX 670, AMD plans to increase clock-speed of the chip to 1000MHz from 925MHz, according to Atomic MPC web-site. Thanks to improved yields of chips produced using 28nm high-performance process technology, most code-named Tahiti XT chips can hit 1250MHz clock-speeds and therefore 1GHz frequency should be safe on commercial graphics cards.
It is hard to expect Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition to provide tangible performance increase compared to the original version, but it does make sense for AMD to refresh its lineup a little six month after the original introduction of Tahiti. Moreover, assuming that GHz edition graphics cards will feature improved coolers, the model HD 7970 will indeed become more competitive than it is today.
Previously, AMD lowered pricing of Radeon HD 7970 and 7950 graphics cards to $479 and $399, respectively, and started to bundle  provide three DirectX 11 game titles: Dirt Showdown, Nexuiz and Deus Ex: Human Revolution with The Missing Link downloadable add-on.

AMD did not comment on the news-story.