AMD Radeon HD 7950 3 GB

devguy · Jan 31, 2012

W1zzard said:
all directx i think. except for rage i couldnt think of an opengl title to use. and rage is fps locked

Would you mind throwing on Unigine Heaven in OpenGL mode (or maybe in the future)? Gives us Linux guys an idea how it'll go, because AMD seems to be slower than usual giving Michael at Phoronix a Tahiti-based card.

BTW, thanks for the review! Might have to get me one.

W1zzard · Jan 31, 2012

Am* said:
could you post the power modes/clock profiles and their clockrates please (2D/Blu-ray/3D)? I couldn't find them in the review, not sure if I missed it.

end of the overclocking page

Am* · Jan 31, 2012

W1zzard said:
end of the overclocking page

How did you get the profiles? These don't look right, as on your old Fermi reviews, you've missed out one of the power profiles; not sure if it's the case here or not just yet.

W1zzard · Jan 31, 2012

Am* said:
How did you get the profiles? These don't look right, as on your old Fermi reviews, you've missed out one of the power profiles; not sure if it's the case here or not just yet.

how do they look wrong?

i just measured clocks using gpuz while doing whatever is listed in that row

what did i do wrong in my fermi reviews? i don't like the predefined clock profiles. i list interesting tasks and the actual state of clocks

Am* · Jan 31, 2012

W1zzard said:
how do they look wrong?

i just measured clocks using gpuz while doing whatever is listed in that row

what did i do wrong in my fermi reviews? i don't like the predefined clock profiles. i list interesting tasks and the actual state of clocks

On your Fermi reviews, you completely missed the low-power 3D profiles, where the VRAM clocks stay the same, but the core clocks down to about 450MHz. That's how Nvidia skewed the power consumption results for all their newer cards since 200 series, because during loading screens/menus in game or a generally un-dermanding sections in games, they drop clocks to get lower average power consumption, whereas all AMD cards up to 6000 series haven't had this power profile and looked worse, when in reality they were much better for gaming.

I need to know if this series of cards introduced this power profile as well, because they cause a lot of compatibility problems and stability issues for quite a few titles and makes them FUBAR without a BIOS flash.

Sasqui · Jan 31, 2012

W1zzard said:
furmark is not a benchmark.

Tell ozone3d that! ... they seem to think of it as burn in and benchmark:

W1zzard said:
ask your colleage what applications are interesting, what datasets he uses to fully load his card.

Right now, Navisworks and Revit (Autodesk products, Navisworks was a relatively recent acqusition). Can get versions if you are interested.

Delta6326 · Jan 31, 2012

Freaking awesome review and card! I really don't see why people keep bashing these cards they are great, who cares about price its the very first day of release.

This makes me want to give up my power hungry CF 4850's they are around 58% of this 7950 and they use roughly
Idle- CF-76W
Average- CF- 192W
Peak- CF-220W
Maximum- CF-294W

W1zzard · Jan 31, 2012

Am* said:
On your Fermi reviews, you completely missed the low-power 3D profiles, where the VRAM clocks stay the same, but the core clocks down to about 450MHz. That's how Nvidia skewed the power consumption results for all their newer cards since 200 series, because during loading screens/menus in game or a generally un-dermanding sections in games, they drop clocks to get lower average power consumption, whereas all AMD cards up to 6000 series haven't had this power profile and looked worse, when in reality they were much better for gaming.

I need to know if this series of cards introduced this power profile as well, because they cause a lot of compatibility problems and stability issues for quite a few titles and makes them FUBAR without a BIOS flash.

i see only 3 clock profiles in my gtx 580 bios. you say there are more ?

nt300 · Jan 31, 2012

I have question can this card be unlocked into a HD 7970? The results are impressive

Delta6326 · Jan 31, 2012

nt300 said:
I have question can this card be unlocked into a HD 7970? The results are impressive

No. Already been asked.

Damn_Smooth said:
Does it unlock?

W1zzard said:
not the two samples i got. i checked

dj-electric · Jan 31, 2012

W1zz, when you overclocked did you messed with PowerTune?

m1dg3t · Jan 31, 2012

Nice review, very thorough

The performance/efficiency make's me want but the price send's me home, will wait for price drop's :cool:

Good job AMD, looking forward to future release's of 28nm GPU's

OneCool · Jan 31, 2012

I have to say for stock clocks im not impressed but with that said AMD has a lot of driver work to do.

The overclock on that card is crazy :eek:

Wonder why AMD clocked them so low out the box?

SK-1 · Feb 1, 2012

Thank you for another excellent review W1zz!
First price drop...I'm getting 2 (employment provided)

thematrix606 · Feb 1, 2012

Awesome review! Decent but overpriced card, good specs though and OC potential.

Thanks!

