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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Prosthetic Head - Friday, February 3, 2012 - link
I purchased a second hand 4850 and put a nice custom cooler on it about 3.5 years ago. It runs near silent and performs more than adequately in all the games I play. I honestly don't see the excitement in GPU announcements unless they really are game changers (59XX, 9800XT --> 6800, X800 type leaps). I realise I'm not a bleeding edge gamer & some of you are and thats great - It means second hand high end GPUs available regularly for the same price as low end offerings less than a year later.The only thing that tempts me about the new architectures is the compute performance. I actually use this for some computational chemistry work and the upgrade looks well worth it if I do more of this type of work.
The improving performance / power ratio is also of interest since I don't like loud fans, hot computers or excessive electricity consumption.
Galidou - Saturday, February 4, 2012 - link
Don't worry, chizow is a fanboy, there's nothing to do against greenies, they have a closed mind :PHe never said anything wrong about nvidia but sure has a ton of things to say about AMD. He speaks of overclockability of GTX 580, get an answer about how overclockable the 7970 and then changes his mind and says he cares about OC but not much about stock cards OC(which the 7970 seems to do VERY well).
Makes no sense when you say things and then right after what you say has no value for the other team.....
chizow - Saturday, February 4, 2012 - link
No, I said it makes no sense to compare one stock part to one that's overclocked. If you want to compare apples to apples, you overclock both, I have no problem with that and I think you'll find that both parts overclock similarly so the original difference in stock performance holds true.Only a fanboy would try to compare stock to OC results as you and others apparently tried to do.
Galidou - Sunday, February 5, 2012 - link
I never tried to compare any video card, I'm a proud owner of both camps video card, from geforce 2 gts all the way up to 6850 in crossfire and gtx 560 ti in other rig... thing is you never said anything wrong about Nvidia and I can say wrong things and good things about both camps being an owner of MULTIPLE of their cards...Someone with only one side of a story shouldn't be used as a reference for righteousness in judgement... Like taking a judge for an affair of murder while the judge himself is in the family of the murdered one.....
Anyway just my two cents...
chizow - Sunday, February 5, 2012 - link
If you never tried to compare any video card, why are you defending someone who did then?As usual with these kinds of threads arguing with ignorant fanboys, I'm simply keeping things honest and correcting erroneous flaws in facts or logic.
Does it make sense to you to make a comparison about one overclocked part compared to another stock part, then declare the OC'd part the winner based on those results?
Of course not!
As for your two cents, keep them, you will need to save every penny to make the jump from 6850 or GTX 560ti to 7950s at these prices.
Galidou - Sunday, February 5, 2012 - link
There was bad things about AMD and Nvidia in history and thing is you can only mention bad things from one side. I'd never listen to someone that already has a choosen side to speak about ANYTHING in my whole life, simply because you won't be able to hear the absolute truth from the defender of only one side...chizow - Saturday, February 4, 2012 - link
No, but you were talking about me. So, please explain what you think determines pricing in this market since you insist I have no clue, or YOU shut up.Thanks!
chizow - Saturday, February 4, 2012 - link
Yes of course, because it would be negligent not to from any perspective.Anyone who buys something at any point needs to project the market, needs to weigh the potential for obsolescence. That's a large reason why companies do NOT disclose unannounced products as not to erode their own sales before a product goes EOL.
Similarly, it would be negligent if AMD didn't project Nvidia's next-gen parts given they use the same fab and process. And right now, AMD is basically telling you with this price that they either 1) are ignoring Nvidia's 28nm partsor 2) think Nvidia's 28nm parts perform the same as their 40nm parts or 3) don't think their customers are smart enough to realize 1 or 2.
Either way, they're going to look the fool once Nvidia does release their 40nm parts.
chizow - Saturday, February 4, 2012 - link
You mean the super-OC'd Classified 3GB versions that perform within a few % points of the 7970? Yeah of course there are. You'd be a moron not to realize the difference, or you're just being dishonest. With you it could be either.Most 580s are in the same price range as the 7950, $440-500, because once again, they deserved that price tag when they launched 14 months ago and the release of the 7950 has done nothing to make Nvidia drop the price on them.
But as I said, this price and performance level will be retired soon, but obviously not as a result of the "next-gen" Tahiti parts. We'll most likely have to wait for the real "next-gen" parts with Kepler to shift this stagnant price:performance metric.
chizow - Saturday, February 4, 2012 - link
No, only a moron would blow $500 on another card a year later that performs the *SAME* as the card they paid $500 for a year earlier. And that's why the 7950's pricing sucks.There's light at the end of the tunnel, you may finally be getting it lol.