AMD Radeon HD 7950 Review: Up Against GeForce GTX 580

[cangelini]

Is the Radeon HD 7970's $550 asking price too high? AMD now has a less expensive derivative based on the same GCN architecture. At its default clock rates, it's fast enough to outrun Nvidia's GeForce GTX 580 in many benchmarks. And it overclocks like mad.

AMD Radeon HD 7950 Review: Up Against GeForce GTX 580 : Read more

 

[bak0n]

More good GPU news. Keep em coming!

 

[Guest]

Im not Paying $450 for barely better then GTX 580 performance a year after its released. They will have to knock that down to like $300, $250 for a 2gb version when Nvidia releases their next gen cards. Wait those money grubers out imo.

 

[thesnappyfingers]

stm I was thinking the same thing. But then agian it is still cheaper, more efficient compared to the gtx 580. Still, I am waiting it out till kepler.

 

[rmpumper]

7950/7970 should be priced ~$50+ of 6950/6970 prices. So as it is now, if nvidia's gtx680 will be better than 7970 they will price it at >$600? That's a load of crock.

 

[Derbixrace]

great value compared to the 7970 because you can OC it to be faster than it on stock voltage and even further with voltage tweaking

 

[esrever]

I'd love to have one once kepler comes and these drop in price. Im gonna start saving.

 

[Guest]

It beats the GTX580 one on one in most benchies and that's not taking into account the overclocking headroom these things have, they're also power friendlier and with XFX, cooler, quieter and expected to be cheaper so what's the problem? Me thinks me smell's NV fanboys!!

 

[hardcore_gamer]

According to W1zzard's review, this card tops the Performance / Watt chart.

 

[primonatron]

Are the Skyrim benchmarks on the v1.4 beta patch?

 

[dragonsqrrl]

[citation][nom]rmpumper[/nom]7950/7970 should be priced ~$50+ of 6950/6970 prices. So as it is now, if nvidia's gtx680 will be better than 7970 they will price it at >$600? That's a load of crock.[/citation]
Every rumor and leak I've seen so far on gk104 pricing seems to indicate otherwise...

http://www.guru3d.com/news/nvidia-gk104-kepler-gpu-priced-at-299-230-/

According to Nvidia's AIB partners the initial price set for the first gk104 based graphics card is $300. Of course this can go up or down based on the competition. Unfortunately, I have the feeling it'll be going up.

 

[giovanni86]

This is all good news for the GPU market and for fans of ATI. Waiting on keplar from Nvidia, i buy into the marketing of "The way its meant to be played" =D hahahah. But great news, i love seeing my card get rocked. Competition is always great for pricing =D

 

[msgun98]

[citation][nom]lou007a[/nom]It beats the GTX580 one on one in most benchies and that's not taking into account the overclocking headroom these things have, they're also power friendlier and with XFX, cooler, quieter and expected to be cheaper so what's the problem? Me thinks me smell's NV fanboys!![/citation]

Congratulations. The 7950 narrowly beats a year old card and costs the exact same. No thanks, I'll wait on Kepler and then decide what to get once AMD puts down the pipe and has to get real on their prices. And I'm a proud owner of a 4870.

 

[giovanni86]

[citation][nom]lou007a[/nom]It beats the GTX580 one on one in most benchies and that's not taking into account the overclocking headroom these things have, they're also power friendlier and with XFX, cooler, quieter and expected to be cheaper so what's the problem? Me thinks me smell's NV fanboys!![/citation]

It does beat it, i can say it does.. My SC GTX580 was pulling around the same bandwidth as one they have here, i overclocked it and was getting almost 200GB's of bandwidth and was quite surprised i was able to push it and keep it like that with no trouble at all in any game i play and pretty much passed each stress test without any artifacts that i ran for hours. Headroom to OC differentiates from card to card, and nothing is guaranteed. But of course with 7950 im impressed it does very well even though the spec's on it look like it can run a marathon around the 580 with no trouble at all, but it does keep up with it and battle it out. I hope nvidia see's this as a threat and drops there price on the 580 so i can pick up another for around $400 =D Would make me very happy.

 

[de5_Roy]

nice.
7950's power consumption in single and cfx mode are quite impressive.
i'll compare them to kepler when they come out and get tested.. right now, gcn high end looks much better than fermi high end (gpu compute, power efficiency etc).
amd's driver support seems inconsistent as usual... hopefully more mature drivers will bring out even more performance out of the gcn cards.

 

[kvarta]

That's strange, in other sites says that card is "...relatively inaudible...". Example:
http://www.guru3d.com/article/his-radeon-hd-7950-review/25
As always good job Chris.

