AMD Radeon HD 7950 Review Feat. Sapphire & XFX: Sewing Up The High-End Market
by Ryan Smith on January 31, 2012 9:02 AM ESTCrysis: Warhead
Kicking things off as always is Crysis: Warhead. It’s no longer the toughest game in our benchmark suite, but it’s still a technically complex game that has proven to be a very consistent benchmark. Thus even 4 years since the release of the original Crysis, “but can it run Crysis?” is still an important question, and the answer continues to be “no.” While we’re closer than ever, full Enthusiast settings at a 60fps is still beyond the grasp of a single-GPU card.
AMD’s first round of driver optimizations have given the 7900 a very solid footing in Crysis, putting the 7950 off to a great start. The 7950 is 19% ahead of the GTX 580 at 2560 and 14% ahead at 1920, putting the card in a comfortable position that for single-GPU cards is second only to the 7970. In spite of Crysis being shader-bound most of the time the 7950 is generally within 15% of the 7970, so it’s doing better than the theoretical performance gap between the two cards would predict. Meanwhile compared to AMD’s last generation offerings it’s not much of a contest: the 7950 is 20-25% ahead.
As for our factory overclocked Sapphire and XFX cards, they further close the gap between the 7950 and 7970. The 12.5% core overclock on these cards puts them between 7% and 10% faster than the stock clocked 7950, with the XFX card edging out the Sapphire due to its memory overclock. These cards do so well here than the reference 7970’s lead is reduced to just 5%.
The minimum framerates in Crysis are also looking good on the 7950, with the 7950 turning in a 10-22% better minimum framerate than the GTX 580 depending on whether we’re talking about 1920 or 2560. As like we saw with the 7970, the biggest lead is at the highest resolutions, which has typically been the case for AMD cards for some time now. The overclocked partner cards add to this, tacking on an extra 5-10% in performance.
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Finally - Monday, February 6, 2012 - link
"While the performance is impressive, the pricing is just ridiculous and leaves a bittter taste in the mouth."That's why you don't put your GPUs in the mouth and chew on them...
kallogan - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
Lamest pricing policy ever. AMD has apparently decided to stop selling gpus. Fine.Love the undervolted/Oced Sapphire. Undervolting is my way of life.
mdlam - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
Why do you post this nonsense on a 7900 discussion? Does anyone who owns a top tier video card give a rats behind about undervolting? No. That's why you spend 30 dollars and buy a hd6770.kallogan - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
You must have been hurt in some ways by my comment cause you're being agressive kitty.Look at the power consumption and noise levels. The sapphire despite a 100mhz OC blows every other card.
You can't say it's useless.
Ryan1981 - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
The website of sapphire is listing a stock clocked version of the 7950:http://www.sapphiretech.com/presentation/product/?...
Just thought I'd include it.
Ryan1981 - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
Ok after closer examination, almost stock, 810 Mhz Core clock.poohbear - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
can you please use resolutions that the avg user uses? whats thsi 1980x1200 nonsense? who games at that resolution? by far the most popular resolutions are 1650x1050 & 1920 x1080. why not just post figures for those instead of having us guessing?UMADBRO - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
HERP!1920x1080 is 16:9, 1920x1200 is 16:10.
DERP!
Black Obsidian - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
Not to mention that if you game at 1680x1050, you don't need a high-end card anyway, and so have no reason to care how they benchmark at your Cro-magnon resolution. If you get a real monitor (1920x1200 or higher), you can come back for the performance numbers already provided in the article.piroroadkill - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
My machines basically all use 16:10 screens. I have two laptops with 15" 1920x1200 screens, my main monitor is a U2410.. 1920x1200..