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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Galidou - Sunday, February 5, 2012 - link
Everyone is against you but still after all that, you continue to beleive in whatever nonsense you say from the beginning. Not even one person in here supported your opinions, whatever the market is, it just means one thing, you are a selfish nvidia HARDCORE fanboy who gets paid by the green goblin to speak your nonsense.....AMD fanboys are intense at times, but you clearly are a madman, the world would say you're wrong that you'd still beleive you're better than everyone else, but if you were, you'd be rich and not spending your time speaking on forums like this one.
SlyNine - Sunday, February 5, 2012 - link
You're kidding right rarson.What metric do you think we should use to determine value if not through precedence.
If you're questioning using precedent as a metering stick for value. Hell even the legal system uses precedents to try and determine law, but to you it's not good enough for video cards.
SlyNine - Sunday, February 5, 2012 - link
yea based on old nods. new nods bring cheaper parts with better performence. THATS WHAT THIS IS ALL ABOUT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!SlyNine - Sunday, February 5, 2012 - link
So the 5870 was priced according to the competition.No you're full of shit because new cards always bring better performence for the price.
SlyNine - Sunday, February 5, 2012 - link
Actually you fail to use logic plenty of times in your arguments. Also I call your consistency in to question.Like for instance, the simple fact that new nods= cheaper performence, not better performence that scales with price.
Not sure why you cannot get that simple bit of logic figured out.
Deo Domuique - Wednesday, February 8, 2012 - link
Hey chizow, your comments kept me eventually away from buying the 7950. I use 12 years gaming PCs and always I had Nvidia. This time would be the first that I'd go to AMD's camp.Although, I already had too many concerns ( especially the high price ), I could't keep myself. But finally, I did. I'll wait for Kepler. If the 7950's price currently was 320-330€ and not 410€, right now I'd have already the card.
Apis - Sunday, April 22, 2012 - link
They are currently dropping the prices for the 7xxx series, I'm found one sapphire 7950 3gb for 360€ when looking right now.Apis - Sunday, April 22, 2012 - link
In this "Compute: Civilization V" benchmark Radeon HD 5870 got 154.9 FPSIn the 6970 review, http://www.anandtech.com/show/4061/amds-radeon-hd-... the 5870 got 181.9 FPS.
Why the regression?
Wolfpup - Friday, July 20, 2012 - link
Traditionally Nvidia's hardware has smashed AMD's for Folding, but it looks like PROBABLY the 7970 and 7950 should be respectable with the new architecture...I can't actually find ANYONE talking about the issue though or benchmarking...