AMD Radeon HD 7790 Review Feat. Sapphire: The First Desktop Sea Islands
by Ryan Smith on March 22, 2013 12:01 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
- AMD
- Sapphire
- GCN
- Radeon HD 7000
Final Words
Bringing our review to a close, the launch of the Radeon HD 7790 is another precisely targeted launch by AMD. The 7790 is intended to fill AMD’s price and performance gaps between the 7770 and the 7850, and it does this very well, offering 84% of the 7850’s performance – or 130% of the 7770’s performance – for around $30 less than the 7850. In the world of sub-$200 video cards where every $10 matters, this is exactly what AMD needs to fill in their product lineup.
Meanwhile as the first GCN 1.1 GPU, Bonaire doesn’t greet us with any great surprises, and if not for the new PowerTune implementation it would be indistinguishable from Southern Islands (GCN 1.0). With that said AMD already had a strong architecture in GCN 1.0, so even minor changes such as PowerTune and a new GPU configuration serve to make a good architecture better. The new PowerTune will probably take enthusiasts a bit of time to get used to, but ultimately we’re happy to see AMD moving to using just full clock/voltage states and not relying on their clockspeed-only inferred states, as the former is going to offer more power savings. As for AMD’s functional unit layout for Bonaire – 14 CUs, 2 geometry pipelines, and 16 ROPs – it looks to have paid off handsomely for them. They’ve improved performance by quite a bit without having to add too many transistors or a larger memory bus, making it a great way to iterate on GCN midway between new process nodes.
The big question of course is whether 7790 is worth its $149 price tag, and factory overclocked models like the Sapphire worth the $159 price tag. From a pure price/performance perspective, right now things look pretty good for AMD and their partners. Against the rest of the 7000 series it has a very clear niche to fill, which is does so but without being so good as to make the 7850 redundant. Meanwhile against NVIDIA’s GeForce GTX 650 Ti things are still in AMD’s favor but it’s a bit murkier. A 12% performance advantage is distinct, but AMD’s also asking for nearly $20 more than most cheap GTX 650 Tis. At these prices there’s really no concept of a sweet spot since consumers often have fixed budgets, so instead we’ll point out that NVIDIA simply doesn’t have a suitable $150 video card right now; all they can offer are factory overclocked GTX 650 Ti cards.
Speaking of factory overclocked cards, our Sapphire HD 7790 Dual-X OC was exactly what we expected it to be. A 6-7% increase in clockspeeds leads to a 6% performance increase, showing that 7790 achieves the performance scaling necessary to make these cards viable. In this case overclocked cards are a very straightforward proposition: $10-$20 more for 6% more performance and typically a better cooler. This is all rather normal for factory overclocked cards, though we would point out that we have no reason to believe these overclocks aren’t achievable on stock-clocked cards.
Our one concern with the 7790 right now is one of memory size. Adding another 1GB of GDDR5 would definitely have a price impact, and having 2GB of GDDR5 on a 128bit bus would be a bit odd. But on the other hand we now know what the future of PC gaming holds: a lot of ports coming from a console with 8GB of GDDR5 memory. 1GB is going to look very small in a year’s time as those ports start arriving.
Ultimately we’re reminded of a discussion we had with the launch of the GTX 650 Ti last year, when we had the time to look at 2GB vs. 1GB on the 650 Ti and the 7850. Our conclusion at the time was such: “We have reached that point where if you’re going to be spending $150 or more that you shouldn’t be settling for a 1GB card; this is the time where 2GB cards are going to become the minimum for performance gaming video cards.” That conclusion has not changed. The 7790 looks good among the current crop of cards, but the 2GB 7850 is going to be so much more future-proof, at least in as much as a video card can be. At these prices consumer budgets are typically fixed and for good reason, but with 2GB 7850s available at around $180, it’s a very compelling upgrade for the extra $30. In 2013 it’s something worth considering if you want to keep a video card for at least a couple of years.
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Death666Angel - Friday, March 22, 2013 - link
"pulling 7W more than the 7770, a hair more than the 5W difference in AMD’s TBP"That 5W is not at the wall though. Factoring in rounding PSU efficiencies, it's very possible that the cards are only drawing 5W more. :)
"The Sapphire card, despite being overclocked, draws 6W less than our reference 7790."
