AMD Radeon HD 7950 Review Feat. Sapphire & XFX: Sewing Up The High-End Market
by Ryan Smith on January 31, 2012 9:02 AM ESTMeet the XFX R7950 Black Edition Double Dissipation
Our second partner card of the day is XFX’s R7950 Black Edition Double Dissipation. Like the 7970 Black Edition Double Dissipation we reviewed earlier this month, the 7950 BEDD is a factory overclocked card (Black Edition) using XFX’s Double Dissipation cooler.
Starting with the overclock, XFX is shipping the 7950 BEDD with a core clock of 900MHz and a memory clock of 5.5GHz. This represents a 100MHz (12.5%) core clock overclock and 500MHz (10%) memory clock overclock, putting it just shy of the 925MHz core clock the 7970 ships at.
In terms of construction like all of the other 7950 cards launching today XFX is using AMD’s 7950 PCB. This means the PCB measures 10.25” long and features 2 6pin PCIe power sockets towards the rear of the card, while at the front the card uses the AMD standard port configuration of 1 DL-DVI, 1 HDMi, and 2 mini-DisplayPorts. The one notable deviation here from the Sapphire card is that XFX has not included a BIOS selection switch, so the card lacks any kind of ability to easily recover from a bad BIOS flash, and if unlocking proves viable it would not be a good candidate for the process.
Meanwhile cooling is provided by XFX’s Double Dissipation cooler. This is the same heatsink and fan assembly we saw with the 7970 BEDD, which makes this an open air cooler using a pair of fans to push air along an aluminum heatsink running almost the entire length of the card. Because it’s the same assembly, the shrouding for the card sticks out over the end of the PCB, negating the benefit of the shorter 7950 PCB and making the card 10.65” long just like the 7970 BEDD.
Top: 7950 BEDD. Bottom: 7970 BEDD
Do note that while it uses the same fan and heatsink assembly, Double Dissipation does not mean it uses the same vapor chamber assembly to transfer heat from the card. Where the 7970 BEDD used a fairly large vapor chamber, the 7950 BEDD uses a much smaller vapor chamber that only makes contact with roughly half of the heatsink, meaning that heat isn’t being transferred to the extremities of the heatsink nearly as well on the 7950 BEDD. Furthermore the aluminum plate covering the RAM and MOSFETs is poorly sized, leaving parts of the RAM chips (and their thermal pads) exposed. We’ll see how this plays out when we get to our testing, but the 7950 BEDD is clearly not as well built as the 7970 BEDD.
Rounding out the package is the same collection of extras that we saw in the 7970 BEDD. Inside you’ll find the usual driver CD and quick start guide, along with a metal XFX case badge, a mid-length CrossFire bridge, and a passive HDMI to SL-DVI adaptor. All of this is packed in one of XFX’s pleasantly small boxes, which doesn’t use much more space than the card itself.
The MSRP on the 7950 BEDD is $499, $50 over the MSRP for a regular 7950 and making it one of the more expensive 7950s launching today. XFX is offering a base 2 year warranty on the 7950 BEDD, which can be extended to a lifetime warranty by registering the card within 30 days of purchasing it.
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chizow - Sunday, February 5, 2012 - link
Typical, resort to histrionics instead of facts and reasoning when arguing.Like I said, the value in the mid-range is there every single generation, not just with the 8800GT. There's a reason why AnandTech and many other sites proclaimed that launch "The Only Card that Matters" and since then any similar card that offers that same price:performance metric relative to the high end is affectionately referred to as "the next 8800GT" like the GTX 460/560 etc.
Galidou - Sunday, February 5, 2012 - link
Still you won't take any arguments that will justify paying triple the price of a card for not even double the performance, or paying more for a card that offer less performance than a last gen x2 card NEVER.That gtx280 was really mispriced and Nvidia took people for dummies by pricing it so high for the performance you gained. The most performance you saw out of those was due to the first over 1gb memory in high resolution like 2560 which applied to not even .5% of the gaming population back then
I don'T care about the titles, titles mean nothing to me that ''only card that matters'' doesn'T change the fact that paying triple the price for a video card for not even double the performance is tanking people for dummies.
Galidou - Sunday, February 5, 2012 - link
We should be happy that Ati doesn't use such pricing technique because it competes against last gen refreshed video cards and justify to pay a higher % price than the % of performance you gain.chizow - Sunday, February 5, 2012 - link
Yeah they use far worst, at least this time.They offer linear scaling of price and performance instead of offering better performance at the same prices which you would expect from a next-gen chip.
chizow - Sunday, February 5, 2012 - link
Why would I take any of your arguments when they are CLEARLY flawed.Its funny why don't you try using those arguments to justify the 7970's pricing? LMAO. Triple? Its not even DOUBLE the performance of previous mid-range cards.
Or previous x2 cards? The 7970 isn't even in the same discussion as the 6990 or GTX 590.
And of course, we've already covered how it falls completely short with regard to previous generation single-GPU flagship cards. Yet AMD somehow thinks it was worth a 10% increase in prices, something not even Nvidia has done since the 8800GTX.
What's REALLY funny though is how you seem to think the GTX 280 was priced for dummies given it actually meets the standards for next-gen GPUs and deserved its price, yet see NOTHING wrong at all with the pricing of the 7970.
Now what does that say about you and those defending it??? :(
Galidou - Sunday, February 5, 2012 - link
It's not double the performance but not double the price either still 7950 performance of gtx580 for cheaper price, convinces me enough to say it isn't taking people for dummies...chizow - Sunday, February 5, 2012 - link
Yeah once again, selective application of flawed logic.Like I said, Tahiti meets none of the established standards you'd expect from a flagship part while the GTX 280.
Yet you think the GTX 280 was priced for dummies and the 7970/7950's pricing is perfectly justified?
Honestly that just makes you look dishonest.
Or the exact type of customer AMD is looking to entice maybe! :D
Galidou - Sunday, February 5, 2012 - link
LOL I'm not even looking at changing video card but I can say bad things about ATI but you'Re definitely 1: a hardcore Nvidia fanboy or 2: they pay you to say things about standard justifying stupid prices... lol standard, what an argument, next tie I'll buy a video card, I'll try to forget a little about perfromance and look at the standard...chizow - Sunday, February 5, 2012 - link
and galidou goes off the deepend folks.Galidou - Sunday, February 5, 2012 - link
mets the standard, now chizow is our standard expert, point is I look at numbers, not standard, triple the price not double the performance, I don'T care abbout the standard when I game with it on my computer.Oh wait my game stopped playing, it tells me, this video card doesn'T meet the standard for it'S price... OMG I should of cared more....