Radeon HD 7950 - 1080P Performance in Crysis 3, Tomb Raider & Metro LL

Face2Face

Diamond Member
Jun 6, 2001
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The AMD Radeon HD 7950 is an extremely popular video card this year due to its price per performance ratio. I wanted to show current owners and future owners what their cards may be capable of in Crysis 3,Tomb Raider and Metro LL. I did a series of benchmarks with my 7950 at different core and memory frequencies to show how much overclocking can improve your experience.

Test system:

Intel 3570K @ 4.8GHz
Gigabyte Z77X-UD4H
MSI TF3 7950 (8+6 pin)
with Arctic Accelero Xtreme 7970 VGA Cooler
16GB Samsung DDR3 @ 1600Mhz
Corsair Force 3 240GB SSD
PC Power & Cooling MKIII 600 watt PSU
Acer H243H 1080P Monitor
AMD 13.6 Beta drivers

CRYSIS 3

I have posted these results in an older thread, but wanted to have a nice bar chart to make it easier to read. I benchmarked Crysis 3 using the settings below.


crysis3_2013_07_18_23_57_46_318_zps6e144235.jpg

crysis3_2013_07_18_23_57_56_822_zps29c59b13.jpg



I find these setting to be a nice combination of performance and IQ. Going from High to Very high barely increases image quality, but notably decreases performance. Adding SMAA @ 2X helps reduce jaggies, and it doesn't affect performance too much. Benchmarking was done using FRAPS. You can see my benchmark run through HERE. I start the benchmark as soon as Psycho hands you his handgun. It's a 80 second FRAPS run and will stop right after he enters the first door.



7950coreandmem_zps0d04ad15.png


Going from AMD reference frequencies of 800/1250 to 1300/1850 we are seeing a performance increase of 51%. Thats an increase of 63% for the core frequency and a 48% increase in memory frequency.

For an average 7950 OC of 1150/1650 we are seeing a performance increase of 33%. Thats a 44% increase in clock frequency and 32% increase in memory frequency. This is a very impressive showing in performance.

After seeing how much performance memory bandwidth is adding per the last benchmark, I decided to do a test only increasing the memory frequency with a core frequency of 1200 Mhz.


7950mem_zpsc3ee207b.png


1250 Mhz to 1850 Mhz yielded an 19% increase in performance, while increasing the memory frequency 48%. Not as good as I would have hoped, but still impressive since most games will not see this much of a performance gain from memory frequencies alone. As you can see anything past 1850 Mhz is not seeing a performance improvement at all.

TOMB RAIDER

Next up is Tomb Raider. This game brought TressFX to the table and it's plenty demanding in it's own right. This game has a built-in benchmark that makes testing a little easier and potentially more consistent. I did however, run each test three times at the individual frequencies. I used the middle FPS for the graph below even though FPS didn't vary much. I benchmarked this game at it's Ultimate Preset - See the Graphic options below.



TombRaider_2013_04_01_16_55_20_146_zps11718f3a.jpg
TombRaider_2013_04_01_16_55_37_269_zps578b936e.jpg

Ultimate Preset 1080P

TR7950_zps8bc0faf2.png

We are looking at a 55% increase in performance going from AMD reference speeds of 800/1250 to 1300/1850. A 38% increase going from AMD Boost 7950 925/1250 to 1300/1850. Even a moderate 7950 OC of 1050/1500 is seeing a 27% over AMD reference 800/1250 and 13% over the 7950 Boost.

METRO LAST LIGHT

Here are some benchmarks for Metro Last light. This game also has a built in Benchmark like Tomb Raider. Below you will see the settings I use to play this game. Pretty much everything maxed with the exception of SSAA and PhysX.
800-1250_zpsf80e6233.jpg


metroLL7950_zps2472b897.png

49% increase going from 800/1250 to 1250/1750. Even going with an overclock all 7950's should hit (1150/1250) we are seeing a 30% increase in performance over the AMD reference core frequency.



Special thanks to John Tauwhare for his help.
 