 

[dragonsqrrl]

[citation][nom]kvarta[/nom]That's strange, in other sites says that card is "...relatively inaudible...". Example:http://www.guru3d.com/article/his- [...] -review/25As always good job Chris.[/citation]
The editors at Guru3D perform their noise tests differently than most other sites. The cards are placed in a closed case and measurements are taken from a few feet back. These editors are also either partially deaf, or they just don't give a damn about excessive system noise. Honestly, I don't think they've ever knocked a card for being too loud, even the HD6990.

 

[tlmck]

Bring on the mid range!

 

[jezus53]

[citation][nom]msgun98[/nom]Congratulations. The 7950 narrowly beats a year old card and costs the exact same. No thanks, I'll wait on Kepler and then decide what to get once AMD puts down the pipe and has to get real on their prices. And I'm a proud owner of a 4870.[/citation]

You are aware that the 7950 is not supposed to directly compete with the 580, right? The 7970 is supposed to beat the 580 and the 7950 is supposed to beat the 570. Just like how the 6970 is supposed to compete with the 580 and the 6950 is supposed to compete with the 570. The shear fact that the non flagship GPU beats the flagship GPU of your competitor is pretty awesome.

 

[lordstormdragon]

[citation][nom]jezus53[/nom]The shear fact that the non flagship GPU beats the flagship GPU of your competitor is pretty awesome.[/citation]

AMD has had plenty of time to play catch-up. It's not "pretty awesome" they leap-frogged Nvidia once again. It's a calculated move on AMD's part, for certain. A good one, but "pretty awesome" is very far from "standard dual-monopoly leap-frogging that's gone on since both companies started". Relax.

That said, I DO celebrate and find it ironic that AMDs 7950 is as flag-shippy whoop-ass as Nvidia's 7950 was in its day! I'm looking at my dead beast here right now. Miss you, 7950GT. I... I loved you. I can say that, now.

http://www.pc-infopratique.com/images/banque/xfx-7950gt-570.jpg

 

[Guest]

[citation][nom]jezus53[/nom]You are aware that the 7950 is not supposed to directly compete with the 580, right? The 7970 is supposed to beat the 580 and the 7950 is supposed to beat the 570. Just like how the 6970 is supposed to compete with the 580 and the 6950 is supposed to compete with the 570. The shear fact that the non flagship GPU beats the flagship GPU of your competitor is pretty awesome.[/citation]

It is not pretty awesome that your next gen part that you priced slightly below the competitors flagship last gen part outperforms it in some tests. That is to be excepted. The 7950 is not against a gtx 570, its against a gtx670 which is not out yet, and will probably be replaced around the same price point as a 570 with a large performance increase over it, making buying a $450 7950 retarded; as such the 7950 will then get dropped to where the 6950 is now to be competitive.

Anyone who buys a 7950 before AMD at $450 is a chump. 30%+ price drop as soon as Nvidia releases its next gen.

 

[Zero_]

^^ that depends on when its released. If you have $450 and want to spend it on a card, this is the best you get, no matter how you put it. period. javascript:%20void(0);

 

[hardintop]

The Radeon 7950 3gb should be considered a direct competitor for the GTX 580 3gb(extra GDDR5 costs extra money you know!)... and it is better by a small margin, while the price, is ~100$ lower, so ...

Radeon 7950 1.5 gb will probably be priced ~400$, still about 100$ lower than gtx 580 1.5 gb, which will still be slower !

 

[Homeboy2]

[citation][nom]msgun98[/nom]Congratulations. The 7950 narrowly beats a year old card and costs the exact same. No thanks, I'll wait on Kepler and then decide what to get once AMD puts down the pipe and has to get real on their prices. And I'm a proud owner of a 4870.[/citation]
You should read the article, the 790 is cheaper, faster, and uses less power.They have had no problem getting 550 for their 7970 and have raise prices. YOU should put down the pipe so you won't have to keep that ancient 4870 your so proud of, oh and buy a new processor to replace your Celeron too.

 

[lordstormdragon]

[citation][nom]Homeboy2[/nom]You should read the article, the 790 is cheaper, faster, and uses less power.They have had no problem getting 550 for their 7970 and have raise prices. YOU should put down the pipe so you won't have to keep that ancient 4870 your so proud of, oh and buy a new processor to replace your Celeron too.[/citation]

Nowhere in the article did they even mention a 790 card, Homie the Clown. Put down the crack pipe, please, and pick up your weed pipe or something. Get some medication for your angst. You can't even spell numbers properly, much less do analytical math here. In addition, your last sentence is a wreck, son. You failed Third Grade grammar but pretend to have the prescient knowledge to guess that some other dude has a Celeron? That he's got an AMD card at all would mean he's likely rockin' an AMD CPU too. Think about it, Mr. Assumptions.

You probably own an Intel chip still. Rookie.