Is 7950 a huge upgrade over 6850? Or wait for 8950?

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futurefields

Diamond Member
Jun 2, 2012
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Would the 7950 be a huge upgrade over the 6850 for 1080p gaming or would it be better to wait for 8950

Or would it be better to wait for 8950 and get the 7950 when the price drops when those come out

Single gpu system only no crossfire/sli etc...
 
RussianSensation

RussianSensation

Elite Member
Sep 5, 2003
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1) What CPU do you have?
2) Do you game with AA on?
3) Do you plan on overclocking the 7950?

With a modern Core i3/i5/i7 (Phenom II/Bulldozer 4 core OCed) systems, an HD7950 @ 1.02ghz will be 90-100% faster. Whether that's worth the upgrade is up to you.

perfrel_1920.gif
 
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toyota

toyota

Lifer
Apr 15, 2001
12,957
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have you not looked at the numerous 7950 reviews? a 7950 is about twice as fast as the 6850. of course the rest of your specs play a role too so you should probably list them.

EDIT: damn I type slow...
 
RaistlinZ

RaistlinZ

Diamond Member
Oct 15, 2001
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7950 is twice as fast as the 6850, even before overclocking. You should get much better fps, or play your current games at higher quality settings.

And speculating over a 8950 is a waste of time, IMO. 7950 or 660Ti once it's released would both be good upgrades.
 
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futurefields

Diamond Member
Jun 2, 2012
6,470
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im looking to build a system that will keep up with all the popular games that come out for Xbox 720/PS4 etc...

right now it's a i5 2500k with a sapphire 6850

it runs outstanding, but the 6850 is a medium-settings card @ 1080p already, so I imagine once the PS4 and Xbox 3 games start coming out it will become a bottleneck rather quickly

I just dont know how much performance difference there will be between the 79xx and 89xx

And i know nobody knows, just looking for some educated speculation (also, im bored, and want to talk about gpu's)
 
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Greenlepricon

Senior member
Aug 1, 2012
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If you're happy where you are right now then give it a little while. Prices will drop once the next generation comes out and by then hopefully the next consoles will be out as well. You will get a huge performance boost upgrading, and should be good for a little while into the future. If I were you I would hold onto that for a little longer and see if you can get a 7950 in the $250 range maybe in the next few months. I'm upgrading now, and the deal Russian posted for just over $300 for the 7950 is hard to beat.
 
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turn_pike

Senior member
Mar 4, 2012
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Russian, do you have one of those performance chart with the newest driver for a moderately overclocked 7850 (1000-1100 ish) ?
 
RussianSensation

RussianSensation

Elite Member
Sep 5, 2003
19,458
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Sorry, don't have an overall performance chart with an overclocked 7850 at 1.1ghz.

Here is a 1.19ghz HD7850 in BF3:
perf_oc.gif


vs. HD7950 at 1.02ghz in the same test:
perf_oc.gif


Both the 7850 and 7950 have about 40-50% overclocking headroom. That means the performance delta between them should remain roughly the same.

At stock speeds, HD7950 is about 34% faster at 1080P.

So I would guess that HD7950 @ 1.1-1.2ghz will be at around 34% faster than an HD7850 @ 1.1-1.2ghz. It's tough to say though since in that BF3 test, it only took a 1.02ghz HD7950 to be 34% faster than a 1.19ghz 7850.

MSI TF3 HD7850 2GB can be found for $252 (Newegg w/shipping) vs. $315 (Superbiiz w/shipping) for MSI TF7950. The price difference is 25%. I've seen that MSI TF3 7850 for $210 on Newegg though so this price isn't really great on it right now.
 
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Smartazz

Diamond Member
Dec 29, 2005
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I too have been considering a 7950 to upgrade my 6870, but I think I want to wait another generation to get way more than double the performance. We'll see how I feel after getting my Catleap though.
 
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turn_pike

Senior member
Mar 4, 2012
316
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Thanks RS.

Just like Smartazz I have a 6870, but I am stuck at 1080p for the foreseeable future due to the my desk only being able to accommodate monitor of relatively low height. Probably gonna skip this generation.
 
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Smartazz

Diamond Member
Dec 29, 2005
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Good point, I might have to forgo AA and jaggies annoy me a lot. I'm kind of bored of gaming at the moment, but I'm looking forward to Metro Last Light and Watchdogs next year and they're probably going to be extremely demanding. For the time being I really just want to play Battlefield 3, Portal 2, finish Bioshock and play the new Hitman when that releases.
 
hyrule4927

hyrule4927

Senior member
Feb 9, 2012
359
1
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I just traded up from a 6850 to a 7950 and it was definitely a worthwhile upgrade. Roughly doubled my frame rate in any game I've tried. It's a great card, and I haven't even started to take advantage of the the massive overclocking headroom. Got the MSI TF3 for $310 with a rebate, although it looks like they're not available quite that cheap right now.
 
RussianSensation

RussianSensation

Elite Member
Sep 5, 2003
19,458
765
126
hyrule4927 said:
I just traded up from a 6850 to a 7950 and it was definitely a worthwhile upgrade. Roughly doubled my frame rate in any game I've tried. It's a great card, and I haven't even started to take advantage of the the massive overclocking headroom. Got the MSI TF3 for $310 with a rebate, although it looks like they're not available quite that cheap right now.
Click to expand...

$320 deal
 
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aaksheytalwar

Diamond Member
Feb 17, 2012
3,389
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Stock vs stock twice the performance. Oc vs oc about 2.5-3 times the performance ESP in areas of heavy Tess or AA. Unless you upgrade only once in 4-5 years, this is the time. If you upgrade every 2 years then this is the time
 
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