LAN_deRf_HA · Feb 1, 2012

Did you test performance after doing the 7970 bios flash? Someone reported increased performance. The assumption being it's from better vram timings.

m1dg3t · Feb 1, 2012

AFAIK these can NOT be flashed, it has been posted in several thread's

LAN_deRf_HA · Feb 1, 2012

m1dg3t said:
AFAIK these can NOT be flashed, it has been posted in several thread's

You mean the shaders can't be unlocked? I know that. If you mean you can't flash a 7970 bios that's the first I've heard, and contradicts earlier results.

NdMk2o1o · Feb 2, 2012

crow1001 said:
Underwhelming cards are underwhelming, really no buzz with these new 28nm AMD cores, their high price and not exactly amazing performance compared to the old Nvidia cards makes for a lackluster release. If Nvidia don't trounce these AMD GPU's with the 28nm kepler then they deserve to go under.

$50 cheaper than a GTX 580 and the same performance out of the box, nearly 1/2 the power consumption and overclocks to the hills, really underwhelming :rolleyes:

if anything your comment is the only "underwhelming" things about this thread.

And FYI for the last few generations this is how it has been between ATI and NV, NV always taking the perfomance corwn with ATI playing catch up and just about beating them with their newer cards and NV releases 6 months later to start the whole cycle again.

I do kind of agree about 1 point and that is the cost, though the cost is solely based to compete with NV on price>performance and now the 580 is no longer the single fastest card the prices will eventually come down and so will the ATI prices.

Brod · Feb 21, 2012

Many of your benchmarks are clearly CPU limited. Time to ditch that ancient Nehalem setup and get a 3960X if you want to remain relevant...

cadaveca · Feb 21, 2012

First, I cannot speak for W1zz. This is my own personal opinion.

Brod said:
Many of your benchmarks are clearly CPU limited.

Not really:

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/HD_7970_CPU_Scaling/

Time to ditch that ancient Nehalem setup and get a 3960X if you want to remain relevant...

TPU already has 3960X. It's been used here:

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/GSkill/F3-17000CL9Q-16GBZH/

and here:

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Gigabyte/X79-UD5/

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ASUS/P9X79_Deluxe/

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/ECS/X79R-AX/

And I have three more reviews incoming using it as well.

The cost of the X79 platform is prohibitive to most readers, it seems, so it makes more sense to use a platform that accurately portrays what most users that view the site will get. If they get a couple of FPS more, and not less, to me, that's a good thing. It's been several months since the launch, and we have only a few X79 users. If all the users here had X79, I'm sure W1zz would be using the 3960X.

That said, all of my own personal testing seems to show that it's not really CPU limitations, but memory limitations, that affect game performance more often than not. That said, now that IMC's are integrated into the GPU, there are limitations imposed by any platform, and the CPU used, and X79 has it's own set of limitations as well. Popular opinion of review sites says that SKT 1155 is the platform of choice, with the best price/performance ratio, so if anything, I think W1zz would use SKT 1155 before SKT 2011.

Brod · Feb 24, 2012

What users can afford is beside the point. The purpose of a GPU review is to show readers what the GPU is capable of, which means any and all non-GPU bottlenecks should be reduced as much as possible. Anything else is an inaccurate representation of the product.

cadaveca said:
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/AMD/HD_7970_CPU_Scaling/

Of the 15 games tested, 10 are shown to not be GPU limited at 1680x1050 with Nehalem. Thanks for reinforcing my point...

Jdat · Mar 2, 2012

Has the metal shim the same hight than the gpu core? Will I be able to use my old cooler tr shaman?

Mistral · Mar 5, 2012

Brod said:
Of the 15 games tested, 10 are shown to not be GPU limited at 1680x1050 with Nehalem. Thanks for reinforcing my point...

What, you think people have money to burn on a X79 system but can't afford a decent 1080p+ screen? That'd be some really wrong prioritizing. And even at CPU limited low resolutions you can still see where the cards are relative to one another.

cadaveca · Mar 5, 2012

Brod said:
What users can afford is beside the point. The purpose of a GPU review is to show readers what the GPU is capable of, which means any and all non-GPU bottlenecks should be reduced as much as possible. Anything else is an inaccurate representation of the product.

I do not agree, but your point is noted.

:toast:

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AMD Radeon HD 7950 3 GB

devguy

W1zzard

Administrator

Am*

W1zzard

Administrator

Am*

Sasqui

Delta6326

W1zzard

Administrator

nt300

Delta6326

dj-electric

m1dg3t

OneCool

SK-1

thematrix606

LAN_deRf_HA

m1dg3t

LAN_deRf_HA

NdMk2o1o

Brod

New Member

cadaveca

My name is Dave

Brod

New Member

Jdat

New Member

Mistral

cadaveca

My name is Dave

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