The new Radeon HD 7790 is based on AMD's new Bonaire graphics core, which is an evolutionary step towards new GPU technology. It uses more shaders and a new dynamic clock algorithm that promises higher performance than AMD's original PowerTune Boost. In our testing, we see nice performance results that sit right in-between the HD 7770 GHz Edition and HD 7850. This makes the HD 7790 capable of full-HD 1080p gaming, but you might have to go easy on anti-aliasing levels or reduce details slightly for the best gaming experience with some titles. XFX has overclocked both GPU and memory on their card, which provides a 6% real-life performance boost over the reference design. They also doubled the amount of video memory from 1 GB to 2 GB, which does not make a significant difference for a card in this performance class. We do see some improvements at 2560x1600 in Far Cry 3, and I expect to see similar improvements in Crysis 3, but the HD 7790 is really not capable of 2560x1600 gaming, no matter the amount of VRAM. Our test suite showed no improvements at 1920x1200 and below, which is the expected result for such a memory size. However, XFX not asking a price premium for the extra memory does make sense to me because more memory does have a psychological effect that draws buyers to these cards (no matter if it makes sense or not).
Overclocking on our card worked well, and GPU clock reached the expected levels for a Bonaire GPU. Memory, on the other hand, overclocked exceedingly well, reaching 1940 MHz, which is about 200 MHz more than on any other HD 7790 card. What makes this even more amazing is that the card has twice the memory, which is uncooled. Both usually translate into worse memory OC. Unfortunately, voltage control is not possible at this time because all cards use a new voltage controller that is incompatible with current overclocking software.
Power consumption is a bit higher than the 1 GB HD 7790 reference design, due to the extra memory and higher clock speeds, and the changed VRM circuitry might also have an effect, but the overall increase is very reasonable and the card still delivers great performance per watt scores. In our testing, the card never exceeded 115W, not even in Furmark, so it will run perfectly fine with weaker power supplies—something important in this market segment. While slightly improved, Blu-ray power consumption is still not as good as that of NVIDIA's cards, but we are getting there.
I really like XFX's cooler. It looks nice and unique, and the metal it uses also makes it feel qualitatively higher than the plastic coolers on other cards. In terms of cooling performance, we see results comparable to other HD 7790 cards. Noise levels are great, the card is definitely quiet, but I see a bit more potential to quieten the card down to match offerings of other board partners like ASUS. There is lots of temperature headroom to do so.
The reference design 1 GB HD 7790 comes at a very reasonable $150, and XFX has not deviated from that despite higher clock speeds out of the box and an extra 1 GB of memory. All HD 7790 cards come with a Bioshock Infinite game coupon—one of the most anticipated titles this season. If you don't need the game, you can easily sell the coupon for $20-$30, which will help offset the cost of the card. All this makes the XFX HD 7790 the best HD 7790 we have tested so far. It's really a no-brainer if you are in the market for a HD 7790. It does everything any other HD 7790 does and gives you the peace of mind 2 GB of VRAM provide.