ASUS HD 7790 Direct CU II OC 1 GB

[W1zzard]

Today, AMD released their new Radeon HD 7790 to provide a competitively priced option to gamers. The ASUS HD 7790 DC II comes overclocked out of the box for an even smoother experience. In our testing, we also see amazing noise levels.

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[DarkOCean]

nice review Wizz. 7790 well for me is unimpressive to say the least, 7850/7870/tahiti le are much much better and more cards for the money... this is the 7770 that should've been; my 2 cents.

 

[Mathragh]

Wow, looks like the new architecture really pays off for all the newer DX11 titles.

It consistenly performs below a 6870 in shader heavy DX9 games, but better, or sometimes way better than the 6870 in DX 11 games with lots of tesselation.

I'm wondering about the compute performace of this card. Would it be possible to include a benchmark like the one from http://clbenchmark.com/ sometime in the future? I would imagine with that with the advent of games for the PS4 and such, openCL would become a lot more important for gaming also.

And ofc, nice review once again!

Edit: Did you notice any difference in clocking as a result of the newer powertune technology?

 

[librin.so.1]

'dat performance per watt

 

[LAN_deRf_HA]

I want to like this card, it's so efficient and quiet, but man those are some weak frames.

 

[Ikaruga]

Thanks you for the great review W1zzard. It's really good to see how well the new chip performs on the power consumption side, and the price is also spot on. AMD did a good job.

Just one question:

actually, the card is the most power-efficient one we have ever tested.

Weren't one of the MSI power edition Kepler cards had better figures?

 

[W1zzard]

Thanks you for the great review W1zzard. It's really good to see how well the new chip performs on the power consumption side, and the price is also spot on. AMD did a good job.

Just one question:Weren't one of the MSI power edition Kepler cards had better figures?

don't think so, gtx 650 ti is 5% behind

 

[Ikaruga]

don't think so, gtx 650 ti is 5% behind

Ok, Sorry. I found it in the meantime and I was remembering about this one: http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/GTX_650_Power_Edition/25.html

 

[Emperor_Piehead]

This is a bit too much since 1gb 7850 cards can be found for about $165. If this was to replace the 7770 though that would be great.

 

[badtaylorx]

i liked the review....

however i think that calling the Sapphire's 30/60 more mhz in the o/c "much better" is a little misleading.

a little or a bit better rings better with me....

save "much better" for 100 MHz gains

 

[Frick]

I like the card, especially with the cu2 cooler, but it will have to be at an excellent price point to make sense. Right now the cheapest 7770 is €117, the cheapest 7850 154. One 7790 us listed now at 165. That will come down, but these fancy editions will most likely be more than any 7850 and that is just wrong. What should happen, imo is that the 7770/50 should come down a fair bit, maybe even to 6670 gddr5 levels, and the 7790 should take the 7770's place. Imo. We'll see i guess.

 

[HumanSmoke]

This is a bit too much since 1gb 7850 cards can be found for about $165. If this was to replace the 7770 though that would be great.

Newegg has the XFX 2GB 7850 for $160 after MIR. The Egg also has the MSI GTX 650Ti for $115 after MIR for comparison at the other end of the bracket

 

[Casecutter]

On the technology and architecture fronts it was exactly what I was thinking; although, I'm kind'a going hum, I envisage more? I was hopeful for that 560Ti/6950 realm more often, but it may have to do with the settings. That said, I do say it performs and takes that first "Entry Level" to provide adept gamming on full-HD 1080p all from a cost effective 128 Bit. Give that’s the loin share of the market today it hit the Bull-eye.

Calibrate my expectations and what it does do is great against the GTX650Ti, it just doesn't feel like a card that's 10% off the a 7850 consistently. I'll have to dig around some other reviews to get how it scales when dialing back on settings. Given the performance, power and subsequent price… (I’d like to see folks paying $130 most often) it does everything skillfully.

