AMD Radeon HD 7950 Review Feat. Sapphire & XFX: Sewing Up The High-End Market
by Ryan Smith on January 31, 2012 9:02 AM ESTOverclocking: Game & Compute Performance
We’ll keep the commentary thin here, but overall the overclocked performance of the 7950s looks very good. The XFX 7950 BEDD has the lead among the 7950s due to its slightly higher overclock of 1050MHz, while the 7950s as a whole enjoy anywhere between a 2% to 10% lead over the 7970. It’s clear that if you want a 7970’s gaming performance at a slightly lower price then the 7950 can deliver on that through overclocking—and there seems to be little reason not to pursue it—but you’re going to have to pay the price on power consumption to get there.
The compute performance gap on the other hand can’t be closed quite as easily. Overclocking can help, but if you need a 7900 series card for a heavy compute workload there’s no making up for the lost CU array; you’d still need a 7970.
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Ryan Smith - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
Correct. That's BIOS 015.013.000.010.000705Ryan Smith - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
I should add that this is also the build number of the BIOS on Sapphire's card.AnandThenMan - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
Thanks for the info, appreciated.Sttm - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
There is 0 chance these retarded prices will remain past Nvidia's next gen launch. At that point the 7950 will drop below $300 to be competitive. So if you pay $450 now, you are a chump.mdlam - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
NO....maybe its because you just want the best card. just like all the other "chumps" were paying 500 for a gtx580 or still are, which is a completely disproportionately unfavorable price/performance ratio compared to the 560ti/6950 unlocked.rronald1 - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
I was hoping for $300-350 price tag for 7950.Right now it´s much better to get 2x second hand 6970 running in crossfire, you will get better performances than even 7970 or even 6990.
But we all know the price will drops like stones once Kepler hits the market.
mdlam - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
Only if Kepler isn't a total fail like FermiEugene86 - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
Except Fermi wasn't a fail...artk2219 - Wednesday, February 1, 2012 - link
The original Fermi could most definitely count as a fail, hot loud, power hungry, big, expensive for only 20% more power than a 5870, and LATE, it was fun to watch :). It wasn't until the 460 and the release of the 500 series that Nvidia got that mess worked out.Veroxious - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
While the performance is impressive, the pricing is just ridiculous and leaves a bittter taste in the mouth. One could get similar performance from 2 x 6850 /2 x gtx460's for $320-360.For my next upgrade I was looking for slightly more horsepower than a single gtx580 combined with Ivy bridge. Ofcourse 1st prize for me is a single powerful gpu as opposed to sli/crossfire but at $450 for a reference card it's just pointless. We'll see what happens with Kepler but it seems AMD is setting a recurring trend of increased base cost for every architectural generation which means the costs just keep escalating. What was once a small caliber hole in my pocket seems to have become a 12-gauge crater. Arrrghhhh.........