Seeing how the Sapphire runs cooler in Furmark, that might explain a Watt or two in reduced power draw, coupled with the efficiency of the PSU, it might explain three or four even. :)
pandemonium - Saturday, March 23, 2013 - link
"NVIDIA has for a long time set the bar on efficiency, but with the 7790 it looks like AMD will finally edge out NVIDIA."What is your definition of a long time? As far as efficiency standards, I consider AMD to be better for the end result when looking at the full definition and application of the word. See the spreadsheet I created here about 16 months ago to understand what I mean: http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=21507...
silverblue - Saturday, March 23, 2013 - link
You just called Ryan a "dummy", did you, without even checking the statement further down which reads:"For anyone looking to pick up a 7790 today, this is being launched ahead of actual product availability (likely to coincide with GDC 2013 next week). Cards will start showing up in the market on April 2nd, which is about a week and a half from now."
If YOU had read the article, blah blah dumb idiot blah blah. As you've not replied to anybody in particular, your mistargeted rants could be construed as being directed toward the staff themselves, so keep it up and you won't HAVE to worry about what AT is reviewing in future.
Bottom line - it's faster than the 650 Ti, it's looking to be more efficient than the 650 Ti, and oh look, both have 1GB of GDDR5 on a 128-bit memory interface, which you seem to have forgotten when you leapt down AMD's throat about the 7790, and when you went on your childish tirade about the 5770's 128-bit memory interface earlier.
As far as I recall, Ryan didn't mention anything about when Titan was available to buy, only that it had launched. Pretty much blows your theory of Ryan hating NVIDIA out of the water, doesn't it?
I'm not sure if I've said this before, and apologies to everybody else if I have, but I'm done with you, full stop. I can only hope everybody else here decides that not feeding the ignorance you perpetuate on every single AMD article would save them time they could be devoting to something far less boring instead.
To the staff - is there anything you can do to introduce an Ignore List? Thanks in advance for your response.
silverblue - Saturday, March 23, 2013 - link
A note about threading - doesn't look to be stepping in consistently, so sometimes it's a little difficult to see whom replied to whom.CeriseCogburn - Sunday, March 24, 2013 - link
You got eveything wrong again, and you failed to read the article not I, and you failed to read my reply addressing half your idiotic non points, so you're the non reader, fool.Now I have to correct you multiple times. And you're a waste.
650TI overclocks and it's only faster in a few amd favor games which are here, of course.
Strike one for tardboy.
650Ti runs fine OC'd too, which it does well: " We pushed Gigabyte's GeForce GTX 650 as far as it'd go and achieved a maximum core overclock of 1125 MHz, with the GDDR5 memory operating at 1600. All it took was a 1.15 V GPU voltage. "
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforce-gtx-65...
The 128 bit bus - REPAYMENT for you FOOLS SQUEALING prior, what's so hard to understand ?
Did you forget all your WHINING ?
Did you forget your backing up the FAILED theorists with the nVidia dual speed memory ?
ROFL
You're up to strike 4 already.
" Ryan didn't mention anything about when Titan was available to buy, only that it had launched. Pretty much blows your theory of Ryan hating NVIDIA out of the water, doesn't it?"
NO, so why would it be mentioned if he didn't want anyone to buy it ? Why mention it, that would key in to save for release date, right ?
Instead we get this gem first off in BOLD to start the article: " Who’s Titan For, Anyhow? "
Guess that just crushed your idiot backwards bullhockey forever.
For all you know Ryan mentioned release date anyway.
You're not "done with me", you get everything WRONG, so you'll be opening your big fat piehole forever, that's how people like you do it. Idiot amd fanboys, all the same.
Also a beggar child for extra "control", since you "can't be an adult and control yourself" - please give me an ignore button ! I'm a crybaby who can't handle it !
ROFL
philipma1957 - Sunday, March 24, 2013 - link
One question does your 650Ti pays for itself? this amd will pay for itself via bitcoin. even with the asics. especially if you heat your home with electrical heat.nuff said
Rajan7667 - Sunday, March 24, 2013 - link
@form @LinusTech This is new New app for intel lovers. http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/gamers/vip-... …colonelclaw - Sunday, March 24, 2013 - link
To Ryan and staffAs a long-time admirer of AnandTech, I always enjoy reading pretty much every article you post, and have immense respect for all your writers.
However, I am now utterly fed up with the direction the comment discussions have taken. The general pattern is they start out as debates and end up as pretty nasty personal attacks that have nothing to do with the articles. You may say 'don't read the comments', to which I reply that they used to be an extension of the articles themselves, and were always a source of valuable information.
It pains me to say this, but if you don't start removing the trolls I will no longer come to this site at all, and I would guess I am not alone in having this opinion.
haze4peace - Sunday, March 24, 2013 - link
I agree 100% and actually sent off a few emails to the staff earlier in the day. I urge others to do so as well so we can put this problem behind us.KnightRAF - Monday, March 25, 2013 - link
I agree the trolls are out of control and need some pruning back. They have massively lessened my enjoyment of the site the last couple of times I've visited.