hd 7950 3gb review.. amd beats fermi to a pulp

[IonusX]

AnandTech's Review

the hd 7950 is here and i have the 1st review (2 card and single). amd hopes to keep their winning streak alive and with the next card on the table they might just pull this off..

overall in games the 7950 ranges from = to a factory oc'd 580(battlefield 3) to outpacing most manually overclocked one (skyrim, deus ex)

now into the fluids. in 3dmark 11 the 7950 beats the 580's on extreme settings and draws on preformance. in unigine.. hold the phone the 7950 just dropped a second atom bomb on nvidia. giving them an even bigger wall for nvidia to climb over in terms of tess. preformance

ocing the 7950 is easy. taking it to 1.1ghz or more core is a breeze and you pick up a nice 12fps in bf3 as your reward
power consumption is much lower than a 6970 easily near the 6950's level (idle and load) so folks with one of those will know that if they go 7950 they need not panic over power supply. but temp is a bit of a let down managing to be only a few degree's cooler that the 7970. but with custom fan models on the way thats expected to change

7950 rocks the block. it preforms well and in cfx its consistently prooving itself to be a real animal on the testbed. tahiti pro seems to be even more dangerous than xt. and with that the 580 has been spiked

source

 

[blackened23]

Crossfire / eyefinity seems to be functioning great with the RC11 driver tested at HardOCP. Beats the GTX 580 across the board, has more memory, and cheaper....not too shabby.

 

[IonusX]

Crossfire / eyefinity seems to be functioning great with the RC11 driver tested at HardOCP. Beats the GTX 580 across the board, has more memory, and cheaper....not too shabby.

it also uses alot less power. if this can be used as an indicator then the cape verde pro will be running on 2 AA's

 

[BallaTheFeared]

it also uses alot less power. if this can be used as an indicator then the cape verde pro will be running on 2 AA's

It is next gen...

 

[Tempered81]

http://pcper.com/reviews/Graphics-Cards/AMD-Radeon-HD-7950-3GB-Graphics-Card-Review

 

[VulgarDisplay]

Looks like my prediction that the card would be 10-15% average faster than gtx580 was right. Other than a few odd games that run the same across amd and nvidia the 7950 looks like a winner.

 

[blackened23]

Looks like my prediction that the card would be 10-15% average faster than gtx580 was right. Other than a few odd games that run the same across amd and nvidia the 7950 looks like a winner.

What I want to know is

1) Why was 7950 allowed to have non ref designs from the get go and not 7970?

2) Why aren't they releasing a 1.5gb version now

3) Seems backwards to make non ref 7950 but only ref 7970s arghh (guess i'm going water)

Seems like a good card, still cheaper than gtx 580. but I bet a 399$ 1.5gb version would sell like hotcakes, I wonder why AMD didn't release that version?

 

[VulgarDisplay]

I'm almost positive there is no reference design 7950? They will release the 1.5gb version when they need to compete in a price war with nvidia.

Water for me too.

I mainly just want to try water cooling out. The initial investment looks to be around $300, but you can reuse much of what you buy on future builds.

 

[BallaTheFeared]

AMD is probably trying to get as many high end bites as possible, working their way down the price totem pole before Kepler comes out. Releasing a 1.5GB version first with no Kepler in sight would probably reduce their sales of 3GB models from those people who can't hold out anymore after passing on the 7970.

Seems AMD is having problems with some of the top releases of 2011, Skyrim, BF3, and BMAC. Dirt 3 and Metro 2033 are archaic, while Deus is a gaming evolved title that isn't a very demanding game with 60+ achievable @1600p on an old 580 that released quite a while ago.

 

[VulgarDisplay]

They are having strange issues in a few games, and I equate that mostly to drivers. However the minimum framerate gains over the gtx580 are what really matter, and in most games it's a decent amount higher.

 

[blackened23]

AMD is probably trying to get as many high end bites as possible, working their way down the price totem pole before Kepler comes out. Releasing a 1.5GB version first with no Kepler in sight would probably reduce their sales of 3GB models from those people who can't hold out anymore after passing on the 7970.

