powercolor radeon HD7950 pictured, clock speeds revealed

[ddarko]

My point instead is that the ease of overclock should have a much greater value. This is where the 7970 comparison to the 580 comes in. Because the ease of overclock that the 7970 is showing is uncanny at best, and unseen at most, it should be not only considered, but also valued.

Which most reviews do by devoting a section to overclocking. But I think it's appropriate to compare stock cards because while the vast majority of 7970's may overclock and overclock well, some don't. Your odds for getting a good overclock may be good, better perhaps than any generation of cards in recent history, but it depends on a degree of chance in a way stock performance does not. AMD and the card makers acknowledge this because none of them will classify a card as defective because it doesn't overclock but all of them would accept a card as defective if it doesn't reach stock speeds. Reviews should focus on what users can be guaranteed, not what is hoped for.

 

[SirPauly]

I live and die by overclocking, as such I put no stock in stock clock performance.

I can't say that because stock clocking still offers the foundation for OC headroom and OC scaling. Both are very important and why many sites bench with default settings and offer investigations on over-clocking.

 

[JBT]

It depends, could you have spent another $150 to $200 more and not mattered? The pricing is far different. They are different level cards.
If you want that level performance of CF'ed 6950's you did do it wrong. You should have went for a single expensive card rather than two kinda expensive cards.

I just bought a 6950 2GB for $250, hoping it flashes to 6970...

Did I make the wrong move? (Game at 1920x1200)

Maybe I should go get another 6950 flashed and CF it

 

[BassBomb]

It depends, could you have spent another $150 to $200 more and not mattered? The pricing is far different. They are different level cards.
If you want that level performance of CF'ed 6950's you did do it wrong. You should have went for a single expensive card rather than two kinda expensive cards.

I guess we will see what happens when I can finally fire this machine up

 

[Shamrock]

i wish they would lift the NDA so we can see some benchmarks

This is all I could find:

http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showpost.php?p=21072145&postcount=1

3DMARK11 Graphics Scores
HD7970: 8295
HD7950: 6518
HD7950 @1030/5600MHz: 7970
HD6970: 5569
GTX570 @750MHz: 5560

Olikan posted the google links.

 

[hclarkjr]

TPU has info on clock speeds

 

[Panopticon]

Well, that's pretty good. Even if the card is the same performance as a 580, assuming an MSRP of $450, that's a good deal. On Newegg at the moment, the 580 starts at $470. The custom cards are about a hundred more than that still. If the 7950 is released with custom models available, they could be sold... a bit over $500?

I remember reading that their won't be a reference 7950 at all.

 

[Snowshredder102]

I just bought a 6950 2GB for $250, hoping it flashes to 6970...

Did I make the wrong move? (Game at 1920x1200)

Maybe I should go get another 6950 flashed and CF it

I don't think it was a bad move. A 6950 is still a badass card, and if you wait a little longer for the prices to diminish even further you can add another one to CF. If you're just doing 1080p gaming you should have no problems in the next two years if you do CF them.