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BallaTheFeared

Diamond Member
Nov 15, 2010
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Nice, job is that the first level?

If so what was your duration?


Edit: Reading fail. I see your run now!

Can you do one for Out of the Jungle? Where you first come outside, before the mines, before having to open the gate for the weak guy, just run down the path from the door/steps to where it starts to slope down after the bus/truck/car - meaning instead of going right with the guy just keep going straight? (let me know if you have no idea what I'm talking about).
 
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Feb 19, 2009
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Crysis 3 is one of the few games that scale with memory OC on the 79xx series. Most games don't even respond.

Also, 7950s is such a beast, so much OC potential.
 

BallaTheFeared

Diamond Member
Nov 15, 2010
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Face has one of the best cards for on air I've seen on the entire net.

63% core OC over what AMD released is quite stout :awe:
 

ZGR

Platinum Member
Oct 26, 2012
2,058
671
136
That is the highest 7950 OC I have ever seen. But yeah, you gotta match your card's core clock/memory clock ratio because I believe you are around 50 mhz off or more on all of your settings. It is a rather small discrepancy though.
 

RussianSensation

Elite Member
Sep 5, 2003
19,458
765
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Very impressive performance scaling and an even more impressive overclock on air. Great job & thanks for sharing your findings!
 

Face2Face

Diamond Member
Jun 6, 2001
4,100
215
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Nice, job is that the first level?

If so what was your duration?


Edit: Reading fail. I see your run now!

Can you do one for Out of the Jungle? Where you first come outside, before the mines, before having to open the gate for the weak guy, just run down the path from the door/steps to where it starts to slope down after the bus/truck/car - meaning instead of going right with the guy just keep going straight? (let me know if you have no idea what I'm talking about).

Thanks Balla. Yes, I know exactly where you are talking about. I will see if I get some time this weekend to do a couple of runs.

Face has one of the best cards for on air I've seen on the entire net.


63% core OC over what AMD released is quite stout :awe:

Like you said before, it's a shame it's not under water. Tahiti loves to be underwater because how temperamental it is with temperatures. I'm sure I could hit a higher clock under water and maintain stability as well.


That is the highest 7950 OC I have ever seen. But yeah, you gotta match your card's core clock/memory clock ratio because I believe you are around 50 mhz off or more on all of your settings. It is a rather small discrepancy though.

Hmm... Would a 1200/1600 or 1200/1800 be a matching ratio?

Very impressive performance scaling and an even more impressive overclock on air. Great job & thanks for sharing your findings!

Thanks RS.

What about the CPU scaling? It seems heavily overclocked...

I'm glad you asked. I started to do a separate benchmark on CPU scaling. My first run was @ 4.8Ghz and my second was completely stock. The AVG frame-rate was almost exactly the same. The only real difference was the minimum frame-rate. It was around 30 FPS stock and 55 FPS @ 4.8Ghz. So it seems for a single gpu in this game you may only see a difference in minimums with a 3570K. I can look further into it when I have some more time.
 
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ocre

Golden Member
Dec 26, 2008
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Face2Face,
Holy smokes............., thats really impressive. whats your frame rate on ultra at 1300mhz? say with light AA like fxaa?

Nice, job is that the first level?

If so what was your duration?


Edit: Reading fail. I see your run now!

Can you do one for Out of the Jungle? Where you first come outside, before the mines, before having to open the gate for the weak guy, just run down the path from the door/steps to where it starts to slope down after the bus/truck/car - meaning instead of going right with the guy just keep going straight? (let me know if you have no idea what I'm talking about).

Thats where my frame rate would drop in half. The first scene that is a major hard on the GPU. At the beginning you can tweak your settings and be playing along fine but then start this level and it brings my GPU to a crawl.....