Today I'm still saying a 7850 1Gb is where to ante-up, as long as you find them in that $160'ish position. Not to say this isn't a great buy, and hopefully Nvidia realizing they had been too greedy (to long) with GTX650Ti and absolutely now needs an actual price adjustment. That said, a 214mm2 GK106 vs. this Bonaire at 160mm2 (25% smaller) can they? If AMD couldn't move a 212mm2 Pitcairn chip lower, can Nvidia drop the GTX650Ti enough "consistently" and hold profit? There where good GTX650Ti cards for $120-130, while reference cards (where the lowest prices hit) more vied the 7770 so $110-120 is understandable.

Was there any hint that this was an LE chip and AMD is stock-piling the "XT" version for some time down the road? What other developments might we see in subsequent new ASIC chips?

 

[HumanSmoke]

Today I'm still saying a 7850 1Gb is where to ante-up, as long as you find them in that $160'ish position.

EOL

Now, sadly, the 7850 1GB is about to disappear from retail listings forever. The Radeon HD 7790 will be its de facto successor - Tech Report
According to AMD, the 7850 1GB is going away because memory makers have stopped producing the 128MB GDDR5 chips it requires. The card has four 64-bit dual-channel memory controllers that must each be fed by two memory chips; it therefore needs eight 128MB chips to achieve a 1GB capacity.

Not to say this isn't a great buy, and hopefully Nvidia realizing they had been too greedy (to long) with GTX650Ti and absolutely now needs an actual price adjustment.

That is already happening to a degree, and has less to do with the HD 7790 than it does the HD 7770. GTX 650 Ti pricing seems to be maintaining a $15-20 premium over that model

That said, a 214mm2 GK106 vs. this Bonaire at 160mm2 (25% smaller) can they? If AMD couldn't move a 212mm2 Pitcairn chip lower, can Nvidia drop the GTX650Ti enough "consistently" and hold profit?

Of course not. Nvidia is doomed...DOOMED!!!!!
Damned Nvidia moving away from that that small die policy that has served them so well over the last six years- the end is surely nigh!
At present, the 7790 prices are solid at MSRP, the pricing gap- taking into account rebates on the 650 Ti and HD 7770 is pretty clearly delineated. At this point it looks like both AMD and Nvidia are "comfortable" with the pricing structure.

I'd be a little wary of comparing second generation 28nm chips to first generation...unless you don't think Nvidia are going to release GK116 and GK117

Was there any hint that this was an LE chip and AMD is stock-piling the "XT" version for some time down the road?

Not as far as I've heard. There are no MC's or cores fused off on Bonaire by all accounts.

 

[Casecutter]

That is already happening to a degree, and has less to do with the HD 7790 than it does the HD 7770. GTX 650 Ti pricing seems to be maintaining a $15-20 premium over that model

I agree with that... AIB's mostly while probably somewhat with help from Nvidia, have of late been pushing down their prices. There was MSI that Iremember offered their nicely equipped Cyclone II for $130-135 -AR, that was quite a few weeks back. I saw that as the first significant card to drop (vs. just the generic reference stuff), and was a good buy over say some nicely OC 7770 Sapphire that had been and still consistently like $125 -AR. But it's true there's been few GTX650Ti moving now, but noticeable most are reference low end builds. Right today that average –AR price on GTX650Ti's are more in the range of $140-160 and that's not going to hold.

While these don’t hit for a few more days and some reviewers' hint that the GTX650 with Boost is not far off to show also, I’m in a wait and see.

 

[HumanSmoke]

I agree with that... AIB's mostly while probably somewhat with help from Nvidia, have of late been pushing down their prices. There was MSI that Iremember offered their nicely equipped Cyclone II for $130-135 -AR, that was quite a few weeks back. I saw that as the first significant card to drop (vs. just the generic reference stuff)....

I think you'll find that the price drops affect more than just an MSI SKU and some "generic reference" stuff. EVGA's line seem to moving downwards (along with Palit's OC card in some markets)

 

[Frick]

EOL 7850 1GB
.

It's a long way until the retailers run out though, at least here. As for now there is no difference in pricing at all between the 7790 and the 7850 1GB. We'll see what happens when they become readily avaliable.