Seems AMD is having problems with some of the top releases of 2011, Skyrim, BF3, and BMAC. Dirt 3 and Metro 2033 are archaic, while Deus is a gaming evolved title that isn't a very demanding game with 60+ achievable @1600p on an old 580 that released quite a while ago.

I'm unaware of these bf3 and skyrim issues you speak of, works nicely in crossfire with the RC11 driver

but yeah they should release a 1.5gb version

 

[nitromullet]

Tahiti beating Fermi is expected, and I should hope that a $475 card that just came out outperforms a $550 card from over a year ago. Of course, NVIDIA still has to get Kepler out the door to compete. I seriously do hope NVIDIA brings more to the table than AMD this round though, even if it is $650 for GK100.

 

[BallaTheFeared]

I'm unaware of these bf3 and skyrim issues you speak of, works nicely in crossfire with the RC11 driver

but yeah they should release a 1.5gb version

Seems to only affect 1600p...

The Skyrim tests are nothing short of a joke, they run through whiterun with a stock 3960k probably not using patch 1.4 or even the tesv layer mod which helped performance prior to 1.4. They also don't mention Ambient Occlusion usage, with Skyrim nor what drivers they're actually using for the 580. More than likely they're using 285 which was the last WHQL from Nvidia.

 

[Eugene86]

next gen AMD card beats last gen Nvidia card

 

[boxleitnerb]

Crossfire / eyefinity seems to be functioning great with the RC11 driver tested at HardOCP. Beats the GTX 580 across the board, has more memory, and cheaper....not too shabby.

Did you read the same review? 7950CF looses to 580 SLI in half of the CF-tests there and Kyle noticed that SLI was again smoother than CF.

You know with your recent post history I begin to think you are biased even if you claim otherwise.

 

[3DVagabond]

It is next gen...

Not sure why that matters? It's the first "next gen" in a while that used less power than the "last gen".

 

[BallaTheFeared]

He changed what I quoted after I quoted.

His statement was something like, "dat power draw is good enough to be next gen".

 

[Borealis7]

What impressed me the most (about the reference card) was this chart: (TechPowerUp)

that is amazing to have a Perf/Watt king in a HIGH-END card!

but also notice:

which means its WAY overpriced.

the 6870 remains the mainstream king

 

[boxleitnerb]

How is that surprising? HD7800 will most likely beat the 7950 in perf/W. Wait for other 28nm products - it's just normal that perf/W is so good on a smaller manufacturing process, nothing out of the ordinary.

 

[DarkKnightDude]

I'm surprised the 1.5 GB versions aren't out yet. judging from price alone, they'll be a good seller.

 

[3DVagabond]

How is that surprising? HD7800 will most likely beat the 7950 in perf/W. Wait for other 28nm products - it's just normal that perf/W is so good on a smaller manufacturing process, nothing out of the ordinary.

I don't understand where people get these generalities from. A smaller process does not automatically give you better perf/W, or anything else.

Look at the GTX 480 when it was released compared to the GTX 285.

 

[Borealis7]

How is that surprising? HD7800 will most likely beat the 7950 in perf/W. Wait for other 28nm products - it's just normal that perf/W is so good on a smaller manufacturing process, nothing out of the ordinary.

it is out of the ordinary that the 2nd beefiest card does it when the GTX480 Fermi was wolfing-up the Watts on the "brand new" 40mn process way back when.

 

[boxleitnerb]

I don't understand where people get these generalities from. A smaller process does not automatically give you better perf/W, or anything else.

Look at the GTX 480 when it was released compared to the GTX 285.

There are exceptions, so what? It is common sense that perf/w increases, everyone knows that. Yet you feel the need to pick out one example and cry foul. Look at the numbers, also from other sites. For every exception there are dozens of cases where this rule applies.

Edit:
Same answer goes for Borealis.

 

[RampantAndroid]

Thanks for saving me the trouble of finding an O RLY? image

 

[railven]

Only thing I care about - anyone have some OC info? Can these cards OC like the HD 7970? I'll jump on the Sapphire model now if the OC headroom is as robust as the HD 7970!