As you play through the game there are many places that do but this is one is very easy to get to and its significant because its the first omg moment that made my GPU hurt
 

toyota

Lifer
Apr 15, 2001
12,957
1
0
Which is better in Crysis 3 ? MSAA or SMAA
SMAA is the best overall choice if you want good frameates and image quality. http://www.hardocp.com/article/2013/03/12/crysis_3_video_card_performance_iq_review/8#.UerEqfmyDjg


Your best value for performance and image quality in this game is clearly SMAA. In single-GPU operation it gives you three levels of quality and performance you can customize based on your gameplay performance. The SMAA Low 1X mode can be used if higher AA settings are causing you lag in performance and you wish to keep the in-game quality settings as high as possible, such as running at very high spec. You will at least get some AA, but it won't be the best quality such is found at SMAA Medium.

We think SMAA Medium 2XT will be the most common setting, and should be the setting you aim for to get the best AA with the best cost in performance. It won't cost as much as 2X MSAA, and it provides AA to everything, objects, alpha textures and specular shader aliasing. Finally, if you have the horsepower, SMAA High 4X is the best, but you may have to sacrifice in-game quality settings to achieve it, and we don't recommend that. SMAA also has the benefit of not blurring your textures like FXAA.

Overall, SMAA is the winner in this game, and should be given two thumbs up for implementing it in this game. We hope to see SMAA improved and implemented in other games. So far, these are PC'centric options added in this game, and we thank Crytek for doing it, these kinds of things should be standard on the PC platform.


http://www.hardocp.com/article/2013/03/12/crysis_3_video_card_performance_iq_review/11#.UerEvfmyDjg
 
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Durvelle27

Diamond Member
Jun 3, 2012
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SMAA is the best overall choice if you want good frameates and image quality. http://www.hardocp.com/article/2013/03/12/crysis_3_video_card_performance_iq_review/8#.UerEqfmyDjg


Your best value for performance and image quality in this game is clearly SMAA. In single-GPU operation it gives you three levels of quality and performance you can customize based on your gameplay performance. The SMAA Low 1X mode can be used if higher AA settings are causing you lag in performance and you wish to keep the in-game quality settings as high as possible, such as running at very high spec. You will at least get some AA, but it won't be the best quality such is found at SMAA Medium.

We think SMAA Medium 2XT will be the most common setting, and should be the setting you aim for to get the best AA with the best cost in performance. It won't cost as much as 2X MSAA, and it provides AA to everything, objects, alpha textures and specular shader aliasing. Finally, if you have the horsepower, SMAA High 4X is the best, but you may have to sacrifice in-game quality settings to achieve it, and we don't recommend that. SMAA also has the benefit of not blurring your textures like FXAA.

Overall, SMAA is the winner in this game, and should be given two thumbs up for implementing it in this game. We hope to see SMAA improved and implemented in other games. So far, these are PC'centric options added in this game, and we thank Crytek for doing it, these kinds of things should be standard on the PC platform.


http://www.hardocp.com/article/2013/03/12/crysis_3_video_card_performance_iq_review/11#.UerEvfmyDjg
Thx
 

MrK6

Diamond Member
Aug 9, 2004
4,458
4
81
Excellent benchmarks and post Face2Face, I enjoy these types of threads. I think your performance scaled amazingly well over your overclock range. You have a choice 7950 there!
 

cmdrdredd

Lifer
Dec 12, 2001
27,052
357
126
I am tempted to do a comparison run with a 670 which I'm sure will be slower as I cannot get past my current clock speed.
 

Elfear

Diamond Member
May 30, 2004
7,126
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I am tempted to do a comparison run with a 670 which I'm sure will be slower as I cannot get past my current clock speed.

I'd like to see those results.


Thanks for taking the time to post benchmarks OP. The 7950 is the overclocking golden child this gen.
 

cmdrdredd

Lifer
Dec 12, 2001
27,052
357
126
I'd like to see those results.


Thanks for taking the time to post benchmarks OP. The 7950 is the overclocking golden child this gen.

