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Hardware AMD Radeon HD 7950 3GB Review

Discussion in 'Article Discussion' started by brumgrunt, 31 Jan 2012.

  1. brumgrunt

    brumgrunt What's a Dremel?

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  2. billysielu

    billysielu Minimodder

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    It'll shake the market up if you don't buy them until the prices go down. *fixed*
     
  3. damien c

    damien c Mad FPS Gamer

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    Look's good but I am still waiting for Nvidia to release there new card's before I make my choice.
     
  4. lilgoth89

    lilgoth89 Captin Calliope

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    i wonder if these would be able to be 'flashed' like the 6950 < 6970's used to
     
  5. xaser04

    xaser04 Ba Ba Ba BANANA!

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    I nearly LOL'd at the prices over at Overclockers. The cheapest model is £360, whilst the custom cooled (but reference PCB) and OC'd models are nigh on £400.

    I paid under £420 for my HD7970 FFS.
     
  6. murraynt

    murraynt Modder

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    There's alot of overclocking headroom with these new ATI cards. I expected the 7950 to be a bit cheaper though.
     
  7. Pookie

    Pookie Illegitimi non carborundum

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    I spy with my little eye a BIOS switch :)
     
  8. Parge

    Parge the worst Super Moderator

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    STOP surprising us with AMD launches!
     
  9. SolidShot

    SolidShot Minimodder

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    Amd is basically playing against someone who is afk and is trying to rack up a massive score before the other person comes back and continues to rape them.

    Yawn. Bring on the big green machine please :)
     
  10. McDuff32

    McDuff32 Minimodder

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    When are the next set of Nvidia cards rumoured to come out?

    Also I like that overclocking the 7950 takes it above the stock 7970.
     
  11. Snips

    Snips I can do dat, giz a job

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    As xaser04 said above, why not pay the extra £20 and get a proper 7970?
     
  12. Baz

    Baz I work for Corsair

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    We asked AMD directly; they said nope, not possible. The BIOS switch is merely there as a backup, as it was originally intended. Won't stop some people trying though!

    In regards to pricing, we can only write reviews based on what e-tailers tell us, which was £349.99 - stock models seem to be going to £355, which isn;t too far off, although you'll always pay the premium for fancy overclocked versions.

    We'll be water-cooling both the HD 7950 and HD 7970 at some point too, so watch out for that in the future.
     
  13. Tattysnuc

    Tattysnuc Thinking about which mod to do 1st.

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    Were any badgers harmed in the making of this review? :)

    Great to see new hardware - an excellent review. I hope to see the article updated accordingly.

    Any news on water blocks for these?
     
  14. Kris

    Kris Lord Lolwut

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    Thanks for the review Harry!

    Great to see that you have changed the review setup: less cards, less pointless resolutions and Eyefinity testing!

    However, for me what the eyefinity results show, is that "at these settings with X lvl of AA" the game is totally unplayable.

    Perhaps revisit those / do a separate article where you acctually test to see the limits of what compromises you have to do to get games perfectly playable at 5040x1050, 5760x1080 etc. I hope you get my idea :)

    Feel free to check out Hardocp's reviews for some inspiration ;)
     
  15. BrightCandle

    BrightCandle What's a Dremel?

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    Thanks for the 5760x1080 resolutions, those really show how to push one of these cards past its limit.
     
  16. xaser04

    xaser04 Ba Ba Ba BANANA!

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    To give you a quick idea in BF3 my HD7970 at 1125/6600 returns 56.6FPS average and 40FPS minimum at 3560x1920* "High" settings with medium post AA.

    Ultra settings with 4xAA in the same test section (5 minute playthrough of Operation Swordbreaker) is totally unplayable. Tri CFX would be a minimum at these settings in my opinion.

    I have a thread detailing my results in the Hardware section.

    (Link to my review: Here)

    An interesting point is that my HD7970 returns basically the same framerate at 3560x1920 "high" as it does at 1080p Ultra with 4xAA. The doesn't look appreciably worse either (High vs Ultra) so it is very enjoyable.

    *3560x1920 is comparable to 5760x1080 in overall resolution terms.
     
    Last edited: 31 Jan 2012
  17. Hustler

    Hustler Minimodder

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    Have to say that so far these 79xx cards have left me distinctly unimpressed.

    For the money, the speed bumps over the 69xx cards is really quite small, given that this is a shiny new 28nm process and a new rendering architecture.

    Here's hoping the 78xx cards are where it's at in terms of value/performance...although i suspect we will have to wait until nvidia turns up to the party before a modicum of sanity returns to the pricing levels.
     
  18. fingerbob69

    fingerbob69 Minimodder

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    So....are you gonna do a buyers guide (last one was in September!)? And would the 7970/7950 be the recommendation?

    Afterall, every rumour site and his dog is saying that nVidia's next new card wont be out til end of March/begining of April and I can't believe Bit-tech would start advising a "wait for jam tomorrow" strategy
     
  19. r3loaded

    r3loaded Minimodder

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    That's OCUK for you - price gouging the crap out of all new products.

    Sent from my GT-I9000 using Tapatalk
     
  20. KiNETiK

    KiNETiK What's a Dremel?

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    They have a Sapphire 7950, today only, £347.99. Claims to be cheapest in the UK so above comments maybe not quite true?!
     
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