AMD Radeon HD 7950 Review Feat. Sapphire & XFX: Sewing Up The High-End Market
by Ryan Smith on January 31, 2012 9:02 AM ESTBattlefield 3
Its popularity aside, Battlefield 3 may be the most interesting game in our benchmark suite for a single reason: it’s the first AAA DX10+ game. It’s been 5 years since the launch of the first DX10 GPUs, and 3 whole process node shrinks later we’re finally to the point where games are using DX10’s functionality as a baseline rather than an addition. Not surprisingly BF3 is one of the best looking games in our suite, but as with past Battlefield games that beauty comes with a high performance cost
Battlefield 3 was a game the 7970 struggled with at launch, and even with AMD’s driver optimizations they haven’t been able to do a great deal about it so far. As a result the 7950 trails the GTX 580 the entire time by anywhere between 3% and 10%, and unfortunately for AMD BF3 is a very demanding game, making it one of the worst titles to fall behind at. As 2560 is not going to be playable, we’re realistically looking at 1920, where the 7950 is fast enough to crack 60fps, but is where that 10% performance gap is found.
Thankfully for Sapphire and XFX, overclocking is the great equalizer here. With their factory overclocks their cards generally erase the 10% performance gap, taking a very slight lead over the GTX 580 at both 2560 and 1920. Though there continues to be very little difference between the two cards themselves—XFX’s memory overclock is rarely worth more than a frame or two per second.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
259 Comments
View All Comments
SlyNine - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
I think it's you that has been sleeping. You're comparing EBay prices for god sakes. We are talking about new releases.The 5870 released 2 1/2 years ago at 379$. It was 2x as fast as the 4870.
When the 4870 released it cost what, 300$ in mid 2008. It was over 2x as fast as the 3870.
How about the amazing 9700pro at around 400$, In some cases being 4X faster then the 4600TI.
This is perhaps a step up from the to the likes of the 2900XT or 5800ultra. But both of those had some rocking competition to deal with. Like the 8800GTX and the 9700pro.
If you think this 30% better performance is worth 580$ then you have no concept of value.
Phate- - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
It took you long enough to notice. Better to go and have this discussion in the comments of the HD6970 review.Galidou - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
Because it's next gen, performs better for the same price and overclocks probably WAY better plus maybe a chance to mod it to 7970? Is that enough?SlyNine - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
Its not better performance for the same price. This time the price has scaled with performance.Normally when a new GPU gen releases its much better performance at the same price as the previous kings release.
Look at the 9700pro, 8800GTX, 5870. Those were great cards for the time. The 7970 is just, Eh. Not bad enough to be considered a 2900XT or a 5800 Ultra. But at least those 2 cards had much better competition.
bhima - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
Actually, AMD's prices for these cards are SO bad, most people will just wait or buy older tech. Hell at least Intel's Sandy Bridge i5-2500K came out at a reasonable $215 which really isn't that high for the performance you get from it... in fact, there is no other CPU at the same price that even comes close, nor was there a CPU last year for the same price that even comes close. Here, AMD is pricing themselves out of the market.mdlam - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
Right, and their egregious pricing mistake is why all their cards are selling out since launch. Because all of AMD's business MBA's and experts are no match for your idea of "a good deal"Maybe you've noticed that things are usually more expensive at launch because of hype, and the fact that you have the fastest card makes pricing irrelevant. Well hell whatever, you didn't even notice that Sandy bridge 2500k opened up at $260-270 dollars at launch, what's the point in taking this further.
Dribble - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
I noticed that when the 5870 and 5850 came out they blew away the competition and were relatively cheap. What was the 5850 price when it came out - about half of the 7950? Yet the performance leap over previous gen for 5850 was much larger then for 7950. That's why everyone is a bit disappointed.gibsnium - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
The 2500k launched that the same price it is today; bought one from newegg at 219$ at launch.
Master_shake_ - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
doesn't anyone else remember when the 8800 ultra was released and Nvidia threw a thousand dollar price tag on it???how short are your memories??
mdlam - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
I remember it can barely run crysis