I'll give it a try now.

edit: Tried to reproduce the run as best I could. Here are the results for a single 670 at the clock speed listed in my Sig line. The low min could possibly be due to the scene loading up because I started the bench right as I saw the text begin to scroll on the black screen.
Frames: 5923 - Time: 88719ms - Avg: 66.761 - Min: 22 - Max: 98
 
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RussianSensation

Elite Member
Sep 5, 2003
19,458
765
126
Excellent benchmarks and post Face2Face, I enjoy these types of threads. I think your performance scaled amazingly well over your overclock range. You have a choice 7950 there!

MrK6, do you think you could do a comparison? You have a 1300mhz 7970. This would be great to see how Crysis 3 scales with the extra shaders and textures of the 7970.
 

Stuka87

Diamond Member
Dec 10, 2010
6,240
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Really impressive OC. Mine wont get anywhere close to 1300. Although mine is a very early card too. Newer ones are more efficient I would think.
 

BallaTheFeared

Diamond Member
Nov 15, 2010
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CF scaling (Some Bottleneck from i5-4670k @ 4.8GHz, nothing major normal usage around 92-94% one dip momentarily to 80% gpu usage for both).

Single 1200/1600

Frames, Time (ms), Min, Max, Avg
5285, 84282, 44, 93, 62.706


CrossFire 1200/1600

Frames, Time (ms), Min, Max, Avg
8010, 88609, 61, 125, 90.397
 

Face2Face

Diamond Member
Jun 6, 2001
4,100
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I'll give it a try now.

edit: Tried to reproduce the run as best I could. Here are the results for a single 670 at the clock speed listed in my Sig line. The low min could possibly be due to the scene loading up because I started the bench right as I saw the text begin to scroll on the black screen.
Frames: 5923 - Time: 88719ms - Avg: 66.761 - Min: 22 - Max: 98

Sorry I should have mentioned that I start the benchmark as soon as Psycho hands you his handgun. It's a 80 second FRAPS run and will stop right after he enters the first door. I also just did some runs for the Welcome to the Jungle level as Balla requested. Coming up soon.
 
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cmdrdredd

Lifer
Dec 12, 2001
27,052
357
126
CF scaling (Some Bottleneck from i5-4670k @ 4.8GHz, nothing major normal usage around 92-94% one dip momentarily to 80% gpu usage for both).

Single 1200/1600

Frames, Time (ms), Min, Max, Avg
5285, 84282, 44, 93, 62.706


CrossFire 1200/1600

Frames, Time (ms), Min, Max, Avg
8010, 88609, 61, 125, 90.397

Why is your second run reporting more frames rendered? Where did you start and stop the benchmark? Just curious as I've found you can skew results sometimes. Starting at the loading like I did gives low mins and drops the avg slightly as a result. Running longer on the first level has more indoor scenes which aren't as taxing and show higher frame rates.
 

BallaTheFeared

Diamond Member
Nov 15, 2010
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Because it's averaging more frames per second (thus given equal duration, more frames are rendered within the same set period of time), duration was 84282 ms vs 88609 ms, second run was slightly longer - human error. CF run was roughly 4 seconds longer.

I start when psycho appears.
 

BallaTheFeared

Diamond Member
Nov 15, 2010
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Sorry I should have mentioned that I start the benchmark as soon as Psycho hands you his handgun. It's a 80 second FRAPS run and will stop right after he enters the first door. I also just did some runs for the Welcome to the Jungle level as Balla requested. Coming up soon.

Thanks :)

Also, real men run very high :p

Very High Single @ 1200/1600

Frames, Time (ms), Min, Max, Avg
3767, 87219, 30, 64, 43.190


Very High CrossFire @ 1200/1600

Frames, Time (ms), Min, Max, Avg
6068, 89797, 44, 96, 67.575
 
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Face2Face

Diamond Member
Jun 6, 2001
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Thanks :)

Also, real men run very high :p

Very High Single @ 1200/1600

Frames, Time (ms), Min, Max, Avg
3767, 87219, 30, 64, 43.190


Very High CrossFire @ 1200/1600

Frames, Time (ms), Min, Max, Avg
6068, 89797, 44, 96, 67.575

Nice - I'm trying to grow more back hair.. I ran the welcome to the jungle test at very high as well so that should do ;)