AMD Radeon HD 7950 Review Feat. Sapphire & XFX: Sewing Up The High-End Market
by Ryan Smith on January 31, 2012 9:02 AM ESTPortal 2
Portal 2 continues the long and proud tradition of Valve’s in-house Source engine. While Source continues to be a DX9 engine, Valve has continued to upgrade it over the years to improve its quality, and combined with their choice of style you’d have a hard time telling it’s over 7 years old at this point. Consequently Portal 2’s performance does get rather high on high-end cards, but we have ways of fixing that…
Portal 2 ends up being the first game that the 7950 fails to surpass the GTX 580 regardless of the resolution. At 2560 it only trails the GTX 580 by 2%, but at 1920 this widens to 6%, and when we enable SSAA this gap doubles to a surprisingly large 12%. The use of SSAA is especially hard on shader throughput as evidenced by the 20% gap between the 7970 and 7950, though this makes the gap between the 7950 and GTX 580 all the more curious since the 7950 has otherwise proven itself quite capable. Overclocking helps quite a bit here, with the factory overclocked cards gaining 9-13%, but it’s still not enough to push past the GTX 580 once SSAA is involved.
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chizow - Sunday, February 5, 2012 - link
No its not my standard, its the standard for what the market will bear using historical data points as my evidence.Buts its fine, its clear illogical and irrational people such as yourself don't have any standard to determine buy decisions, which is fine too.
Ignorance is bliss.
Galidou - Sunday, February 5, 2012 - link
LOL ultimate knowledge is crazyness...Galidou - Sunday, February 5, 2012 - link
I'm not saying at ANY time that the pricing is super right, that it is the right thing to do, I'm just saying from the beginning that it isn'T the worse that ever happened while you're making a freaking case of it.Galidou - Sunday, February 5, 2012 - link
And btw, the freaking card is around 75-90% faster than a 6950 which isn't bad. Nothing amazing but... That gtx 280 was around 65% to 100% faster than a 8800gt(2 gen below gtx2xx series).Galidou - Sunday, February 5, 2012 - link
Whenever any card came out there was already a part that was an x2 card more powerful and cheaper that what was actually out there, what'S new today?JNo - Thursday, February 2, 2012 - link
@chizow,You keep writing like AMD couldn't adjust their prices after Kepler's launch. Also, you do realise that AMD isn't competing with nvidia's 580 from a year ago right? They are competing with it *right now*.
Well done if you bought the 580 a year ago but which card is better value today if you're a buyer? Right now the 7970 looks to be a better price performance proposition. If AMD's pricing makes the 580 look poor, nvidia are free to adjust their pricing but I'd go for the 7950 personally as it is right now.
And no point pre-judging AMD pricing based on a for 'after the Kepler launch' argmument. Just because nvidia haven't adjusted pricing downwards, doesn't mean AMD won't.
I'm not an AMD fan (I buy both camps) but your arguments don't make sense.
chizow - Thursday, February 2, 2012 - link
@JNoI'm not ignoring that possibility at all, I've actually alluded to the possibility on numerous occasions with my "when Kepler launches" comments. It hinges greatly on what Nvidia does of course and how Kepler performs but I don't think ANYONE expects Nvidia to introduce "next-gen" parts at last-gen performance levels because that's the ONLY way AMD's current pricing on these Tahiti parts will make sense. Why? Because they're basing next-gen pricing on last-gen performance.
Instead, what's most likely to happen based on historical pricing and performance metrics, Nvidia will release a new line-up that will completely shift the current market that effectively makes last-gen price/performance obsolete and establishing a new metric that will offer roughly +50% performance at the same price points. Again, mountains of historical evidence from both Nvidia and AMD back my point. This is what is expected from "Next-Gen" architectures on "Next-Gen" fabrication processes.
What AMD is doing here is cashing in short-term profits but ignoring long-term repercussions. As I stated in another comment, the people most likely to buy this product are AMD's most devout and loyal fans. IF they have to drop the pricing on these Tahiti parts because they were forced to so shortly after launch as a result of Nvidia's Kepler price/performance, how do you think these early adopters are going to feel? Their biggest fans are going to feel the biggest burn.
There is precedence for this with the GTX 280 launch. Nvidia did right by their customers by issuing rebate checks for $100-150 per card. Do you think AMD is willing to do the same? Just something to consider.
Sabresiberian - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
People like you love to look at benchmark results that support their statements, and ignore the rest of them.Your statement is no more accurate than the statements of those that say the 7970 is barely faster than the GTX 580.
;)
swx2 - Thursday, February 2, 2012 - link
Are you listening to your self? did you just say that a overclocked 7970 (current gen card) is JUST NOW competitive with a last gen card? And you think that AMD has done well with this accomplishment?...what-is-this-i-don't-even...
Iketh - Tuesday, January 31, 2012 - link
Ladies and gentlemen, drugs are bad for you.